BEAUTIFUL TINOS

The last few nights in the van before we arrive in Tinos become increasingly challenging. Three weeks on the road and our air mattress (the one that didn’t explode) has gone a bit awry, ballooning up on one side. We take turns sleeping on ‘the hump’ but it’s not very satisfactory and I’m longing for a decent night’s sleep in a real bed. Flora and Hector have decided they prefer the air bed, hump and all, to sleeping in their own bunk bed. Four in a bed does not make for a restful night.

Our ferry to Tinos, the Theologos, takes about four hours in blissfully calm seas.
The ferrymen of Caledonian MacBrayne would have a fit the way the drivers start their engines and begin moving forwards before the ferry has docked. But this is still very orderly compared to our experience of catching a ferry in Montenegro. Everyone barges on like sheep going into a fank until the ferryman plonks a STOP sign in front of the vehicles. Of course, if you happen to be driving a BMW or Mercedes 4x4 and wearing designer shades, the traffic parts before you like the Red Sea in front of Moses.

When we disembark from the Tinos ferry, Petros and Annette are waiting to show us the way to our apartment at Porto. The main road wiggles down to the beach and there is our apartment, much closer to the sea than we had thought. ‘It’s very white,’ says Max. And so it is, inside and out. The kids are tired but we all feel ridiculously happy. We take what we need for the night out of the van and sleep better than we have for weeks. We can hear the sea, but we don’t see how close it is until the morning. It’s right there, little more than a stone’s throw away.

 

The beach at Porto is long and the bay is perfect for swimming. The locals are wearing puffer jackets and warm coats but our kids are in the sea, enjoying the sunshine. The lady in the mini-market up the road is worried we’re all going to catch our deaths.

Sam goes to have a shower and we hear a yelp of pain from the bathroom. We’ve all been getting little electric shocks from the taps but the shower is the best shocker of all. When we put the water heater on, the lights flicker and dim. Some go off altogether. Our landlord, Argiris, comes down and within ten minutes of arriving, he has an electrician here. The problem isn’t inside the apartment, it’s coming from the main cable into the house. An hour or so later, a man from the local electricity company shins up a pole outside the apartment and starts working on the spaghetti wiring. In no time at all, it’s fixed. Greece might be suffering severe economic problems, but I don’t think we could have got a hydro man out that quickly at home. Argiris is a man who clearly gets things done.

Petros, Annette and their daughter Katerina (married to Argiris) make sure we have everything we need. An oven arrives. A big fridge freezer. A washing machine. Dishes. We have the run of the downstairs apartment as well as this one. We feel extremely fortunate.

A couple of days after we arrive, Michael and Max begin to worry about school – or rather, the lack of it. We’ve had a few attempts at lessons, but it’s proving very difficult to give the big boys the attention they need while Flora and Hector are around. I am also feeling under pressure to finish my own work – editing a book on Harris Tweed for the photographer Ian Lawson. And Sam is keen to get down to Petros’ marble studio and make a start.

Sam and Annette visit the local school to make enquiries, and after traipsing around a few different offices, an arrangement is made to send Michael and Max to school here in Tinos. They start on Wednesday, 9^th November, and will catch the bus from the mini-market on the main road into town every day. The school day begins at 8am and finishes at 1.30pm. So far, the boys have managed to learn the Greek alphabet and count to twenty. All their lessons will be in Greek. Well, as they say, there’s no better way to learn a language than by total immersion.

The boys can’t help but compare their Greek headmaster to Mr Garvie back in Dornoch. Mr Garvie wears a suit and tie. The new headmaster wears a t-shirt and tracksuit. The new headmaster has a drinks cabinet and an ashtray in his office. Unlike Mr Garvie. As far as we know. The school is lovely – marble columns and plants everywhere and the children are friendly.

We discover there is a nursery about 10 minutes drive away from our apartment. I spend a morning there with Flora and Hector and they love it. A minibus stops at the shop in Porto every weekday morning to collect the nursery children and take them home again. Sam and I decide to enrol both Flora and Hector. Already, they can say ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ in Greek after one morning’s attendance at the nursery.

It would be fair to say that Tinos is a very windy place. The wind has been blowing pretty hard since we arrived and it’s forecast to keep blowing for some time. My parents arrive in Athens on Thursday evening and we have our fingers crossed for a bit of nice sailing weather for their crossing to Tinos on Friday morning.