Mediterranean Cruise 2011

The Danish Adventures

One of my best friends, Jess, is studying Social Anthropology in Copenhagen this semester (the lucky duck). As soon as I realised I could just about afford the plane tickets I booked my weekend away to visit her. Finally last Friday I was on my way! For some reason it didn't occur to me to get the bus from St Andrews to the airport, but instead I took a bus, a train and another bus to get there... I do love my trains though. I was three hours early for my flight which I discovered is very much a rookie mistake. After reading for an hour I checked in and then spent another hour and a half wandering the airport before I could board my flight. The plane was the smallest I've ever flown in - I've only ever taken airbuses before and I'd never flown on my own before this weekend so I had a little panic when climbing the tiny staircase into the tiny aircraft. There were only 12 of us on the flight, though, so I could sit pretty much wherever I wanted.

I landed in Copenhagen at about 7pm and bought myself a klippekort, a ticket that you punch in a machine whenever you travel on the Metro, and this one had 10 journeys on it but it was a significant cut out of my budget at 145 kroner. Jess called me and told me to take the Metro to Frederiksberg rather than Lindevang where she lived because she was baking pies for thanksgiving with a friend.

When I came out of the Metro station at Frederiksberg I got my first real impression of Denmark (besides the Christmas tree all lit up beside the runway, how lovely) by way of a shitload of bikes locked up (and unlocked) outside the station. I have never seen so many bikes in one place before. Jess came to meet me, we hugged etc etc and she bought herself a hot dog from the 7/11. It was raining when we began the walk to her friend Yolande's house which turned out to be much longer than Jess realised, but we got to see some pretty cool things - a maze (which we ventured into but only a little way in the pitch black), a church and an ice rink among other things. We spent the evening baking pies and souffle in Yolande's flat, Jess failed to convince us to go out drinking, and then the two of us headed back to her house.

In the morning we agreed to get up early, hop on a train and head to Elsinore (anglicised - Helsingør in Danish) i.e. the home of Hamlet! We were up by 9 and out by 10, queued in the ticket office at Norreport in the centre of Copenhagen to find out which was the cheapest way to travel out there. We got on the train carrying a pie plate and all the ingredients for a pumpkin pie, including a 2kg bag of flour in Jess' backpack. Her shoulders were really starting to hurt so she dumped the flour in a bin on the train and decided to buy more later. A good decision.

We could see Kronborg Castle as soon as we left the train station at Elsinore and we made our way over. Probably because we hadn't eaten or drunk much since waking up we started to feel pretty faint and hungry as we came through the gate... in fact my legs started to buckle with every step, so we decided we'd have to lunch first, explore later. After a seemingly endless but actually pretty short walk into Elsinore we found a hot dog stand where I decided to try a Danish hot dog, since I was in Denmark. I'm usually a vegetarian but that's a story for another day. It was good. There was something crunchy on top along with mustard and pickles... yum. But I wasn't sent exactly into a meat-craze.

Then I had my first Danish Danish... and half a piece of cake, some crisps and a drink. We have pretty big appetites for a couple of young women. With snacks in our bags for later, we headed back to Kronborg, took a scenic walk around the outskirts of the palace grounds and then bought our tickets for a guided tour. A very charismatic Danish woman led us around the royal apartments and the ballroom (my favourite part). Little dioramas showed what certain rooms looked like at different times.

After the tour we had a little wander on our own, then went down to the casemates to explore. The casemates were at one time used to hold prisoners but had other functions as well that I've forgotten. In the underground labyrinth there was a huge statue of Holger Danske, the sleeping Danish king who will awake to save Denmark in a time of crisis (as if anyone will ever pick on Denmark). We wandered through narrow, pitch-black corridors with only Jess's bike-lights as torches. A little girl walked out of a dark room and made us both lose our shit at one point. On the whole we were pretty darn brave.

Before we left my phone sent me another roaming charges text and I realised I was on a Swedish network. THEN we realised we could see Sweden across the bay! We considered getting a ferry across to have a cup of tea in Sweden but we were already going to be late for Thanksgiving so (after a visit to the gift shop) we got back on the train to Norreport. Jess took me along the main shopping street and sadly had her iPhone stolen. We spent a few hours agonising and trying to track it down but to no avail. She had a Danish phone as a back up but unfortunately the mystery is still unsolved...

Finally we arrived at Thanksgiving, a couple of hours late. The meal was just about ready to be served. I met a few more of Jess' friends, all international students who have their own awesome multicultural community in Copenhagen. Several different languages were being spoken. Michael, the Thanksgiving host, was from Australia and had never cooked a turkey before. The spread was amazing. Yams, stuffing, carrots, cranberries, souffle, two turkeys and then for pudding there was an apple crumble, ice cream, the pecan pie that Jess, Yolande and I had made and finally a pumpkin pie that we set to cooking at 11pm when about half the people had left so there wasn't too much competition for a slice!

Certainly the most diverse Thanksgiving I've attended so far. We stayed until the clean-up was done and everyone else had left. I was worried about only knowing Jess and Yolande but Jess has the uncanny ability to make friends with people who will instantly get along with each other... or maybe her presence is the catalyst!

The next morning there was some debate about whether we should go out of Copenhagen to a deer park to have a picnic with the others, but in the end the heavy rain settled that. After a slow morning of drinking hot chocolate and chilling out we took the Metro into town and made our way to the National Museet with a guidebook and a compass to replace the Google Maps on Jess's iPhone we relied on before. We ambled around the exhibits on the Iron Age, the Stone and Bronze Age, the Vikings, Peoples of the World and Renaissance Denmark before deciding we'd better move on as we only had a couple of hours to visit the art museum too. After a sandwich each in a cafe and the purchase of a bag of pastries we headed over to the Ny Carlsberg Glyptoteket and devoured as much art as possible in the hour we had left.

A gallery announcement telling us that the museum was closing forced us to leave but we were very excited about our final adventure. The Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen were blown up by the Nazis in 1944 to crush Danish morale - that's how awesome this place is. They're pleasure gardens, with rides and restaurants, trees and a lake, but it was after dark and late November so the place had been transformed into a winter wonderland (with the theme A Russian Christmas).

We spent three hours and more browsing the Christmas market and ate some æbleskiver (which we thought translated as apple cider but turned out to be a waffle-like ball that you dip in jam). After finishing off our plates we made to leave the little millhouse restaurant where we'd eaten them but a man called us over to his table and insisted we try his aebleskiver. 'What's the difference?' he asked Jess. We weren't sure... but it turned out he was the chef (phew) and had cooked these ones for as long as possible so they were crunchier on the outside and softer inside. He was very proud of himself. We also drank our first glogg. Grund glogg is similar to mulled wine; it's three different types of wine mixed together with raisins and cloves and more, heated and with a shot of rum the vendor suggested we add. My feet had been soaking wet and freezing cold all day but the glogg warmed me right up, and got me fairly drunk too. We staggered home (not really, loped is probably the word) with bags of Danish Christmas decorations, made ourselves a curry, watched a couple of Disney films and fell asleep.

fuelled by Glogg

I love Denmark. The following morning I took the Metro back to the airport and flew home but I will definitely be returning. Jess is even considering moving there and I wouldn't blame her. Copenhagen is such a friendly, beautiful city!

Greece Diary, Part Eight: Farewell, Greece

On our last day in Greece I worked with Piros and Ira in the school and groomed the stallions for the last time. The farm was really beginning to feel like home and we probably spent a little more time dozing in the hammocks than usual.

Amanda had suggested that for our final afternoon we take a drive round to the other side of the island and have lunch at a taverna there, so after we'd done the midday muck-out we piled into the van and set off in a direction we'd never ventured in before. I sometimes wonder if we should have explored the area more while we were there, but we were always so hot and tired in the afternoons that it never seemed feasible. Just around the first corner I discovered there was a taverna at the end of the road which had been practically in sight the whole time, but I'd been so happy in my bubble I hadn't thought to go looking for anything else nearby.

Amanda's partner Stathis is an artist and the town's sign-painter; on the way to the taverna, Amanda took us to an art and ceramics place where there were beautiful statues hidden in amongst the shrubbery. The statue pictured above was by Stathis; he'd never sculpted before he was asked to produce something for them but he managed to carve this incredible Skyrian out of the rock.

We arrived at the taverna. It was in such a beautiful place, nestled in the trees on top of a hill. An evil eye looked out from one of the stairs leading up to it. We sat under a canopy at the very edge, looking out at the landscape. The boy who took our order was one of Amanda's English pupils - everyone on Skyros seems to know each other. We ordered a load of different dishes but the boy brought us extra dishes as well. The food was delicious and the flies had almost stopped bothering me (almost). After we'd eaten as much as we could handle we were brought rice pudding, on the house.

I don't think I will ever be able to forget this rice pudding... goat's milk with cinnamon sprinkled on top. Ben ate his practically in one mouthful. Just... yum.

After our meal we headed down to a nearby beach. It was so stunning... the huge waves, the islands, and we set off exploring the hills beside the beach.

I thought this huge rock out to sea looked like a horse emerging from the water. But I did have horses on the brain.

This beach is the way I'll always remember my first experience of Greece. For a lazy hour or so we stood in the water, sat on the cliffs and wandered through the shrubbery. The whole time I was debating the likelihood of Amanda allowing me to adopt Orfeas. (She did.)

After we returned to the farm, I was walking across the yard with Amanda when she said "Oh my God. Artemis has had a foal."

And it was true. Artemis, who wasn't supposed to be due until the end of the summer, had a tiny little foal at her feet. She looked pretty rough from lying in the dirt and having suddenly lost a huge portion of her body but she had a foal! We got to work putting up a fence in the straw field so that they could have some privacy - they were currently rooming with two stallions. In the end though we moved them to the school for the night as it was quite late by the time the fence was up and Amanda didn't want to disturb the neighbours by bringing them through to the back - the other horses would have been pretty noisy in greeting the new arrival. Amanda wanted to get a headcollar on Artemis before the morning so that she'd definitely be able to catch her the next day, as she'd get pretty aggressive in defence of her foal once she regained her strength, so I spent the evening, even after it became dark, sitting in the arena with the tiniest foal I'd ever seen and his cautious mother, feeding them pony nuts.

Then we all cooked up some toast and boiled eggs and had a very late dinner. In the morning, we said our goodbyes and headed to the airport. Because of the recent vote in Greece everyone had returned to their hometowns, so strangely enough the tiny airport was packed and we even panicked we wouldn't make our flight (but we did, of course).

Farewell, Greece. I'll be back next summer - you can't get rid of me that easily.

P.S. Congratulations to Amanda and Stathis because The Katseralias-Simpson Project will soon be a registered charity, The Skyros Horse Trust!

Greece Diary, Part Seven: Regressing

When I was a kid my walls were plastered with posters from PONY magazine. My ceiling (I had a bunk bed) was stuck with newspaper cuttings of racehorses. Essentially, I was horse-crazy. In Greece, I could feel that same single-minded obsession resurfacing.

That's me in the volunteer room after having discovered Parelli. I found these boxes on the bookshelf. I'd heard of Parelli back in my PONY magazine days but I'd never really known what it was. Over the next few days I devoured the books of the level one course. Parelli is all about approaching a horse as if you are a horse - not quite literally, but behaving in a similar way so that you can understand your horse, and it can understand you, better. It was a revelation. The more I read, the more I realised how much people in the UK casually neglect their horses without realising. Our attitude is so outdated. I've been guilty of it too. People inadvertently treat horses like cars ... forgetting they're animals who don't exist solely for our amusement.

This is me with Ira, one of the two regular-sized ponies who live on the farm. I was lucky enough to get to practise a few of the Parelli games with her. In the morning on our final day I worked with her a lot until we were actually starting and stopping in unison, without any commands. It's amazing how easily you can get onto the same wavelength as a horse once you actually try. Amanda was telling me about how she ran about with Piros until he started to treat her too much like another stallion - play-fighting with her! - the moral of which is don't get too playful with stallions! I genuinely felt like I connected with Ira and got a little bit giddy about it. It was such a good end to my experience with horses in Greece.

And here again is my baby Orfeas. I loved this little guy so much I officially adopted him. When I return in June I'm hoping to do some Parelli with him as Amanda suggested and maybe even complete level one. He won't be such a baby then and will probably be much more comfortable around people! I doubt he'll remember me, but I haven't forgotten him. :)

I became so horse-mad when I was in Greece that when I returned to the UK I enrolled on a distance-learning course in Equine Behavioural Psychology, so now I'm learning about equine behaviour in the wild and in domestic environments, and even more about the casual neglect that causes so many problems. I've even begun to think that I might complete my English degree and then just go into equine welfare.

Next time... Hello, Goodbye (Or: Unexpected Births and a Farewell to Greece)

Preparing for Prague

This January, myself and my friends Katie and Dominic are hitchhiking to Prague. We are doing this not only for the shits and giggles but also to raise money for charity. The event is organised by the St Andrews Charities Campaign, which supports MSF and Macmillan among other great charities. Race2 raises thousands and thousands of pounds towards this every year and we each have a minimum sponsorship amount of £120 to raise.

This is our fantastic logo, designed by Katie's sister. Our team name is The Inconspicuous Gryphons, named in part after the Fringe show we were all involved in this August where we cemented our friendship! And inconspicuous because... it's a cool adjective. There are a number of things on our checklist to complete before we head off into the abyss of the Edinburgh motorways this winter...

1. Plan a vague route.
   Of course we'll be relying on strangers driving in the right direction to take us, but we at least need to know which countries we'll be passing through!
2. Learn some languages.
   A basic knowledge of the language of each country we'll pass through seems like an obvious thing to acquire. We get a little book which explains our charity mission in a variety of languages, but I hate travelling places without speaking even a bit of the local language.
3. Make our costumes.
   I feel like three twenty-somethings with wings and friendly-looking masks are more likely to hitch a ride than three twenty-somethings. 
4. Book our return flights.

A few things to sort out still, and roughly three months to sort it out in! Will keep you updated.

If you'd like to donate (and I haven't already bothered you on facebook) here is the link to our JustGiving page:

http://www.justgiving.com/inconspicuousgryphons

Next time... more Greece diary!

Greece Diary, Part Six: A Grand Day Out

Or, Attacked by Mosquitoes in Skyros Town.

After a week, me and Ben were awarded a day off. Fortunately for us, Amanda and Stathis' flat in Skyros Town hadn't been let for the summer (sadly and unfortunately for them) so we got to spend two nights there. While it was wonderful to experience a bit of Skyros beyond the farm, to be honest, we had a bad day. How is it possible to have a bad day in a beautiful Greek island town? You may ask. Well, here are the reasons.

1. We are Cumbrians.
What this means is, me and Ben are used to poor weather. Cold, grey. We don't deal with the heat so well. We had only just adjusted to the temperatures out on the farm, where there was an almost constant wind coming in and cooling us down. In the town, there was no breeze. We really struggled with this. Skyros Town is built on one side of a hill (facing away from the sea, to protect it from pirates) like many Greek towns and we forgot the directions Amanda had given us so spent a whole morning traipsing up and down looking for the town centre. You'd think it'd be easy to find... not so. Especially when all you can think about is how you're sweating like crazy.

Finally reaching the summit

2. The sand... it burns!
It seemed like after such a sweaty adventure, a nice relaxing lie-down on the beach would be the perfect antidote. We kicked off our shoes and ran onto the sand... and then shrieked (on my part at least, manly yells on Ben's part) as the heat of the sand scorched out feet. Really, scorched. I have never stood on something so hot in my life. We had to race into the sea. Then, we decided to swim out to these not-too-distant rocks which the locals were swarming over - it couldn't be too hard to get there, surely! Neither of us are brilliant swimmers... very average, in fact. It was quite far. I've never swum far out of my depth before, and certainly not in the sea. It was both terrifying and incredible to see the sea bed so far beneath me, and we made it, but we had to cling to each other on a tiny piece of rock that wasn't covered in sea urchins. Clearly the locals knew a trick we didn't. Personally, I was exhausted, but there was nothing for it but to swim back! A tough experience, but also one I'm proud of (as a poor swimmer).

The rocks we swam out to

3. The mosquitoes.
When we tried to get to sleep the first night, we... well, we failed, epically. We couldn't find the little stand that holds up the incense coils that keep away mosquitoes and it was too hot not to have the door open a crack so we were plagued by mosquitoes all night. At 4am we were still fending them off. Every time we would turn out the lights and lie down, we'd hear that dreaded humming noise and have to get up again. Despite finding the stand the second night, I still managed to get bitten about 10 times on my legs. Fortunately Amanda introduced me to Anthisan... I can still remember the relief. Sigh.

BUT!
There were of course many good points.
a) we ate all our meals in the local taverna, where the stuffed tomatoes were absolutely gorgeous and we were practically on the beach, looking out over the sea. The first night, Coleen and Amanda also joined us for dinner, and we had a great meal and drank lots of wine.
b) there was a mini supermarket which sold Special K and ice cream and all sorts of glorious goodies.
c) we were staying in an amazing flat overlooking the Aegean Ocean.
d) an enoooormous wild cat lived outside the flat who was very friendly
e) we went into a ceramics shop and looked around, and the moment we mentioned Amanda and Stathis the guy knew exactly who we meant and showed us around the workshop and let us choose from there! I bought a little patterned jug where I keep the stones and shells I collected from the beach.

What a view.

This was like a bad day in Paradise. It's still pretty darn good!

Greece Diary, Part Five: Seventeen Cats

There were a lot of cats on the farm in Skyros. Seventeen, to be exact. I never learned all their names but we had nicknames for a lot of them. Above is Mary (pictured left), Ben (centre...) and Hunter. Mary was our special favourite.

Look how pretty she is! And she was so smart too. Whenever we went near the kitchen she'd run over and try to climb into the fridge when we opened it. What for, who knows. The milk was very odd (I supposed she would have appreciated it anyway) but it wasn't fresh, something I've never had before. We also kept plenty of bottles of water in there and some leftovers from meals to snack on. Coleen also had a supply of oranges. She loves oranges. Anyway, Mary was the cat who joined us on our first morning, and from then on she would climb through our window in the middle of the night to join us in bed.

Let's talk some more about Hunter. We got to know this guy because every time we'd come into our room during the day we'd find him asleep on our bed. We took to calling him 'Sleepy McSleeperson'. Then, surprise of all surprises, we were driving along in the white van one day when Amanda saw him sitting at the side of the road and said, 'there's my Hunter'. 'Hunter?' I repeated, incredulous. 'Oh yes, he's my best little hunter...' Amanda replied. Apparently this sleepy, laid-back guy is a killing machine by night. Who knew?

Then we have the kittens: Max (orange) and Sisi. These two would not stop playing all day long, wrestling each other from dawn till dusk. They were so freaking adorable even I couldn't resist picking them up and cooing over them. Unfortunately they weren't at that stage of cat development where they start to appreciate human contact... they just wanted to get back to playing. The only way I could sustain their attention was to wiggle a piece of hay on the ground for them to chase.

I brought Max into the room once but he wasn't too keen to be there. He had to get back outside and play with Sisi. Big surprise.

This here's Hyena. We were calling her One-Eye until we learned her name - as you can see, she only had one working eye at the time. An infection was going round the cats that comes and goes every year. It closes up one or both of their eyes but eventually the gunk clears away and they can see again. Unfortunately for one little darling, its eyes were permanently crossed as a result of the infection. One-Eye above had just about regained her sight by the time we left thanks to some attention from Amanda and Coleen. 

There was another cat with one eye closed - Other One-Eye, whose name we never learned. This cat was very sweet but was so affectionate that it actually started to bug me. I wish I'd got a picture of her. Whenever she clambered off me (or I pushed her away) there'd be dirty paw prints all over my clothes. I don't know how the other cats didn't manage to have dirty paws but they never got me so mucky so I got pretty annoyed at Other One-Eye about it. She was also just so hairy. But I appreciate that she was just very full of love...

And this is the time the rooster kept trying to eat the cats' food. It was pretty amusing to watch Dimos chasing him away!

And that concludes this episode. Oh, how I miss Mary... :'(

Greece Diary, Part Four: The Dreaded Bales

Before we arrived, straw had been cut in one of the fields. A couple of days into our trip, a neighbour came to bale it up. This was fairly amusing/terrifying for me as he sent me running around the field moving already-baled hay out of the way, but we had no shared language which would have made his instructions easier. Then came our task: bringing the bales from the field to the barn.

It was pretty clear from the outset that I was the weakest of the three of us. I'm not weak but I'm not very strong either. And what this task required of us was taking out a wheelbarrow, loading it up with three straw bales - two on the bottom and one on top - and wheeling them into the barn. Let me just put this out there: some bales are relatively light. These were not. Oat straw is pretty bloody heavy. They must have been maybe 20 kilos each.

I knew we were lucky to be there and was happy to be earning my keep, but man was this hard work! Fortunately we were asked to bring in maybe three loads a day, each. We got the task done gradually over time. Mostly I worked in the barn (out of the Greek heat, thank God, but in with the Greek spiders) stacking the bales.

It started out small but soon I was lugging these 20 kilo bales up to the top of a high stack, then rolling them across while trying to avoid the leggy spiders dangling from the ceiling. At least I wasn't doing this:

I consider myself lucky. Coleen and Ben, you have my eternal respect. On one afternoon however we were all put to shame when Stathis appeared at noon, loaded up a wheelbarrow with eight bales (so the legend goes - I wasn't actually present) and brought them in without breaking a sweat.

I found that where I had bounced the straw off my bare legs (shorts) and arms I was covered in scratches and cuts. I was very proud of these - evidence of my hard work! Regardless, after 102 bales of straw, much sweat and a few tears, the barn was full.

It was the hardest work we did at the farm but it was work that needed to be done (before it could get rained on, and with 40+ ponies to look after this isn't the sort of job there's always time for) so I was proud of us all for doing it. I felt like we were earning our keep! But good GOD am I glad that it's over.

Signing off for today.

Next time: Greece Diary, Part Five: 17 Cats.

Greece Diary, Part Three: The Best of Dionni

This is kind of a sidetrack from my vaguely linear diary to express my love for this little girl. She was but a day old when we arrived, but after two weeks she was beginning to make her own way in the world... with her mum Frini by her side of course. This girl loved galloping up and down in the blazing heat while her mum tried to keep to the shade. She was the first purely black Skyrian foal to be born on Skyros for many years, and shows the signs of keeping her colour (unlike many foals born black whose coats fade to other colours). Here you are: her greatest hits.

A couple of days old!

Drinking with Mama Frini after a day when
the water was turned off

Having a scratch

Finally venturing into the volunteer room!

Kiss!

Enjoying a meal (accidentally saved this image really small,
 but it's beautiful - taken by Ben)

Meeting Coleen's favourite cat (image courtesy of Coleen)

And finally... Dionni's proudest moment...

The time she got stuck on the wall.

Greece Diary: Part Two - Adjusting

While we slept we were joined by an orange and white cat, whose name I later discovered to be Mary. A feral farm cat, she was there to keep the pests out - along with sixteen others.

Not such a flattering picture, but there'll be more.

When we woke Coleen gave us a quick tour of the farm. As we'd been lying there dozing I'd heard a lot of the sounds of the daily farm routine and spent a lot of time half-asleep imagining what was on the other side of the wall so actually putting things into perspective was a strange experience in my very tired state. The volunteer room is built into the stable block, so a side entrance (under a canopy of grapevines with very young grapes growing from them) led us to a row of stalls. The economic situation in Greece at the moment meant that the metal couplings used to build the stalls in the stables cost roughly £12 each, so Amanda and her partner Stathis couldn't afford to build a new permanent fence.

On the farm there are two main fields: the stallions, and the mares. In the other fields a couple of stallions live in fields with quasi-families. Effie and Victor were such an adorable couple. Stallions and mares don't often get to live together as there would be too many foals and some stallions can be a bit violent, Amanda told us, but Effie and Victor suited each other and were very easygoing. Ben immediately took a shine to Victor, who looked to him like a 'suave character' (or something to that effect).

Male bonding - Ben and Victor

A few of the mares were stabled when we arrived as they'd had a cold but they were fully recovered by the next day and we were able to take them back out into the field. A few quarantine measures, like dipping our feet in disinfectant after visiting their field, were kept in place to stop the infection from reaching the other ponies. We went into the stallions' field and did a bit of grooming to pass the time. Mostly this consisted of following the stallions around the field with a body brush and a curry comb and bonding with them as much as cleaning them. This is when I was introduced to Orfeas.

Little Orfeas

He was a scruffy little boy and the only one in the field wearing a headcollar. Coleen explained that he was not very sociable so if we got the chance we should give him a groom and try to socialise him a bit. Apparently, though Amanda had asked for him to be left out when the others were seen to, he had been caught for the first time and chipped when he was very young so he'd shied away from people ever since, expecting more pain. Amanda said that any handling I could do with him would be very helpful, so I made it my mission - when there wasn't other work to do and I could withstand the heat - to get him walking on a leadrope and accept being groomed. This would be a slow process and because we were only there for two weeks I didn't get very far - but more on that later.

After grooming we did the lunchtime muck-out and water while Amanda, Stathis and their friend Dimos did the feed. Then we sat down to lunch outside their house at a table under another canopy of vines, with cherries hanging down from a tree in the orchard. Dimos had cooked a delicious bean soup, which was a traditional Greek winter dish, with fresh-baked bread and feta cheese. There were flies everywhere and it was difficult to keep them off the food; we were told we'd eventually stop being bothered by it, which I suppose was true to an extent.

After lunch we had the afternoon off and Ben fell asleep again so I went along to the beach with Coleen. It's about a fifteen-minute walk from the farm along a dirt track which turned out to be a road. Along the way it became very overgrown and there was a lot of wire inexplicably on the ground. That area was also called 'snake country' by Amanda as the overgrown, slightly boggy ground was ideal for boas. They wouldn't do any harm, but we wouldn't want to step on one either - so we were told. This reminded me of something Dimos said when I asked him about the leggy beasts - were they poisonous? He seemed to be suggesting no, but then said 'I wouldn't push my luck'. He added that we do have snakes in England - and proceeded to sing the Black Adder theme. The last thing I expected to hear on a remote Greek island!

Our beach

We reached the beach. Our own private beach. Sorry, no - there was once a couple sunbathing, but they cleared off after a while and the beach was back to its normal occupancy. Coleen and I made plans to swim out to the island in the bay, but after climbing up the rocks and seeing a suspicious dark patch in the water between the shore and the island we never quite worked up the nerve. Especially after I'd laid eyes on my first sea urchin - I wasn't going to take my chances with those guys.

How do I describe the beach? After working all morning on the farm we would come here in the afternoons, wet with sweat, and immerse ourselves in cool, clear water. Then we'd lie on the beach until we were dry (not long), and I'd head back to the farm to take a cold shower. I can't stand lying on the beach and cooking.

Refreshing. That's the word.

Dimos cooked us a great pasta dinner after the evening muck out; he'd just improvised the recipe. I can still remember how satisfying it was, eating in the dark with the sounds of the insects and the animals after a long, amazing day. I remember being stunned by the sky because I'd never seen so many stars before, stretching out in all directions without an ounce of light pollution blocking them out.

Ben and I got an early night. It had been a very long day.

End of part two... next time: Special - Dionni.

Greece Diary, Part One - Getting There

Note about this diary: I travelled with my boyfriend Ben to the Greek island of Skyros from the 4th-19th June 2012, but I wrote this diary afterwards in one go. There are few dates and a lot is quite general; it's not a daily record! Just wanted to clarify that in advance.

Ben and I set off from Whitehaven train station at about 8am. Due to a diversion we had to change trains six times (including travelling across London) and only just got seats on one of them despite our reservations because a train with too few carriages had been sent out. We stopped in London overnight with my cousins, the Slaters, and watched the Queen's Golden Jubilee concert.

The next morning we flew from Gatwick to Athens. We were picked up at the airport by Janet, a woman originally from the North of England like us who now owns a B&B nearby which we were staying in since our flight wasn't until the following morning. We had gone for the cheapest flights possible but in future it might be worth considering whether getting a more expensive flight later, and staying in the airport, might be cheaper than staying over in Athens. Janet however treated us as if we were family friends and we felt right at home! Her beautiful house had a real orange tree (we marvelled at that for a while), feral cats wandering around and a lovely pool which Ben immediately went for a swim in. I was anxious to visit Athens while we had the chance so I managed to keep myself out of the water. The heat was intense though!

The garden of the B&B

Janet gave us a lift to the local metro station less than an hour later and bought us tickets for Athens. The tickets were valid for 90 minutes from the time they're stamped (and you stamp them yourselves with the time as you enter the station) so we had a second set of tickets to stamp on the way back. There were no seats on the train and after 20 minutes of standing we were both starting to feel quite faint. Finally we arrived in the central square where we half-heartedly searched for a Greek restaurant before settling on McDonalds. One thing we noticed right away is that there is no respect for the queue in Athens! You have to be assertive to the point of aggressive to be able to get to the till and then you need to have some knowledge of Greek. We'd done our best to learn some but it wouldn't have helped much - fortunately the lady at the till confirmed 'I speak' in a very cheery voice so we were able to order.

From there we went to the Acropolis and took a quick photo, but we were both feeling pretty wiped out by the heat so after popping into a souvenir shop to buy an evil eye necklace (to appear in later photos) we took the metro back out of Athens, called Janet and headed back.

The extent of our exploration of Athens

I found it difficult to get to sleep that night. I could hear someone swimming in the pool which was a lovely sound (that's sincerity) especially in the dark with the pool all lit up. There was a strange chorus of animal noises that I've never heard the like of; dogs barking, dozens of cats mewing, and insects. So many insects. Earlier that evening Ben and me had seen a huge wasp-like creature with two long legs hovering outside our window which we had dubbed the 'leggy beast' - it was like something out of Doctor Who. We would be seeing a lot more of these guys over the next couple of weeks.

I must have slept eventually but at 4am we were up again to meet the taxi Janet had kindly ordered for us. The moon was out, the road was empty and the strange chorus of animals was still going. I felt very edgy standing at the side of the road with all our belongings at 4.50am but the taxi found us eventually.

Ben and the moon at 4am in Greece

At Athens Airport we spent half an hour queueing to drop our baggage before being told we were in the wrong line (Frankfurt, not Skyros). We were now in a bit of a rush but there was absolutely no queue for the Skyros baggage drop. We ran to the gate but were a couple of minutes early.

Empty plane

There were four people on the plane, including us. An airbus. It was unbelievable. We were offered orange juice but turned it down before realising it was complimentary. We weren't exactly used to the Aegean Airlines service, being more used to Easyjet. We were given complimentary chocolate croissants which we fortunately didn't turn down and we moved a few rows back for an unobstructed view of the Aegean Sea. We levelled out for all of five minutes before we began our descent; about 20 minutes total. From the air, Skyros was bigger than we'd anticipated, expecting to be able to see the whole island from our windows. I doubt we'd have been able to land on it in that case. The pilot seemed to overshoot the runway so he had to do another circle before we could land. The 'airport' is actually a Greek Air Force base which also turned out to be only ten minutes from the farm; we'd see other planes coming in to land throughout our trip, some huge, and so close. The hangars were built into the hills. 

Amanda (another English expat - how at home we felt!) picked us up from the airport in her white van. I remember thinking to myself as I loaded our rucksacks into the back, 'so that's the kind of place this will be'. I mean this in a positive way. The back of the van was filled with hay, and I knew at once we were staying with real horsey people. We didn't bother with seatbelts - there was barely anyone else on the narrow roads. The landscape was arid and hilly but Amanda surprised me by saying the land wasn't usually so green at this time of year; the sun had usually burnt it all off by now. When we reached the farm we were introduced to a newborn foal, Dionni (soon to take a place in our hearts), and then escorted straight to our room so that we could get some sleep. I was so grateful for that; we were both exhausted. We met our fellow volunteer, Coleen, briefly before collapsing onto the bed to sleep alongside a couple of farm cats.

End of part one!

Related links:

St Thomas B&B (where we stayed in Athens)

The Unsettled Texan (Coleen's blog)

Friends of the Skyrian Horse (the farm)