Fuzzy contentment

My haystack has been snipped off and swept away by lovely hair people and I can see out from under again :). What's more, the little girl who washed it did a really good head massage!
So I've made little quiches for Barney's lunches. I know it's Friday so he'll only get to eat one this week, but quite possibly we'll eat the other 4 over the weekend. Then I'll have to make a whole lot more for next week.
And I've booked us dinner for his birthday - we're going French, which is to say Madame will be taking M'sieur to dinner at a French restaurant in Reading. I think I shall wear my Florence and Fred cashmere cardi. 'Cos i think it's a tiny bit elegant (though also a bit hairy, being black and the cats being various shades of grey, white and black). Yes and the little Dorothy Perkins black top with a cream lace neckline. Or maybe the black and silver embroidered jacket from last year's Fairport Convention festival. Or maybe RED!
Oh decisions decisions.
Now I'm extremely hungry. Eating half the ingredients for the quiches (which turned out to be a good thing as I'd prepared a bit too much ingredient) wasn't quite enough and he's gone to look at stamps and anyway dinner's not ready. But the smell of little quiches is filling the kitchen. there's bacon, mushroom and garlic and olive and anchovy.

Which reminds me of a long-ago, heavenly holiday in Greece.
There was the bank clerk, who having told us we couldn't withdraw money since the bank was closed (? How did we get to walk in then?) smiled beatifically at us and produced 3 slices of melon from under the counter which he gave to us , saying, "unlucky in money but lucky in melon" . Two of us were thereafter totally in love.*
There were the three old men I encountered in the orange groves, early one morning, who chatted politely in broken English, and then gave me oranges and then asked nicely if they could please play with my breasts. Some sign language was required for this bit. When I said no, not really, and offered them the oranges back, they all smiled (can old Greek men smile beatifically?) and said, never mind, keep the oranges :)
There was the waiter, who on learning that one of us was suffering the slings and arrows of an outraged stomach, immediately rushed off and returned with a plate piled with salad and heaped on top with thin slivers of raw garlic. This he assured us would cure the sick one and prevent the others from suffering the same misfortune. It worked.
There was an early morning when Roger and I swam across the bay. It was probably about 3/4 of a mile and till then, I was the kind of swimmer who would always swim at least one length of any swimming pool. And only one length. The warm, still, salty water cradled us and the early sun bathed us gently in light and warmth. Jelly fish politely avoided us and we had coffee and some sort of bread in Epidauros port when we emerged at the other end. A glorious, quiet, triumphant sea change.
There was the huge fig tree by the entrance to our tents. And by the steps that led to the beach.**
There was a tiny, tiny, Byzantine church in Athens which was like walking into a jewel. All silver and gold and sparkling icons and cool flagstones and soft, candlelit gloom.***

Poppies, more red than any red anywhere else in the world.
Mountains, bare and sparse but laden and groaning under a weight of awful legend.
A strange, clear, subtle, hot light.
The scent of herbs, orange blossom, and the sea.
The theatre at Epidauros, stone circle, dark trees, and the sound of a pin dropping.****

Barney and I tried to find the camp site and the bay when we went for our 25th anniversary. There was some kind of evil oil refinery in the bay and the camp site looked a lot the worse for wear. The fig tree was gone. But Epidauros remains, the poppies are still more red than red and the light still graces the legend laden mountains.




*The female two.
**This was probably the cause of the stomach trouble
***I think I'm actually combining two churches here, one tiny and candlelit gloom and the other softly gleaming with kings ransoms of silver and gold. No matter :)
****If you stand at the back row, high up and far away from the tiny circular auditorium, your guide drops a pin and I swear, you can hear it.