Tuesday, that was a very funny day.  The more erudite and literary minded blog readers will realise that is a slight misquote of the opening line and title of an episode in the much undervalued Beiderbecke Trilogy (Episode 5, Series 1 … I can now check these things on the internet.

It was not funny belly-laughs, more funny-peculiar.    As was James Bollam’s.  (Do try to look this stuff up, it’s some of Alan Plater’s best work!)

I moved to the other end of Amorgos.  The hotel minibus was picking me up at 10.00 so I couldn’t fit in breakfast at the usual place which doesn’t open until 09.00 … or shortly after, but instead reverted to the very British ‘bacon, eggs and toast’ in the square above the room I have been in for 10 days.  Unusual but good.  It also meant that I couldn’t finish Monday’s blog and post it …. because I had to finish packing.   I seem to have a lot of stuff!!

Minibus was there ahead of time, as was I.  Punctuality is an obsession with me.  I get disturbed if I’m late.  Doesn’t bother me if other people are a bit late for any arrangement but I feel I’ve got to be on time.

I’ve been on the island bus service along the route between Eghiali and Chora twice but sitting back in a minibus and watching it go past in the opposite direction was revealing.  That was the direction I had walked it on two occasions and I kept seeing landscape features I recognised from the footpaths.

The hotel room is brilliant.  A whole different world to the room in Chora.  But at more double the price it is ironic that the wash basin doesn’t hold water (as mentioned the blog a few days ago).  It’s a very simple thing to get right, the seating for the plug just has to be sealed properly into the basin.  It doesn’t matter how posh the hotel, it is invariably done wrongly and the wash basins will not hold water.  Hat off to the guy who runs the place in Chora, compact and bijoux it may be but the wash basin holds water every time.

I digress again.  The room in the hotel is considerably larger then the room in Chora which is  a great blessing, and the balcony looks straight down to the sea and over the bay and is angled towards the setting sun (at the appropriate time of course).

And there is internet access on the balcony and in the room!!!!!!

I had planned for a lazy day and just getting to know the place.  So I sat on the balcony and worked on finishing the blog.

Bit of a ‘rewind’ here.  Reader’s of last year’s Greek blog might remember that I started it by saying: “I’m very conscious of the fact that though “a man’s mind plans his way …. God directs his steps” (Book of Proverbs chapter 16 verse 9)”.  If you don’t remember, don’t worry, it’s because I used a different font/typeface.  Readers of this blog might also remember that one of the things I did before leaving home was to complete the publication of the book of Enfys’s poems, all the profits from which will go to St Anne’s Hospice in Newport which looked after Enfys so well in her last weeks.  (I knows this is rambling at its worst but I’ll get there in the end).  Well!!  The local newspaper, The Argus, has decided to write a feature Enfys and the book, interviewed David in my absence swanning off in Greece, and asked him to try to get high resolution photos of Enfys to include in the article.

Until today when I moved into the hotel a) I would not have had internet access and b) I would not have been around in the daytime but somewhere up in the mountains.  To cut this meandering story short, at the end of the morning I had an e-mail from the journalist writing the piece asking for the photos urgently – it is to be published on Wednesday.  I had them on an external hard-drive which I carry to back up the netbook and which also has an ‘active archive’ of everything of value on the PC at home so I was able to sort it and get the pics off to the journalist.

A few too many coincidences there to all have happened by accident!  And another coincidence … I read that chapter of Proverbs as the next bit of my systematic daily readings before I left Chora in the morning to come to Eghiali.   Interpret that according to your own prejudices and predispositions.

A bit phased by all this unfamiliar stuff, by which time it was 14.00,  I ambled along the seafront in Eghiali.  It’s a very laid back and not unpleasant version of package-tourist Greece.  In my wandering I stopped for a Greek salad in a beach-side taverna.  Again quote unusual for me.

Then I got the urge to stretch my legs and ambled up to one of the mountain villages at this end of the island despite the fact that I was wearing tidy clothes and sandals not scruffy walking gear and I didn’t have my rucksack and so no cameras. Or water. In the village I had an orange juice in a taverna and then ambled back down.  It transpired that I had inadvertently done on of the paths I had meant to do over the next 4 days – Number 4 of the ‘Footpaths of  Cultural Interest’.  But it was a ‘no-photo’ day as I had no cameras.

Almost.  There is a great view of the sunset from my balcony.  I couldn’t resist.  So here are a couple of views from my balcony!

Now how's that for a view from the balcony!

If I could only get t in the bottle ......

The colour in the sky was amazing even after the sun had disappeared behind Naxos

Great walk planned for Wednesday.  Number 5 of the ‘Footpaths of  Cultural Interest’.