The world from my window

In the UK it's Easter Saturday but in Corfu it's just another day. Or is it? There is a warmth to the air this morning, a real warmth. The Ugg boots have been cast off in favour of Birkenstocks . Lightweight jeans replace heavy Levi's . The breeze blows in French windows and billows through white muslin curtains in the scene from The Great Gatsby where narrator Nick Carraway meets Daisy Buchanan and Jordan Baker for the first time. And a baby lizard comes to life when an old anchor is brought out into the sunshine from the dark cellar. In the plateia last night, scores of swallows swooped and sang as villagers sat outside until way past eight o'clock. And tonight, the clocks go forward an hour, making the evenings even lighter. This week, the first direct flights to the island arrived, signalled by a low, tinny whine over Corfu Town. The passengers disgorged from the planes and into coaches, which revved up and set off, great caterpillars with mirrors fo...

Back home in Lush Places, they'll be putting the finishing touches to the Hot Cross Bun Morning, which was started by The Loveliest Woman in the Village on Good Friday nearly ten years ago. Easter weekend is coming up, and I hope they'll be avoiding chocolate eggs made with palm oil because orangutans are worth more than a visit from the Easter Bunny.  But here in Greece, we have five more weeks until Easter. The Orthodox Church does its business according to the Julian Calendar and not, like us, the Gregorian one. And in Greece this year, Easter Sunday on 5 May is about as late as it can be. Which is just as well considering we have a house that needs a darn good seeing-to before the arrival of our first visitors, Mr and Mrs Champagne-Charlie and Mrs Bancroft, who are flying over to help us celebrate.  When I say we've been gardening, it's been more like logging, with oleander bushes as high as the sky and daphne trees needing to be cut down to let in...

And with the last day of carnival came music and dancing, games and singing all across the island. In Agios Magikades, the children got hold of the bell ropes, a man dressed as a cow helped grill the souvlaki, a complaint was made to the DJ when Turkish music wove its way around the plateia and, as daylight faded and turned into night, my very own Zorbas gave me my first Greek dance lesson. 'You have to feel the music,' he said. To dance is to live. A purist of the Corfiot dance, he took it all around the world. Joy of joys, he once performed at Sidmouth . He bowed to a greater skill, however, when he introduced us to a large, yellowing moustache trying its best to conceal the bulk of a smiling, elderly man called Nikos, whose English stretched to 'very good' and 'problem'. 'When he was younger,' Zorbas said. 'he could do the scissors.' 'Very good,' Nikos winked. 'Problem.' But it was a sedate and graceful dance in t...

It's a bank holiday weekend in Corfu Town as the island prepares to usher in Clean Monday and the beginning of Lent when Greeks celebrate the fast and welcome the dawn of spring. A van stuffed full of artichokes is parked just up from the supermarket. A man in the old town is selling large shrimps from a basket. They're still wriggling. There is bunting hanging across the streets and a civilised demonstration by young Communists outside the bank. The smell of freshly-baked bread pulls pedestrians in from the pavements and into the bakery. Two South American men set up on the pavement and, soon, the ubiquitous sound of amplified Andean panpipes wafts up the street, past a beggar boy sitting in front of a Kentucky Fried Chicken box with a few cents inside. A couple of doorsteps up are his mother and sister, hands out for money, while further along is the Corfu bag lady, who, as usual, sits asleep in a shop doorway, with her parka hood up and sunglasses on. She doesn...

One of the joys of being in Corfu - whether you live here or are on holiday - is that it is so easy to take a trip to the mainland. An island-hop of one-and-half-hours gets you to the port of Igoumenitsa where you drive down for coffee in  Syvota ...  ...before heading up the Egnatia Odos , a motorway that goes as far as the Turkish border, and roads leading off it, to places like the beautiful and unspoilt Zagori ...   ...or the ancient site of Dodoni, a magical place I have mentioned before ...  ...or  Ioannina , the largest city of Epirus...  ...or Metsovo , the home of snow, wine and cheese. Well, after an extreme bout of painter and decorator's elbow and oleander pruning fatigue, we decided to take a trip along the highway and beyond, going through Epirus, Macedonia and Thessaly. We've just come back after an incredible five-day journey, visiting the beautiful village of Nymfaio ... ...and then on to Edessa ...