The world from my window

* First published 2 May 2013 The sense of anticipation is mounting here in Corfu for Holy Week. Church bells ring twice a day as the devout and those who do not want to risk eternal damnation make their preparations for Easter and pile into the church. In the evening, the village plateia is alive with people as the congregation mingles with the card players and coffee drinkers, beer imbibers and children, now on school holidays and tearing around on bicycles. There are swallows and swallowtails, hooting owls, croaking frogs, waking cicadas and a host of magical fireflies flitting around the lanes and gardens. The air is heavy with the scent of jasmine and mock orange blossom. Yesterday was Labour Day, a May Day celebration which saw garlands on doors and small posies of wild flowers under car windscreen wipers. At first, I thought Turkey Spiros (so called because he breeds turkeys) had a female admirer when I noticed a bunch of marigolds on his bonnet. An hour later, Mr Grigg had ...

It's quiet now after all our village festivities. A cool wind whips through the plateia as a handful of people sit under the Narnia lamp post . And it is bliss. It's been a week now since our panigyri and still the days and nights have been pretty humid. 'The weather will start to change after the 15th,' we were told by our weatherman Canadian George, as the summer celebrations built up to a crescendo last Thursday to mark the dormition of the Theotokos . With the end of our long line of visiting family and friends, things have become calmer but the weather is still hot. After almost ten months in Greece, I am no longer like a holidaymaker, craving for sun. I sit in the shade whenever I can. I enjoy the early mornings, when the days are at their coolest. How chambermaids cope with changing hotel beds and cleaning in this heat is beyond me. They deserve a medal rather than a pittance. And I now understand why a siesta is so important to the people who work ...

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...

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...