LAST ORDERS FOR SUMMER

Still time for plenty of frappe opportunities, lazy swimming, boat trips even - but soon it will be time to keep a watchful eye on the weather and to think about clearing the garden if not actually doing it - well, not yet

One day you open the front door and bleached, brittle leaves blow in on the draught, skittering across the marble floor and terrifying our old blind dog who imagines they are aliens, come to fetch her back to their mother-ship. ‘Games up!’ you can almost hear her say. ‘I’ll go quietly.’ But while there’s life, there’s hope and Loula settles back with a snuffle, on the cushion under my desk.

At least she spends the last of her days in comfort, loved and tended to, not like poor Argus, Odysseus’ faithful dog. You cannot live long in Corfu without tripping over references to Homer’s Odyssey, and the story of the dog is one of the saddest parts. Another time.

But in spite of the first skeletal leaves, Autumn’s advance party, there’s life still in our summer, too, and though the patterns of it shift as the month eases into September, we still have much to look forward to in Corfu.

With kids back at school, beaches are quieter, the better to enjoy the warm sea temperatures, though we miss the sight of children doing what all children ought to be doing in summer – playing in the open air.. Gradually, though, the month cools down, and with the clear atmosphere, intensely blue sky and mellow sunshine, this is the best time for exploring the island on foot or by other means..

I used to accompany cultural coach tours around Greece and this was a favourite time of year. The mountains purple with heather and the valleys fragrant with the intoxicating smell of grapes being pressed. Pale marble columns at Delphi and Bassae, Aegina and Olympia, stark against that azure sky. The restaurant owners knew us well and treated us to the ‘fruits’ of autumn – walnut cake, purple figs, tiny birds more splintered bone than flesh but you had to try them at least once before you could say what you felt. Wild boar appeared on the menu, and a mysterious dessert was proffered – mustalevria.

To say that this is grape jelly is to do it an injustice – it is made from ‘must’ which comes from the first pressing of grapes, it is cleared and cleaned by a semi-mystical process involving wood ash – well, it was in my mother-in-law’s day anyway – it is boiled and allowed to settle into an opaque jelly that is served sprinkled with cinnamon and crushed walnuts. It is quite delicious – the best I ever had was made each year by the local priest who insisted on sharing it with the foreign members of his flock.

Check out this link and you will see I am not kidding about the wood ash!

http://greek.food.com/recipe/moustalevria-grape-wine-pudding-10912

‘Must’ is also a vital ingredient in those delicious cookies that are so popular with kids who grow up in Greece – mustokouloura, slightly gingery in flavour.

A strange sound can be heard – though it is no longer the shrilling of the cicadas. This is the combination of a huge joint sigh of relief from mothers who have had to organize child care for three months, and a deep groan of disappointment from the children themselves.

Some of them, at least, are returning to a school where the Kantounistas group of Corfu have left their mark and made the school yard look more welcoming.

 This has been a rather unusual August. We have seen a full moon not once, but twice, at the beginning and the end of the month, the second one being called, rather romantically, a Blue Moon. Not as rare as the name might suggest, and unfortunately not really blue – but, hey – poetic licence and the songwriters’ boon.

We have been visited by the flaming spears of the Pleiades and by the heavenly bodies of a lesser firmament, namely Hollywood. Gorgeous yachts have called in, fuelling our speculation and our imagination, private jets have landed and left inscrutably, and everything has seemed much as  usual, though of course we know that it is not.

Many arrivals, then in August, and one noteworthy departure – that of Neil Armstrong, astronaut, first man to walk on the moon. He made that unforgettable remark about ‘one small step for a man’ but I like this quote. 

'I was elated, ecstatic and extremely surprised that we were successful'.

I think it reflects the modesty, humility and humour of this true hero.

Not the blue moon, but the blue planet as seen from the Moon

So, August then. The Romans named the month after the Emperor Augustus, just as they named July after Julius Caesar.  August was a popular name in Victorian times often shortened, especially by the Americans, to Gus. My grandmother was called Augusta, but then she was also called Alma  and had several other Christian names, all beginning with A.

Don’t ask me why.

 Alma Augusta Annie etc

My Grandma aged 19

 

Time to sweep up a few leaves. Amazing what you find hidden amongst them in the garden. Things you had forgotten all about.

And things that are unmistakably mean Autumn is not so far away......

 

 

 Photos by the usual suspects - Katy, Joanna, Frosso as we;; as some of my own and a few others.