The world from my window

So now we're here, back in the bosom of Agios Magikades. And very chilly it is too. There's cloud obscuring the mountain and a thin mist of rain falling. The leaves on the jacaranda tree shiver while wisps of smoke from the village's chimneys trail across the rooftops. But even in the cold, it's beautiful. After the excitement of Clean Monday, where the beginning of Lent is marked by kite flying and the tavernas are full of people eating seafood, lagana bread and halva, things get back to normality. And for us, a self-imposed fast: no alcohol for forty days. No alcohol for forty nights. The rain gets heavier and the cloud over the mountain turns the setting into a scene from The Land That Time Forgot.                But still the sparrows chirp in the trees and the children yell in the school playground. And the bottle of ouzo sits unopened on the dining room table. Salvation is just around the corner. That's about it. Love ...

Achileos Street, Athens The Parthenon in the distance  Kostas, our taxi driver, looks like a younger version of Michael Douglas. 'Thank you,' he says, flicking his shoulder length hair when I tell him. 'He is more handsome than me. My wife, if I tell her customer say that, she kill me.' He drops us off at the Athens bus station after telling us the politicians are corrupt. 'We have same family, same bad for thirty or forty years. How can we have good with same politic?' He apologises for his poor English. 'It's much better than our Greek,' we say. The bus station is full of noise and lots going on. A gypsy woman tries to sell me tissues and points to her stomach saying 'baby'. And then an Asian man goes by, selling bagels. The only person to get any money is the man with his long stick of lottery tickets   There are whistles of guards, trundling cases and trolleys, bus engines throbbing, horns honking and people line...

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...