Directing your energy towards being lazy is not an easy thing to do. Relaxing takes effort. It’s a mind over body thing. Or maybe a mind over mind thing. Like a menu where everything comes with spam (or chips) it can leave you teetering on the edge of boredom.
A late evening hilly bike hike to the left, followed by a mid-morning one to the right helps to distract. Frees the mind. Gives it time to concentrate on nothing. Just the task in hand. Snaps it out of its ‘wotnexdo’ mode.
Our mid-day walk into Ouranoupoli for lunch part of our day’s menu. A short 2K roadside trek. It’s a small village. Built on a traditional grid system. Probably used by the ancients for playing noughts and crosses. A big outlet for day trippers. Caught and coached in from far and wide. Hooked up with a boat to catch. Fed a line or two. Being the last village this side of the Mount Athos Monastic State it’s perfectly placed. Reels them in. Then tosses them out on the waves. Gets them close to the twenty monasteries. A three hour return. We resist. Three minutes floating time all my weak landlubber stomach can take.
Our ‘Don’t You Wish You Were Here?’ view from our lunchtime lookout helps us linger longer. Seems everyone’s gone to lunch.
The grid system means we won’t get lost. We knows our lefts from our rights. Walk off lunch. Many houses and apartments overflow with flowers. Bringing brightness. Seems to be a Greek way. Oodles of little nurseries in and around most towns and villages. Doing a roaring trade. Our favourite display worth dix points.
We stop and admire a local brickie’s craftwork. He beckons. Allows us to watch. Each stone picked, placed and patted. Each an apparent random selection to the uninitiated.
Back at camp we end the afternoon with a large plate of spam and chips. Lie back, relax, read, swim. Evening sees us help ourselves to seconds. Watch a Netflix Original. In The Shadow of Iris. Much more entertaining than the Champions League Final – so I hear . . .
With a forecast change in the weather we decide to head further east and north. 200K up the road. Bulgaria almost in view. We’re now pitched up near Mandra – Camping Natura. It’s just past midnight and a big storm’s brewing. Thunder rolls around the hills like a fairground walzer. Spins the wind into a frenzy. A whirling dervish of the wet stuff is on its way.
Have just received your lovely card. Many thanks – I can now take down from the kitchen wall the one you sent from the snowy roads of Morocco!
Glad to hear it arrived safely Rog and that you only received one! TouchNote has been playing up and pinching back my credits telling me two or three have been sent to the same person!!