November is a windy month. The others are January, October, March, December, February, June, September, April, July, May, and August.
It's a good time to stay indoors with one hand firmly clasped around a hot cup of tea while the other does some armchair travelling on the computer keyboard with the help of GOOGLE Maps. I GOOGLEd for Boudouri # 2 where I used to live in Piraeus and found this:
My apartment was at the end of the street in the building with views of Marina Zeas which at street level is obscured by trees.
The photo below, 'stolen' from the Greek real estate site www.rems-hellas, advertises the old brownstone building, which is directly opposite the apartment I used to live in, up for sale and redevelopment. My favourite taverna, where I used to dine almost every night and where I had my permanent table and chair, was on the corner where the BERLONI-sign is displayed now. Whatever BERLONI is, it's no longer my old taverna!
And while I was at it, I also GOOGLEd for my old office building at # 3 Agiou NiKolaou in Piraeus:
My office was on the top floor (not visible) in the brownish building towards the centre of the picture from where I had a 180-degree view of the harbour of Piraeus with its many tavernas in which I spent many hours, especially on a rainy day. The opening scene in the movie ZORBA THE GREEK takes me right back there - click here.
It looks so good now. Perhaps I should have stayed longer but hindsight comes too late ("Too late!" - an apt title for my autobiography? ☺)
All this and more comes back to me as I dip into George Johnston's "Clean Straw for Nothing". George, with Charmian Clift and their four children, for a time lived in Greece. As he came in to land at Sydney, he looked upon a country quite foreign to him, and wrote, "You are an alien here too, he told himself. You are an alien everywhere, because alienation is something you carry inside yourself, and all you can do is fashion little enclaves and try to live inside them. You are an alien because there is no one you will ever really know, not even yourself ..."
Words I might've written! Anyway, that's the difference between youth and age: when you're young, you invent a different future for yourself; when you're old, you invent a different past.
