All things must pass

Skopelos

Nothing lasts forever. Always an ambiguous phrase in my view. Do we mean that there is nothing which will last for eternity or do we mean that what we term nothing does, in fact, go on forever. In my typically equivocal fashion I suppose I mean both.

In this instance what will not last forever is my time here on Skopelos. After a lot of thought and soul-searching we have decided to return to the UK. There are a number of reasons for our decision, but most are bound up with our family.

While there is not always a lot I can do for my family when I am in the same country as them, there is virtually nothing I can do for them when I am on a remote Greek island about 1,500 miles away.

In addition, I will admit to feeling increasingly jaundiced about my life here in Greece. In Greek mythology the lotus eaters were a race of people on an island whose primary food was the narcotic fruit and flowers of the lotus. This resulted in them leading lives of peaceful apathy. Sometimes I feel that is what my life has become here.

I cannot pretend that I am not fearful about the future. Is returning to the UK the right thing to do? How will we manage? What will we do?

Also I know that Mrs C is less struck on the idea than I am. After a recent sojourn in the UK she returned to Skopelos complaining bitterly of the British weather. That is not her only concern about life in the UK, but it is one I understand. Also she will miss her beloved garden which she has worked so hard to create. I am troubled that she will be unhappy away from this beautiful island.

In her typically pragmatic fashion she has assured me that returning to the UK is something we will have to make work: no use whingeing and wringing our hands, we'll just have to get on with it.

Since coming to the decision to return to the UK there has been a General Election resulting in a Conservative government. This fills me with some foreboding, but then I am currently living in a country where foreboding is the default setting as it continues to lurch towards seemingly unavoidable economic doom. What will be, will be, wherever I live.

Today is my birthday, which is usually regarded as a cause for celebration. Still here, still above ground, not completely moribund, and yet I am writing this post which is more than a little woeful. I am sorry to be sombre, but today it is the way I feel. I'll cheer up later. I suppose I should take some consolation from the title of this post. All things must pass, nothing lasts forever.

I will get over this, but in the meantime, as is my usual practice with this blog, I'd like to finish with some music. I have chosen the very beautiful, but also rather mournful 1st movement of Elgar's Cello Concerto.

I'm now worrying that this is all getting much too gloomy so we'll have one more bit of music which will be much more like how my birthday ought to be.

It's been a quiet week

It hardly seems possible that it's only a week since I had to take the heartbreaking decision to let the vet end my dog's suffering. That's why it's been a quiet week - and obviously a sad week, too.

When I describe Bonnie as "my dog", it's not entirely accurate. She was very much a family dog and would be friendly with anyone who would offer her a kind word, a stroke of her lovely soft ears or, even better, slip her an illicit morsel of food.

Bonnie was a black Labrador and like pretty well all of her kind always seemed to have food at the forefront of her mind. It was this which first led me to realise something was wrong with her when she began to refuse meals.

Anyway, I don't want to dwell on the last days of a much loved pet other than to say that things were made easier by the presence of one of my daughters who had come to Skopelos for a short holiday. Having the first day of your holiday taken up by the death of a pet is not a good start to any break, but I was glad I had a hand to hold and a shoulder to cry on.

So now Bonnie is at rest in the olive grove. My landlord, who was very fond of Bonnie, helped me dig a grave and we buried her with one of her favourite toys, a rather grubby Father Christmas doll, which she would often present to visitors to the house. In a few weeks I will buy a fruit tree which we will plant over her. It seems fitting that a dog with such wide and varied tastes in food should have a fruit tree nearby.

I am trying desperately hard not to be sentimental in this post, but it's difficult. I miss her enthusiastic greeting every time I returned home, I miss the way she would place her head on my knee and give me a soulful stare (yes, I know it usually meant she wanted food) and above all I just miss her presence. But life goes on and I am grateful for the time we had with Bonnie, a good and faithful friend.

Just at the moment I can't lay my hands on a picture of Bonnie. I'll try to find one soon. In the meantime, here's Led Zeppelin singing a song which while not about a black Labrador apparently was named after one. I have to admit that whenever I played Led Zep Bonnie seemed to wander off, I don't think she was a fan. Even so, this is dedicated to her.

Found myself in a strange town

Readers of a certain age may well recognise the title of this post as the opening line of the Jam's single Strange Town and it seems quite fitting.

For a few weeks I am back in the Devon town where I lived for most of my adult life until we decided to move to Skopelos.

The truth is everything feels strange here.

I know my way round, I recognise the shops, pubs and other businesses that form the core of the town, but it's all a bit disjointed. My lovely family are the reason for me being here, which is very sustaining. However, I've also bumped in to a few acquaintances and I've been left wondering if I look as old to them as they do to me.

That's the thing when we lose that continuity of contact with people and places. Incremental changes become massive jumps.

Anyway, I'm here for a few weeks so I suppose I'll get used to it. Somehow, though, I can't get this song out of my mind.

T is for the Thompson Twins

The year 1984 was a special year. Forget Orwell's novel of the same name, actually don't forget it, it's a great piece of work that continues to serve as a warning to us all. However, for the purposes of this blog, put the novel to one side.

No, 1984 was special to me because it was the year I got married and also the year that I first flew. In fact, put those events in reverse order. A holiday flight to Spain and then a few weeks later back in the UK, tying the knot after which connubial bliss ensued (30 years this year).

So far, so good. The musical memory comes from the second time I flew, which was that summer in an RAF Hercules. In those days I was a newspaper reporter and my job that day was to cover the local RAF station's air day. Included in this assignment was going up in the Hercules with the RAF's parachute display team, the Falcons. No, nothing so bonkers as doing a parachute jump with them, just talk to them as they prepared for their jump and then observe them as they peeled off from the gaping ramp of the Hercules as it flew at about 12,000ft.

All well and good, we were on long harnesses so we couldn't fall out and it was quite something to see a group of men take a leap in to the wide blue yonder. But after that we were all told to sit down sharpish because the plane had to make a "tactical landing". Basically that's going from 12,000ft to the ground as swiftly as possible to get out of the way of the next flying display.

"You will experience positive and negative G," we were warned. They were right, one minute I was being crunched in to my seat, the next I was rising up against the harness holding me in place. Not a good sensation for a relatively nervous novice air passenger. We landed perfectly safely and somehow I managed to resist the urge to kiss the ground.

So where do the Thompson Twins fit in? And, by the way, I mean the 1980s New Wave group, not Tintin's detective chums although that's who they were named after. Well, before we took off in the Hercules the RAF Falcons played out on the ground the manoeuvres they would follow in their descent. It's a slightly odd spectacle on the ground and all the time they were doing that one of their team was playing a Thompson Twins' tape. Perhaps oddly for such a personally remarkable year, I have nothing by the Thompson Twins in my collection, just some wonderful memories.

Here's a bit of music to jump out of planes to.

Also-rans: Talking Heads and Once In A Lifetime. "Well, how did I get here?", a great line and always a good one to sing when things become puzzling, shall we say. Also Marquee Moon by Television. Both these fine American bands remind me that not all the best rock'n'roll begins "1...2...3...4".

M is for Van Morrison

This is an easy one. Van Morrison's Brown Eyed Girl reminds me, not that I need reminding, of my dear wife. After all, it is, in a way, because of her that I'm doing this challenge to make April pass a little more quickly and we are now at the halfway mark, which means we're closing in on the time when I shall see her again in May. For a quick refresher on all of this see here.

There are quite a few brown eyed girls in my family, but today there's one who is particularly on my mind. So now I'm just going to listen to the music and think about her.

Also-rans: Phil Menard and his Louisiana Travellers playing One Is A Lonely Number. This reminds me of the time I nearly drove my family mad by repeatedly playing a compilation tape of Cajun music as we went round the Vendée region of France. I tried to justify this by pointing out the Cajuns had originally come from that area before crossing the Atlantic to settle in Canada and ultimately ending up in Louisiana. This nod to history carried little weight with my family. I still like the song and it's quite appropriate at the moment.

Parting is such sweet sorrow

Our old friend Shakespeare comes to the rescue for the title of this post. He's got a phrase for almost every occasion and the occasion this time is saying goodbye, which to be honest I'm not very good at. I'm even worse when it comes to seeing someone off on a boat.

So this morning we had to wave off one of our daughters who has been staying with us for a fortnight and the only way off this island - unless you're a well-heeled type with access to a helicopter - is by boat. Consequently we all drove down to the harbour for the early Flying Cat and although I always try to put a brave face on it I can't help but shed a few tears whenever I'm seeing someone off from the harbour.

What is it about waving goodbye to someone who is leaving by boat? Does it stir up emotions that go back to the time when the only way to travel long distances was by sea and when someone left on a boat they very often would be gone for a long time? Or is it just that I'm a bit soft and feel a wrench when I say goodbye to someone I love? I don't know and to be truthful I'm writing this more as therapy to take my mind off my gloom than to psychoanalyse myself, but there's no getting away from it that for me seeing someone leave on a boat gets to me much more than watching them drive off down the road or disappear through an airport departure gate.

Anyway, you'll have to excuse me now as I'm going to sit around and be a bit doleful for a while.