it was another beautiful day in northern greece, swallowtail martins were surfing the air waves and connecting with my essence of being. Auntie was preparing one of her usual country breakfasts with the mornings fresh milk (boiled) and nutella spread about 2" thick on a 5" thick piece of fresh oven bread,which i had walked just previously to get from the drunkards bakery. (partied with them crazily) coffee and the usual morning question time about the previous day. Here I was at the crossroads of my life. I was feeling slightly fuzzy and hung over. spent the night playing wild greek party playboys with Yani, a great friend with similar tastes for the finer things...booze and girls, unfortunately in that order. We weren't related which was rare to me. I had about 500 cousins and nieces and nephews and uncles and uncles friends and neighbours and grandparents and visitors. Growing up in australia was kind of anti social compared to what was going on in greece. Australia seemed to be just work and home, work and home. Yes we had money in our pockets in australia, but really, not much else.
On the last day of secondary school our bi-sexual english teacher Mrs Anstess (who I used to french kiss at school socials to the disgust of the other teachers) gave us a heart felt talk about life and the real world and sex and relationships. She basically said this "kids, don't go out and have sex with the first person you meet and get pregnant. Take the precautions not to get pregnant, or not to get a girl pregnant strait away. You should play the field, and try and sample the goods, and have fun, and later on, when you have done that, well then you may decide to get married or get a partner or stuff like that." I was impressed by her, I listened intensely to her, I took it all in. I liked her very much and the banter was always funny and cheerful with her. I took it up as my life motto, life plan, what she had told us in her special last english lesson.
the phone rang, Auntie answered it. I was my mothers brother, Yani, he wanted me to take him to purchase bales of lucern (at a distant villiage, Polyplatanos, population 550, about 30 miles away) which he needed for his sheep. "sure thing theo" I said.
I jumped in my new black ford corsa which I had on hire for as long as i needed it, and drove to the next village, to my mothers family village Messonisi , picked him up and continued on the back country roads to Polyplatanos. It was a village similar to my fathers village, an agricultural village on the plains in-between huge mountains. So we drove into the into the village of Polyplatanos right into the middle to a typical village house, surrounded by a high wall and a robust country gate made of iron and with the scroll patterns in it. I can even remember the aqua paint fading and flaking off in places. The house and the yard were a Greek yard. It was a large block, with the house toward the street a gate, an out house (toilet with a bucket eww) down the back. Right in the middle of the yard was a table for 2 under a trellised grapevine. Me and uncle greeted the old couple and were motioned to the table and chairs. It was a fantastic place for a meeting or a discussion or to play backgammon or chess or just to sit down and daydream your future life going past you in parade on the TV screen of your mind. The grapevine made it feel cool, under a hot sun. The lady went to get refreshments while my uncle negotiated a price for the lucern in which i had no interest whatsoever. the lady bought out hot coffees, brandy and Ice cold coca-colas. I jokingly asked her if she had a beer, because i was impressed with her service and she had them but i stopped her from going back just to get one, I laughed and said I was joking. She got up, went and got a cold hienekin beer, came back and put it on the table without sayng a word . That lady could read my mind!
At around this time Sophia was 'grounded' at her house on the other side of the village. Her punishment for coming home after midnight after being out with her friends was to paint the metal handrails, which went half-way around the house. She had her old 'painting skirt' on with an old shirt and I cheesecloth scarf around her head, as the greek ladies nearly all wear.Her boyfriend Pericles was of the most well off family in the villiage, who ran the village supermarket and had an earthmoving buisness with huge trucks and bulldozers and front-end loaders and a sand & gravel yard. She had just split up with him. Amongst other things, Pericle's mother did not like Sophia and Sophia's dad did not like Pericles. Pericles demanded,along with his mother a huge dowry from sophia, or the relationship was off! It's a wise-guy trick in greece to get a girlfriend and 'use' her and then ask for a dowry as an excuse to dump the girl on those supposedly legitimate circumstances (lies) Sophies family was poor and she was furious that he tried to pull this weak stunt on her. Sophie gets really wild when she sees a need to defend her family.She told himin no uncertain terms, to fuck off. He tried to rape her and thats all it took for Sophia to develop an intense hate for the guy.
A few weeks previously Sophie's family had surprise visitors, Pericles, his parents, his living grandparents with engagement ring and Pericles godparents, as is the custom in Greece when an engagement is formally applied for. Pericles was 17 years old. Sophia was 15 years 10 months old. The Lazarides (Pericles family name) were dressed to the nines (well dressed). Pericles mother sarcastically asked Sophia's father, ..."and what is the dowry with which you endow your daughters new family?" Sophies father looked her in the eye and said, "her dowry is her innocence and purity, something which your son, is never going to get. Sophia snatched the engagement ring from the god-parents, ran outside to the well, and threw the engagement ring down the well, then unleashed a volley of insulting expletives which no foul-mouthed sailor could match. The Lazarides were humiliated and had to leave. So much for the wedding party and the potential mother-in-law from hell.
so that mind reading lady looked me up, looked me down looked up again, looked down, looked at the car, looked me in the eye and asked, You're not from around these parts are you boy?
no, I said
you're dressed differently, you walk differently, you talk differently, where do you come from?
I told her, my dad is from the village Armenohorion and my mother was from the neighboring village of Messonission, but I was born in Australia, greatest country in the word!
Ahh she said. and you have come here to greece to find a nice greek girl, haven't you?
Inside, I burst out laughing, but on the exterior, I would have looked slightly amused.
No i said, what makes you think that?
what makes me say that? what makes me say that?
you know what? I think I know that girl! she said
I replied "but I didn't come here to greece to find a greek girl, I came here because most of our family is here in greece and we love to see them all
thank you for for your suggestion, but no thank you" while smiling at her
ok she said, look I'll send for her to come here and I'll make an excuse of wanting to contract some paid embroidery off her. (sophie was good at embroidery, most of the greek girls seem to be) "now while she is here and we are discussing the embroidery with her, you can get a look at her, and make your own mind up. (this lady was the white witch. she was POWERFUL. I was in her spell i think from the moment I stepped out of the car)
OK i said that sounds alright
across the road from the house there was Fani's place. Fani's place was a social get together place for about 15 local girls who had a kind of smoking,greek coffee, embroidery, chatting, listening to music, cool clubhouse. The reason the girls liked fani's place was mainly because Fani didn't mind the girls smoking cigarettes. She was not the type that would tell the girls parents. Sophie was one of the girls who used to attend fanis place, usually on a friday night. Were talking greek village here, where everybody knows everybody's business. The white witch knew of Sophie and of the split up with her boyfriend, she was fresh on her mind.
the white witch went across the road and summoned Fani to go and fetch Sophia for the embroidery excuse.
A little after she came back from Fani's, another greek coffee was bought out but i poured myself a brandy instead not much, just a bit.
So while I'm waiting here and uncle is discussing the finer points of growing strawberries with the old guy who is the white-witches husband, I'd like to tell you what I got up to with Yani last night. I met up him yesterday when I dropped off the welger baler knives for uncle theodore to be welded due to cracks at his engeneering shop in Florina, the "city" of about 30,000 ppl. He suggested we should go out and do the rounds so to speak, I said ok. I drove home about 3 miles away. It was about 4 o'clock and nobody was home at uncle theodores, where I preferred to stay ( I had about 20 places of relatives where I could stay, and I stayed at them all ) Auntie was at the cow barn with her daughter in-law milking the 60 odd cows that they had which they milked twice a day, Uncle would have been out on the tractor somewhere baling or cutting or turning hay on a contract basis for others. Cousin George was irrigating the potatoes at one of the many different fields they had.Cousin Yani was being Uncles right hand man out with uncle somewhere. So I ducked in to my other uncle Dimitri's general shop next door. The building was a duplex shop under residence over type of set-up. Dimitri had his as a general store but uncle Theodore used to use his "shop" area as a silo for is barley which he would fill to the ceiling. I used to laugh when I'd walk past and see just grain and nothing else in the windows. Auntie Flora reigned supreme in the store. She would take great pride in her appearance and her hair was always perfect. A typical greek village general store where you could buy anything you needed or, sit at one of the three tables and have a coke or a brandy, or an ouzo or a beer and there was usually somebody in there having a chat. The one thing I love about going for a drink at a place like this was the fact that when you ordered an alcoholic spirit, you would get 'meze'. Meze is a snack that you get with your drink which is included in the price of that drink, and could be cheese (greece has fantastic ones) or a little salad or whatever was in season. It is a sensible way to drink. Western Culture is ignorant of this. Auntie, there she was running her hand down the side of her hair (and saying to herself, I'm beautiful no doubt) The grand daughters were in. Maria 10 Flora 8 and Petroula 4. I asked the girls if they wanted to sing nursery rhymes. They jumped up and down YES YES YES! but I wont play them if you don't help me sing them ok? I beamed,
Bananas arbour bananas arbour they called in unison, so bananas arbour it was.
OH WOW! SHE'S HERE...back to the narrator
The first thing I noticed about my so-called perfect match according to white witch was *sparkles* she was sparkly, like the bubbles in pinot-chardonnay. she was bubbly, she was smiling, she was laughing she was fun she was the party she was attractive she was not the twenty something attitude problem local boy reject that I was expecting.
sparkles was on the outside of the gate, and the white witch was on the inside playing the 'crochet for me please i'll pay you' scam. By the look of it, sparkles was awake to the deception, like everything else...sparkles has huge eyes which I have learned do not miss a thing. The laughing was because she was awake to this flimsy excuse to get her there. Her hairstyle was like a young Kylie Minogue when she married her boyfriend in the Australian show 'neighbors' Her clothes were the tatty painting rags she had on. I couldn't notice them, all I could notice was this beautiful girl at the gate.
...in progress, stay tuned if you're interested. this is a blockbuster story! not to be missed
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