The Gallery - Nature

My fingers are about as green as a vacuum-packed, surgically prepared, pre-boiled, pre-peeled, pre-packed egg. My dear old Mum won't let me anywhere near her flower beds for fear that I will uproot her prize begonias thinking they were invasive weeds. I don't even possess a pair of wellies any more....

...and yet, I AM a Nature Girl.

I grew up in the rural idyll of the Surrey/Sussex countryside back in the 1970s, before the housing developers moved in to exchange swathes of fields and woodlands with copy-paste estates of mock-Tudor executive monstrosities. My parents weren't well-off enough for a pony, and it was before the advent of computers, electronic games or even decent TV, so much of my spare time was spent in the back garden or pedalling idly down leafy lanes to commune with nature.

My grandad taught us the delights of getting up at the crack of dawn to collect mushrooms for breakfast, trawl the lanes for blackberries in September, climb trees for apples to fill pies and crumbles, and get thoroughly mud-caked tramping through the fields and along the shore of the local reservoir. I even had to be hauled out by three full-grown men once, after sinking thigh-high in the sludge too close to the water.

And then - at the age of 24 - I moved, not just from the country, but to another country. And for the past 21 years, home has no longer been the rolling hills (and ghastly shopping centres) of south-east England, but a suburb of a grimy, noisy capital in south-east Europe - Athens.

And yet, the Nature Girl lives on. Every now and then, she heads off - camera in hand - for a solitary tramp around the (relatively green and pleasant) neighbourhood or up the local mountainside to commune with a bit of Greek nature.

It's hardly herds of wildebeest rolling majestically across the African plains, or the divine solitude of the Norwegian fjords, but it's enough to restore my sanity and get me back in touch with that scruffy, welly-wearing 12-year-old who got so much pleasure from the great outdoors.

Maybe some of my pics, from both the UK and Greece, can help give you a sense of my pre-teen (and pre-menopausal) sense of wonder I get from the small details of the natural world around us - when we bother to stop and look. I'll even award Mandi-points to those of you that guess correctly which country is represented in each photo:

Back to my roots....

It's been a while since I rabbited away on this wee Blog-o-mine, and you'd be forgiven for thinking I'd got bored and packed it all in.

In the best tradition of end-of-term school reports, I "must do better" and I promise that I shall try.

Meanwhile, as a reminder that I am still alive and kicking, I'm giving you a photo dump of my recent trip to the UK, which included two funerals, a week of glorious sunshine, some serious quality time with my folk back in Blighty and a rather magnificent Sunday in the Park (said park being Hyde Park, said Sunday being 27 June - the last day of the Hard Rock Calling festival featuring Crowded House, Elvis Costello, Crosby Stills & Nash, Paul McCartney and 50,000 barefoot maniacs having a good time as the sun beat down).

First, some scenes from my mother's small but perfectly formed back garden....








Then some days out in town and country...
























Then there was that day in the park.

and finally, a small something that made me smile...

Athens Portraits: Culture Vultures

They’re easy to spot as they step out of the Metro at Monastiraki, blinking like owls in the bright sunshine as they consult their academic guidebooks and check their maps.

In baggy shorts, cotton socks and comfortable sandals, they stand out from the usual tourist crowd. They’re dressed for comfort not style. After all, it’s the siren’s call of culture and not a package holiday of the hoi polloi that has brought them to Greece.

For years they have dreamed of walking in the footsteps of Pericles, standing on the very same spot in the Agora where Socrates once proclaimed on the meaning of life, or climbing the rock from where St Peter addressed the Athenians a couple of millennium ago. And now that they’re here, they’re determined to soak up every drop of Greek atmosphere.

Unlike ‘Touristas Gormless’, those more gaudy and garrilous visitors that flock to Greece every summer, Culture Vultures have little interest in sun, sea and gallons of ouzo. They know that they won’t find fish ‘n’ chips in the narrow streets of Plaka, and they’re glad of it.

They have studied hard for their visit to the city that gave birth to democracy, having greedily absorbed every book and documentary about Ancient Athens that they could get their hands on. They may even have taken night classes in Greek (though they’re unlikely to be ready for the blank stares they’ll get from the locals when they ask in heavily-accented Ancient Greek how to get to Hadrian’s Gate).

Modern Athens can come as a bit of a shock to their system. Where they have imagined civilised debate in the leafy foothills of the Acropolis, they are more likely to find a noisy crush of humanity (half of which keep trying to sell them plastic novelties as they study their phrase books and sip their coffee at the pavement cafeteria). The cars, the fumes, the cement, the litter – it’s not quite what they had in mind.

But they don’t care. The glory that once was Athens is the reason they’re here. And although they may need to scratch the surface of the dirty, bustling, modern city to see, it is still there – for the Greeks are just as much in love with that ancient glory as they are.

Athens Portraits: Conspiracy Theorists

As he drives his cab through the city streets, Mitsos will tell you who’s behind the crisis Greece is struggling to come to terms with. It’s THEM.

His friend, Kostas, agrees as he puffs furiously on his cigarette (so much more expensive since recent tax hikes). It’s “the others”, he says, that want to bring a proud people to their knees.

A gaggle of students in brand-name trainers and jeans shout in agreement, and a worried looking housewife nods grimly as she tries to work out if anything will be left of her shrinking civil service salary after the bills are paid.

As for Yiayia (Grandma), she blames the Turks – and the Germans.

You hear it everywhere: in cafeterias, on trains, droning out of radios perched on workshop shelves, buzzing through Greek cyber-space: “They’re out to get us!”

Greeks love a good conspiracy theory. Perhaps it’s only natural for a nation with resistance running through its veins, after 400 years of Ottoman Rule and - more recently - a military dictatorship that squashed resistance with a heavy fist. But since Greece has started being portrayed in international headlines as the wild child of Europe, recklessly spending money it doesn’t have then asking others to bail it out, the conspiracy mill has gone into overdrive.

Though many Greeks accept that the root of the problem lies within, there are plenty who condemn outside forces who want to bring their proud nation down. Maybe it’s Wall Street trying to undermine the Euro? Or Corporate America determined to bash people into more obedient consumerism? Or perhaps Greece is the first stage in the imposition of a New World Order?

Greeks hate being told what to do, so the conditions that come with the EU/IMF rescue package are an anathema to them. They deeply resent being under someone else’s supervision.

Perhaps the biggest conspiracy is the one no-one is talking about. The conspiracy of silence that turned a blind eye to the abuses of the system while society fed on the fruits of capitalism, wearing American sports shoes, driving German cars, and cooled by Japanese air conditioning units.

But Mitsos will certainly tell you: “Den ftaio ego” (“It’s not my fault”).

Spare a thought...

Spare a thought for the Athenian fire crew that tackled the blaze at Marfin Egnatia Bank in the city centre today.

Like thousands of other Greek public servants, they face the prospect of drastic cuts in their pay and benefits.

They also have to come to terms with the finding the dead bodies of three bank workers they found inside, who had been overcome by smoke after a Molotov Cocktail was thrown into the bank by an angry protestor.

Spare a thought too for the fiance of one of the victims who heard the unthinkable reply when he asked if she was alive - and what had become of their unborn child....

Spare a thought for the family and friends of that young mother-to-be, and those of the two other people who lost their lives with her today. They are most likely simple hard-working people trying their best to make ends meet in difficult times.

Today's victims had chosen - either out of necessity or principle - not to join the general strike and protest outside Parliament against the austerity measures the Greek Government plans to impose in a bid to pay back the massive bail-out to cover the huge National Debt. It was as much their right to work as it was the right of the protestors to make their voices heard.

Greeks have protest woven into their DNA. As a people, they have been through a lot in their recent history including fierce resistance to Nazi occupation during WWII, bitter civil strife after that war ended and a military dictatorship - all in living memory. The right to protest is one they hold dear. A right they exercise often - and loudly.

But Greeks are also a friendly and peace-loving (though noisy) people, and the deaths of three innocent workers as a result of today's disruption has shaken most people to the core.

Among them are the firemen who made their macabre discovery in the burning bank, and the policemen who faced a barrage of rocks, chairs and burning bottles in Syntagma Square.

So, spare a thought for them as they head home to nurse their bruised limbs and battered psyches, having come face-to-face with the human cost of violence, and wonder how they too are going to make ends meet in the months to come....

Celebrate George - banish apathy

So, today is Saint George's Day. A day when every red-blooded Englishman or woman proudly boasts his or her heritage. Or not.

It has always struck me as strange how apathetic most English (including me) are about their Patron Saint. Let's face it, despite the fact that he slayed a dragon, for goodness sake (no mean feat even in those heroic days of old), we English treat poor old St George a little bit like an embarrasing relative. Like the loopy old aunt you invite over for Christmas dinner ("She's got no-one else in the world, poor dear") who then proceeds to suck all the chocolate off the brazil nuts before putting them back in the box for other guests to enjoy. It's as if going around slaying dragons is really not the "done thing".

Like dear old auntie, St George is acknowledged, even loved, but we English aren't going to go out of our way to advertise his existence. Not for him the revels our Celtic cousins put on for their saints. Just take a look at St Patrick's Day parades - and more - around the world on 17 March, or heady celebrations in honour of St Andrew by those from north of the border on 30 November. Even the Welsh (like Ffynella the Fragrant and Welsh Fran) wave their daffodils and leeks with gusto for St David on 1 March. As for the English, when 23 April rolls round, we read in the paper that it is St George's Day and say "Oh yes, so it is" before going back to the crossword.

That's not to say that English patriotism is dead - it just tends to be most visible at sporting events (at least the ones we manage to win). Maybe that's the problem? Perhaps patriotism is now seen as the domain of hooligans, and demonstrative English pride is considered rather unseemly (especially after all those jingoistic years of Queen Victoria, the Empire the sun never set on, 'There'll Always be An England' et al).

More to the point, I suspect that the problem is that patriotism has been hijacked by those who flaunt their indigenous "British-ness" as a justification for open bigotry and thuggery, making it something rather inappropriate for ordinary moderate-minded folk.

I'm not hugely patriotic - and I wouldn't be caught dead wearing a Union Jack, Cross of St George or any other flag for that matter - but I am very proud of certain things about the English: our sense of humour; our tolerance (or even celebration) of eccentricity; the inexplicable rules of cricket; that our history has woven so many diverse cultural threads into the fabric of society; rolling green fields; our willingness to make fools of ourselves for a good cause; a decent cup of tea. But as for going nuts in honour of a dead bloke on a horse, it just doesn't happen.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that history shows that St George has no real link with our green and pleasant land? He was a soldier of the Roman Empire from Anatolia (modern-day Turkey ), who came to be venerated as a Christian AND Islamic martyr. According to legend, when an edict was issued in 303 A.D. authorising the systematic persecution of Christians, George was ordered to take part in the persecution but instead confessed to being a Christian himself and criticised the imperial decision. As a punishment, he was tortured and decapitated, and becama a martyr of the early Christian church.
Hold on a minute, I hear you cry. What about the dragon? What indeed?

The story of St George slaying the dragon probably first emerged during The Crusades, raising the romantic profile of a saint already revered in the Eastern Church. Apparently, a dragon had made its nest at the spring that provided water to the city of Cyrene in Libya. To dislodge the dragon from his nest for a while to gather water, the citizens had to offer a daily human sacrifice, chosen by lots. All was well, until it was the turn of a princess to be fed to the hungry dragon. Then, out of the blue, came St George (just passing through you understand), who slayed the dragon and rescued the princess. The grateful citizens abandoned their ancestral paganism and converted to Christianity....
....and they all lived happily ever after.

Not a smidgeon of a link to England to be found anywhere in the legend - and I guess that could explain our apathy. St Patrick brought Christianity to Ireland and cast all the snakes out of the Emerald Isle; St David was a Welsh (born and bred) bishop; and (though not directly related to Scotland) St Andrew's relics were brought to Scotland in the early days of the church.

I'm willing to bet that if it were not for the media reminding us, most English would not remember the exact date of St George's Day. Probably about as many of us who know it was also (very conveniently) the birthday of someone England can justifiably be proud of: good ole Will Shakespeare.

So, do poor old George a favour today and don't just raise a cup of luke warm tea to the Patron Saint of Apathy.
Instead: think of the Bard of Avon; mutter "Once more into the breach, dear friends" under your breath; and on 6 May - wherever you put your all-important X - don't "Vote for change" (possibly the world's most over-used campaign slogan), just "Vote, for a change".

Athens Portraits: Pavement Entrepreneurs

Got an appetite for a luxury brand, but the finances of a strapped-for-cash student? Fear not. The streets of Athens you can satisfy your need for look-at-me labels at a fraction of the price you’d pay in the stores. And although the city is no multi-cultural metropolis like London or Paris, the past decade has seen more and more African émigrés setting up shop on the city’s pavements.

Just walk out of any train station, and you’ll find what looks like a small African village spread out in front of you, full of smiling ivory faces imploring you to check out their wares.

Whatever you want, you’ll find it in the array of fakes spread out on blankets like a shopper’s smorgasbord. Take your pick: must-have handbags (“Gucci or Louis Vuitton, Madam?”); super-cool shades (Raybans rule); designer belts, socks, tops, shawls (“Very nice, very cheap”); and even those Calvin Klein boxer shorts you need to make your street-cred almost skin-deep.

OK, so there’s no guarantee or returns policy, and the clasp on your to-die-for bag might start to tarnish after a couple of weeks. But those smiling Africans can sell you a Big Name at a little price. And if you’re willing (and able) to haggle with the pros, that price can be very little indeed.

But be warned - the goods you’ll get are far from legal, and they’re virtually guaranteed to be quality-free. And if you have a complaint… well, let the buyer beware.

Nor will you endear yourself with legitimate traders who lose out business to the pavement entrepreneurs that are here today, gone tomorrow.

A disappearing act is key to their survival, so be prepared to have your transaction or good-natured haggling cut short if there’s a whiff of a police raid in the air.

Though a blind eye is often turned, occasionally the authorities take a hard line and descend on these impromptu street markets. When that happens, woe betide anyone caught red-handed. After all, many of the peddlers could face more than a rap on the knuckles for illegal trading, especially if they lack the papers to prove they’re in the country legally.

News of raids spreads like wildfire. With a blink of an eye, a square-full of street traders morphs into a flurry of frantic blanket-gathering and packing of giant hold-alls - and before you know it your Nigerian friend with the dirt-cheap Chanel has gone. Then who will you complain to about that broken strap?