Strange how childhood memories seem imprinted deeply into your brain, how each year seems an eternity, where a lifetime passes between each Christmas. Then slowly the passage of each year gathers speed until you are suddenly in your sixties then seventy were one year follows the next seemingly in a matter of weeks, only on holiday does time return to a childhood dimension .This is sometimes explained that as a child's memory is a blank plate the mind records every detail as new experience, but when on holiday however particularly if somewhere exotic, ever detail is recorded allowing time to return those golden years.
The scene that greeted me a few years ago while drinking coffee on cobbled Dorpfeld Street, Lefkade remains fresh in my memory ,even though I have witnessed many crowds of equal absurdity in other parts of the world. I suppose the variety of different images all jousting each other as they surged up and down was etched deeply into my head. The setting most certainly helped, Lefkade has been destroyed several times during its long history by earthquakes a constant danger in this part of the Adriatic. The citizens after the last big quake in 1953 decided on an ingenious solution to rebuild in galvanized iron , each building painted in a soft range of pastel colours that complemented its neighbour in tone and proportion that result in a most beautiful vista akin to a vision onto a fairytale.
Upon this stage the local population perform their daily tasks in slow motion. Sitting there drawing, drinking coffee I became enthused with the variety of players and all the supporting cast as they drifted up and down the street. An Orthodox priest would come running out of a side street waving a sheet of paper to anyone who would take notice, he appeared over and over again during the morning in much the same way a clown suddenly appears in a circus. While this continued elderly ladies dress in obligatory black, scarves firmly tighten beneath chins wandered all over the place while viewing critically the various offerings displayed by various street hawkers. One fallow caught my eye as he diligently plucked at various leafy greens or rubbed eggplant on his shirt in the hope of improving shirt their saleability.
Cars, vans, the odd donkey would wander past fashionably dress young women in the latest styles. White jeans contrasting with bright red tops and scarf nonchalantly thrown over their shoulder. People would walk slowly alongside a car or bicycle in deep conversion with the various occupants through the open window, no one seemed to be in any hurry to get anywhere . Every now and then the owner of the shop opposite with its array of Visa, American Express and MasterCard would rush out to carry out some repair on their rickety table held together with bits of wire and metal strapping to fend off its imminent collapse under the weight of doormats, pillows and workmans' jeans.The street had a constant change of clientele, young men clicking their worry beads or keys, older men in their cut away cowboy boots complete with cut away heels and large metal buckles as seen in Marlborough advertisements.
Most of the motorcade traffic traveled at about 5km in order to shout to friends or anyone willing to listen which was just as well as young mothers would leave their prams out on the road as they negotiated some purchase from the the fishmonger or butcher who all operate out on the pavement. Our priest reappeared again for the fourth time with a different coloured piece of paper, the old ladies were started to drift off home to prepare lunch, a motor cyclist stopped to talk to a man who I had meet earlier having lost his thumb that was still raped in its shabby bandage. Everything here was sold direct, the shouting continued in competition with church bells, car horns as waiters weaved themselves between everything balancing trays of coffee for clients who for some reason could not leave the safety of their building. The mother had successfully purchased her fish, as the whole scene became surreal. At this point a herd of goats appeared making their way along the street grazing on anything within reach. Dogs barking, vendors shouting, waiters running around with cigarettes in the corner of mouths it was getting a bit too much. I just ordered another coffee while a roar went up as someone had scored a goal on the TV screen.
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