Porto Cheli
Nothing is moving, not a twig nor a leaf, and I find myself missing the cows, the mountains and the bad weather. The sun has become the enemy, a merciless foe who can be tolerated only when swimming, something I do for close to an hour a day. Nothing very strenuous, mind you, except for an all-out 50-stroke crawl towards the end. For someone who has swum every year since 1940, I’m a lousy swimmer. Not as bad as Tim Hanbury, who swims vertically rather than flat on the water, and who resembles a periscope, but I’m no Johnny Weissmuller, the late great Tarzan of the Forties. From the verandah of my house I look down on a beautiful bay and a private beach, which is no longer private. I don’t mind that at all, but I do mind that crooks like the Qataris can be allowed to buy the beaches where I played as a child, fill them up with rich scum of the Gulf persuasion and make it verbotenIs there no shame left? No divine punishment? How did it come to this?
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