June 2010
Hersonissos was just as beautiful the second time around as it had been the first, just three years before. The girls loved it - well, with Sam being 12 and Jo 9, the Greek Islands were, quite simply, paradise. We couldn’t get into the rooms we had had before, but that turned out to be our gain; Manolis had a beautiful assortment of white clad apartments all clustered around a sheltered pool. The walkways were shaded with vines and the grapes hanging in heavy bunches from them were huge, sweet and succulent. But best of all, Manolis made no commercial use of them and he was happy for the girls to harvest the fruit as freely as they liked.
Being true water babies and very strong swimmers for their age, both girls spent every morning and every evening in the pool and it didn’t take them long to discover the delights of ‘grape diving’. A handful of the huge grapes were thrown far out into the pool and they would then spend hours duck diving for them, surfacing only for breath and to eat their prize.
It was there that they met and befriended Georgiou, Manolis’ son who was only a couple of years older than Sam. Of course, they both had a crush on him and unashamedly vied for his attention, but he was a kind and thoughtful boy, who was obviously well used to this kind of attention. Nevertheless, he started to spend a lot more of his time around the pool.
Now, Crete is all uphill. It seems that wherever you go, it is always a long walk back in an upward direction. But the walk downhill was worth it. Hersonissos boasted one of Crete’s finest beaches; pure white sand, gently sloping into a warm and calm azure sea. The beach was a little busier than it had been on our previous holiday, but a short walk down to the end took us far from the madding crowd.
It was here that my wife would lie and read her novel and soak up the sun, while the girls and I would beach comb, trawling the shallow pools at the point where the beach gave way to the rocks. There was an abundance of life in these tiny environs and both buckets would soon be filled with crabs, almost transparent shrimpy things and interestingly shaped shells. My enduring memory of that holiday is the sight of two small bums thrust up to the sky whilst the rest of the girls was rummaging around under the small rocks and chasing the pond life around the warm shallow water.
We had a small two man dinghy, bright orange with two blue oars, which collapsed down sufficiently to fit into a suitcase, in the days when they were not so strict on baggage allowance. Tied to the front of the boat was a length of blue plastic rope, which was all the only accessory we needed for hours of fun. The combinations were endless, sometimes Jo would lounge in the back, trailing her hands in the water, while Sam floated behind on her lilo, with the rope tied around her big toe. Then Jo would take a turn on the lilo while Sam duck-dived, trying to reach the brilliantly coloured starfish, which were always just that little bit too far down to catch. Then a lazy swim back to the shore, with a boat and a lilo in tow. It was truly idyllic and there was nothing more in life I could possibly have wished for.
In the evenings, it was a trudge back up the track through the maquis grass to the apartment, covered in sand, bags full of heavy beach detritus; but a refreshing shower and a change of clothes brings new vitality and with a glass of wine on the balcony, feet up on the low white wall, watching the sun set over the bay while three girls got themselves slowly ready was my idea of heaven – they could take as long as they liked for all I cared!
There was always a demand for a little retail therapy before the evening meal and the walk down to the town centre shops ran the gauntlet of the seemingly endless row of tavernas which lined the beach. Each one had a front man, or lady, who would say and do almost anything, short of physically dragging you by the neck, to persuade you to eat at their establishment that evening. But the shops beckoned, so it was polite refusal after firm and polite refusal all the way down to the centre. There the shops were typical Greek tourist shops, selling everything you could not live without: the latest bikini; a larger and more macho boat; large gaudy things constructed entirely from brightly coloured shells and, last but not least, two frilly, lacy, elaborately flared pink dresses. These the two girls most definitely could not possibly live without!
We sampled several of the tavernas, but settled on one to be our regular. It was quite simply furnished, but it had a gentle ethnic atmosphere, with waiters who showered two small Shirley Valentines with endless flirting and flattery. There we would sit for a couple of hours, sampling traditional Greek delights, listening to pulsating bouzouki music and enjoying the frenetic whirling of the Greek dancers. Out on the water, the fishing boats drifted effortlessly around the bay, their small yellow lights glimmering on the surface of the water, but unable to outshine the full moon, which laid before us a wide silver trail to the horizon.
Each meal would end up with the offer of a drink, which was, for us at least, an unnecessary enticement to patronise this particular tavern the following evening. It was here that I had been introduced to Ouzo. At first it was an unpleasant, powerful aniseed moonshine, which my wife could not stomach, and which I, being far too polite to refuse, manfully drank two at a time after every meal, quickly developing a taste for it and eventually creating room in the suitcase for a bottle to sit alongside the 5 star Metaxa.
Then, the walk back up to the apartment in the cool of the evening, which, with a full stomach and a spinning head, always seemed much shorter than it had been those few short hours earlier.
Our penultimate day came with an invitation to accompany Georgiou on a fishing trip. There was no boat, he kitted himself out in his half wet suit and spear gun and I followed him out on a lilo. We spent an hour or more far out in the waters of a secluded bay while he dived down and speared a total of three very small fish, which he secured in a net tied to his waist.
Then we made our way slowly back to shore, where Georgiou suddenly realised to his horror that, during the swim, his money had fallen out of the pocket of his trunks. We all waded back in and retraced our steps and, miraculously, we managed to recover all but a couple of the lost banknotes, limp and soggy, from the sea bottom.
As I am sat in front of my keyboard, the English June rain is beating down on the windows and writing this is making me wish so much that I could be back in the Greek islands right now!