Author: Kelvin Collins

Statice. Luludhi ya simera. Statice, our flower for today, stands out against a background of already drying scrub along the beachside. The carpet of daisy like joy is dying back now and only the blood drops of poppy still bring colour all over. France. An education. When I was about 16 I went on my […]

Earthquake. Earthquakes are frequent here. Most go unnoticed, but now and then there’ll be a shocker. The last truly big one was in 1956. 1953’s destroyed much of Kefalonia and raised the whole island by 60cm. Last Saturday as I was completing the blog the dog started shaking with fear, next thing she’d jumped up […]

Scrubber. At Camping Koutsounari, our accidental home, there’s a laundry with these excellent washboard sinks that make determined scrubbing so much more effective. It’s attached to the women’s toilets. Of course it is. I’m sure I’m the first man in here this year and I might be the only one. For Greek men housework happens […]

Fantasy food. We often have a fantasy food conversation, dreaming, perhaps drooling, over what we’d most like to eat. It’s not just because our options have reduced to what we can cook. If there’s a top three Minty’s choice always involves pizza, currently she longs for chicken souvlaki. My 15 years living in Birmingham were […]

Living on Crete. When we arrived on Lefkada in November 2018 we had many conversations about living in Greece. How strange that 18 months later we effectively live on Crete, but not by choice. While it’s not by choice we have no objections. Climbing back onto my bike. I bought my Orange P7 at least […]

Minty convinced me to post a blog today and send some sunshine, and a semblance of normality, out to the world. Ierapetra. On Friday 13th as the grip of the virus tightened around Greece we arrived at Camping-Koutsounari a few kms outside of the fruit growing town of Ierapetra. Ierapetra looks rough, dirty, functional.  Unusually for Crete there’s […]