I’m looking out of my window at a grey June day, and yearning to be back walking in the bright light of Symi. It was so beautiful there: blue, blue sea, and empty hillsides with nothing but the heady smell of sage, oregano and thyme and the only sound a distant chink of a goat’s bell.
There was a timeless feel to the rocky landscape: rounding the shoulder of a hill, or walking through the dapply shade of a juniper forest, I would not have been the least surprised to have seen a centaur trotting towards me, or to have stood aside while Jason and the Argonauts trudged past. So while the land might have been barren, it was a fertile landscape for a writer of time slips!
I wish I knew more about the ancient world, though. I came home wondering how I could manage to do a degree in Classics, my appetite whetted by the wonderful Archaeological Museum in Rhodes (see next post!), but for now I am limited to my imagination and to wondering who I might have met if I had walked those paths in times past.