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…