Category Archives: my life

Olympus 5 – getting lost on the way to Ano Skotina, of walking and fairies

Posted on February 22, 2021 by jonathan trustram

My journey to the ‘sweet little cabin in the woods’ started well, I took Campanula incurva as a good omen. The road up into the hills leaves the coast here. Agamemnon is advertised. I was about to leave my guides … Continue reading →

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the back of Olympos

Posted on February 11, 2021 by jonathan trustram

Last word on the little dragon from Edward Lear in Crete in 1864: ‘brutal-filthy yet picturesque’. My friends Jay and Tina also saw it in Crete, more recently. And Jay had a very different experience near Olympus: “In 1966 a … Continue reading →

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Olympus 3 Dracunculus, tortoise, the monastery, Dresden, garden notes, etc.

Posted on February 6, 2021 by jonathan trustram

Just outside Litochoro, right by the road, I came across a dracunculus – literally little dragon. When you’ve only ever seen something once it takes on special importance. I was driving slowly but you’d see it even if you flashed … Continue reading →

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a celebration

Posted on November 26, 2020 by jonathan trustram

I remembered a trip to the shore of the Thames with a few of the Putting Down Roots volunteers. We went to get stuff for our new rock garden in St George’s churchyard in the Borough, near London Bridge. See … Continue reading →

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Laurieston Hall

Posted on August 15, 2019 by jonathan trustram

May 2012. Laurieston I had another dream about Laurieston. Which toilet to use? Where’s my coat? Then I thought I’d like to take some soil away. So I filled a wheelbarrow, but put so much in that I couldn’t move … Continue reading →

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from my diaries for 2016

Posted on January 26, 2019 by jonathan trustram

I ordered some more sunflower seeds from the RSPB and at the end of the transaction appeared the phrase “I helped give nature a home”. Will nature give me one? July 9    from pocket to pocket, to the mantelpiece, … Continue reading →

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the home fire burning, and rekindled

Posted on January 15, 2018 by jonathan trustram

  After the old boys – well, chiefly Patrick Leigh-Fermor – (see the plant itself ) with their eloquent and scholarly non-stop talk of heroes, heat, old gods, pirates, ecstacies of alcohol, Venetian merchants, Frankish castles, peasant girls whose faces have … Continue reading →

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The Hill of Time

Posted on November 5, 2017 by jonathan trustram

    .   In The Hill of Kronos Peter Levi considers his various journeys to Greece. His first trip was in 1963. A night at Heathrow waiting for a long delayed flight to Milan gave him ‘romantic pleasure’. Then … Continue reading →

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A piece with people, for Sarah

Posted on June 29, 2017 by jonathan trustram

I stayed recently in Anavriti, a village in the mountains of the Peloponnese, at Guesthouse Arhontiko, a wonderful, welcoming place.( the guesthouse )  Maria somehow combines running it and cooking great food with teaching French down in the valley in Sparta. Her … Continue reading →

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at a full stop in the Gasterntal

Posted on February 22, 2017 by jonathan trustram

and how to go on? How to write on a subject about which I know next to nothing, but find myself drawn to? But first, one or two more deviations, diversions and prohibitions: 15. We moved to Cold Ashton, north … Continue reading →

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