One of the reasons I wanted to go to Greece was because the sea was calling me. The thirst for adventure that has taken me all around was associated in my mind with the sea, with boats, with a voyage. Today, I was going to go on the boat.
Six o’clock rise. Breakfast of waffles with pastry cream, biscuit crumble and seasonal fruits including pomegranate, blueberries and kiwi fruit. Absolutely delicious. I was lucky that I sat with a Spanish family of four that I invited to my table. We all sat on a long row, some of them sitting on the big seat constructed like a clothes pin.
We left at eight o’clock from ’14 Reasons Why’. It was a good little hotel with friendly staff. The taxi driver talked to me about the economy and equality.
My departure was : Eurochampion jet 2 @09:30am for Naxos. I stood outside the massive beast making intermittent conversation with an elderly American couple. Going inside was like going inside a mobile car park.
Three seats empty next to mine. I watched a series of videos on the big TV screen right in front of me. One was telling me there were four million people in the Athens/Attica area and that culture lives inside us and not outside us. Another was teaching me to call the port authorities if I saw dizzy, tired, beached or dead dolphins and whales. They were using an inflatable toy animal to illustrate how to assist and look after the creatures.
I had a nap while we waited to set off inside and then went to the back to admire and photograph the sea when we were on the move. I felt completely alive, hearing the roar of the beast and watching the waves we were making, which themselves made a rainbow. I watched seagulls and white sailboats. Completely, I felt to myself that I had become an adventurer. I was one with the sea. I was moving with the sea. My dreams were coming alive.
In the Cyclades, Naxos is the largest island. The culture is a mix of Catholic Italian and Orthodox Greek traditions. The island is associated with the Myth of Ariadne: The story is that Naxos is the island where Theseus abandoned Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos. This was after he found his way out of the Cretan Labyrinth. Ariadne was later discovered and she married Dionysus, the god, the god of wine.
Stop at Suros admiring the scenery and speaking to the lady cabin crew to get the spelling. People behind me getting on that couldn’t read their seat number, not one, but two. Stop at Mikonos bustling and jostling with the crowd to see the coastline.
Finished ‘The Mysterious Affair at Styles’. lt is a woman’s novel. It is about love. And love as the law, the law as love. An engagement with love runs through the whole structure of the plot. Interesting that the murdered woman was loved by no one (I know what the feminists would think of this as she is the matriarch, and I agree with them). But on second thoughts, Poirot loves her and gets revenge (but you see, he is also a foreigner, representing foreign love). I see this novel as an outline of the structure of western love and the law. The novel is a good comedy with the stupidity and failures of Hastings as a foil to Poirot and I must admit I made a Hastings as I didn’t get to who was the murderer myself. This worked on me because everyone was under suspicion, which was precisely the effect sought.
When I got to the hotel in Agios Prokopios, a village in Naxos, they upgraded my apartment for free. It is massive and you could literally live there. Very beautiful too. I went to the local supermarket and got smoked turkey and bread to make a sandwich. Very tasty. Followed by Pringles crisps and tap water.
A dip in the pool next. It was ice cold so I only dipped my legs in. It is not super hot in Greece to justify an ice bath!
The Agios Prokopios beach next, and a long walk to the end where I climbed onto some boulders, getting one foot wet in the process. As I walked there, one woman flashed me. She started completely stripping off just before I walked past her. It was like a nudist camp down there.
It was soothing listening to the waves. I made some videos for friends and family then sat down to watch the wonderful and awe inspiring sunset. It was like a scene from a movie. And my girlfriend messaged me to call her, so I had someone to share the sunset with me. I am a lucky guy.
Dinner was pork and chicken gyros with chips and pitta breads, washed down with Loux orangeade. But watching a French family with two teenage daughters made me feel a bit isolated. Luckily, one always has a mother. She messaged me so I videocalled her when I got back to the hotel.
A leisurely shower to finish off my day in bed after messaging my girlfriend. I’m just about to start a new novel before bedtime, ‘The House of Mirth’ by Edith Wharton.
