Today it is grey and wet, and though I have plenty of planning to do, I think I can just spend a couple of minutes reflecting on the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.

I've just had a very interesting discussion with BNA members about whether "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" by CS Lewis is really related to travel. Of course it is, even if it's a fantastical journey. On the subject of Narnia and portals, my gorgeous Polish friend Aga used to tell her cousins when they were all very young that the back of the washing machine drum had a portal through which you could enter into another world. It was just as well they couldn't all fit in, otherwise I'm sure Aga would have been tempted to close the door and turn it on....
What on earth does all this have to do with Greece? Well, I'll let you into a secret , my friends. When I was a child living in Athens, my Primary School teacher Miss Lalla used to read the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to her spellbound students. It went with the open windows ushering in the smell of pine trees and the autumnal breezes that chilled the September heat. It went with the icy Boreas blowing in from Siberia when winter hit. It went with the wild flowers of Spring you could still find on Pendeli. And it went with the bewitching summer, the drone of the cicadas and the shimmer of the heat.
My mother was a crafty woman and seeing how taken I was by Narnia, she told me that every time I read a Narnia book, she would give me a little test to check that I'd actually done so, and then she'd go and buy me a couple of Spiderman comics from the local supermarket. She didn't need to bribe me; I'd have eaten those books anyway.
A land that lends itself to myths and legends so naturally, is a good place to read the Narnia books, because of its history and the sense of the past marching through the olive groves, forests, valleys and moutainsides. I was once given a book of Ancient Greek heroes, heroines, gods and goddesses. It was my favourite book apart from the Adventures of Tintin, with beautifully done illustrations of the Greek legends and myths.
A character who could have stepped straight out of these legends and myths was Lazarus, a wild-eyed, wild-haired, wild, tough old shepherd who wandered the hillsides of Andros. He had holes in his trousers and , if he was wearing shoes, he wore cut-out rubber tyres. Lazarus was the village idiot, a rich man in terms of land, who chose to live with his sheep, and whose conversation was incomprehensible. He scared me a little, because he was always shouting 'eh-oop, eh-oop' as he downed another ouzo. He was, as they say, 'touched by the god', and entirely appropriately, the god in this case was Dionysus, on Dionysus' island.
Which brings me back to the present. Poland has its fair share of drunk down-and-outs, and Wroclaw station is one of the places where they hang out. Wroclaw is not a scary station in broad daylight, though there is probably the odd Joul (Polish slang for drunk down-and-out) hanging around. It's at night that Wroclaw station becomes frightening, with Jouls lying along the subways/corridors that lead to the platforms of the station. Some of these sots are hard people and very threatening. Once, I was sitting in a bar overlooking the main concourse of the station and minding my own business over a pint of beer and a meal. Suddenly a Joul entered the bar, and staggered over to where I was having a drink. He started to speak to me in incomprehensible slur, as if he were speaking Double Dutch (or was it Double Polish?) with a Silesian accent, and I ignored him. But this did not deter him. He began again on his rant, his words with their tipsy-turviness stumbling and tumbling aggressively at my head, and I was wishing desperately that this horrible person would go away. I continued to mind my own business. This infuriated the Joul who, without further ado, hit me on the forehead. Luckily, the slap wasn't focussed or very hard, more like the blurred outlines of a drink too many, so I didn't feel much more than a sting. But it was provocation. The barman, who had been watching this pleasant exchange like a hawk, leapt over the bar, paced up to the Joul with enough menace to scare him into sobriety, and grabbed him by his greasy lapels.
'Marek," he roared, " say you're sorry to the gentleman over there!"
There was a pause while Marek glared for a moment at the barman. Then he crumpled like a vodka-stained piece of paper.. His face turned from hostility to remorse in a split second. He turned to me, and in a quiet, weak voice said: "I'm sorry."
'That's better, now clear out!" said the barman. Then, as 'Marek' the sot made his way out of the bar, the barman said: "I hope you weren't hurt."
"No, no, it's all right," I assured him; I had been more stunned by the apology than by the attack.
Wroclaw station in the sunshine of a splendid autumn day is a totally different place, and the concourse has been snazzed up; a sprucer station greets you with a sleek and inevitable Macdonalds in the gallery above the concourse, which did not exist at the time of the Joul.
Athens station does not have such a reputation, though Athens has always had beggars. These days they tend to be from Eastern Europe.