Gerasimos, Lily`s husband, grey of hair and moustache, was her opposite. In the aftermath of war and plenitude of remnant explosives, he had come into possession of a hand grenade and, wishing to eat of more fish than a mere net afforded, had ` chanced his arm` at the `stunning` method of piscatorial capture. Something (a faulty lever perhaps?) misfired and, on that most sad occasion, instead of Gerasimos eating of the fish, the fish-to continue the biblicalism - did eat of Gerasimos. A slash of the right forearm across the left arm now points him out anywhere in town.  A man of infinite patience, he would pore over the phrase book with the slow tourist as the lithe brown limbs of the young back-packers trafficked up and down the ladder to the roof space above him.

That kitchen was a meeting place of the nations. with it`s `problem` barrel of black, shining olives and the snouts of snappers and tendrils of lobsters from the night`s catch blocking the sink. Lily`s favourite joke was to drop one of the claw-snapping crustaceans at the bare feet of some terrified tourist and roar with laughter as the victim jumped a full foot into the air.

Despite the sweet smile, Lily was not a woman to be defied. Once, up in the groves, she was bitten on the bum by a foolhardy donkey. Lily immediately picked up a large, flat stone and delivered a huge thwack to the donkey`s jaw. The loud, long, and painful  hees and haws that echoed over the town caused the tourists to reflect on that kind of communication between animality and rationality which would preserve Lily from crippledom, and the donkey from donkey-burgerdom.These questions are far from easily solved.

Lily`s disciplinary genius was most superbly displayed in her morning ushering of toilet turns. (yes, there is no earthly Paradise without it`s hiccup) these were carried out with discreet knocks, furtive shuffles, sweet smiles and the outmost discretion. If there exists somewhere out there a Guiness book of records award for the most bodily functions and preparations that can be simultaneously performed sitting in a single location then that record must surely be held by one of the great Greek toilet/showers of those halcyon days. Famous examples were known by famous names:...`Zip for the Drip`...`Dash for the Splash`...`Flirt with the Squirt`...`Tinkle under the Sprinkle`...Lily`s, because of it`s habit of tantalisingly accumulating it`s aqueous refreshment into pendulous hemispheres of liquid quiverability was known far and wide as `Cop the Plop`.

Strange things happened in Lily`s house. There was that inexplicable night of the great storm during the meal of pasta and lamb. All was merely friendly and amiable until Gerasimos pushed away the retsina and, bringing out some mysterious plasic bottles, flicked away the preserving collars of olive oil, poured each of us a drink. He told us that it was wine from Anti Paxos but, (nod nod, wink, wink) we comprehended: Legend has it that  the death of the great god Pan was announce to a mariner just off this coast two thousand years ago, and the deeper we drank the more obvious it became,: The goat-legged old rascal had left his entire cellar here - on Paxos - This was it!. The atmosphere notched up to a cresendo against the crashing background of the storm as a pan lingua took possession of us and all three nations  became perfectly intelligble to each other . It faded, of course, with the dawn. But those things do, don`t they?

(next time...round and about)