And with Corfu Easter comes new life

With the change in the weather there comes new life.

New flowers replace the geranium and daisies. Scabious pop up by the roadside and the purple honesty turns into crimson purses, ready to reveal thirty pieces of silver later in the year.

As Greek Easter approaches, the vibrant purplish-pink flowers of the Judas Tree blossom on bare branches before the lime green, kidney-shaped leaves appear. The trees are all over the island, vast swathes of colour in a sea of olive green.

This was the type of tree on which Judas Iscariot was said to have hanged himself after denouncing Jesus. According to the legend, the flowers were originally pale and blushed pink with shame. Another version is that the flowers represent Judas's entrails.

They certainly are a striking sight.

Elsewhere, the wisteria grows so vigorously, it romps up telegraph poles to look like trees. The orange begins to blossom and its heady scent spreads across the roads of the village, mixed with the aroma of moussaka and souvlaki from the tavernas in the plateia.

 

On the Spianada, the cricket pitch is having a haircut.

Down at the market, fish with wings and fish with stern faces lie alongside things with tentacles and crabs with blue legs. Shrimps still alive spring from their polystyrene boxes and brush against gurnards, bream, monkfish, John Dory and tuna.

The courgettes are small and sweet, with firm flowers still attached and not an earwig in sight.

And the purple artichoke heads scream 'eat us, eat us, you know we are worth the trouble'.

The locals mingle with holidaymakers in shorts and sandals. And the priest bumps into an old friend.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x