First impressions

28 Jan 2011

Skyros island, Greece

Today I woke up at 8. Unlike yesterday, it’s raining. It was chilly in my room and there was the usual little struggle of getting out from under the warm blankets. As it’s a rainy day, there’s not so much work to be done, no mucking, just the feeding and I guess we’ll be cleaning up the stables a bit. There’s about 30 ponies at the farm to keep the 3 dogs and 9 cats company, and they all need feeding 3 times every day, in addition to a lot of attention which they are really addicted to. The ponies are incredible, if they would be a bit smaller, they would be kept inside and sleeping in people’s beds like kittens. In fact, Theodora, who’s walking loose around the house, came into my room yesterday. I’ve never had a horse in my bedroom before. And the ponies out on the fields would come up to you, put their heads in your lap and wait for you to cuddle them. Teddybears rather than horses.

But the horse in my bedroom is nothing compared to the lambs in my bathroom. They were brought to the farm a few days ago from a neighbouring farm as a present. A very unexcpected present, it seems to me more like they just didn’t have the time to take care of the orphan lambs, so they just gave them to Amanda and Stathis, my hosts, who never have the heart to turn down an animal with a sad history. So now there’s those two lambs, and they are mine to take care of, which of course I do not protest the slightest bit. As I’m the one feeding and cuddling them, they follow me around in the garden and respond to me when I call for them. The tiny creatures are being bottlefed with milk 4 times a day. One is about 15 and the other one 3 days old. They stay in my bathroom most of the time, sleeping and contemplating, because I can’t have them running after me all day long while I’m feeding the ponies.

It’s my 5th day at the farm today. I have a lovely little room with a fireplace, there are mountains all around (well, the locals call them hills but for me they qualify as mountains since they are more than 318 metres), there are lemon, olive and walnut trees around the farm, the houses are bright white, squareshaped and Mediterranean. It’s winter so the weather is far from hot but 10 degrees and a slight rain is still a whole lot more tropical than the -15 degrees and half a metre of snow that I left behind in Estonia.

Days are flying by and there hasn’t been a second of nothing to do. There’s plenty of books around to keep me busy whenever the ponies or the lambs don’t. The food is simple but really delicious, the people are friendly but even-tempered and life is good. I love the countryside life and I’m beginning to find the peace of mind I came here to find.