It’s no wonder the last couple of days have been the coldest of the winter. Heavy snow on the mountains and with no sunshine the breeze blowing down has lowered the temperature considerably. Heating turned on a couple of hours earlier than usual. A little sunshine trying to peep through this morning but I don’t think it will be successful. Comes and goes.
Eleven years ago, when I first arrived in Crete, I tried to interest British ex-pats in matters theatrical, advertising through an organisation called the Cretan International Community that I would like to produce a play (of mine naturally) and got absolutely no response. I realised it might be difficult to attract males so chose a play with an all women cast but it made no difference. The events organised by the CIC, apart from their Christmas bazaar, consisted mainly of walks (not interested) and dinners which were not much use to me as they were invariably held late in the Greek fashion and I don’t like to eat late at night for fear of a reflux reaction which has at times has been most distressing. Douglas attended one CIC dinner but, as nobody spoke to him and he had smoke blown in his face all evening, that was his one and only and who can blame him? Too many expats seem to spend a great deal of their time in the tavernas and kafenios but I digress. Back to theatricals. Yesterday afternoon we had a visit from a charming lady who now wants to put things theatrical in motion. When I mentioned not having had a response all those years ago, Douglas pointed out that at that time there were perhaps a couple of hundred Brits on the island; now there are simply hundreds more. The last few years have seen them simply swarming in though I shouldn’t think there are too many who would be interested in things theatrical. Over tea we let the good lady pick our brains for an hour or two and gave her our opinions on feasibility and how she should go about things and she went away with some ideas, but how much we would now be willing to be involved is another matter. Choice of plays, if a play is what they want to do, is limited as none of the expats is under forty and most considerably older than that. They did after all come out here in retirement. I for one, after my experiences in England with them, am chary of having anything to do with amateur theatricals and the egos that go with them. Also, various “happenings!” that have taken place here that I’ve seen have been a definite turn-off. Apart from anything else, the good lady also wants to perform a five minute monologue and needs help with it and I have offered to coach her. That will most possibly be as far as my contribution goes. Famous last words!
After our Skype session, more questions from Ford at “The Breeze,” the James Madison student newspaper, regarding the autobiography. Will be very interested in seeing the finished article.