My annual retreat to the Pindos mountains is a means of escaping the heat of summer. I do not rest though - mountain houses need work; snow-melt drains must be cleared, ceiling holes filled, brambles cut back. I endure all this as the climate and vegetation at 1200+ meters above sea level in Greece are similar to England, so I feel right at home. My kids also love running wild and experiencing raw nature. They gathered enough early blackberries to make a delicious pie and a pound of jelly, and I collected oregano for the whole year. Blackberry and apple pie . The highlights of this year had to be feeding Marios the fox cub who, with his brother Max, and his sister Maria, scavenged for tidbits around the houses in the settlement, after dark. Watching the meteorite showers from the mountain top and, most significantly for me, finally getting to see the Milky Way! (I've always been in places too light polluted or there's been too much cloud cover!) The squirrels in the roof...
Musings on the mundane and the macabre and all the oddities in between.