marramgrass

Copenhagen, March 2005.

I’m still sorting through old photographs, trying to develop some sort of organisation. This one is from our last foreign holiday before we went to Santorini last month.

I don’t think I’ve posted it here before, but I could be wrong.

Near Kamari, Santorini, June 2008.

The last photo from our trip, and by far my favourite.

Megalochori, Santorini, June 2008.

Oia, Santorini, June 2008.

This is the view that has become the clichéd representation of Santorini in guidebooks, paintings and on postcards sent all over the world. Of course I had to shoot it for myself. It felt very strange to be standing looking through the lenses of all those other photographers, almost all of whom did better with the scene than I managed.

Something to know about me: I don’t travel well. I get nervous, my sense of direction is abysmal, I’m picky about food. I just don’t have the wanderlust.

None of which is to say I don’t enjoy seeing new places — I do — more that I need to build myself up to it, and then survive on adrenaline when I’m there. I haven’t travelled much outside the UK; a few European city-breaks, and one short visit to Kenya when my wife was doing her medical school elective there. That was more than five years ago, so I may not be remembering it clearly but I think our most recent trip, to Santorini, has trumped Kenya on unfamiliarity. Maybe it’s because it’s still part of Europe (Greece), so psychologically the differences were more visible.

Getting there is a bit of a nuisance. The way the connections worked out coming from Belfast we had six or seven hours sitting in Athens overnight before the 05.45 flight to Santorini, getting us on the ground on the island before 06.30. When we collected the hire car and drove from the airport it was still soon enough after dawn that we saw the rising sun catching the mountains and east-facing cliffs, with the small whitewashed buildings and blue-domed churches scattered everywhere. The sight was stunning, but for this Belfast boy it felt completely alien.

Santorini is formed from the edge of a volcanic crater peeking out from the sea. (The volcano is still active, so I guess there was a chance the whole place would explode while we were there. I’m pleased to report that it didn’t.) Across the road from our hotel we could stand and see the various islands around the caldera. Two islands in the middle are where the volcano still vents. There’s something satisfying about being able to stand and look at the islands and connect them easily with the map on the wall of the hotel dining room.

Our Lonely Planet guidebook advises that when you hire a car on Santorini (which is refreshingly affordable) you should approach the roads with patience and caution. Not only are they narrow and winding, with markings faded as a rule to near-invisibility, but each spectacular view seems placed perfectly to distract from an upcoming bend or crossroads (I never did figure out who has right of way at any given crossroads). Add that the fact that I’ve never had to drive on the right-hand side of the road before and I found my adrenaline!

Fira, the capital, hangs off the cliff inside the caldera, as does the village of Oia on the northern horn of the island. Where Fira has a fast, crowded atmosphere, Oia is much more relaxed — even when we were there and it was mobbed with cruisers from the ships resting in the caldera. It’s very easy to pass a day (or more) exploring either place, where the whitewashed alleyways are lined with shops from expensive jewelers to three shops in a row selling the same selection of baseball caps, shards of rock dancing donkeys on a string. The alleys seem to catch and hold the sun and the heat, and I was glad that almost everywhere had an air-conditioner over the door.

One of the owners of our hotel explained to me that the blue domes are all churches, although not all churches have the distinctive blue-domed roof. She told us that each town or village has a main church that gets used regularly, then many smaller ones that will only get used for special occasions, perhaps for a given family’s name-day celebrations. As she told us, “In Santorini there are more churches than houses, more wine than water and more donkeys than people. Maybe not the donkeys any more, but the other two… yes.”

Highlights of our trip included dinner at Ambrosia & Nectar in Oia, reliably beautiful sunsets over the caldera, another spectacular view around every bend in the road, Greek hospitality, no more than four drops of rain and the compliant way my hayfever switched off for a week!

I’d love to return to Santorini, either for a holiday or specifically to photograph all the churches — that would be a very enjoyable project indeed.

Oia, Santorini, June 2008.

Oia, Santorini, June 2008.

The last couple of weeks, since I have now secured employment (T minus 2 days), have been by way of a holiday. There are pictures, many pictures, and books read, many books.

The first hint - it may not look like it, but this was Northern Ireland. Again, please forgive the ‘phone-cam output.

The sky looked ominous this afternoon, so we did what anyone sensible would do: we loaded the dog into the back of the car and headed out to see what we could see.

By the time we reached Newcastle, the omen had been shown good. It’s this kind of downpour that shows one of the essential points of tension between my wife and me, which is to say her deep optimism as contrasted with my usual pessimism. At her suggestion, we kept driving in the hope of coming out the other side of the weather.

By the time we reached the Silent Valley, the rain had stopped. At least, it stopped until we’d paid our £4.50 (eep) and the barrier had come down behind the car - but this perfectly poetic moment was too much for the heavens to resist. Right on cue, downpour once again.

That said, the Silent Valley is a beautiful place with the reservoir hidden in a bowl of Mournes.

I’ve only been there once before, when my parents took my brother and me up on what I remember as a blazingly hot summer afternoon several years ago. Contrast indeed. I remembered it as rather great, although under-appreciated by the younger me, and it did appeal to me today. My wife may disagree and tell of the moaning I did about the weather, but it was great. Intriguingly, reservoirs and dams tend to take me that way. I’ll have to return sometime with a camera other than the one in my cellphone.

The weather did pick up, with the sun raising steam from the tarmac. But not before we were wet and the dog was wetter. She’s sitting here by my feet drying off quietly.

I don’t understand cows.

I’m a city boy. Also, I have my doubts that cows understand me. Then again, when those eyes are looking at you from unnervingly close by, who’s to say what’s going on behind them? Maybe they do understand.

As a species they provide milk, steaks, burgers, short grass and more cows. I wasn’t aware until yesterday that they are also good at providing… let’s call it ‘the willies’.

Taking a long weekend in my father-in-law’s little cottage on the north coast (a semi-regular holiday haunt), I lay on the sofa reading a book by the fading window-light. A chewing noise invited me to look up. Less than three feet from my face was the face of a cow. A really big cow. It looked somehow affronted. Do you like it when people watch you eat?

Later, as tends to be the evening routine, I took the dog outside for activities she’d rather not have observed either. She saw the cows (yes, plural). They saw her. They came over, and looked. Seven of them, all in a row, looking hard. A short distance from me. The dog, the cows, I don’t think they’d be friends.

I was very aware that the fence there is only a couple of feet high. Despite the fact I’m a city boy, I was also aware that cows can run, that cows can jump. That cows are big and heavy and probably not too weak. I can’t imagine they got bullied at school.

To sum, I was mostly aware that what keeps the cows on the other side of the fence is nothing more than that they are happy there. I wondered what it takes to disturb that happiness.

That’s when I took the dog back inside.