just a perfect day

Sometimes I can't believe I actually live here. Yesterday, George had to go for another one of his business meetings, 4 hours drive from Athens. The notion of conference calls don't really exist here and business is still very much conducted on a face to face basis. Which is no bad thing sometimes. Again, despite a very early start, I joined him for the ride. Most of the landscape we drove through looked like this...


sadly a lot of it is still burnt from the terrible forest fires, trees standing like ghosts...


but sometimes it even reminded me of the hedgerows of England...


We ended up in a place called Pylos in the south-west Peloponnese, and while George went for his meeting I had my coffee and then climbed up to the castle at the top of the town...


wandering through the shady grounds, I discovered secret little entrances and gateways...


which you would walk through and suddenly come upon a view like this...


and then turn around to see this...


I found a bench under a shady tree, sat down and breathed a deep satisfied sigh. This was my view for the next 2 hours...


I sat and read my book and looked far out to sea, the only sound the wind in the trees, the occasional sound of children's laughter, and a choir of a million cicadas. They're ugly little beasts... a bit like giant flies, about 2" long...


but they sound like this...

I realised after a while I couldn't hear another soul around, perfectly blissful. Eventually I wandered down to the gate to leave and found it locked. The castle had already been shut for an hour! Luckily somebody let me out, but I was almost sad about it. I'd found a little peace of heaven.

And then, if that wasn't enough, we went for a swim here!