Saturday, 6 March 2010

Greece wounds...



I'm in the UK for a while.

The first day back in the country I had lunch with the owner-editors of two county magazines, Wiltshire Life and Dorset Life. We met at the Haunch of Venison in Salisbury. A good way to get the low-down on this part of the world.

Already missing Corfu! What is it about Corfu that, as soon as you leave it, you miss it, and start feeling the pain of separation, as if from a loved one (whatever their faults!)?

We all know Seferis' line about Greece wounding him, wherever he travelled. Corfu does that too, once it's managed to sink its claws into you.

"Wherever I travel, Greece wounds me" (G. Seferis, In the Manner of G.S.)

You can't shake it off. That's the Corfu blues.

We all know about the effects of drinking the water from the spring of Kardaki (Mavilis writes about it in an old poem; you would be unwise to drink from it these days). I drank it in the years when it wasn't polluted. So there's no hope of escape, or of a return to the homeland.

"Kai opoios xenos ekei to heili vrechei, sta gonika tou plia de tha yirisei”. (Lorenzos Mavilis: ”Kardaki").

Can you identify the places in the photos?

3 comments:

  1. I recognise Ag Stephanos but I wondered if you were playing a trick. It looks like a picture taken the same day as this one:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/sibadd/4372587444/sizes/l/

    But there none of the familiar silhouettes so I wondered if it was another sceptered isle, especially as the waves look high for the sea of Kerkyra.
    By the way Amazon have delivered your book. Simon

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  2. Whoops, not Ag Stephanos; that place just north of Kalami. Can't remember its name. S

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  3. The top one is Lyme Regis, Dorset, the bottom one is Kouloura, Corfu.

    Bravo!

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