Sun 09.Feb.2014
Rhodes, Greece
Now time is getting short. Three weeks from tonight, I'll be in California,
renewing my acquaintance with the sort-of-new cat, getting ready for a couple
of weeks of scans and checkups, getting another six months worth of prescriptions
together, hopefully seeing a few friends in person ... the stuff of elderly life.
The courtyard at a complex that The Italians apparently built as a market center.
These days it is given over to shops and fast food, mostly tourist-oriented.
A friend hangs out at a cheap cafe for locals here. She is a tough woman; she
lasts way longer than I on the folding wooden chairs, and is rewarded with cheap
coffee and sympatico local company. I enjoy joining her for as long as my nalga
can handle the chairs, but more often, I get an Economist or International
New York Times, and climb a block to the new-ish pedestrianized bar street,
where one cafe has wicker armchairs with thick cushions.
One of my few sorely-felt lacks here is a comfortable reading chair. Ya takes
what you can find.
Who knows what this pinwheel-shaped bush is called?
A narrow lane, even by medieval standards. No cars here, and only the
smallest of motos, at low speed.
Late afternoon light
down in the medieval moat ...
... and up on the rim, in the Wood Between the Worlds.
From that Wood, you can see the last light of day on the Grandmaster's Palace across
the moat.
Down at Kolonna Harbor, a medieval fortification wall runs the length of
the breakwater. It makes a picturesque enough walk out to the tip, but of course
you need to retrace your steps to continue on to anywhere else.
On the other side of that breakwater... can a cat look at a turkey? This cat
probably isn't looking across the water at Turkey. He is just sitting there
at the base of the breakwater leading out to ...
... Fort St Nicolas, at the entrance to Mandraki Harbor.
This little window is part of my limited-but-nice view as I take brunch
on my little front porch. This picture will probably always evoke rich Greek
yogurt and local Rhodian honey for me. If only it could conjure them up too!
Yesterday's Saturday market produced at least a page worth of interesting still
lifes (still lives?). They'll have to wait their turn though. I have a page or
so of other photos ahead of them in the queue. Whether I get the pages together
before I leave Rhodes is anybody's guess. Perhaps I should save them, to give
me something to occupy myself for the month of March in California.
Time will
tell, and be told.