It’s that time of year again – fruit ripens as the summer moves slowly into Autumn. Anything that survived the onslaught of the sun seems to burst into fruit.
Picked on my walk this morning.
I’ve watched this peach tree get it’s blossoms in April – before any leaves, it gets flowers- then it drinks in the sunshine all summer, until the peaches ripen around now. They’re small and many have fallen on the ground and they taste delicious.
Peach tree
The figs are ripe on some trees, not on others. The ones that are ripe dribble sticky juice on to your hand.
Now I’m waiting to see whether any blackberries fatten enough to be worth picking…
A day of touring out of season on the exquisite Island of Corfu.
The Island is one full of ex pats. Dutch, American, German, English and even a few Irish. The winter is the secret time when all year rounders come out to play. When the roads are clear of hire cars, when the beaches have no more sunbeds and the olive trees are laden with fruit, peace invades the land.
Where to Madam?
The mountains are still spectacular, the trees still mostly green and one in fifty tavernas are still open. We can put our noses out, like Moley in the Wind in the Willows after a winter of hibernation, and breathe clear, cool air once more.
In between the parties, christenings and the get togethers, my neighbour offers her car for a trip around the island. A Fiat Barchetta, no less, one of the few hand made cars, before robots took their place in the assembly line. A nhttp://fiat.barchettaeat roadster convertible.
My Greek boyfriend nearly faints at the thought, thinking back to the days when he drove one himself. I get a message early in the morning to say it has started, a minor miracle as it’s not taken out much and the battery gets run down.
We dash up and get hold of the key. My other half is struggling to get into it with the roof in place.
-How could I do this when I was forty? he groans.
We wrap up with woolly hats and jackets, figure out the roof procedure and the engine roars.
On our faces are plastered large smiles, as the air rushes past and the low slung car hugs the road. We feel like tourists.Once or twice the car refuses to start first time, but it always obliges in the end.
We chose the coast road, with the sea to our right, still and azure as ever it was on a calm summer’s day. We explore a couple of deserted resorts – picture perfect villages with their jetties empty, the tavenas deserted. When we drive all the way to the end of the pier and then slightly off it, on to more uneven ground, it is explained to me that Barchetta is the Italian word for a small boat, so it’s only normal to bring it as close to the water as possible. My panicked face breaks into a smile again and we retrace our steps up out of the village.
At Kanoni, Church of Vlacherna with Pontikonissi – Mouse Island in the background
Then along the north coast, stopping for a grill lunch of souvlaki and beer, then on again this time down the island through the mountain range where we see over to the west side and then slide down, down to the central plain and home. Hugging our neighbour in thanks for an exquisite day driving a true touring car that hugged the bends from sea level to 75 metres above in this concertina of an island.
Still high on the fresh air, we add a new phrase to our vocabulary – a Barchetta Day.
When you find yourself on the other side of the globe to your only son, -me in Corfu and him in New Zealand, you give thanks for modern technology that allows you daily chats.
His work on vast concrete projects involves drastic changes to the landscape as roads are rolled out and huge foundations are dug out and filled with many tons of concrete for tall buildings.The tensions between progress and preservation, making people lives better and ruining ways of life, is never more stark.
I’ve chosen to live on an island prized for its natural beauty and exotic flora and fauna. Our chat this morning was about damming either end of a stream and draining the middle to allow a construction project to go ahead. One of his duties yesterday, was to listen to a talk on water filtering so that the drained water was uncontaminated when it was allowed back into the water system.
Before that, however, all the fish and reptiles had been removed. There’s a company that moves reptiles to new habitats. There’s a company that moves fish to new habitats. Halleluiah! Someone cares. The NZ authorities care enough to enforce these regulations and require their contruction conglomerates to employ Health and Safety officers on a range of topics to provide real education to the guys on the ground.
It feels good to know that far away, on the other side of the globe, the Earth is being cared for in such an enlightened, detailed way. This is the good news for today. You won’t hear it broadcast on any Media channel. It seems like Good News don’t sell.
AH SURE AZURE 