TO THE LIGHTHOUSE WITH THE FINZI-CONTINIS

I don't know why Enid Blyton didn't ever write 'The Lighthouse of Adventure'. She managed a Circus, a Ship, an Island and several others, but not a Lighthouse. Missed a trick there, Enid. She also did a lot of Five Go To Smuggler's Cove sort of thing, and although in these enlightened times we're supposed to avert our eyes from her pedestrian prose and suspect attitudes, I have to say I owe her a great debt of gratitude for removing me, so regularly, from the real and often terrifying world. And so did countless other children.

Years ago, when I was a school librarian in newly-independent Zimbabwe, Enid Blyton was in just as much demand among rural, Black pupils as she'd been in my all-White South African girls' school, which just goes to show that a good adventure story has universal appeal. (I did once have two Form 1 boys who read every Barbara Cartland on the shelves - the books had been donated by an elderly benefactor with romantic tastes - and I'm still trying to work that one out. Possibly they just fell about laughing.) Anyway, I'm grateful for all the hours I spent in the company of her plucky children as they stiffened their spines and their upper lips, and easily outwitted hordes of villains. And I've retained a nostalgic yearning for her picnics. I can't think why: they were mostly potted meat, ginger beer and fruit cake, all of which I can easily live without, but at the time they sounded wonderful. (This could have had something to do with my own mother thinking that a hard-boiled egg and a flask of tea were the height of picnic luxury.)

So, ever since we went one Heritage Day to view the Irish Landmark Trust's Blackhead Lightkeeper's Houses (confusingly located above Whitehead) I have nursed a secret desire to go back and indulge in a proper Enid Blyton adventure, with lots of picnics. And last weekend that's exactly what we did. Professor Gloom, Councillor Kate, Fearless Fergal and myself, accompanied by hampers of food and bags of bottles, set off on our grand adventure. 'Four On A Jolly Jaunt' - and every meal a picnic. Only this time there wasn't a potted meat sandwich or a hard-boiled egg in sight.

There were sticky ribs, pizzas and oven-ready chips, washed down with gin and tonic; there were cold meats, salads, cheese and fruit; tarts and crumbles, pancakes, chocolate and hot cross buns. We drank Prosecco on the sunny, windswept terrace and played backgammon in front of the open fire. We drank far too much wine and managed not to fall off the cliffs. And at night we fell asleep to the sound of the sea.

Blackhead is a working lighthouse. All night long the beams revolve: if you stand on the walkway below, it's like being on a carousel, spools of light swirling by like the ribbons of a Maypole. The rooms are lovely: lived-in, slightly shabby, full of books and character, with little bunches of fresh flowers dotted around. It was altogether enchanting.

And what did I read? Giorgio Bassani's 'The Garden of the Finzi-Continis' which I'd always meant to read but somehow hadn't. A beautiful, poignant, haunting novel that skims above the surface of the unbearable, touching down just often enough to let the waiting darkness of theHolocaust brush against the characters who will so soon be swallowed up. You know where this is going to end, but for now the beam of the narrator's memory lights up the loves and lives of this small, doomed community in Ferrara, and enriches your own life in the process. A lighthouse of a book.

A WEDDING IN CLONES

On Saturday 3 March Kate married Fergal in a little church in Clones, and even the unbelievers, the unobservant, and the deeply unsentimental (disproportionately present on the bride's side) were reduced to a quivering mush. Outside the snow (which had prevented quite a lot of people, including one of the two bridesmaids, from getting there at all) lay thick and white; inside, the congregation let out a collective sigh as the bride, attended by the one original bridesmaid, plus a heavily-pregnant sister (co-opted at the last minute) and a tiny, exquisite flower-girl, drifted down the aisle towards the groom. There was a fiddle, a flute, and a girl with one of those Irish singing voices that floats you up to the ceiling.

Which is probably enough of the wedding fervour. But what I will say is that I was never at a happier wedding, and the reception that followed at the Lough Erne resort was the best of all possible parties. Put any of our Irish, South African, Greek and Indian families in one room - not to mention the several other nationalities present - and you're bound to end up having a party, but this one was brilliant. Professor Gloom and I faded away before the dancing got properly going, but at a certain age there comes a point when a warm bed and a long sleep in the deep silence of the snowbound countryside trumps every other prospect.

Now it's 5 weeks since the wedding, and 4 since the last of the guests flew back home - after which Gloom and I lay down for 2 days with cold compresses on our heads. When we got up again, the house was eerily quiet. Apart from small hand-prints on the windows and a few plastic toys carefully buried in the houseplants, it was as though they'd never been here...

It's a good thing there was Kelly McCaughrain's book launch to cheer us up: I defy anyone not to be cheered by the Belfast Ukulele Jam - out in force to support one of their own -  and if you haven't read 'Flying Tips for Flightless Birds' yet, go and buy it NOW. You don't have to be a Young Adult to enjoy it; you can be a grumpy old person and still be seduced.

There was also lots of work waiting to distract us: scientific papers, novels at various stages of composition (or possibly decomposition) never mind the disordered house, disgruntled cat and neglected garden. And sadly, the endless, inescapable and polarising coverage of a local trial. Too many people have talked and written about this already, but I'm starting to think that hurling abuse via social media is the modern equivalent of putting people in the stocks. And that maybe actually throwing rotten vegetables and the contents of your chamber-pot is a bit braver than flinging dirt from the safety of your laptop.

So, what with one thing and another, we decided we needed another holiday, which is why we went back to Lough Erne. And what a good decision that was: the snow had gone, but the days were still sharp and bright as knives, and all that peace and space restored us.


We ate, drank, walked, slept, explored the countryside and were wonderfully well looked after by the hotel staff. And we had plenty of time to read. I finished the - to me - surprisingly enjoyable 'Essex Serpent' then started on Tea Obreht's 'The Tiger's Wife' - which I'd been meaning to read for years and am glad that I finally did. The tiger of the title assumes strange supernatural powers, in the minds of the locals; Sarah Perry's novel features an ancient winged serpent supposedly lurking in the marshes. Which might be why, very early one morning, I was almost certain I saw a long, dark, coiling shape breaking the surface of Lough Erne...

I also packed the most recent edition of Slightly Foxed. I love Slightly Foxed. It bills itself as the 'independent quarterly that introduces its readers to books that are no longer new and fashionable but have lasting appeal. A bit like myself, really.

Unfortunately, there's been a shameless amount of eating and drinking since Christmas, and in my case the wages of over-indulgence are gastritis, so I'm currently living on green tea and rice cakes, which is much the same as eating lightly-salted polystyrene. I even had to shun the Easter eggs. Still, the honeymooners came home on Easter Monday - Gloom was torn between joy at their return and disappointment that his vicarious travels had come to an end: he much prefers getting endless photos of foreign lands to all the bother of going there himself - and in May there'll be a new grandchild to look forward to. Plus, the days are getting longer, and I think I might have found a way forward, at long last, with the book that's been haunting me for months.

And one last reason to be cheerful: this weekend it's Greek Easter! I think I might treat myself to a little bit of chocolate, and  a glass or two of champagne. Not exactly what the doctor ordered, but what the hell: it's not how long you live that matters, but how well you live.

Καλο Πασχα everyone!

PANCAKES, PARTIES AND PASSING ON...

Pancake day yesterday. I had Ormeau pancakes with an inch of butter and lashings of maple syrup. It’s what I have for breakfast every day of my life but this is the one day my husband can’t mutter about my arteries. He has to watch his weight himself; lucky for me I come from a long line of women who get thinner and thinner as they grow older. We end up like little brittle stick people and have to be saved from going down the drain with the bath water.

Anyway, I need to eat to keep my strength up: it’s going to be a busy year. There’s Daughter 2’s wedding in March, Daughter 1’s baby due in May, and several major birthday celebrations, all accompanied by invasions of relatives. We’ve had two hen parties already; the first a family affair for a dozen or so - the second, last weekend, for twice as many. There were pre-party drinks at one venue, cocktail-making and dinner at another, and dancing and god knows what at a third. I wouldn’t know: Professor Gloom came and dragged me home, along with the other two older members of the party, before we had a chance to behave unsuitably.

I’ve been very rude about hen parties in my time – about weddings in general, really. I’ve been married twice in registry offices and I’ve always considered big weddings a tremendous waste of money. But I have to say, this was a classy hen. We didn’t just have Anna Lo, Naomi Long and the Lord Mayor there, we also had Claire and Helen, the Bridesmaids from Heaven, as well as various local stars of stage and public life, and – for one night only - the Lutalo Sisters. (In case you move in less exalted circles, or don’t know all of my extended family, they’re Uganda’s gift to the world, and for a combination of brains, beauty, and joie de vivre, will never be surpassed.)

Anyway, it was a good party. But hen nights are not for sissies, and certainly not for old ladies. And before anyone says ‘you’re not old’ let me tell you something: I’m sick to death of this 70-is-the-new-50 and you can’t be old until you’re 90 rubbish. 70 might be the new trying-to-be-50, but it’s been hard work getting this far, and now that my three score years and ten are nearly up, I’m going to be as old as I want. I’m going to eat, drink, wear and do whatever takes my fancy, and I’m never ever going to read another word of any book that hasn’t got my full attention by the time I get to page 3.

I don’t sit through films I’m not enjoying either, which is why I go to QFT. If you walk out of a movie there, you can sit in comfort in the foyer with a glass of wine, and wait for your friends who sat through the whole thing until they come out holding their heads. I went to see Phantom Thread last night. If the end had been at the beginning, I might not have lasted, but I liked the clothes, and both Daniel Day Lewis and Vicky Krieps (apt, that name, considering her character) were sufficiently watchable to keep me interested - and there’s a bit where she first prepares some mushrooms for him that probably sent a collective ripple of sympathetic glee through half the women in the audience – but in the end I have to say I thought it was a load of twaddle.

I’d like to see a few more films where younger men got involved with older women, just as I’d like to read a few more books written by, and for, older people. That’s the other thing about age-denial: if you’re not allowed to be old then you also miss out on the traditional benefits of deference, respect, and allowances made, or credit given, for a lifetime’s accumulated wisdom. (Ok, maybe not wisdom, but at least experience.) The end result is that most of my generation go around desperately trying to keep up, and terrified that their memory lapses and tendency to repeat themselves will be seen as signs of incipient dementia. My granny didn’t apologise for forgetting peoples' names or losing her keys. “Oh well,’ she’d say, ‘that’s what happens when you get old. Why don’t you pour us another little gin, dear?’

And while on this cheery subject, one last thought: Advance Decisions. This is the Advance Decision to Refuse Treatment should you lose the capacity to make decisions for yourself. This applies to all you younger people out there too: in fact, you’re far more likely to be kept alive with ventilators and feeding tubes after some catastrophic accident. I was spurred on by a Radio 4 programme about Polly Kitzinger, daughter of natural childbirth campaigner Sheila Kitzinger, who was kept alive after terrible brain injuries despite her family knowing it was the very last thing she would have wanted. Compassion In Dying have a free, simple and easy to download form: you just fill it in, sign it and get someone to witness your signature.

Myself, I’m hoping to keel over mid-G+T, after which I won’t mind what happens, although I’d like all my friends and family to have a party.  What I’d really like would be a send-off on a burning raft, pushed out into Belfast lough at night, but apparently that’s not permitted. Still, with any luck my Advance Decision will ensure that I die with as much grace, dignity and speed as possible, and without any unnecessary medical interference. And until then, I’m going to squeeze every last drop of enjoyment out of life that I can, starting with a celebratory dinner at my favourite restaurant tonight.

 

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone, and many more.

What! Who's going to open the cat food?

LOSING THE PLOT - AGAIN...

I started this blog in 2016. The first post was a response to Women Aloud, the newly-formed group promoting Northern Irish women writers; the last was inspired by the women I met on a Pro-Choice march. The 19 posts in between were mainly about books, writing, travel, life… There were low points - 48 hits for one - but Women Aloud got 341, the piece written after the Manchester Arena bombing got 363, and Right to Choose scored 1280 - which made me feel  readers had got their priorities right. And having made up my mind that it was the last one I was ever going to write, it was nice to bow out on a personal high.

One of my daughters refuses to have anything to do with social media (she still writes letters) but her younger sister has 2,500 followers on Twitter, and their brother has 24k. I think I’ve got around 50, so even I can see I haven’t got a hope in the social media stakes, although Professor Gloom wins the Low Profile title hands-down: he has 6, and I think one of them might be the cat. The problem is that blogging is addictive: I find I miss the fun of it too much not to start another, so in spite of everything I said, here I am back in the blogosphere, Losing the Plot Again…

One of the good things about blogging is it loosens up the writing muscles. It’s a sort of mental pilates, it keeps my brain ticking over, and it staves off the moment when I actually have to get back to the work in progress. It also lets me to say something about the often forgotten writers, books and people who've inspired me. (I could do another whole blog on who and what has depressed me lately, but there’s enough gloom out there already.)

So, this week I’m tipping my hat to a small group of women who meet once a month because they have a mutual passion for a lonely, undervalued and mostly unprofitable occupation: they write books for children. Children’s books are a growing market, but it’s harder than ever to get published, and good children’s books - books that delight, that fire the imagination, the ones you remember for the rest of your life – these are not so common. And a good writer teaches a child how to read, just as a good teacher opens a student’s eyes to the infinite possibilities of maths or music, or whatever.

One of the striking things about our group is that most of them write for Young Adults. I’m old enough to remember the days before YA; back then we had teenagers, who stayed in a dreary limbo until they reached 18 and were finally allowed to be Adults. It wasn’t much cop being a teenager: we had no social media, not much social life outside of school, and no-one was interested in our feelings, fashion or opinions - although we could at least get drunk and take our clothes off without anyone posting up the details for all the world to see. And because life was so devoid of other distractions, we had time to read. Apart from the classics deemed suitable for school, there wasn't a lot between Nancy Drew and Hercule Poirot, so thank god for I Capture the Castle and Catcher in the Rye. For Sci Fi: for John Wyndham and Ray Bradbury. 

But now the world’s a harsher, brasher, faster place, and Young Adult-hood begins at 12, or so I'm told. I worry that childhood is shrinking, that our children are being bombarded from babyhood by the noise and racket of modern life. By constant visual imagery and the relentless pressure of social media; by the jostle and haste and din of everyone shouting to be heard.

So, to anyone trying to contribute to one of the few peaceful, solitary, affordable pleasures available to our children – to books that transport their readers to extraordinary worlds, that make them laugh, and think, and wonder – and sometimes just make their lives a little more bearable – well, all I can say is, what better thing could you be doing?

So, what are the books that I remember most from my own childhood? My father reading the Just-so Stories to my brother and me; my mother reading The Wind in the Willows. Pippi Longstocking, sent by my grandmother with an inscription reading ‘Helen dear, I hope you will like Pippi, but please don’t imitate her!’ George MacDonald’s Princess and the Goblin, borrowed from a tiny country library; Patricia Lynch: The Turfcutter’s Donkey; The Borrowers; all the E Nesbitts brought to me by a family friend during a long illness; C.S.Lewis, Tolkien, Rosemary Sutcliffe…just writing down their names is as comforting as being tucked back into my childhood bed.

And why is there a picture of Clementina at the top of this? I’ll tell you why: every time I post anything with a picture of a cat, I get twice as much interest as before…and if I flatter her enough, who knows? She might even start following me on Twitter.

THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE

I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, on the 21^st of August 1948, not long after the end of World War II and right in time for the blighted years of Apartheid as well as the mixed blessings of the swinging sixties and the dawn of the digital age. There have been some remarkable ups and downs in my life but by and large I consider myself to have been exceptionally lucky. I was born privileged and white ; I had an adequate brain and I never went hungry. Most importantly of all, I had parents and siblings who loved me.

So, 21 has always been my lucky number, and when I started this blog – for fun, for keeping my literary hand in, and hopefully to share some of the books I’ve most loved – I decided that the twenty-first would be my last. I haven’t always known when to stop, but increasing years are finally bringing a little wisdom: there are thousands of competing blogs out there, never mind the tweets, the postings, the sharings that make up the digital cacophony. I’ve added my bit, but enough’s enough.

If you’ve read this far you may be wondering what I’ve saved for a final blog. The answer is possibly not what you’re expecting: there are no books or cats in this one, no absent-minded professors or domestic disasters. This one is for all those women and girls who, like me, were denied the right to choose.

Abortion is such an emotive word. The moment it’s uttered people draw back to one side or other of the battle lines – or simply draw back their metaphorical skirts.  Which is unfortunate, because it’s not abortion that’s in question. For the majority of people, after all, the health and well-being of an adult woman must take precedence over that of a developing foetus, and it’s perfectly legal in the United Kingdom, although not in Ireland, north or south. What is in question is an ordinary woman’s right to make a decision that, no matter which course she chooses, will affect her for the rest of her life, but which she, and only she, is qualified to make.

I had an abortion nearly 50 years ago. I was twenty years old, I had no money or proper job, and the man I loved (and with whom I was living, in contravention of society’s laws) wouldn’t marry me. He did however have the money for a private abortion. It wasn’t legal, of course; it required a flight to another city as well as absolute secrecy, and after all these years it is still something I find hard to talk about. But I remember very clearly the pain and humiliation of feeling that I had no choice. And the utter loneliness of being forced to travel without friends or family on one of the worst journeys of my life.

A few weeks ago I joined my youngest daughter on a Pro-Choice march through Belfast, and was immensely proud to be in the company of so many brave and principled women and men, young and old, who are determined to keep fighting for what should be a woman’s legal right. There are of course as many different reasons for a woman choosing to terminate a pregnancy as there are women, and there are many whose religious or other convictions would make it impossible for them to do so. I have no quarrel with them: I respect their beliefs and their own right to choose where they stand. But no woman should be forced to bear a child she cannot or does not wish to bring into this world; no human being should be regarded as simply a receptacle for incubating another; and no woman should be censured for making a decision that one way or another will cause her lasting grief and pain. No woman should be forced to order pills online and run the attendant legal and medical risks, and no woman should have to travel alone across the water to endure the sorrow of a termination far from friends and home. And what offends me most of all is that it is the poor and most desperate who have the least choice.

I have no wish to hurt or offend anyone – least of all a friend or relative – but the world never changes until enough people speak out, and this, for me, is a matter of deep injustice. So I make no apologies for this blog. I had a lot of fun doing the earlier ones - I can’t say I’ve enjoyed this one, but  I feel bound to make a contribution to the debate. Because this is a conversation we must have: half the population of this island are being treated at worst like criminals, and at best like second-class citizens. Shame on those who allow it to continue, and more power to those who are brave enough to fight for change.

A luta continua…over and out!

TRICK OR TREAT

After Bernie McGill's The Watch House (go and buy it NOW and if possible take it to Rathlin Island and read it there) the next book in the pile was A Card From Angela Carter by Susannah Clapp. I don't know where I got it - I buy books every week, friends and family lend or give them to me, and by the time I get round to reading them, their origins are long forgotten. (This can be helpful if you've got your eye on any of my books: all you need to do is check there's no inscription, and say 'This isn't the copy I lent you a couple of years ago is it?' I'll probably apologise profusely for not returning it.)

Anyway, to get back to Angela Carter. It was top of the heap of twenty-odd books I'm planning to read soon. There are five times as many lying around that I'm planning to read if I live long enough.
It's small (103 pages) beautifully produced (Bloomsbury) and it's a captivating portrait of a writer interspersed with the postcards and messages Carter sent over several years to Clapp, who was her friend and literary executor.

I fell in love with Angela Carter when I first read The Bloody Chamber, that fabulously lush and sinister retelling of old fairy tales. Then I read Nights at the Circus and Wise Children, but what I most admire was her glorious, fierce refusal to be anyone but herself. She was, in her own words, 'a kind of phoenix, a fabulous beast...an outlandish jewel' - outspoken, political, a fearless and unfettered writer. You read Angela Carter for inspiration, provocation, and for wild, flamboyant flights of fantasy, not literary restraint.

I have a soft spot for small, beautifully produced books - preferably short, illustrated and unusual. Step forward The Emma Press. (https://theemmapress.com/) I only discovered them when I bought a copy of Jan Carson's Postcard Stories. And I was thinking about Jan the other morning because I'd seen on Facebook that she was celebrating Miracle Day - the day her lost laptop (with all her work on it) was returned intact. What a happy note on which to start my own day, I thought - who knows, perhaps a miracle would be waiting for me too? Then I turned on my laptop and found all my desktop files missing. Nothing. Even Dropbox was empty.

Professor Gloom held out little hope that they could be recovered. Still, he has access to the Great Wizard of Queens (I can't tell you his name but he has a closely-guarded office somewhere in the labyrinthine depths of the University) so he departed with my laptop, leaving me to contemplate the random cruelties of fate.

And you know what? I had a wonderfully peaceful and creative day. I sat at my desk with paper and pen and felt a Zen-like serenity. Yes, I thought about the years and years of work that had gone into my latest book, but I also realised that the chances of anyone ever publishing it were so slight that I should probably be grateful to be spared the exhausting effort required these days to hook an agent, interest a publisher and get your book noticed, talked about, talked up, sold... There are several reasons why I like short books and short stories - and I recommend the one I'm reading at the moment, by the way: David Park's 'Gods and Angels', which is beautifully written and somehow manages to be both understated and compelling at the same time. Apart from the fact that small books are easier to carry around, I've never managed to produce more than 50,000 words myself so naturally I look on them with favour. But the main thing is that I'm 69 and my stamina is diminishing. And before anyone tells me today's 69 is the new 49, no it's bloody not: it might be the new trying-to-stay-49 but that's a different matter. The plain truth is that when you're pushing 70, you get tired. You ache, you twinge, you lose concentration and patience, and occasionally you behave like a cantankerous old bat.

But even cantankerous old bats can acknowledge miracles. The Great Wizard (may he live forever) fixed my laptop and recovered my files. And a day away from the reproachful wails of unfinished manuscripts (like so many half-born children) never mind the twitter and gibber and racket of social media, gave me the breathing space I needed to work out what it was that I wanted to write next. I also practised my Greek, and went out to buy my Hallowe'en outfit. And if you're a friend or relation of one of the little trick-or-treaters who covered our door last year with something that wouldn't come off, which meant it had to be repainted, please tell them I'm very sorry we were out, and therefore unable to give them any sweets. Not that they want sweets, or so I'm told: it's only money these days - and some of them don't even bother with the outfit, they just pull their hoodies up....but don't worry, I'm ready for them this year. I've got my gashed throat transfer, my glowing eyeballs and my fangs. And at the first ring of the doorbell I'm going to erupt out of here like a fiend from Hell, howling and screeching and brandishing my broomstick as I chase the little hellions down the drive.

I hope Angela Carter would approve.

BAPTISMS AND BROKEN BONES...

We arrived in Kalamata on July 6, just in time to celebrate the third birthday of granddaughter Erin Eleni - she of the exploding hair, whose every inch vibrates with energy, and whose smile melts stones.

Having recently killed off a character in Greece, I was hoping life wouldn’t emulate art, but luckily no fatal accident befell me. Instead I broke my wrist. This gave me the choice of finding a hospital and possibly spending the whole week in plaster (and out of the water) or strapping it up and relying on the glorious Ionian sea and copious quantities of wine to act as anaesthetics. I went for the second option and would do the same again, because to swim before sunrise in the bay of Kalamata, rocked and soothed by clear cool water – and again in the heat of the morning, and in the afternoon, restored by lunch (bread, wine, feta, olives) and a long lazy siesta – this is close to paradise. And when the sun sets, turning the sea to glass and the mountains pink, there is a little open-air restaurant above the bay where you can choose your fish from the day’s catch, to be grilled and served up with oregano-flecked potatoes and Greek salad, all washed down with carafes of cold white wine. 

The main reason for being in Kalamata was to join the family circus that gathers for celebrations, in this instance the christening of Aiden Socrates, one year-old brother to Erin Eleni, who is so entirely delectable that if the fish and olives had run out, this grandmother might well have eaten him. If you have ever attended a Greek orthodox baptism you will know that it is a long, incense-soaked, tradition-laden ceremony, in this case in the little church in the village where Erin and Aiden’s other grandparents were born and raised, and where the entire community seems to be involved in any event.

The village is up in the hills. There is one street, and the taverna looks down over the sweep of ruins that is ancient Messene. It is a magical place, even without flowers, candles, music, and the stars burning overhead. Professor Gloom, as predicted, became exceedingly merry. In the end, the dancing, eating, drinking, and long intense conversations - no less warm and delightful for being largely incomprehensible - went on until damn near dawn.

Two days later most of the party decamped to Kefalonia, but Gloom and I, along with Councillor Kate, went on a trip around the Mani. The Mani is famous for being wild and remote, and the Maniots for their feuds, their tower-houses, and their fierce independence. It also inspired Patrick Leigh Fermor to write his book about travelling around the southern Peloponnese. ‘Mani’ is a dense, beautifully-written mixture of travel, history, folk-lore and anecdote, by a man whose digressions are legendary. Who else, musing on strange communities, could mention in the space of a paragraph the Mevlevi dervishes of the Tower of Winds, the Chams of Thesprotia, the scattered Souliots of Roumeli, the wandering quacks of Eurytania, the Kravarite mendicants of Aetolia, and the phallus-wielding Bounariots of Tyrnavos?

Leigh-Fermor’s extraordinary account of his youthful journey, on foot, from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople can be found in the two volumes written decades later: ‘A Time of Gifts’ and ‘Between the Woods and the Water’. The third volume was never completed, but after his death Colin Thubron and Artemis Cooper put together ‘The Broken Road’ from the work he left behind.  I’d admired him as a writer for so long, and I was curious to see the place where he lived for so many years: Kardamyli, a little village down the coast from Kalamata. So we drove there first – or rather, we were driven by the peerless Dionisios Barounis, who has ferried us around on our last two trips to Greece. (We Transfer You taxi and mini van services – www.wetransferyou.gr -  if you find yourself in need of a cab in the Peloponnese, look no further.)

Kardamyli is lovely: small, peaceful and seductive. Then through Lakgada, where we stopped to look at frescoes in a tiny church, and north to Sparta which is famous but forgettable. Then up into the hills to our main objective, Mystras, a sprawling Byzantine complex of churches, palaces and courtyards, some in ruins, some restored, and all clinging to the precipitous slopes of Mount Taiyetos. We picked our way down the stony path in 40 degree heat, resting in patches of shade or ruined doorways, almost deafened by cicadas, and dazed by the stupendous view below us.

Then we fell into Dionisios’s waiting car, to be transported back up into the mountains and through the spectacular Langadha Pass to a small taverna on the far side, where the forest enclosed us, and the music of birds and waterfalls accompanied our lunch of bread, olives, chicken souvlaki, pork in lemon – oh god, the food!

Last Friday we got home. All praise to Bangor Minor Injuries staff who x-rayed and plastered me up in no time at all. Given the number of older women I’ve run into since – all with limbs in plaster – I’m planning to take up sling and splint design. There has to be something more attractive than frayed beige cotton and neck-throttling foam. I envisage emerald silk and indigo linen, with artful little loops for attaching keys and sunglasses, or the odd pocket to hold your purse, or possibly a G+T.

‘Injuries-R-Us’ – I can see it already: I'm going to be the Dior of damaged limbs, the Armani of the accident-prone...and it has to be more profitable than writing.