tutleymutleytextiles
Connect!
  • HOME
  • Spinning Pet Fur
  • What to do if you would like your pet's fur spun into yarn
  • Art and a cartoon or three
  • Workshops and Courses
  • contact - and testimonials
  • Blog
  • links

Friday 19th August Papagiannis – Ag Spiridon on the Lake Vegoritide.  32.38miles.

8/29/2016

6 Comments

 
​Should I go from here to Litochoro, where I can meet Anna (a good 100km out of my way) or go to Thessaloniki straight, do not pass go, do not collect £200?  After breakfast I will get pedalling and decide.   I realise belatedly that I have lost an hour!  So I thought I was getting up at 6am but actually it was 7am.  (It’s a terrible thing, to lose an hour when one is not expecting it).  Just as I am setting off the couple next door come out into their garden and spot me.  I say “hello!” brightly, and perhaps rather cheekily. 
 
The next 10 miles are spent wading through humid heat watching the hills draw slowly closer.  This flat plain between mountains is FULL of birds of prey: the valley of the hawks.  I see small kestrels fluttering, static above the fields and large hawks soaring, about every 100 metres or so. 
 
Autumn is coming – the hedges are full of blackberries with occasional apple and plum trees too.   
 
I went a bit astray and inadvertently went further south than I’d intended.  This was a happy accident as it then meant I had to cycle north along the shores of the Lake Vegoritide.   I’m hungry (it being 3pm when really it’s 2pm – I always do this when the clocks change – tell myself it’s ‘really’ something o’clock when actually it just is!).    Need food.
 
Later, much later, after lunch in a cheery place (with Volkswagen campervans wallpaper – Nina Bailey) in Aminteo,  I am cycling from one lake to another.  I ride past vineyards and mountains and I realise I am muttering to myself.  This travelling lark not only broadens one’s mind and enhances the suitcases under one’s eyes but also, I fear, increases the eccentricities already inherent in one’s character.  Good job your average Englishman is usually markedly tolerant of eccentricity.    I’ve always been a bit scatty, but am in serious forgetful mode at the moment.  I’ve just realised I’ve left my travel towel (or left SARA’S travel towel) draped over the balcony at Goldy Hostel.  I even took a photograph of it.  I’ve also lost my sunhat (left on the floor as I was packing up Rowenna).  I’ve lost Sue’s painting of a manadarin duck – all packaged and labelled.  And now, the last straw, WELLY!  I’ve lost WELLY!  I wail to the world.  She jumped ship when the bungee rope slipped.  I’d just climbed a 4 mile  long hill so I wasn’t going back to find her.  She’d been losing weight so perhaps she wasn’t very happy and will be better off in the wild.  (Now there’s a rationalisation if ever there was one!).  POORWELLY! 
 
I peeked in a little church alongside the lake – painted with icons and the sunlight just catching the figures of Mary and Jesus.  I rode on and spotted ripe figs in the hedges (along with a few other interesting shrubs I photographed for identification by those horticulturalists out there – Kathryn).   Gorging myself, I decided I preferred the sweet yellowy-green figs over the more normal looking purply-green ones. 
 
I decided to camp in an orchard down by the lakeside.  The trees had been harvested (of peaches I think) and there was absolutely no sign of other human beings.  There was a colony of hundreds of cormorants sitting in a line of dead trees jutting out of the water.  I could see the town of Arnissa across the other side of the lake.  The tent is still sopping wet after last night’s storms – whoops!  I can’t dry it well as I’ve lost my towel too L - I use my leggings instead.    
 
After pitching my tent, I gathered wood for my first campfire.   There’s nothing quite like gazing into flames with ones legs roasting.  (Even when there are hundreds of sand flies leaping off the wood in your direction! – didn’t last long). 
 
It was the day after full lammas moon – and it was still a luminous globe rising over the lights of Arnissa, its golden reflection shimmering in the water: a magical evening.   There were frogs and crickets sounding off to complete the opera.     Fire’s getting low, and I’ll survive the damp tent I’m sure. 
 
6 Comments
Mon link
9/4/2016 19:59:27

Wow, more adventures and lovely photos. I love those churches with the frescoes. Would like to have seen all those cormorants. And the birde of prey-they are my freedom and rise above it all symbols. Quite a birdy time.

Reply
Terri link
9/14/2016 11:17:57

Yeah - shame I don't know what half of them birds are called - though there's enough ornithologists out there to help me with identificatioon if I shout loud enough. Now i"m on the Greek islands - there aren't so many that I've seen - apart from the ubiquitous pigeon cooing, of course! X

Reply
noni
9/4/2016 20:39:03

Sounds wonderful Terri. I'm looking forward to lighting fires. Not quite cold enough here, and not quite such a beautiful setting. Plenty of wildlife though. Buzzards, rabbits, owls, wasps.....

Reply
Terri
9/14/2016 11:20:51

Oh it IS beauttful down there on your patch - and yes, there's nothing quite like gazing into flames in the dimpsy, is there? I shall be visiting with my tent and bicycle when I get home, for sure.
WAsps? less of them, if you please. apart from the teensy weensy ones hiding in the fig tree that pollinate them. XXX (WAs that a second shepherd's hut, or were you removing the one?)

Reply
Blanca link
9/6/2016 08:25:24

What a lovely description of life on the road (I could recognize the talking to yourself!) I love the way you made me feel as if I was there. Keep on having friend. All the best and tailwinds always. Blanca

Reply
Terri
9/14/2016 11:24:30

Thanks Bianca - praise indeed from the mistress of the travel blog!

I'm going to be missing out on the Central Asia adventure - because I'm planning on flying straight to Asia (feels like cheating, but I'm going to run out of time, else, and I DO need to reach Australia!). Solves a lot of logistical problems - like trying to get an Iranian visa as a Brit.

Looking at your Pamir adventure with slight envy (and may be a sigh of relief too!).
Keep on pedalling and Tailwinds and warm days to you too, love X

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Tutleymutley

    A newly retired Terri following her heart into a world of woolly creativity.  Live the dream

    Archives

    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    April 2014
    February 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013

    Categories

    All
    Artyfart
    Knitting Workshops
    MM Sydney Memorial Tour
    Pet Fur
    Retreat
    Weaving
    Woolly Festivals

    RSS Feed

Picture
I 




contact Terri on 07595736489   
I spin pet hair including dog hair, cat brushings and angora rabbit

Proudly powered by Weebly