AN "ENGLISH" SUNDAY IN AN INDIAN SUMMER ON A GREEK ISLAND

We've been resting up for the last couple of days: hence no blog entries. The sun finally broke through and has been giving us a late taste of summer even though the farm and all its members seem to think that it's spring. The few stragglers of the tourist trade are walking around with bright red faces and shoulders where they have all misjudged the intensity and UV strength of the sun that hangs in the cloud free sky from 9 until about 4. The evenings cool but do not chill and at this time of year the roads are clear, the cafes are empty, the fields are abuzz with people cutting logs and preparing for olive harvest. This is how we love this island. Wherever yo go there is a faint aroma of bonfire in the air and occasionally we will see plumes of grey white smoke drifting up the valley either early in the morning before the day is properly aired or late in the afternoon just before the light begins to fade.

Mick and Chick are back but sans Maggies this time. We met up yesterday for a visit together and wandered over to the lake to see what migratory birds were in (not many). We had intended to take a lunchtime meal there but every taverna was heaving - the fine weather had brought islanders out from as far afield as Xania, Rethymnon, and Iraklion. We even spotted the odd Athens registration plate among the throngs of cars. The Greeks do love to eat out on a Sunday and the babble and the hubub was just too much. Instead we whisked Mick and Chick off up to Kournas village where we ate at Maria and Nikos's taverna it used to be called the Canary but I don't recall the new name) in peace and quiet with spectacular views across down the valleys and out across the Almyros bay - when the sun shines on Kournas village it's a beautiful place, in a traditional way. The old men of the village gather in the back seats close to the grill and drink coffees, and rakis while they catch up on local farming gossip.

Maria and Nikos had some pork and some lamb on the grill and when you put that together with a fresh winter salad (including lettuce, spring onions and pomegranate) and a few fried potatoes and fresh baked bread it is a veritable feast. All eaten beneath a canopy of closely woven mulberry trees. Slake your thirst with a kilo of local wine and a freshly distilled raki or two and then top the whole thing off with a visit to the 12th century Byzantine church that is currently undergoing a painstaking restoration and you have, in our book at least, a fairly perfect October Sunday. "This is the life" - for want of something more fitting to say. Love it.