September 2019

The feast day of the Dormition of the Virgin, the most important Orthodox feast after Easter, which is the Feast of Feasts, took place on August the 15^th. I’m not at all sure, but I suspect that the population of Kalamata and environs practically doubled at that time; in any case, churches were packed with families observing this sacred tradition. I know my sons and their families did the right thing. The Falling Asleep of Mary, known to Catholics as the Assumption, marks the end of the holiday period: on the 16^thof August the roads to Athens are always clogged, and traffic is heavy for some days afterwards.

Summer was fairly slow in starting, and now it seems determined to linger, with the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness being postponed. The heat continues, with temperatures in the low thirties every day, and although the holiday period is over, with the start of the school year looming, the beaches are still fairly crowded. Granddaughter Natalia (3) starts kindergarten next week, and her brother Orestes (6) begins his formal school career soon after. I’m the one feeling nervous!

It has been fun being with the aforementioned littlies, who came to see me on my birthday. In passing, I observe that birthdays seem to be coming every six months at this stage. Natalia was so excited that she decided to open my presents herself. We ate great helpings of ice-cream cake, and then N and O changed into their bathers and went outside to play with the hose and with my watering-cans. O was, predictably, quite unable to resist emptying a full watering-can over N’s head. But she is well able to look after herself, gave him a shove, and kept on playing.

Such moments provide some light relief from worrying over the state of the world, which certainly does not improve. Not to put too fine a point on it, I’m tired of creeps and charlatans being in charge, and wilfully doing great harm. In the short space of a week, there have been at least 75000 fires in the Amazon Basin, Australia has tried to deport an inoffensive Tamil family, and has detained it on Christmas Island instead (ignoring the fact that the two little girls concerned were born in Australia), and Britain’s Parliament (the Mother of Parliaments!) is set to be prorogued very shortly. It seems to me that Boris Johnson, Britain’s unelected Prime Minister, had better watch his step: he is doing what Charles the First did, and we know what happened to him! As famous historian Simon Schama has said: ‘Welcome to the seventeenth century, everyone!’

Speaking of the seventeenth century, Francis Bacon, who died in 1626, was famous for his Essays, among other things: he is usually thought of as the pioneer of the scientific method, the father of empiricism. His famous essay on the matter of truth starts with the lines: ‘What is Truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.’ How wise Pilate was. I wonder whether today’s politicians ever ask themselves this question. If so, they do not seem particularly interested in the answer. Perhaps politicians never were.

In the meantime Greek politics seems to go fairly quietly on. Of course this state of affairs cannot last: we are still in the honeymoon period, I suspect. Prime Minister Mitsotakis made various promises, as politicians are wont to do. One of these was a vow to enforce the anti-smoking law that has been on the statute books for years, but predictably more honoured in the breach than in the observance. I wish him luck.

We have our share of buskers in Kalamata, with some naturally being better than others. Those with piano accordions seem able to play only one song, which is The Anniversary Waltz, a song for which I reserve a particular loathing, so that I often pay such people to go away. But there is a quite talented violinist, an older man who plays a variety of tunes in the main street very regularly. And every so often we get surprises, as happened recently when a young saxophonist and a guitarist started playing popular numbers. Although I don’t know how many inhabitants of Kalamata are familiar with Porgy and Bess and Summertime.It was very pleasant just to stand there and listen, however, and I was pleased to see quite a goodly number of coins landing in the guitar case.

And then they started to play, of all old numbers, Rock Around the Clock.I couldn’t believe it, and perhaps one or two passers-by wondered why I was grinning from ear to ear. All those memories of Bill Haley and His Comets, not to mention the Bill Haley curl: I can’t see that fashion catching on again. Of course I stood and listened for the duration, with one foot tapping. The only disappointment was that there was nobody nearby to jive with. Probably just as well. I’m still considered an eccentric foreigner: there’s no need to add to my reputation in this way.