Happy Valentine's Day

Valentine's day is traditionally celebrated in Greece by buying your loved one a large cuddly mouse.

This stuffed mouse shop round the corner from us has had a great week for business. Shame it doesn't do much for the other 51 weeks of the year.

Perhaps they should diversify.

Little Baby Lizard

We share our space with animals. In summer there are ants and recently there have been one or two little baby lizards. Pink things that cling to walls.

This one is about two inches long and he's called Theophilos.

Free Accommodation in Greece

The Global Credit Crunch is at work and people are thinking frugally. The falling pound and the rising Euro are making Brits think twice about coming abroad this year.

But you shouldn't have to give up your holiday. If you can afford the flight but don't fancy paying for a hotel, you should seriously consider some island-life city-center camping.

Kalymnos (and I'm sure its the same other islands) has loads of empty properties, some are smart and some are a complete mess.

This one is right in Pothia city centre and allows easy access through a big hole in the wall which gives way to a spacious living, dining, sleeping and recreational area. You could easily set up a tent in here and if you stayed for a week probably no one would bother you. If they did, you could move to another one - there are hundreds of these empty places round the town and elsewhere on the island.

In this one, there are plenty of bike parts lying about so, if you remember to pack a multi-tool you could probably fashion your own transport for sight-seeing.

There's no wi-fi, but look at that view right out over the harbour: spectacular! Total bill for 7 nights accomodation: Zero Pounds and no Euro cents.

Don't forget as well that Kalymnos is ideal for free food: dumpsters regularly contain fresh fruit and veg, and if you're a smoker there are always fags lying about on the ground, possibly as a result of the price: 2 Euros/pack. It's literally still the 1980s as far as UK smokers are concerned.

You would need to buy drinking water but I'm sure you could easily spend a week or two out here for less than £35.

I know what you're thinking, but there is a (just) acceptable public toilet within a five minute walk. Or you could just pish round the back. I think it would be OK.

Flights to Kos start around April. Book now!

Greek Cats are Harder than Scottish Cats but Scottish Youth Would Tank Greek Youth

Greek cats would murder Scottish cats. Fat and soft, Scots pussies want for nothing as they snore by the fireplace.

Meanwhile, life is raw for their Greek counterparts. Only a spoilt minority are family pets; the rest are hard-as-nails feral street-beasts who fight for food and die in forgotten alleyways. The guy above is having a good day - he's stumbled across a random deposit of sardines near the wharf, but he'll need to eat it quick.


This one is more typical: he looks like he's been in a fight and maybe he hasn't eaten much more than the stinking remains of an abandoned souvlaki for the last few days.

Oddly enough - the story with teenagers is the exact opposite.


The kids round here are breast-fed to the age of 30. Their only worry is what time their next pizza is to be delivered, while Greek parents work themselves into the ground to pay for it.

Glasgow's wiry young teams would tear them apart, limb from fat limb...

...but their cats would kill ours and so the question remains: which country is best?

East End Scene

This is a drawing of the East Harbour, beyond the fish market, the less popular side of Pothia's harbour where ferries don't dock and old dolphin boats go to rust and die.

Dogs are chained to rocks and people leave their front doors open; if you look in as you walk past you can see old people laid out under blankets on single beds.

From a metre-wide strand of gritty sand, housewives wade into the water, fully clothed, to swim every day for health. Somehow it doesn't stop them being fat.

I like the East Harbour.

A Moment of Peace

Aside from the crime and the riots and the dead animals which are, admittedly, more newsworthy there is a world of peace and beauty on Kalymnos that's worth reminding you about

After a more than a year away from Glasgow it's still remarkable to be living with so much sky and water.

Dawn is the best time of day to appreciate this, the quiet hour after the sun rises up over Kos but before everyone wakes up and starts fighting.

Don't worry - stories of malcontent will return as usual next week...

Crime Scene

So we finally got exposed to the Kalymnos crime scene this week when a little local incident resulted in a trip to the police station to make a report plus visits to the neighbours to ask them to keep an eye out.

It's good for our Greek. We now know the words for "thief", "electric drill" and "together we must protect our houses."