It’s 8.30 am, and already baking hot outside, the sea calm and inviting, though for now I’m sitting with my coffee looking out the kitchen window, just listening. Lisa barks at someone walking by. A few cars pass. These are the busiest days of Greek summer, the 15 August tomorrow, and I’m thankful to be in a peaceful place.

These are days of enforced rest, when it’s too hot to do very much at all except take another cold shower or a nap. Water the garden, pick some figs, read a book, have a swim. Pick some more figs.

A week or so ago, ants were breaking and entering all around the house. I felt quite gleeful one day to open a cupboard and not see them scurrying around – then I realised the cupboard was actually quite empty as everything had been secured in the fridge or thrown away. The ants had eaten neat holes in plastic to get to anything tempting.

Then monstrous fat caterpillars and green grasshoppers started munching through various plants in the garden, even oleanders, leaving a trail of fat black droppings that was often the only way to find them camouflaged against the leaves. The vines have few grapes this year (having been cut right back for the building of the new pergola) so thankfully there are no hornets buzzing close to the house. The bees have been enjoying the flowers.

I’m usually getting up in the cool of morning around six, when Lisa comes to me for strokes and is excited to go for a walk to Ayios Antonis harbour. She checks out her territory and soaks herself in the sea before breakfast, before the sun’s too strong. Her siesta starts around eight in the morning and lasts until four or five in the afternoon, when she’s ready for a proper walk to a beach. Fishbags is more than happy to do the same, without the walk. 

I realise I need these days of enforced rest, close to home. I worked hard finishing off my book, AN ISLAND HOME AND A SALTY DOG, revising and revising it, then figuring out how to publish it myself – a conscious decision this time to put less pressure on and to have it available on the island and Amazon this summer. That moment of opening the first box of books was nerve-wracking but more exciting than ever. It was a kind of gift to myself, taking the time to do this and to have the pleasure then of hearing that people are enjoying it. It's been fun receiving photos from people as they start reading.

My laptop seems to be telling me it's ready for a rest too - the battery gone, the keyboard now faltering too. I have a new one but need to set it up, and that challenge is not in the least bit tempting right now. So, I’m going to sign off and go and relax with a book. Enjoy your summer, wherever you are!

 

 

Hoopoes and Swallows, Asparagus and Taramosalata...

 

When Lisa wants to go for a morning walk, all winter I’ve been used to piling on whatever warm clothes come to hand, a woolly hat over unbrushed hair. But this morning I ran into several neighbours, two of them dressed smartly in black for church. It’s the start of Easter week and more people are back on the island.

Also back are the lovely hoopoes – I’ve seen several, not noticing the medium-sized brown birds until they take off in flight and show their flamboyant black-and-white-striped tail feathers. I’ve heard the whistling sound of bee-eaters – it seems early for them – but not seen one yet. Much more evident are the swallows, swooping low and fast, midnight-blue plumage on top and snow-white underneath, tail like two long, fine tines of a carving fork.

Yesterday morning, four young goats were playing on the old drystone wall in front of my house, two of them trotting over the rocks and head-butting each other. Despite the abundance of fresh vegetation everywhere, they stand at my fence and look greedily at the garden.

Goat farmers are much in evidence too, guarding their stock and fattening them up. ‘Don’t let the dog out of the car here!’ snarled one when, having seen him with his flock, I stopped to ask where it was OK to walk. We’re avoiding Plaka and Lethra until Easter is over, when there’ll be a lot of confused mother goats saying, ‘I haven’t seen young Johnny for days…’ ‘Meh, and my Matilda’s disappeared too… And what’s happened to that nice man who kept bringing treats?’

Livadia and Megalo Horio will also be off-bounds for the next week while firecrackers are exploding – I heard the first yesterday, while in between downpours we walked along Livadia seafront. More rocks had been washed up by powerful wind and waves from the south recently. As we walked around the bay, the pebbles looked brilliant white against a clear aquamarine sea and a brooding sky. Lisa, of course, went in for a swim.

We’ll stick to places far from firecrackers, the fields in the Eristos valley where Lisa loves to sniff for rabbits, occasionally making one leap out of a bush and safely away, while I keep an eye out for other prizes. Perhaps because we’ve had plenty of rain, or perhaps I’ve got better at looking for them, I’ve found more fresh wild asparagus than ever before, and more exquisite orchids – sending photos to my orchid-ID gurus Eleftheria and Gerry. And in the hillside terraces closer to home, I look out for tiny fragments of old pottery with an unusual pattern or glaze. Yesterday afternoon, I found a little of everything so didn’t mind that my feet were squelching in my boots from walking through wet grass. Lisa had a wonderful time, enjoyed a huge dinner and watched neighbours walk by while I pulled up weeds from the garden, enjoying the evening sunshine. By the time I lit a fire for a cosy evening, she was in a deep sleep.

 

I’ve been using the excuse of Lent and long walks to eat halva every day. My favourite from Drapetsona in Piraeus was made with carob syrup. During the ‘fasting’ periods leading up to Easter when some give up meat, certain traditional foods appear. After eating delicious white taramasalata at tavernas in Rhodes and then Astypalea during trips last month, I decided to try making my own. The pink packaged stuff is terrible in Greece compared to good supermarket taramosalata in the UK. For the first time, I bought the salted roe from the minimarket and got instructions: mashed potatoes (or bread), olive oil, lemon. Mine tasted bland until I added finely chopped onion. The ladies at the minimarket said not everyone likes it with onion.

Before this last rainy week, we had weeks of dry weather, good swims, even lying in warm sun. But the heavy rainfall this winter has been a blessing for the island.

Now big leaves have now grown back on my fig trees, and sparrows are knocking down the hard green figs, discarding them when they find they can’t eat them, looking instead for other things to eat in the soil, taking baths in Lisa’s water bowl.

For the last months, I’ve been working on revisions of the new manuscript. It’s something I was writing on and off for ages, and finally felt driven to finish last year. With the help of an excellent editor, I hope I’ve knocked it into shape. It’s about my adventures on Tilos with Lisa since we moved to this house at Ayios Antonis with its fig trees and vines, surrounded by mountains and sea, life in an amazing place with an amazing dog, woven in with stories of island life past and present. Maybe AN ISLAND HOME AND A SALTY DOG?

Ahem, says Fishbags, aren’t you forgetting someone?

The amazing salty dog just came to look at me through the open kitchen door, suggesting it might be time for another walk or another breakfast. Ah, and the power’s just gone off again – for about the tenth time in two days – so this will have to wait until later…

Just a very quick post...

 

I recently launched my new website, www.jenniferbarclaybooks.com, but I realised that all my books direct people to this blog, which hasn't been updated for ages. Hence this little post, which will have to suffice for now.

I'm writing this on a calm, beautiful evening in late October, from my home on Tilos. All I can hear right now is the sea, waves crashing on the shore.

I am trying to finish a new book about life here with Lisa my dog since I moved to this house. I've booked an editor to work with me from the middle of November. I'm hoping to have it in a fit state to self-publish by early next summer. 

Life has been challenging this year since I lost my dad. But this is what I love doing, and I've met so many lovely readers over the last few months who appreciate reading about island life, that it feels like a positive goal. 

Thank you for your support. I wish you all health and happiness!