The longest day

THE LONGEST DAY

One of the early things we learnt on Sunday was that it was Fathers’ Day in Europe. We heard the Sunday 7am long and loud church bells (we lost count at 40) then dozed again. Then there was a church service. Not that we had to attend physically because the good priests of Skopelos broadcast the beautifully sung service from nearby Christos Church (which is quite famous but quite small) through the loudspeaker, next to the bells which are almost in bed with us. What a lovely Greek touch, you don’t have to attend church, but it will attend you.

We phoned Frank, Marj’s father, and had the bonus of brother Chris being with him. It was 3 degrees in Canberra overnight.

One of the things we learnt was that Giorgos (pictured above with us) was heading out fishing at 5am on Sunday to procure Fathers’ Day dinner. He is Zoe’s father (see photo of three year old Zoe below), Jill’s husband and Gloria’s son-in –law. We were invited for a fabulous fish feast on Sunday night (see photo of fabulous fish above).

We procured cakes from the bakery for dessert.

Another of the things we learnt is that Sunday was summer solstice- the longest day. We learnt this from a woman on the beach who had been on the beach last week too. She is very loud, very opinionated, very large, very brown, very tattooed, very bikinied, and travels with a small considerably less loud, less opinionated, less large, less brown, less tattooed, less bikinied group of friends but perhaps very embarrassed friends. There would only be two hours of darkness on Sunday in Inverness, the lucky place that she calls home.

One of the things we really like about Greek beaches (or the ones we gravitate towards) is that it does not matter about nationality, age, size or shape. People of all nationalities, ages, sizes and shapes come, wear what they want to (and it’s often very minimalist and on a non-minimalist body), soak up the sun, and the beach generally emits a broad hum of pleasure. Usually there isn’t just one loud voice dominating a small beach but, rather, a harmonious buzz of enjoyment. It was a bit different on Sunday with a loud voice that managed to clear most of the beach by 3pm.

The beach is a natural amphitheatre. Her conversation, laced with eff-ing this and eff-offs swept over all of us and up the steep rocky walls of the small piratical cove we were sunning ourselves in. She is probably in her mid-forties. We learnt that she had a mobile phone deal when she arrived in Greece two weeks ago which provided 600 free texts. She has sent 300 so far. She is happy with her legs (“my best feature”) and her feet. A companion mentions her hands, and she is happy with them too.

However, she was not happy on Sunday. In fact she announced that she was very grumpy. The pale, quiet boyfriend (with her) was apparently not attentive enough. (He is busy playing English music from a portable device; drowning out the Greek music emanating from the nearby taverna.) As well as that, the water was too cold, the day was too hot, the stones were too sharp, and said boyfriend would not share a Greek platter with her at the beach taverna. (By the way, the stone archway featured above which is at the entrance to the taverna was on the Mamma Mia set up the hill and reconstructed here as a permanent feature)

Between moans, she works loudly on the remaining 300 texts, telling those at home what a great place Skopelos is and what a great holiday she is having and how she is saving to come back next year. The day on the beach was long enough for us. We exited at 3pm.