Corfu, community and why we all need a return to village life.

Pining for my village in Corfu, I share some tips and musings on better living

Kalimera all,

I’m musing on the importance of community today - something I’ve learned from countless Mediterranean grandmothers, is vital to our wellbeing. Scroll down for my favourite very local spots in Corfu, where I’ll be reconnecting with my people in a few weeks’ time. You’ll also find my favourite ‘Yiayia’ playlist and hot tips for the week, including the ultimate Greek snacks to pick up from the supermarket this summer.

As I write to you all today, I look out from an office window onto a leafy garden boxed in by 1960s apartment blocks. I do love my home here in Athens and I must admit that as big city living goes, I have it very good. Our building is a beautiful 1930s structure, early modernist with only eight apartments. I was lucky enough to be introduced to it by an architect friend, who also invited other friends in our social group to viewings while most of the apartments in the building were being sold off. Somehow, I’ve ended up living in a building almost entirely comprised of friends and people in my extended network of friends. If I miss a delivery, I can call on someone to be here to open up. Sets of keys have been exchanged with neighbours and we visit each other’s flat in slippers. Should I need a cup of sugar, there’s always someone around to lend it. And yet still, I pine now for my village in Corfu.

Despite having friends around, city life - even in Greece - demands a certain level of insularity. Everyone is busy with art openings, social appointments or otherwise, plain old work. The chance, whiling away of the hours that my Yiayia does with her friends on the front stoop of her village home is a far cry from the kind of socialising that the city allows. Unorganised, ‘sitting around’ is the favoured pass-time of islanders or southern Mediterraneans. ‘Dolce far niente’ is the Italian saying for the sweet art of doing nothing at all and it’s what I miss most about my village home when I’m not there.

I was inspired to write this today, having read a quote from the School of Life’s Alain de Botton. He says:

“For 99% of human existence, we lived in communities of 20-30 people who worked together, shared meals. and existed deeply connected to one another. We’re designed for tribal living, yet modern life has separated us in ways we barely recognise.”

This has chimed with me because for the most part, Greek village life still feels very much like living within a tribe. When I’m in Corfu, extended members of family like my aunts and cousins are always there to lend a hand. Becoming a mother has made me realise that living within a community is vital for mental health. On the island every summer, despite my parents living in the UK and my partner working away, I never feel alone.

The baker kindly delivers bread to my home by the beach, knowing it’s a drive for me to get into the village to pick it up in the mornings. Once on the beach with my toddler, my cousins who own the beach bar there are on hand to take Calypso off my hands and entertain her while I go for a swim. I bump into aunts on the beach, who commiserate with me when I moan about having a man who works away for the entire summer. At my friend’s restaurants, I know that even when Calypso toddles off alone, she will be watched over by all the staff, whom I’ve known since we were children. Add to this the home cooked meals, made with so much love by my Yiayia and my father’s two sisters. And the afternoon hours spent simply sitting in the company of my Yiayia and her nonagenarian friends while Calypso plays with the other children off the village in the churchyard playground, across the street from us. I feel less of a single parent when I finally return home to my village.

I have to admit I had a slight mental blip just over a month ago here in Athens. My man was leaving us for four months to work away (he’s captain of a sailing yacht and spends every summer sailing the Mediterranean) and I wasn’t sleeping. The current pregnancy has rendered me exhausted with frequent dizzy spells thanks to low blood pressure and I was not at all ready to be left alone to take care of a toddler on three hours of sleep a night. In short, I felt like I was losing my mind.