Arrival on Hydra and a walk to Eros.

One of the best Aprils to memory is just ending. It has been bucollic, exotically hot, and full of holidays. Moreover, it has proven again that to my mind April is a month of rebirth for all the happiest memories about outdoor places, the possibilties of growth, and with it the spring of the imagination and of writing again. So to celebrate the 2 year anniversary of my blog on which I have prolifically written almost nothing, I offer some more travel writing from a holiday to Hydra in February this year.

Since my blog thus far has not acquired any sense of identity save for this sparse travel writing and a silly spiel on education, I hope this helps me kick start it. Following its record of barely readable content, it might need a wider makeover - possibly a new font? - to stop it looking outdated.

The following writing is an extract from my part in a shared travel log, which was started on the first day of a trip to Hydra by my girlfriend KezzieAG. She completed in every neurological detail all the hopes and fears about our trip out to Greece, and I completed a similarly in-depth (waffley) account on the better part of day two. The beginning italics are by Kezzie, and my part follows shortly after.



The first view of the harbour
as it would've been had we arrived in daylight.



22/2/11

Morning after our evening arrival on Hydra

Potentially 9 hours later, we awoke to sunshine, which we invited into our room with alacrity, as we opened our balcony doors to a beckoning sea-breeze. The shower proved to be an experience in itself (you must turn it on and wait for it to warm up whilst in the room only) with strange spider-style shower curtain which enjoyed torturing CBC, strangely not me so much. It also provided me with warmth, but CBC with cold glances. We had to waste valuable gold dust-like, hard-earned water keeping the beast at bay. 

The first motive we shared was to explore and expose a route to the harbour. As when exploring any city or town, one wants to uncover the central point and to relate this to places day-trippers would not go, and salesmen would not expect you to know about. So we noted in the backs of our minds quiet squares, churches, alleyways overlooked by lemon trees and the more interesting, impractical shops. Perhaps we also imagined our preferred stories set within the many houses.

Tracing our way back to the sea in the daylight, we saw for the first time just how many cats there were. They followed us with our eyes, sullenly lifted a lid; non too shifty or streetwise - as we soon found out, nearly all of the cats are in fact strays and they acted like needy domestic cats, on each doorstep or garden wall - perhaps this is just the nature of cats.

More about the island's cats later.

Lonely cats found miles out of the town.

Upon reaching the harbour, I can only describe it as an operatic mis-en-scene; it was complete with fishing boats, mules, cafés and shady men passing the low season by playing rustic board games. As the majority of visitors to Hydra at this time were day trippers and we were one of three couples I counted who were staying for a week, we felt a growing obligation to support local businesses, and yet it was difficult to buy a postcard unless a large ship necessitated the shops all opening up.



Fishing boats arrive in the harbour.

As fishermen unpicked unwanted molluscs and shrimps stitched to their nets, a crowd of cats all croned their necks and gathered in anticipation of discarded seasnacks. An eager reveller pounced out into the harbour water, failing to snatch a rather beaten up bite-sized octopus. Clambering and scratching at the harbour wall, it struggled out and looking like a toilet brush as it shivered, before pronouncing itself plainly back to business, knowing other cats do not practice consoling - that should be down to the islanders. More about the cats from our resident expert Kezzie AG on her blog - who by the way became a mad cat lady later in the week, by venturing to feed the most scraggy pussies with supplies of cat biscuits.

Mad cat lady

Our first and formative purchases in Hydra were fresh olive bread, local cheese and delicious rustic orange chocolate. This followed by an expensive breakfast 'package' from the recommended harbourside Isalos. This consisted of a most delicious cappucino (the criteria being the most consistently frothy, as opposed to the illegedly 'Italian' coffee-establishments in the UK being really bubblebath floating on top of muddy water). Following this only came simple breads, jams, omlettes, whilst I decided on the Greek honey and yoghurt, which was either off, had not been pasturised, or at least it tasted pungently of masses of tarte, farm tasting cheese, the kind where you can sense animals' innards on one's palatte, and over which the sweet honey gave no respite - this yoghurt demanded to be heard!

Sometimes there is detail in writing that gives a recounted experience spaciousness, thoughtfulness, observational depth - and there is detail which makes a writer seem obsessive. However, this is rarely how it is experienced. All the while as a reader we never quite believe writers are that obsessive, nor even the best writers more observant than their reader, only that they got there first and simpy want to stamp their mark, or practice the journalistic prolonging of paragraphs and delaying arriving at the point. Sometimes the best descriptions arrive at no point, but the description itself.

My point is, so far we've only reached breakfast. I know this is Greece, but its time we stepped out of this laid back mould and went somewhere. Come with me on a journey to the highest point of the island: Eros, via Illias Profilias. [Say in American accent] 'break with the observational; anticipate a walk somewhere'.

Sea level to 588 metres
Just me, KezzieAG and unexpectedly an Argentinian student on her last leg of a European trip. We meet in a cemetry, which the path seemed to pass through, but instead peters out at a mysterious locked gate beyond an exhibition of shrines. If you haven't come across Greek cemetries, they feature small, encased collections of the deceased persons' photos and realted icons - in some cases even personal belongings, sealed behind double glazed windows with candles burning inside. Joined together by puzzlement at the route beyond the locked gate, we introduced ourselves, shared our travelling CVs and soon returned to observational comments at the point our route transformed from the ambiguous outreaches of Hydra, which were defined by a fallout of chicken coops combined with the remnants of quarrying all around overgrown cacti gardens, where a purposeful paved pathway made itself up the hunched hillside, zig-zagging through pine woods, almost as plush as if it we had joined the trails of a mule-back family escape. Again, little observations broke our explorers' perogative to maintain silent reflections between steps, such as the birds' nests which on closer inspection became a festering hub of caterpillars, which repeated again on the ground until we worried they infested the island and would either drop on us, or parasitically climb into our shoes.

Meeting a fellow traveller

The caterpillar hub.  

From the first significant col which overlooked Hydra, we observed the ambitious architecture of the town straddling all possibilities of each steep side to the basin. We must have simultaneously pointed out the harbour, with boats making their way across the Saronic gulf. The gulf which I'd envisaged swimming across in the unlikely event of an escape from Atlantis scenario, now seemed spherically massive and unfathomable. Further along the pather, abover the treeline, we came across steps suggesting a short-cut to the monastery. With a return to the same steps after the bend in the donkey pather, we felt more familiar with them and this time commited to them, up past selfsame motifs in the chasing donkey path, and following a hose which lead to the monastery front garden. So much for the welcome by the natural spring mentioned in the guide. Instead here was the typical scalfolding enveloping all photogenic landmarks and on first impressions seemingly no life, not even caterpillares. Looking deeper at the ground around the monastery, only then were there trails of oranges, pomegranites and emerging after these came cokerals, discarded egg shells, and a bearded Greek visitorwho was soonafter welcomed inside the monastery by an orthodox monk dressed in the traditional black garments and hat. Our map told us the viewpoint from this site was a threshing floor, which KezzieAG informed me was for flour production. Indeed ancient depictions of Hydra show a hilly island flanked by many windmills, looking an ideal picture of civilised productivity and self sufficiency - or like a Terry Prachett fantasy galleon. After swapping emails we left Tamara, our  trekking companion, to make her way back to the ferry, whilst we reolved to reach the summit. We also promised to get in touch with a visit to Buenos Aires - inspired by Tango class recommendations and this traveller's wisdom on Argentina.

Looking over the Saronic Gulf

Departing the steep sided town.

Up to Eros

From the threshing floor the pather turned wild and the sky ominous - it semmed too clichéd an approach to a volcanic peak, so with the excitement and naivity of hobbits in mind, we made our way clambering over 'molecules' - our nickname for a thriving thorny bush with a molecule model-appearance - thistle, crumbling clay, and just about every other insecure foothold an off-piste walker might expect. A way mark primitively enscribed on stone confirmed our route and there we searched for the accompanying red and white markers we nicknamed the 'Polish flag' painted onto the stones. We continued adding humourous descriptions to other features of the landscape to lighen our mood under the possibility of rain, not to mention other far-fetched anxieties. Thus the tress became 'pushy trees', the monks were 'canibalistic', the fact of getting lost on the descent became a famous five adventure.



Up to the summit...                                                                    The 'molecule'




Yes, at the summit it rained and the mythical 'dark side' of the island was truly wind-swept, bleak, inhospitable, beautiful nonetheless. On the summit, sodden whisps of clouds rising like ill-foreboding smoke created an especially dramatic backdrop to the otherwise comforting end - at least to my part in telling ths story - all juxtaposed with our calm sheltering amongst the eroded cairn, sharing sandwiches of local cheese and olive bread. I suspect KezzzieAG will want to decribe the way down.




Treacherous? Misguided? Unamusing?

Just a few signposts.

View of 'whale island' from the summit of Eros.

 

A different view of Whale Island, and the secret James Bond villain bay.

Giro di Trentino e Veneto

This is a little travel writing celebrating a cyclotour two summers ago. I had entered it for a competition that came up in The Guardian, but it is far too geeky! Still, I thought it's a shame it was sitting around on my computer, rather than being published in the blogosphere!

Giro di Trentino e Veneto

Fixing the pedals onto a bike you must tighten them on each side in a forwards direction. That’s what didn’t seem obvious; when screwing ‘righty loosey’ I had thought the regurgitating thread was suffering from Ryan Air baggage handling. Amidst this frustration, was a cyclist’s urge to disappear into the landscape that had laid across the aeroplane’s descent over Lake Garda; a blue, mountainous profile, far exceeding the flyover on Google Earth, from where I premeditated on the route on which I was now a pixel:

Verona to Venice, nine days of cycling and camping in the Dolomites.

Outside were gentle waves of heat mixed with crop spray. Under a leisurely pace an elderly local man invited me along his evening ride, directing me the few miles to reach my cycling companion, who was waiting at the campsite on the south west shore of the lake. The photogenic peninsula of Sirmione became our decided point of departure, from where we travelled occidentale touching on Lake Garda’s small beaches and jetties, through adventurous tunnels, gallerias, to the Lego town of Limone. By the time we got to Riva, at the head of the lake, we already gleaned an advantage over motorists who had been unable to drive off the road before views, or stop chivalrously by drinking fountains.

Yet as a cyclotourist you can only ever envy the food and the lifestyle, you can’t take it with you, not even as a souvenir. In addition camping makes this so unattainable you may as well fall back on stove cooking, and so find yourselves frugally transgressing the equivalent of specials boards: Risotto, Porcini, Gnocchi - and stocking pesto and regional honey in panniers. Our mounting supplies of speck and rocket soon embroiled us in a customary two hour lunch every day, but despite a pressing schedule, we needed it.

From the second day we were cycling in the shadow of the Giro d’Italia, over the hills North East of Trento. Stages 14 and 15 of the Giro crossed the region in May. The road graffiti still faintly visible now cheered us on: “Cin cin” (here’s to another 16% climb). We lifted our water bottles sardonically to Alpe Pampeago. This was the gateway to the Dolomites, and the wild camping by Lago di Carezza was the epitome – the scenery sculpted and transfigured before us, the valleys thickly fertile over endless descents through the forest lines below dolomite outcrops – we were diving to once deep sea beds, where titanic coral reefs had been, in glacial motion, drawn up by the alps.

In the towns, the stove cooking went too far . When we had been sighted brewing tea in the market squares of Sacile and Treviso - both historic towns with an attractive café conscience – we were likely cast as touring tramps, with ice cream round our mouths.

But for all our efforts, the hospitality served along our tour was generous: in Longarone, we were given speck and strudels for one climb up to Erto. We happened on Giovanni Pinarello, winner of the Giro’s black jersey (for coming last) in 1951, who emerged from the back of his flagship store in Treviso to shake our hands. “He’s here all the time” the sales assistant rubbed past us, his celebrity vitality appearing exasperating – but before us was a man devoted to people who’d have died coming last - how overjoyed we were! Perhaps we ought to have been looking for a new bike.

Creativity and perceptions of the demigod teacher.

In addition to ideas about fostering creativity in schools, such as postulated by the Thomas Tallis school webpages http://www.creativetallis.com/, where there is a strong focus on creative environments, understanding creativity, as well as developing creative practice (the pages themselves reflect the need to construct external and virtual creative environments such as student zones, video diaries, student and teacher web forums and blogs) - aside from this sideways-thinking, I ask: will a pupil attain a much greater level of creativity, perhaps in spite of an amenable learning environment, if their teacher is in their eyes a demigod?

Assuming for now that this does not mean a crush, but that this perception must also follow from the majority of the class; boys and girls, and that the teacher may be mysteriously gifted in the eyes of other teachers too. To attain this universal level of respect in the school may be due to any combination of disinterestedness, expertise, wit, incisive observation, persuasive feedback, acute, peaceable humour, as well as tact, and tactile manipulation of the natural gullibility of pupils - culminating in a demigod status. This latter point allowing for the accidental case, where the teacher has attained a faux-demigod affection, but has nevertheless crafted this into a trustful, healthy, happy classroom…which is what matters.

If a teacher is perceived to be a demigod, what can’t be taught?

Let’s start with types of learning, starting with the most liberal and moving steadfastly to the most conservative.

• 
  
  Pupil-lead learning (when pupils take on the role of teacher). Since demigod teachers can’t be mimicked, pupils will nevertheless try to act up to their teacher’s expectations, as well as impress their peers. There are obvious pros and cons, but it must be better to assume the role of a demigod teacher than an uneducated footballer.
• 
  
  Learning to learn: natural academic insights that make academic thinking irresistible are the property of the teacher-god, whose enthusiasm as opposed to wincing reuse of university notes for revision, draws the pupils into their world of independent thinking: from which creativity floweth. Con: pupils become smug.
• 
  
  Learning/Acquiring skills: when pupils witness the skills of their teachers first hand, they see not dry, educational targets, but living, juicy, disinterested annexes of a person's success – ‘suave’ is a more down to earth term for ‘grace’ (incidentally one of Plato’s essential characteristics for a philosopher).
• 
  
  Learning the classics: essentially the god-teacher knows the classics or at least values the universal truths within, but moreover relishes pupils unearthing them as ancient models of creativity, that stand in for the teacher's modelling and instruction. Likewise, pupils see their teacher-god as embodying universal experience and truth, and consume the classics willingly.
• 
  
  Teacher-to-pupil (copying from the board): handwriting aside, the freedom of scrawling on a white board, is also a platform for creative self-awareness and possibly irony for the god-teacher. So instead of: “Learning Objective", it might be: “You just need to know this”. How can pupils forget good times with the white board?

Obviously being seen as teacher demi-god is a solution to many of the debates and problems in education. Yet many of us can't simply attain to it. Falling short, we are like those who shadow the lives of celebrities, with the same embarrassing consequences.

A Blog is Born

Dear blog,

Welcome to the world. You are born to an author herein known as Cloud-born Christopher, in a happy and multifarious blogger community. As a first time blogger I hope you will find your footing in spite of - or in connection to - a sea of blogs. May you flourish in all manner of conditions and forms of thought precipitation!

Go out with your name. The thought shower might be seen by some as a newfangled brainstorm; a fastidious process of organising or developing thoughts. Whilst 'Brainstorm' is forbidden, it may better suggest both the energy and looming disorganisation that is represented in this blog - I consider however 'thought shower' to be, in its own regard, a more trifling name. There are connections with April - my favourite month.

Go beyond your name. More specifically, this blog will be:

1. an author surrogate, aiming to represent all that is ill-attained by facebook.

2. a narrator in response to momentous events.

2. affected by readers, perhaps even by 'followers' - not stalkers - in addition to Internet spies. I expect not so readily as the above mentioned.

3. an occasional record of travels, journeys, and adventures.

4. Anything really. Is the blog not already superceded by Twitter?

I go a-blogging,

C-b. Chris.