Corfu: The Garden of the Gods

They call Corfu The Garden Isle.

It is lush and green, even at this time of year when the sun is baking hot and visitors and locals dive into the sea to cool off.

Gerald Durrell described it as The Garden of the Gods. You could imagine them strolling around, plucking an apricot from a tree and cavorting with nymphs through the olive groves, a Hellenistic pastoral romance, where everything in the garden is lovely.

Of course, it's Greece and everything in the garden isn't lovely. Times are hard, politicians are 'dirty' and ordinary people struggle to keep their heads above water. And it's in the cities where they feel it most.

Here on the island, there are people we know who are pleased to have a job even though they're getting way below the minimum wage. In the villages, people cultivate their patches of land and live a life more simple.

The ground is fertile here and fruit and vegetables grow in abundance.

Our own plot of land is yielding aubergines, peppers, tomatoes by the bag full, cucumbers, courgettes, melons, beans, radishes, beetroot, rocket and lettuce.

'The house before, it was a mystery,' we are told by a man in the plateia. 'You have done a good job with the garden.'

And to think, when we started out on this journey, this Big Fat Greek Gap Year, last October our outside space was more like a pastoral nightmare.

There is something to be said for growing your own.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x