E is for … Eressos
THE heat is on, and the clothes are off. You’re baring all too, as you always do. Grin and bare it.
That’s your motto for the summer! Cheeky.
The sun slaps your arse. Yes, a red bum’s fun. And you’re not the only one with an all over tan.
The signs are explicit, all two of them. Nudity is forbitten, they say, very sternly, in Greek and English.
Of course, nobody in Eressos can read. Or else the relentless sun blinds them. Or else their hair’s been whipped across their eyes by this cracking and cruel wind.
Gale force.
Umbrellas buckle and turn inside out, beach tarpaulins shudder, tethers strain to free themselves from sand-filled plastic bottles.
Who cares? Nobody.
There’s the placid Aegean to plunge into if you seek relief. Brown bodies wallow in it quite nicely, thank you. Splish splash.
Then they float, fancy free. Windsurfers streak across the ocean’s choppy surface. Fast. Bounce.
The village and Skala are busy. They’re plump with potential, with people, people who come back again, and again. Hug and kiss. Embrace.
The summer’s shifting gears. It’s warming up for a searing August. Everything’s fuller, fatter.
The tents, also forbitten, are springing up metres from the sand, for a mahalla sand in your hair holiday. The bamboo and palm leaf rooms, they’re being erected too … one in your favourite spot near Sappho’s rock, on the beach.
It’s an elaborate thing, with a generous porch, enclosed against the wind.
Families, hippies, children, you name it, everyone’s heading for the beach, to swelter in the sun.
Yes, the world comes to Eressos, in summer, the world and tra la la the big spending Athenians.
It’s that sort of place, Eressos.
So swathed in summer you can feel its pulse.
Yes, it drips desire, and you want some.
Ela, agapi mou!
(ends)