The world from my window

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...

There was a storm on Tuesday night that threatened to turn our solidly-built house completely inside out. I was huddled up so tightly, I expected at any minute to see the jacaranda tree walk hand-in-hand through the front door with the oleander in a kind of Arthur-Rackham-meets-Edward-Lear-type moment. 'Give us shelter,' they would plead, as I fought off an inexplicable urge to tidy up the house before letting them in. Well, I wouldn't want them gossiping to the palm tree. I wouldn't trust him an inch. Rain poured through the end windows, drip-plop-torrent. The wind roared and whistled down the chimney in such a terrifying way that, for a split second, I turned to see the shadow of Mr Grigg and thought it was the convict Abel Magwitch from Great Expectations . I shuddered. And then the thunder cracked, splitting the sky in two after a great flash of light like an Olympian paparazzi ready to pounce on the world's greatest scoop. It rained and rained an...