The world from my window

It's my birthday and I wake up today with the words of Tina Turner rasping in my ears: "Women of a certain age..." I get up later than usual, because of the occasion and because I can, and take the dog out on a long walk across the fields, to a hamlet where I often think I'd like to live, because it's got a tucked-away church, a farmyard full of stuff and the smell of cow dung is never far from my nostrils. The sky is a beautiful blue, made even more blue by my camera's new polarising filter, and I am loving the light, the definition in the landscape Thankfully, Tina Turner has wandered off stage and out of my head (and I say, bloody good riddance, I like you Tina and all that, but, frankly, I'm more of a Nutbush City Limits -type of girl and I Don't Wanna Lose You gets on my nerves). And Leonard Bernstein, with whom I share a birthday, don't you know, floats by on a low, wispy cloud and I hear him singing the words 'there's a plac...

A smell of garlic began to make my nostrils twitch. I was inside the house, the shutters were closed to keep out the sun and mosquitoes and I didn't know where it was coming from. The aroma grew stronger and stronger until it became overpowering. Like some bloodhound, I tracked it all through the house, to the utility room and out through the other side to the home of Spiros, our neighbour. 'You want some skordalia, Margarita?' he said, rhythmically mashing boiled potatoes with a cup full of two bulbs of pureed garlic and lashings of lemon juice. He added some olive oil, potato water and more lemon juice. 'You try,' he said. It was smooth, spiky and pungent. There was no way a mosquito would touch me now. In my skordalia armour, I was invincible. It was on, then, to Gialiskari, a secluded beach near Pelekas. It's one of our favourite spots, the beach now replenished naturally with sand after last year when shingle and rocks took over the small cove for t...