Another intro

Last night I wafted into Chania in the afterglow of what our friend Carole called a crucible of love. Sixty something people with love in their hearts had gathered to do something I’d promised to arrange two years ago but couldn’t. It happened a few days before I left – a joyous moment born of a sad one. We called it ‘Here’s to Pip’.

I’ll touch on it briefly because this trip’s roots reach right down into it, and I know that some people are following who don’t know. It’s not essential they do but it may seep into the telling unannounced, unadorned and be weird. So here it is.

I arranged the gathering with our daughter, Josie, to celebrate her mum’s life. My wife. A sister. A daughter. She was our love and we lost her very suddenly, our future together kicked away, our travel plans the litter of a brain tumour’s presence. It grew as fast as our hopes faded and took her life in just eighteen days.

The gathering, two years later, celebrated her life and, despite the sad circumstances, it was a joyous thing. And that’s how I feel now, in Greece, a country we both loved and had returned to often, and in which we’d lived and worked before we’d even met. And I’m back here. It’s a balmy summer evening and there’s life and music in the cafes around Chania’s lovely Venetian harbour. I won’t bang on about Pip but that’s the backdrop to me being here and it may show up from time to time. It’s not about her but she’s in it.