Bill's Guest Blog

It’s a good thing they’ve asked a guest blogger in because there’s stuff Anne isn’t ever going to tell you herself, not because she’s trying to hide it, but because it’s too close to her own nose to think it’s important, and because they’re a modest bunch anyway.

She’ll never tell you she gets up at 5.30 most mornings to get some writing done before another day of crazy demands kicks in; or that Petros refuses to hear Sam spoken of as a pupil, only as a professional. Each day Sam goes 5 miles to Petro’s studio for another day of chippety-chip, releasing captive image from marble block with remarkable sensitivity. M & M  join him there most days for a couple of hours after school finishes at 2.30, and are both carving extraordinarily mature images.

      Michael and Max with their marble carvings

But it’s still tough being part of a team of 6, each having different objectives – though everyone clearly shares the idea of getting the most out of their time in Tinos. I mean, Anne would like to get to the end of the beach to see what that little church is all about, it’s only a few hundred yards, but then Hector needs to make an in-depth study of the ripples in the first puddle when you throw a stone in, which means repeating the experiment about 500 times in the same puddle before moving on, so Anne hasn’t got to that church yet.

Actually Hector’s best thing is standing where sea meets land, totally mesmerised by the never ending, ever changing miracle of waves, and throwing stones with perfect timing to stop them, in a manner of which Canute himself would be proud. Whilst meanwhile Flora has been assigned the task by no less than God himself to inject PASSION into everyday life, to  not let anyone be fooled by the apparent banality of a jam sandwich or putting on your wellington boots, but to introduce true feeling into our simple tasks. If ever you are feeling lost and need to re-firm your connection with the Universe, then go hang out with Flora for a while.

Carvings are above every window to 'let in the light of God'        

Maquette by Sam

                                                                              

Madonna and Child above a fountain

Michael and Max are remarkable. They leave the house at 7.30 each morning, not because they are forced to (M & M, please confirm), but because they want to participate in peer life on the island, which in their case involves sitting though many hours of lessons that are all Greek to them, in order to join in the short, though many, breaks between classes when international communication affords them Real Education. Max can now say “I don’t want another ouzo” in Greek, and Michael can order a pork wrap with chips, ready-to-go.

This evening we all went to a café in town to hang out with Petros’ family, while M & M entertained us on accordion and drums with professional flair, and Michael fooled everyone by making light balls disappear into his mouth and re-appear out of his bum. Surely 10% off the ouzo for that?

None of which tells you what it’s really like here; for the very simple reason that if you really want to know, then you’ll have to come yourself, because there is no other way.

Praise be to Sam and Anne for their patience - and a Happy New Year to all !     Bill

Papa, F & H contemplate the waves                

                                                                       Pavement sign              

                                                        Nana and the team hunting a sand beetle

The eternal ocean

A DAY AT THE DOOCOT

Georges has invited us to spend the day with him and his family at a dovecot he’s made into a little mountain retreat among the olive terraces. We rendezvous with Georges outside his photographic shop/studio in town on Sunday morning so he can show us the way to the peristerioni. During the summer months, the family work long hours in their shop and restaurant, so winter is the time to be together in the beautifully restored dovecot.

Doocots are a common sight in Tinos, some of them big as houses, all of them decorated with the same distinctive circles and triangles that look like a face. Quite a scary face. They appear like totems amongst the terraces. The bird droppings collected from inside are used to fertilise the surrounding land.

 

The doves are long gone from Georges’ birdhouse. As well as rebuilding the surrounding terrace walls, he has transformed the inside of the building into the best mountain hideaway EVER. Upstairs, there are Tinos tapestries and paintings on the walls of the tiny bedroom, kerosene lamps, handmade chairs, an antique writing desk. Downstairs, if it wasn’t for the photograph showing a young Georges sitting proudly on his motorbike, it would be hard to tell what century we are in.

We drink Greek coffee and eat custard pastries outside while the kids play on the terraces. Paraskevi - Georges and Evangelista’s daughter – is three months older than Hector and capable of trotting along the top of the walls with ease, not in the slightest put off by the four metre drop to the terrace below. The little kids collect black olives while the bigger ones play cards.

Evangelista serves up a fantastic meal for lunch. The pasta is made by her mother in the north of Greece using wheat, oil and eggs from the family farm. After lunch, the boys entertain us with a bit of music. And as the sun starts to slip away behind the mountains, we go inside the birdhouse and sit around the open fire drinking shot glasses of raki. Can things really get any better than this?

A day earlier, and it is ideal beach weather. Hector cuts a fine figure in his wetsuit while Michael helps Flora get her confidence in the water.

Later, while Michael does some online tutorials in creating java script, Max, Flora and I walk over to the next beach up the coast. The week before, I’d been getting the boys to do a bit of science, reading up about different types of rock – sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic – mostly to help them understand how marble is made. And right here above the beach was a perfect illustration of the topic:

Christmas, it has to be said, feels very distant here. Perhaps it’s the weather. Or the increase in daylight hours. Maybe it’s the fact that aside from one specialist gift shop in town and a small table at the front of the supermarket, there really is very little evidence of the consumer side of things. Santa, we’ve been told, comes on the 1^st of January instead of the 25^th December and usually arrives by boat, although if the weather is bad, he’s been known to use a helicopter. He gives out presents to the children who go along to the pier to see him, which sounds very sensible and out in the open instead of all this sliding down the chimney and creeping about in the dark. It’s going to be a hard call convincing our lot to wait until the 1^st for their presents. But when in Rome…

Even with a vastly reduced number of toys and screen distractions, the kids seem to be managing to amuse themselves pretty well, though I did detect a hint of home sickness in the following drawing: