Pilgrims’ Progress

Same beach south of Patra, Greece

If we felt like we were in a fairy tale in Germany….and preparing for medieval battles with the kings and queens of England….and swimming round bowls of pasta in Italy with place names that rolled off the tongue like spiralled spaghetti (our map mentions Comacchio, Gimignano, Montalcino, Sassuolo, Montagnana, Cerignola, Pitigliano, Campobasso, Montepulciano, Polignano, Miglionico, Capaccio and Battipaglia – we stayed at that last one)….now that we are in Greece, we’ve been transported back even further, perhaps right between the pages of a Greek myth. We camp near Poseidon Beach, pass Monolithi Beach, catch sight of Atlantis Aquapark, drive over Kleopatra’s Canal and momentarily wish we might check in to Pegasos Hotel with its blue blue swimming pool overlooking the beach.

A flock of sheep right outside our window on the dirt path between us and the breaking waves was not what we expected to see first thing this morning. But it’s what was there. They surveyed us with as quizzical expressions as we did them! Then they brushed on past the van, bells tinkling….towards the dry grass masquerading as pasture.
The shepherd, carrying a long staff with goose head carved into the curved top, wandered along the beach to chat with the fisherman drawing in their catch. Apart from the wetsuit, boogie board and blue jeans, we could be in a timeframe BC.
Maybe we ARE in a myth.

Or perhaps we’re living a fable.

Have you heard the one about the hare and the tortoise?
Our first day here we saw a tortoise crossing the road (prompting the inevitable-for-us Why Did The Tortoise Cross The Road joke…the answer being “To see if he could do any better than the three hedgehogs, two dogs, one cat and something that looked like a fox.” And, we are pleased to recount, he did supremely better…his little clockwork legs looking like an advertisement for everready batteries scrambled his shell to the safety of the grass verge, managing to avoid both our vehicles.)
Wasn’t it the Greek man Aesop, who is credited with composing the original fable?

If I told you what happened to our dinner tonight you’d think it a tall tale, and maybe in time it will become a cautionary tale of legendary proportions, but for now, we are trying to decide whether to classify the story as comedy or tragedy.

That’s EXACTLY where the sheep tramped through this morning. Moral to the tale is drain spaghetti or fettucine or tagiatelli or gnocchi or anything into a bowl. Then if it all falls out, all is not lost.
Needless to say, we ate late. Not that the non-chefs minded; gave them more time to perfect their trebuchet (they thought they were back in England).

Fairy tale, myth, tall tale or fable? We’re living in a literary reality.

PS The verdict is in. Spaghetti Incident was Comedy. Jgirl14 relates in her journal:

How many ways can you ruin pasta? Undercooking is possible. I have also overcooked it a couple of times, although  have never managed to reduce it to mush; that trophy goes to Jboy13.
Apart from that, I have perfected the art of cooking pasta with limited water and gas. So this evening I cook the spaghetti perfectly…..as I’m draining the water off all is going well until…SPLAT…AllThePasta is in the dirt. For one moment I have that sinking feeling that accompanies doing something stupid, but it’s hard not to laugh at the bird’s nest of spaghetti that lies, steaming in the dust; it had made such a funny noise as it slopped out of the pot. We manage a serious, “Sorry” while Mum snaps a photo.
Then I try again. This time draining the pot over a bowl.

by the older four children (edited by Rach, who took excerpts straight from their journals)
Windermere, England

What do those four above have in common? Anybody know?
Read on to see….

Jgirl14 starts the story….
Shivering in the early morning wind that seemed to freeze the water still dripping off my legs, I watched sixteen ducks move slowly across the lake, one behind the other in a perfectly straight line. To the south lay a solitary stone boathouse. From every side of the lake, hills sloped steeply upwards. Low bushes broke the otherwise empty grassland that was marked with stone walls.
Kboy12 climbed up beside me and we watched as the water was blown over smaller rocks that dotted the edge of Lake Ullswater. Our rock was by far the biggest, large enough to seat three people.

 

The decision was made to breakfast right on the shore.
As the sun rose higher than the trees, we started making plans, the most important one being a swim! There are also many other jobs that appear with over-abundance of water; jobs such as hairwashing and clothes washing,  and we even did a spot of boat making and racing.
Soon the swim had ended with numb feet – the swim was actually more of a race from stone to stone trying to keep OUT of the water as much as possible, the water seeming colder as time wore on.
Kboy12 adds, “A man told us how crazy we were swimming that early in that lake!”

On to Windermere! The route wound up and down and around the lakeside, all the time the ever-present stone walls lining each side of the road. (The Drivers add: Unforgiving they would have been, had we nicked them, and the chance to do so was immense, there being NO grass or dirt between the walls and the road for much of the journey, and the road very narrow-n-all). This is a very hilly part of the country and at the top of some hills are stone quarries – it’s only sensible to make bridges and walls and buildings of this stone, which has a slate-like appearance. Streams follow the crevasses down the hills and the area is thickly wooded in many places.

 

Over the top of an exceptionally steep rise we caught a glimpse of Lake Windermere.
(Rach adds: down the road we did not take was Ambleside, home of my education mentor, Charlotte Mason. I really wanted to go there, but the sight of the road did much to appease my sense of disappointment – it’s not called “The Struggle” for nothing!!! Besides, a sign warned the road would narrow to 2 metres, and as we are 2.25 there was no chance of us getting through. I was satisfied with being in the general area where she lived and feel privileged to have even seen the places she wrote about.)

Windermere is another cute town with lots of stone houses and touristy souvenir shops full of Beatrix Potter paraphernalia. As it was really the lake we wanted to see, we walked right through town and then followed the main stream of people down the hill. 

 

 

Jboy13 contributes: On the waterfront many of the people were either hiring boats or eating ice-creams or fish-n-chips. We did both, ice-creams and hot vinegar chips!
Kboy12 points out: One scoop in a normal cone would be one pound sixty, then a waffle cone would be 20p more, so Mum went up to Tescos and bought ice-creams from there. It was a lot cheaper.
Kgirl10 was more taken with the chips….We go up the street by a cemetery that has people picnicking in it, and we cross the road to Vinegar Jones. What is Vinegar Jones? Well, Vinegar Jones is the fish and chip shop and there are lots of fish and chip shops, because we are in England. But not all are called Vinegar Jones. Some are called The Little Chippy or The Fish and Chip Shop.
You can put your own vinegar on your chips, so Dad put lots of it on and it was so yummy, especially if you got a vinegary one.
They are the best chips we have had in England (Rachael adds: the only other ones we have had, have been the iconic soggy chippy – not at all worth buying). When you bite them they crunch and in the middle it is soft potato. We thought they were so good. Said enough about chips? Yeah, I would think so too!

This is the place where Swallows and Amazons was set. I can see how Arthur Ransome used the landscape to be the core of his adventures. It’s just like you would imagine from reading the books. The lake is maybe a little narrower. But there IS an island – actually quite a few of them. And the water traffic……in this particular spot people of all abilities were out – from some competently sailing large vessels to some trying to row a boat backwards!
Kboy12 adds….This is the lake that I have wanted to go to and while we are here we talk and think about the Swallows and Amazons books. They are adventure stories about a bunch of kids, who live by the lake and they would go sailing over to Wild Cat Island (that is the one we can see). They are full of great adventures and in another one of the books they drift down a river that leads to the sea and they end up in a Dutch town. That’s a long way to drift!

Just as the landscape was integral to Arthur’s stories, so it played a big part in the poetry of William Wordsworth. We have always liked his romantic verses, and now have an even greater appreciation for them.

Jgirl14 concludes, “Even though we have only one day here, it’s been a day well spent. If we ever came back to England, I’d definitely come back here!”

Time on the road: need to check Jboy13’s record!
Distance covered: 165km

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