Small world

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For a moment my heart sinks. When Dagmar and I step into the Lidl in Arta, I notice that the shelves with ‘non-essential’ items are covered with red and white ribbon and plastic again. This probably means that our Arta region has now also gone from ‘red’ to ‘deep red’, our lockdown rules have become stricter again and our world a bit smaller.

One supermarket further down I ask a Dutch woman who works there about the details. She tells me that they also don’t know exactly how it works yet and at what time their branch will have to close that day for the purpose of the probably also earlier curfew. So it’s not just me that cannot fully keep up with the latest rules. They change here every day and per municipality or region.

The second Greek lockdown has been in effect since November 7 last year. Since then, we have sent a text message for every step outside. The score on my phone is now over 500, only for walking the dogs. When I ride with Dagmar, our German neighbor, to the supermarket in Arta, I write the required information on the back of my shopping list. I have not been further than this town, 25 kilometers away, since November 7, because traveling between different regions is prohibited. Ron hasn’t been out of Koronisia for months. Now that I can go to the supermarket by car, he no longer has to cycle 14 kilometers to the hamlet of Vigla for our groceries. He walks with Sammie for two hours every day. Sometimes the four of us go together. A round of a few kilometers around the island. That’s our small world since we got here in late September.

Koronisia is a small village, a kind of peninsula, which has only 167 inhabitants according to Wikipedia. Maybe that’s why our friends Alida and Auwert van de Frya van Schier (Schiermonniksoog: a very small Dutch island) feel so at home here. They have just been away to the yard at Preveza for two weeks. That’s quite an event nowadays, because sailing is also prohibited. Unless you are able to get permission from the Port Police, eg to carry out repairs on your ship. They are back again after two weeks of absence. As if they never left. Michael, the German Greek owner of the tavern Mare Mare is back again for his daily visits to the Frya. Once in the morning and once in the evening. Alida walks her daily round with the neighborhood dogs. Sometimes we eat together or we play a game of cards.

Days go on and on in boring regularity. Travelling and adventure have long ceased to exist. Or maybe this is also an adventure? A macabre adventure, but still … The dogs are very satisfied with the current situation. They like the regularity. They know the surroundings, the people, the sounds and the other dogs. They do not need change and travelling. Their adventure is around every corner, with every smell in the grass, at the scent trail of a coypu or the hunt for a running cat.

Because adventure, what exactly is that? “An unexpected, exciting experience, a dire situation, a risky undertaking, the outcome of which is not clear in advance”. Just some definitions on the internet. When you look at it that way, life is always a great adventure and it doesn’t matter at all whether your world is small or big. It just depends on what you make of it yourself.