January 2019

I’ve written the word/figures 2019 with a sense of mild shock: I always find it hard to switch over into another year, and the experience seems to be occurring more and more often and at shorter intervals. That’s the ageing process for you. I had a moan about said process to a Kalamata doctor very recently. ‘This ageing business is not a lot of fun,’ I grumbled. (He, of course, seems about 25, at least to me, although I know he’s got to be older.) He looked at me with an air of mild reproof, and actually wagged his forefinger while smiling. ‘It’s a blessing sent from God,’ he announced, stopping me in my tracks. (Greek certainty has always been able to do that.) I tried to recover, and said that obviously the alternative to old age was worse. He continued to smile, and I stopped grumbling.

The Church of the Archangels is one of Kalamata’s biggest, and is of course very much en fete at present. Greek churches favour a display of bunting on special occasions, and at this season the Archangels’ Church also has two enormous flags gracing its main entrance. The White Cross is the symbol of Greece, and there it is against a royal blue background. The other flag, a bright yellow, shows the origins of Greek Orthodoxy in the double-headed eagle of Byzantium etched in black.

I went into the church and lit a candle. Whenever I do this I remember my staunchly Nonconformist grandmothers, who would be horrified if they could see me at such a moment. But I can’t think that lighting candles is a bad thing in any way, and I like to think of all those positive thoughts having a good effect somehow, somewhere. I always stand for a few moments, meditating, at least in my idiosyncratic way.

On entering the church, I was struck by what I thought was a proliferation of white roses. They were everywhere, surrounding every icon, studding the iconostasis itself, and generally decorating the church to within an inch of its life, so to speak. But then my myopia adjusted itself, and I realised that the white roses were, in fact, tufts of cotton wool. On all important festive days, bevies of local women descend on their churches in order to do what has to be done in the way of cleaning and decoration: this church must have had a large team, and some men must have been around to help with ladders. In any case, the whole effect was very pleasing.

And so to Christmas Day: cool with sunny breaks, which meant that Orestes, now nearly six, and Natalia, two and a half, were able to play outside at various intervals. Some steam, therefore, was worked off: the playing of Hidey indoors is not exactly restful for older generations. I try to encourage the learning and speaking of English whenever the opportunity offers, but didn’t have much luck with, ‘Coming, ready or not!’ A cry that echoes down more decades than I care to remember. 

I stuck to a simple meal of roast chicken: I can never get the stuffing exactly as my mother used to make it, but I always manage a reasonable effort, and it seems to disappear. As does the trad Christmas cake. I’m not too sure what my brother and his family had to eat, but he writes that the day was HOT, as in 42 degrees, so that they lolled about inside with the air-conditioning going full blast. When we were very young, there was no such thing as A/C, and people simply sweltered through the meal, which always consisted of very traditional fare, including a Christmas pudding that had been made weeks beforehand by our redoubtable Gran, and was boiled up again. But the custom of enriching the pudding with threepenny and sixpenny coins died when the old currency did, more’s the pity.

Now I’m getting ready to go to Megara for the New Year. This is where my elder grandsons, the Big Boys, now 12 and 10, live. A difficult age for presents. Orestes and Natalia are still happy with simple things like stickers, colouring books and pencils, but Nikitas and Maximus have reached levels of comparative sophistication. So I’ve given them a modest sum of money: the same amount, of course. It will be interesting to see what they do with it.

2018 has been a very worrying year, and it has been hard to remain optimistic, given the fact that the world is woefully lacking in leadership at present. A friend said she was pinning her hopes on Merkel, Macron, and Trudeau, but since then Merkel has more or less announced her retirement plans, and Macron is in dire strife with the gilets jaunes. It’s hard to draw a veil over the likes of Erdogan, Duerte and Trump, but sometimes we have to. And sometimes we have to try to forget the unholy mess that is Brexit, and the sink that Australian politics has become.

Next time I write I will be in the grip of pre-trip nerves, as in four weeks I will be in the air, on my way to Marvellous Melbourne for the first time in more than three years. Friend Mary, also a Melburnian, and I are very pleased with ourselves because we are on the same flight; it remains to be seen whether we can wangle seats next to each other. Stay tuned.

Oh, and Happy New Year!