The world from my porthole

Bon voyage

2011-09-21T13:19:00.000+01:00

So we say goodbye to the Putters, the Greek mainland and Keffalonia and Ithaca and Meganisi and hot, hot weather.

And a total of eight books:

Eat Pray Love
Diary of a Nobody
One Day
Keith Floyd's autobiography, Stirred but not Shaken
The Moonstone
That Summer in Ischia
The Book of Tomorrow
The Lost World

Guess who had a Kindle for her birthday.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Sweet dreams are made of this

2011-09-11T06:35:00.000+01:00

The boat has been a part of our lives for a few years now. Last night, it even featured in my dreams.

Mr Grigg and I were sitting having a drink at De Vinchies, a now defunct club in My Kind of Town, when various hen and stag parties walked by, in high heels and Oompa Loompa outfits. Mr Grigg then suddenly declared he was going to bring the boat through.

Cut to a canal-style lock, with the tall masts of Nestor just fitting in beneath the nightclub roof, and then the beer-sodden, fag-ridden nightclub floor between the boat and the sea beyond.

I told him it was impossible but he insisted he could do it. The brightly-dressed clientele lent a hand to lift the boat's bow across the floor, much to the annoyance of the bar staff who were concerned at losing trade. I then presented a barmaid called Ann with a raffle prize before going back to lead the yo-heave-ho. It was no good, they couldn't lift it.

And then I woke up.

I am used to these vivid dreams in the Ionian. Probably too much sun, wine and all that calamari.

Today, we take the Putters back, along with Mr Grigg's brother who is so handy with a windlass.

Mr Putter has become do-er rather than dour as he takes the helm to avoid the seasickness he feels by just looking on. The fragrant Mrs Putter has brought a touch of Lush Places glamour to the boat, armed with nappy bags and wet wipes for the loo and the brilliant tip of lighting a match instead of cloying air freshener after using the lavatory. Every bathroom should have a box.

We will miss their company. My lasting memory is of Mr Putter rowing the dinghy as Mr Grigg and his brother snorkel to collect what Mr Grigg insists are a type of scallop from the seabed. Mrs Putter, discussing their find with an Italian gentleman who happens to be treading water nearby (attracted, no doubt, by siren Mrs Putter's fragrance), confirms they are endangered species which taste terrible.

The large bivalves are dispatched back into the water, with Mr Grigg annoyed at missing out on fresh lunch.

I took a photo of him with one of them just before the crew made the decision that the Noble Pen Shell (for this is what Wikipedia later tells me they are) should be returned to the seabed.

If figured it would have been useful to show the hospital when I took Mr Grigg to have his stompach pumped out.

'Remember the puffball,' I tell him.

His gills go green at the memory and the long wait in the A&E department.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Views of the southern Ionian

2011-09-08T08:21:00.000+01:00

And now the Putters have arrived.

Fragrant Mrs Putter wafts in from Preveza, accompanied by the dour Mr Putt-Putter, who immediately starts talking about the parish plan and how quiet the square is since the shop shut.

I imagine our hanging baskets wilting in the sun, my car's handbrake rusting while we are away and no-one, just no-one, stopping to talk any more. It's sad state of affairs.

Meanwhile, we are in Lefkas Town, a strange jumble of colourful buildings which look like they should be in a frontier town in south America rather than somewhere in the south Ionian.

During the day, the place is eerily quiet.

At night, the place is buzzing.

Meanwhile, up in Sivota, this is the world from my window.

From the hotel here.

And on the way to Preveza, to pick up Mr Grigg's Brother Number Two and the Putters, we stop off for a bit of sightseeting. We find the remains of the ancient city of Nikopolis, created by the Emperor Augustus after (as Julius Caesar's nephew, Octavius) defeating Mark Antony at the Battle of Aktion in 31 BCE.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

The entrancing world of Dodoni, ancient and modern

2011-09-02T16:58:00.002+01:00

The world from my window is going round like a giant ferris wheel outside while I sleep.

Every now and then, I wake, excited.

Each time, I see a different set of stars. Cassiopeia and then a constellation I don't recognise, four stars in a square and then a bright planet. And then I realise it's not a planet, it's the reflection of the air conditioning unit on the glass.

Mr Grigg is still sleeping as the sun rises. There is an orange glow above the skyline. I reach for the camera.

An hour or so later, we are downstairs, dogs barking lazily in the early morning heat and Katerina's mother tizzling up an omelette with ham and feta.

When we arrived at this hotel yesterday, this strange, Barcelona-inspired art hotel in the middle of nowhere, I couldn't quite believe it.

First there was this pink sign:

And then there was this, which sounded more like an order:

It was entrancing all right:

It sticks out like Gaudi's thumb in an ancient Greek landscape. And I love it.

Besides, they were playing Bits and Pieces by the Average White Band when we walked in through the door.

And as we sat down for dinner, the only ones in the hotel it seemed, Melina Mercouri started singing Never on a Sunday. Things could only get better.

And then, this morning, they do. I can see the ancient ruins of Dodona in the distance.

We wind our way down the hill, past teasels, old man's beard, fig trees, blackberrries, elderberries and avocado, the tinkling bells of a sheep and into the valley below.

We approach the amphitheatre, created by King Pyrrhus in 290 BCE and converted by the Emperor Augustus into a place of gladiatorial combat in 31 BCE.

And then to the sacred oak, the singing ringing tree of ancient Greece, where the voice of Zeus whispered its oracle pronouncements through the rustling leaves.

Just what is it the oracle is saying to me? I come over all romantic. At this point, a Japanese student takes a close-up picture of an oak leaf.

And then sneezes loudly.

I hope it's a good omen.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Greece: all at sea

2011-06-30T16:28:00.000+01:00

In Sivota, the waves are crashing against the quayside. Mr Grigg and another skipper break into a boat to move it away from the sea wall. The crew is not aboard, they are out on a calmer part of the mainland and oblivious to the drama unfolding.

The day before saw Mr Grigg attempting to dislodge a blockage from the heads. Balancing precariously in the dinghy, he pumped air in to the outlet, only to be dislodged time and time again by the swell. Finally, there was a whoosh and the sea became momentarily brown.

He wouldn't mind, but it was not even ours. We could tell by the sweetcorn.

The bad things are put behind us as we sail across to Lakka, a gem of a blue bay on Paxos, and then we take seven attempts to anchor securely. Each time we think we have done it, the anchor does not hold and we find ourselves perilously close to the next boat or the rocks.

Later, when all is calm and we are tucked in nicely, we take a short taxi ride to Pratigos and a new taverna overlooking the sea. There we meet my former hairdresser - who just happened to be on the same flight over with her husband - and someone I have not seen for years. This retired West Dorset farmer has settled in well to his new life, he and his wife are learning the language and have brought their teacher along to prove it.

After a lovely meal and conversation about the crisis facing Greece - the people blame corrupt politicians and say they want the country to go bankrupt so they can re-set the country's course - we take a taxi back to the port, the driver bringing his wife along for the ride.

Tonight we will visit our old friend's new home where we will eat, drink and be merry - but not too merry in case the anchor does not hold.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Catching up with old friends

2011-06-28T13:56:00.001+01:00

Holed up in Corfu with Mr Grigg, he playing Odysseus to my Calypso, the waves are jumping for joy. The sea is slopping around like an upset stomach.

We are back in the Ionian. For ten days - not nearly long enough for my liking, but better than nothing - we will pootle around, sailing here and there wherever the wind, and the mood, takes us.

In the airport queue, by a quirk of chance, I see old friends who are on their way to see another old friend who has gone native on the island of Paxos after selling his farm in the folds of Dorset's beautiful Eggardon Hill. I always said to the father of Number One Son this person was 'my first reserve' - jokingly, of course, but enough to keep him on his toes.

But now I have Mr Grigg, my number one husband, my only husband, who today celebrates his 60th birthday, with a glass or five of Corfiot wine (Grammenos Family). The wind has died down now, and we are gently bobbing on the quayside at Mourtos, on the mainland, while our old friend, Andreas, at The Bamboo Place is walking fast, like a running train, serving the people who are all his 'friends'.

A day or so ago, on a windswept beach in the north of Corfu, we look for one of our favourite tavernas, The Three Brothers at Astrakeri. It is all shut up now, and we are sad. This place was an unspoilt gem, where the three brothers - Jack, Costas and Spiros - sat far apart from each other on plastic chairs up against the back wall, while their wives slaved over a hot stove. This is the place where I sampled octopus in red sauce that has never been beaten. And now it is gone.

So we head up the hill, downhearted, looking around us.

'Oh look,' Mr Grigg says. 'The Three Brothers.'

We smile and think 'that's nice' and then the car screeches to a halt as I yell out 'stop!'

It is The Three Brothers re-born in a slightly different location, with just Costas and his octopus-in-red-sauce-cooking wife at the helm and his three sons front of house.

It is Jiannis I recognise: a young, very talented graphic designer who spends the winter working in bars in Birmingham.

'Hello Maddie!' he shouts. 'I see two thousand people every year and I remember you!'

So we sit on the balcony, overlooking the wild coast and an electricity junction box.

After the national strike, the power is back on, and Jiannis' mother is cooking.

So by the light of the setting sun, we feast on octopus and think ourselves very lucky to have stumbled yet again on another enchanted village, far away from our own, but on a par with our lovely Lush Places.

And in the evening, the excitement mounts as I Skype a friend I have never met. The lovely, loyal and beautiful Pondside, in preparation for our book club meeting across the internet when we get back home, linking Vancouver Island with our special part of Dorset.

We are reading Mistress of Nothing. But me, right now I feel I am mistress of all I survey.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Meganisi: an enchanting spot

2010-10-15T15:02:00.000+01:00

In Spartakhori, there is a crowd outside the little church. The people mill around the courtyard, a polished, black coffin lid propped up against the whitewashed wall.

We walk along the road, joined by a small cat, and look out across the bay.

Rod Heikell, in his Ionian pilot book, describes the place where we are moored as an enchanting spot.

‘Deep cobalt blue water, steep slopes planted with olives or covered in maquis, and the winding road shaded by cypress and pine leading to the village.’

From here you can see the Onassis island, Skorpios, with its flat-top helipad and the little Cyclades-style beach house where Jackie O found solitude away from prying eyes.

We walk on, the daemon cat that was once at our heels now in a stand-off with a large black feline guarding a plot of land on which there are some olive trees, three motor boats, an old shack, a dozen hens and three arrogant cockerels.

After the rain, the sun comes out and tinkling bells of sheep and goats sound like a babbling stream.

The melon man, usually announcing his wares on the loudspeaker at the front of his van, drives slowly by, a coffin in the back and groups of mourners walking slowly behind, chatting in groups and flicking their rosary beads and smoking, on their way to cemetery.

The cockerels in their enclosures call out across Meganisi, their cries echoing across the valley to the next bay.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Journey to the centre of the earth: a hymn to Delphi, ancient and modern

2010-10-13T18:51:00.003+01:00

Photo: Chucknado, Flickr

I am in Delphi, the centre of the world for ancient Greeks, where the god Apollo slew the Python as she guarded the earth's navel.

This is the land of the gods, Greek heroes, the famed oracle, Homeric poetry, athletes partaking in the Pythian Games, philosophers, Plutarch, Nero. There are columns from all the classical orders, inscriptions on marble slabs and, in the museum, friezes showing scenes from the Trojan War. There is the world's first written musical melody, a huge statue of the all-seeing, all-knowing Delphic sphinx, three graceful dancing girls at the top of a column decorated with acanthus leaves carved out of stone, the fixed gaze of a charioteer, intricate votive offerings and the remnants of a silver bull.

In ancient times, this was the most important place in the whole world. The centre of civilisation.

Down at our hotel in modern Delphi, Mr Grigg is in deep conversation with the proprietor, Nick, as the latter flicks languidly through the television channels in the lobby. He hovers on the scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid where Paul Newman and Robert Redford are about to jump into the river.

'All the politicans are corrupt. They steal money. The Greeks, the English. The politicians, they are all the same,' he tells Mr Grigg, as he flicks to an inane game show with a hostess wearing a skirt no longer than a charioteer's loin cloth.

And then he plunges in the knife and twists it. 'Your Queen, she steal money,' Nick says, jabbing his finger into Mr Grigg's shoulder.

Mr Grigg, that defender of the British monarchy, protests. (One day, his devotion to the Royal family will earn him a knighthood. Me, I make a point of not standing up for God Save the Queen).

'What about the Chinese?' Mr Grigg says, in a deft piece of distractive debate worthy of Plato. He is referring to the latest development in the Greek economic crisis. The Chinese, it seems, are to be the country's saviour, overcoming the Python and working with the new government and investing in hotels and casinos near Athens.

'Aren't you suspicious of their motives?' he asks old Nick, who has a face like Rumpole of the Bailey.

Nick shrugs. 'They bring money. They bring jobs.'

As we sign out of the hotel, on which a Visa sign can be seen clearly on the front door, Nick shakes his head as Mr Grigg proffers his debit card.

'No, no card. Only cash.' Nick licks his lips. I see a flicker of the Python's forked tongue and glimpse a pile of banknotes in the back office (and no offer of a receipt) as we drive off into the wilderness.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

The games people play

2010-10-11T10:55:00.001+01:00

As the rain and wind head towards us from the south, Mr Grigg has become the solitaire champion of the South Ionian. In stormy weather, no-one can see you cheat.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

Hark, Odysseus is calling

2010-10-08T10:56:00.001+01:00

There is a place in the Mediterranean that I love. It’s called Ithaca, and I’m not the first person to have fallen under its spell.

‘If this island belonged to me,’ said the romantic poet Lord Byron, ‘I would bury all my books here and never go away.’

I get the same feeling every time I come back. Why would I ever want to leave?

In the October sun, Vathi, the island’s capital, sprawls out to catch the autumn rays. A dog barks continually, a scooter skims by, and in a little house with a ‘ban the bomb’ sign painted on the wall, a middle-aged man and a middle aged woman unpack a supermarket bag full of fruit on to the patio table.

There is the smell of woodsmoke, the aromatic scent of moussaka gently bubbling and the sound of builders lazily drilling in a house way up on the hillside.

I am waiting inside the boat, lying inside the aft cabin like Penelope longing for her Odysseus.

But he is up in the cockpit, glass of wine in hand and snoring sweetly.

He wakes as another boat pulls in alongside, the skipper yelling: 'Wolfgang, put more anchor chain out.'

My Odysseus bids good day to our new neighbours. I can hear cordiality in the air. Mr Grigg being nice to a German. This magical island has that kind of effect.

That’s about it.

Love Maddie x

To get ahead, get a hat

2010-07-14T11:08:00.000+01:00

After high winds in Ithaca, where we are marooned in Vathi harbour for two days, on the third day all is calm.

With us are our crew, Mr and Mrs Champagne-Charlie, our neighbours from The Enchanted Village. Earlier in the week he stepped out from the Easy Jet plane at Corfu airport in blazer and panama hat and carrying two bottles of champagne.

'Is he royalty?' we heard a woman with a faded tattoo ask her husband in cropped trousers and fake Crocs.

Now, five days into the voyage, we still keep hearing cheerful mutters of 'bugger', 'bollocks' and worse as Champagne-Charlie hits his head on bits that protrude in the cockpit. The panama is not much use on board a boat.

Today we are off to explore the island on scooters. The boys arrive at the quayside on their newly-collected bikes and are wearing rather fetching crash helmets.

'These must be our dates for the day,' Mrs Champagne-Charlie says, confiding in me her terror at the prospect of riding pillion around hairpin bends.

'He hasn't ridden a scooter for at least forty years,' she says through gritted teeth.

Champagne-Charlie comes aboard with black crash helmet, like the policeman in Terminator II, and turns to Mr Grigg and says: 'I could wear this all day, chap.'

And so he should. Much more protection than a panama.

Onwards and upwards to the lovely village of Stavros, overlooking the bay at Polis, before heading across to Keffalonia where it's back to the airport for me. Until the next time.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

When the wind blows

2010-07-08T16:21:00.000+01:00

I am sitting alone in the stuffy cabin of our boat in the wind-tossed bay of Vathi in Ithaca. I want to get to shore but cannot reach it - Mr Grigg and the Champagne-Charlies are in a bar somewhere and they've got the dinghy.

I also keeping getting Mr Grigg's answerphone message when I try his mobile to tell him to please come back and get me, I'm feeling as sick as a dog.

But like Odysseus, I am facing my own challenges before being able to set foot on dry land. Namely a 2,000-word Open University essay on the role of black slavery in the modernisation of the Atlantic world. I am nauseous, bobbing around and a little bit frightened - although not half as sick as those poor slaves must have felt. The essay has to be emailed by noon tomorrow and I've still got 1,400 words to go.

And yesterday, as we were trying to anchor in a harbour full of white caps, Mr Grigg fell in the seated position on my neck. All 16-stone of him.

It sorted the crick out. But now I've got a headache.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

To hell and back

2010-07-04T11:07:00.001+01:00

Just in the Thessaly region of Greece, I get closer to God as I climb with Mr Grigg to Agia Triada (Holy Trinity), one of the many monasteries that perch on the ancient pinnacles of Meteora.

It is a strange place, like something from the set of a science fiction film. I am also reminded of Black Narcissus. Any moment now I expect a crazed nun to jump out on me thinking I am Deborah Kerr.

But I am not and I make it to the top and back to the bottom again in the baking heat, just as storm clouds descend and forked lightning rattles through the mountains.

Then to Ionianna and the tomb of the decapitated Ali Pasha. Down at the coast, we make our way from an overnight stay in Sivota to the Necromanteion of Ephyra, the ancient Greek oracle of the dead. We pass azaleas, hollyhocks, wild thyme and olive groves along the roadside.

This is somewhere I have been wanting to visit properly for several years. On our first visit, the place was closed but Mr Grigg found a hole in the fence where I climbed through. It was too small for him, so he and a solitary tortoise stood guard on the outside.

Back then, I wandered around the ruins of this eerie place on my own. I tried to picture it when the ancient Greeks came to communicate with the dead. Odysseus stopped here for a chat with Teiresias. Stupefied visitors were lowered down by windlass to the chamber below, the palace of Hades and Persephone. In my head was a scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, but a silent version.

I found a metal stairway going down into a hole in the floor. Down below it was dark, dank and I had no idea how deep it went. I pictured myself in a thriller, at the point where the viewer thinks 'don't go down there you idiot', so I didn't. I decided to wait another day.

The day has come. We take a boat ride up the lazy River Acheron, which in mythology was one of the four rivers including the Styx that converged at the centrerof Hades on a great marsh. Our bony skipper could be Charon, who ferried the dead across the river to the underworld.

At the Necromanteion, we wander around until we find the hole in the floor. Mr Grigg goes first down the stairs and I follow, clutching the cold metal rail in my clammy hand. The temperature drops, the subterranean room smells earthy and it feels claustrophobic. Not as large as I imagined Hades to be, but other wordly just the same.

And we emerge into the sunlight again, to see a mother stork and a nest of youngsters high up on a lamp post.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

A Greek chorus

2010-07-02T08:30:00.001+01:00

High above Metsovo, the sky darkens. A thunderclap breaks the gloom, crackingly loud as if the gods are playing bowls overhead. We drive towards the 1,705 metre Katara Pass, once the only route through these lonely mountains.

The sun comes out in a flash that is almost blinding. Pine trees cling to the sides of the mountains, holding on for dear life, while campanula, yellow yarrow and thistle pause for breath.

In the town square of Metsovo, the old men sit in the long shelter in front of the gardens. They are all wearing suit jackets and an assortment of hats including flat caps and baseball caps and black berets. They gabble, flicking their rosary beads and clacking their shepherd crooks. One of them stands up, gazing at the black-edged obituaries on the notice board.

'You next,' says one of them with a laugh.

A haze of woodsmoke hits the cold air and the kokoretsi on the grill turns slowly, its ribbons dripping fat on the embers below.

An old man comes around the corner, taps with his stick on one of the posts supporting the shelter and shouts to his friends: 'Anyone at home?'

'No, we left long ago,' say the ghosts of old men past.

They come alive as a group of young women in short dresses bend over to pack the boot of a nearby car. An old woman in traditional costume picks her way down the cobbled street and the men turn to ghosts once more, clasping their hands over the ends of their walking sticks as if in a combined act of prayer.

In the courtyard of a house where truffles dry out in the sun, a little old man and woman stoke up a cauldron and make some butter.

Up in the mountains, where grizzly shepherds roam with gravel-voiced dogs and the occasional brown bear, the Katara Pass beckons us. We are off to Meteora, with its myriad of monasteries perched high on mounds of stone rising up from the earth.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x

He saw the whole of the moon

2010-06-30T08:06:00.002+01:00

High in the Epirus mountains, Mr Grigg is regaining his joie de vivre after England were well and truly routed by Germany in the World Cup.

Spoons at Gatwick

Our holiday starts at the airport and the timing of our flight means that soccer-mad Mr Grigg watches the match in Gatwick's Wetherspoons. This gives me plenty of time to shop for books and shoes - two things I like very much. When I go back to the bar, the less than beautiful game is still going on and I am able to announce I have bought four books and three pairs of shoes with Mr Grigg's credit card without him taking any notice at all.

Standing room only

With a heavy heart after a 4-1 defeat, he boards the Easy Jet flight before anyone else, not caring how many old ladies or disabled people he knocks over in his haste to get plenty of legroom.

Two days in to our trip and things have improved. We are exploring the mainland, based for the first couple of nights in the old walled Kastro near the lake in Ioannina. This university town nestles on the shores of a beautiful but polluted lake.

Up in the mountains near the Vikos Gorge and the villages of the Zagorohoria, the hillsides are strewn with salvia, clary of pink, purple and blue, acanthus, moon daisies, mallow and wild clematis. These are some of the sights we see:

I gvneka tis Pindou - the tribute to the Pindos women who helped the soldiers

A lonely goatherd

A couple of old goats

A bridge too far

In the Pindos mountains, we make our way through the grassy cobbles of Monodendri, get lost and then double back. Mr Grigg marches on ahead, only to be confronted by an elderly woman who has been caught short and is crouching on the ground, just about to pull up her knickers.

This is the spot where it happened

It is a sight I miss and, I think, something Mr Grigg has probably imagined. All I see are her feet scuttling around the corner, clattering like an old goat.

However, he is insistent.

'As the song goes: you saw the crescent, I saw the whole of the moon,' he sighs.

Serves him right for pushing his way on to the plane and knocking out everything in his path.

That's it - for now. Next stop Metsovo and the devine Meteora.

Love Maddie x

Naked before God

2009-09-22T12:39:00.010+01:00

Our sailing over, we are now at Nestor's base in Gouvia Marina. Mr Grigg has just come back from the showers and is part way through regaling us with one of his long and involved stories when he suddenly looks quite ill.

He tells us he was relieving himself, naked, enjoying the luxury of sitting on a real lavatory when there was a knock at the door. After finishing his business, he said:'Yes?'

A German accent asked: 'Did I leave my passport and wallet in there?'

Mr Grigg glanced around. 'No,' he said.

'Do you mind if I come in and have a look?'

So Mr Grigg opened the door. There was a pensioner standing there, stark b*ll*ck naked apart from a pair of spectacles. As Mr Grigg tells the tale, his brother puts on a fake aghast look and, trying to suppress the sniggers, says: 'You didn't fall for the old homosexual rape trick did you?'

Mr Grigg shakes his head but goes very pale. The moment passes but as we are eating our breakfast in the saloon, we hear a foreign man's voice calling from outside. Mr Grigg bristles and clenches his fists as he thinks of his lucky escape.

'Hello there, how are ya?' Thankfully it is an American accent and not German.

Mr Grigg goes up to the cockpit.

'Yes?' he says. Aggression, at this point, is his middle name.

'It's a great day today, isn't it?' says the cheery American, who is accompanied by a male friend carrying a briefcase.

'Yes,' agrees Mr Grigg impatiently. 'But what do you want?'

'I have some information for you.'

'Like what?' Mr Grigg says.

'I've come to tell you about God and the Bible.'

Speechless, Mr Grigg is helped out by his brother who says: 'Not today thank you. But there's a chap up in the showers who might be interested.'

That's about it from the Ionian. Until next year.

Love Maddie x

England versus Germany

2009-09-22T11:27:00.006+01:00

In Petriti, a small fishing village in the south of Corfu, the fishing boats are coming in from their nightly operations. There are about eight of them in front of Vasilli's taverna on the quayside. Three years ago, he was full of bile for the crew, insisting they were Albanians who blocked his view and lived aboard to avoid tax.

This year, he tells a different story, unaware that he has met us before.

'The boats? Three of them are my family's. I am married to the daughter,' he says, chest puffing out with pride.

We are moored stern-to at the quayside, sandwiched between two yachts full of Germans. This is almost a fate worse than death for Mr Grigg's brother. It is not very nice, I know, but British memories go back a long way, even to a time when they weren't born, when uncles perished at the hands of the enemy in World War II. He is not a football fan but nevertheless would watch England versus Germany with Mr Grigg at the drop of a hat.

My iPod is playing Jupiter from Holst's Planet Suite and it reaches the part where it turns into the tune for I Vow To Thee My Country. Mr Grigg's brother turns it up, this song that is the epitome of being British. But, hang on a minute, wasn't Holst of Swedish extraction?

My thoughts are disrupted as a wasp comes along and kisses Mr Grigg on the nipple.

It's a hard life.

That's about it

Love Maddie x

Mr Grigg and the Octopus

2009-09-21T08:22:00.008+01:00

It is Mr Grigg's brother who spots it first. The beast from the deep, forty thousand leagues under the sea.

'It's just lying there, its arm around a clam. It won't let me have it,' he says, through a pout-mouth and snorkel.

Mr Grigg and Number One Son are dispatched from the back of the boat to find it.

'I hope he doesn't kill it,' Mr Grigg's brother says to me. 'You know what he's like. I quite admired it, you know, with its tentacles wrapped around its prize.'

Ever since Mr Grigg saw a man wading patiently in the shallows around Keloura two years ago, it's been his ambition to catch an octopus and serve it up for supper.

Armed with a harpoon made from a broom handle, he edges forward in the water while Number One Son creates a diversion. Down below, the octopus seductively wraps her tentacles around his stick. Mr Grigg is smitten. A lover of natural beauty, he comes back empty-handed but full of admiration. He brushes it off by making smutty jokes about tentacles and poles. But his brother and I are pleased he has met his match in the shallows of Lakka.

That night, I cannot resist re-enacting a scene from the dreadful film Alien Versus Predator. As Mr Grigg and I snuggle down in the forward cabin, my arm goes up and I clamp my hand firmly around his head like a face-hugger alien.

'Do that again,' he says. 'I quite like it.'

A sucker for punishment, obviously.

That's about it

Love Maddie x

Sh*t happens

2009-09-16T17:32:00.005+01:00

'This is Olympia Raad-yo, Olympia Raad-yo, to all sheeps to all sheeps...' And so my odyssey begins again - at least for the next week as we take an end-of-season trip on our boat in the Ionian.

She will soon be completely ours, as readers of this occasional blog know, and it's a strange feeling. In theory, next year we could be here all the time, sunning ourselves, sailing, cooking simple suppers on the tiny galley stove. But Mr Grigg has a couple of years to go yet before retiring and I need to devise a way of earning a living in Greece when he does. I speak no Greek but my command of English is pretty good, and those of you who have stopped by here before know my plan is to do a TEFL course and teach out here for at least a year.

I am never going to be the next J K Rowling or Zadie Smith. It is true the more you read the better a writer you become, but it does make you realise your limitations. It's like the amateur footballer who reaches 30 and it slowly dawns on him he will never do any better than playing for the pub team.

On the boat with Mr Grigg, his brother and Number One Son, the four of us look like rotund little Buddhas, the Grigg siblings more than anyone. We sit in a bar and a wild man with long grey hair and an even longer beard, drives by in a red Massey Ferguson, smoke billowing out from the back. An Englishman strolls by talking to his daughter's boyfriend, who has the words SEX WAX emblazoned across the back of his T-shirt. He bores his future son-in-law with a tale about a tractor he once owned that had a bench for a seat. The Greek Orthodox priest saunters by, in his long black dress. He hitches up his skirt and sits down with the men in the kafenion as they play backgammon.

Back on the boat the toilet is blocked. We can't pump it out and it is in danger of spilling over and flooding us all with smelly effluent. A phone call to the base manager and he comes out the next morning to pump out the blockage with the dinghy pump. Whoosh, a long ribbon of watery poo gurgles out, floats past and stretches 100 metres or more.

'It's like a bloody oil slick,' says Mr Grigg, disgusted, but watching closely because he might have to do this himself next year. And then a large blob of lavatory paper floats by, the legacy of previous occupants who know no better. I find the nearest aftershave I come across and, appropriately, spray Mr Grigg's Intimately Beckham around the loo while the base manager clears the air. It's a sh*t job but someone's got to do it.

'I used to be a jeweller,' he confides. Now the only carats he handles are the vegetable type digested by clients through their lower intestines.

As Mr Grigg spies the loo paper, he says: "Thank God for that, I thought it was the bloody square pasty.'

Because this, dear reader, was the vehicle parked outside our house on the morning we left.

Just watch out for those spinach pies.

That's about it

Love Maddie x

Photos from the Ionian

2009-07-07T22:21:00.015+01:00

A selection of photos from the latest part of our Ionian odyssey.

where the wind takes us

through olive groves
deserted beaches at sunset

shimmering turquoise coves in the morning

where fake Crocs are perfect

But crushed little fingers are not

For the homecoming, hop across to The world from my window and see you in September for the next instalment.

That's about it

Maddie x

Lowering the tone in Kensington-on-Sea

2009-07-06T11:40:00.008+01:00

As our sailing holiday in the Ionian comes to an end, Mr Grigg says: 'Oh I wish we could stay here for a bit longer.'

Later, when we check our flight tickets, we see that we are. Another day. The old man got the date wrong.

So we head up to beautiful Kaloura on Corfu, where we are only one of two boats in the bay. We anchor and take a long line ashore. Unfortunately, two young men and women are paddling in the rocks a few yards away, drinking beer and smoking . They have gold chains around their necks and lots of tattoos. They have to be Brits. The phrase 'why aye man' confirms it.

So as I sit in the cockpit, looking at this sight, I say to myself: "Kensington-on-Sea just isn't what it used to be.'

At that point, a giant inflatable banana roars up through the North Corfu channel and the Geordies start singing 'Oops, upside your head'.

Suddenly, my disco diva 70s teenager side comes to the fore. My snobbery drops off like a pashmina around my shoulders. I tell Mr Grigg I have the track on my iPod.

'Well, put it on then', he says.

'Do you really think so? I wouldn't want to spoil the peace and quiet of this place. And besides, they might come aboard and thump us.'

'Just do it,' he says, 'but don't put it on too loud.'

So I attach my iPod to the stereo through the cigarette lighter and The Gap Band start their funky guitar and the Geordies can't believe their ears. They dance in the water, row backwards and forwards in the water, thumbs up and big smiles. And no thumps.

When YMCA comes on, an old boy towelling himself off on the beach gesticulates. Is he angry? No, he's joining in. After a few more tracks, it comes to going home time. The Geordies wave from their quad bikes and say: 'Top music, you made our day.'

With hooting of horns, they wind off up the hill and I put on something more appropriate, the instrumental La Femme d'Argent by Air, as we quietly watch the sun go down.

There is a time and a place for everything.

That's about it

Love Maddie x

The taxman cometh

2009-07-01T11:34:00.011+01:00

In sleepy Lakka, on the northern tip of Paxos, where the bay is a turquoise blue and the cicadas incessant buzzing is deafening, a person in the house on the hill practises the tuba. The mournful high notes penetrate this peaceful place as we bob around at anchor watching others prepare themselves for a day's sailing.

Yesterday, we picked up a couple of hitchhikers after Mr Grigg, always the entertainer, had a Maddie moment and invited two complete strangers on the taverna table next to us at for a day out on the good ship Nestor.

We pootled up from Gaois, enjoying the company of our new-found friends, Pat and Ned, after almost a week of being in splendid isolation. We lunched on board on chef's salad, bread, wine and beer after swimming around the boat in the clear, warm waters.

But I am very nosy and the burning question I had was what did they do for a living. They hesitated before looking aghast at each other.

'We're having such a lovely time. We weren't going to tell you this,' they said in unison.

A coldness swept through our veins. The Serial Killers of the High Seas, British National Party canvassers or septic tank emptiers (the last two are interchangeable but at least the latter is honest and necessary). Or maybe, heaven forbid as far as Mr Grigg is concerned, divorce lawyers?

There was a deep intake of breath as they said: 'We worked for the Inland Revenue as tax inspectors.'

You could hear a pine needle drop, just above the sound of Mr Grigg's brain whirring as he thought back to the last hour's conversation. Had he said anything incriminating?

Pat said: 'But we've both taken early retirement and we don't care.'

'Well, it's a job and somebody's got to do it,' I said, breaking the ice that had suddely frozen over the Ionian. As a tax saint due for a rebate, it was the least I could do.

At the end of the afternoon, we took them by dinghy across to the Quayside for a goodbye beer.

'You've really made our day,' Pat said. 'It's been the highlight of our holiday, thank you so much. My son will be so jealous.'

That night, we enjoyed a meal at Nionios in Lakka square, finished off with the ubiquitous small glass of brown stuff 'on the house' that tasted distinctly like Obridges cough mixture.

It's a hard life. But somebody's got to do it.

That's about it

Love Maddie x

The reluctant sailor

2009-06-29T16:16:00.006+01:00

We are now in Gaois, Paxos, having sailed up through the Lefkas Canal from Spartochori on the island of Meganisi, overlooking Skorpios, Jackie O's island. It is hot, calm and peaceful and Mr Grigg is happy because we have borrowed a winch handle from a Nielson boat. On our way out of Kefallonia and mythical Ithaca we were joined by a family of dolphins. Mother and Father gracefully jumped out of the sea while Baby managed bunny-hopping belly flops.

This is the life.

But I am such a fickle, fairweather sailor - one hint of fouling up and I vow to myself this darned boat and I are finished. It's all very well Mr Grigg looking like an old sea dog on the stern, his stubble turning into Captain Birdseye's beard. But I am jolted out of my joy when trying to berth in Sami on Kefallonia.

I am the anchor woman but, to be honest, don't really understand what I'm doing. The anchor chain gets stuck twice as we come back. On the third attempt I crush my little finger. A distant memory of a Frenchman I once met in Plymouth flashes through my mind. An experienced transatlantic yachtsman, he was missing the tip of his index finger after an argument with a rope.

The injury calls for a beer and some TLC. So we stay in Sami for two days and hire a scooter, the Rust Bucket, to explore Captain Corelli's island. It is 30 per cent bigger than Corfu and relatively unspoilt by tourism. Fiskardho is pretty but full of pretentious yacthing types. I much prefer the secluded bays and the working towns where the real people are.

We turn the Rust Bucket around when we run out of oil after 50 yards and complain to the moped man, who looks like the alien from the pawn shop in Men in Black. He, meanwhile, is being shouted at by a drunkard on the other side of the road. The moped man is balding and has buck teeth, googly eyes and I swear he has cloven feet poking out from his trousers.

But we manage to make it around the island, despite the fact that the Rust Bucket's speedo and fuel gauge don't work and the tax is a year out of date. We pass wild thyme and fennel, olive trees and cypress, dry rye grass, hollyhocks and allium. A lazy cicada crosses the road, followed by a skillywiggler salamander. The smell of pine, heat and cooking with garlic as we pass through the villages.

Today we have made the long voyage up to Paxos and ended up playing I Spy to while away the hours. But Mr Grigg is tuned into my lack of sailor speak and comes up with words like binnacle, transome and sheets when all I can come up with is sea, sun and sky.

It's a hard life.

That's about it

Love Maddie x

The Odyssey begins

2009-06-24T13:22:00.007+01:00

We are holed up in Vathi, the capital of Ithaca. While England is bathed in sunshine, the Ionian is subject to cyclonic winds and thunderstorms. I have never slept so much as I have today, after a disturbed night at anchor in this deep bay. The noise of the chain grated and reverberated around the forward cabin I am sharing with Mr Grigg.

Five years ago, we came to Corfu looking for a holiday home. We had a modest sum of money to put towards a property and spent two weeks looking around the island for something suitable. We were in the hands of different British estate agents we neither trusted nor liked.

On the last day of our holiday, Mr Grigg asked me if we could make a detour to the marina at Gouvia, just north of Corfu Town.

'There might be some boats there for sale,' he said.

I was about to congratulate him on his idea only to find several email print-outs between him and the owner of a charter company who was selling surplus stock. He had planned it all along.

We were met at the quayside by a young Greek man with long brown hair, dark eyes and an English accent acquired from an American university.

We looked around what he had to offer but I was not impressed. Cramped boats whose parts came up and knocked me on the shins at every turn. And besides, I could barely swim, let alone sail.

But the encounter planted a seed in my head. With a holiday home you are rooted to one spot. With a holiday boat, you could go anywhere.

I have always loved Greece from the days of reading Enid Blyton's Tales of Long Ago as a child to package holidays to Crete, Rhodes and the Cyclades. I fancied my own name, Grigg, could have come from Greek. My mother insists, however, she has traced the family back to the 1600s when they were farm labourers and publicans venturing no further than a small market town in Somerset.

Back in the UK, Mr Grigg did some research and came up with the ideal solution. A partnership with the company in which both sides put 50%. We had the use of the boat, a 36ft Bavaria yacht, for up to five weeks a year and the company used it the rest of the time, paying all the bills and maintaining it.

So Mr Grigg did evening classes for a day skipper qualification and we both came away with competent crew certificates on a RYA course at Weymouth.

Today, Nestor, named after an ancient Homeric king from the shores of sandy Pilos in the western Peloponnese, is our 'second home'. She takes us to places I have only read about in books, little romantic bays you just dream about. Last year, Mr St John came too and the previous year Mrs Bancroft and I swanned around like Greek royalty.

It's a lovely way to potter around the Greek islands, taking care and shelter when the weather is bad and striking out for new lands when it is good. This morning, I looked out on my porthole at other boats swinging gently on their moorings, old men on mopeds pootling up the street and a strange Truck of Junk, an open sided lorry stacked full of antiques including tables, paintings and the longest, thinnest saxophone you have ever seen.

The sailing bit still scares me. There is so much we do not know. But Mr Grigg, a risk taker in his work and when putting up bunting in his slippers, is a very sensible skipper. I do not usually do as I am told, especially when Mr Grigg tells me to do it. I have learned, however, that the skipper is always right. If he fouls up, then it is his fault not yours.

So it was his fault when he realised he had not completely checked the inventory before we left port. As we were just about to take advantage of a lovely sailing wind from Kastos to Ithaca, we suddenly realised we had no winches. So we missed out on sailing into Vathi but beat on, with the help of our engine.

At the end of the season, Nestor becomes ours. Decisions will have to be made about what to do next. We are too young to retire, me particularly. But maybe a gap year, if I can prise myself away from the world from my window.

That's about it

Love Maddie x