Next morning, overcast and with rain out to sea. Oh no, we don’t like that.
Walked around the village. Lots of elegant and very well maintained houses. Beautiful stone roofs and walls, some stucco. All the gates and shutters closed. Their owners back in the city for the winter.
Same old problem. Most of the locals had been made offers they couldn’t refuse and their houses had been transformed into summer villas. Where there had been an orchard with pomegranates and chickens there was now hard standing for four-by-fours. Vines replaced with bougainvilleas. Tumble-down sheep folds had been mended and now held hot tubs. A few locals were still here, including a rather unnerving man who stood all day staring out to sea. As if keeping watch for the next invasion. But in fact this part had never been invaded. Even the Turks had left these hill-dwellers to their own devices. 
There was fruit on the trees, nuts on the ground and wild boar in the woods. Not a bad place to be marooned.  If only for two days, in my case.
The village square held two tavernas.
Both had shut only two days before.

I wondered what it would be like in the summer.

Off and exploring then. I went back to my room to pick up the car keys. The owner’s cat was asleep on my bed. I left the window ajar so he could get out and tiptoed out the door.

No sooner on the road than a convoy of tourists were coming the other way and pigging the road. Pedders held his ground and got his door mirror glass broken for his bravery. ‘Owwwww…!’ Partially smashed but still serviceable. And lucky not to break the side window which I had left shut.
Drove onwards to Tsargarada – the most famous village around here. There was a church set in the square. Locked, but I could see Byzantine frescoes inside. Usual stuff, saints with their feet off the floor.
Next to it an enormous plane tree. Said to be the oldest and largest plane tree  in Greece.
I could believe it. It was the size of a Jumbo Jet.
There was one lonely and lovely little taverna. But too early for me after the breakfast. 
The feeling of southern, rural France persisted. This could be Provence. 
The aforementioned breakfast was a huge affair. Breads of all distinctions under napkins. Fruit and yoghurt. Then toast was brought. Followed by a spanish omelette. Then a ham and cheese sandwich under cling film that I was ignoring was whisked away and returned toasted. Juice. Coffee. All this was accompanied by an intrusive and obviously over-indulged German Shepherd and the even more annoying and begging cat. Not really being a breakfast person this slowed me up somewhat and I had considered returning to my room for a 9am, siesta but resisted.
On the way back we detoured down to a beach. It must be a great spot in the summer and wasn’t half bad now.
I chatted to the owner of the beach bar who was loading his stock into a pick-up. He’d run a pub in Streatham 40 year’s ago. This was his retirement job. I couldn’t work out his age but guessed he was around eighty.
Then it started to rain. Very slowly it became a crashing downpour. I ran to Peds and we scampered back up the hill to the main road. By the time we got to the top the road surface was like a torrent. Inches deep and streaming in sheets over the edge and spilling into the void. 
The wipers came on for the first time. The interior steamed up for the first time. The windows were up for the first time. I put the blowers on to clear it. 
Stopping at a  lay-by we watched the lightning out to sea run horizontally through the Payne’s Grey sky.