Corfu @ 45°C

Albania from Agios Spiridon, the northern point of Corfu

The Med in July is not that cool. The crowds, temperatures, airline and accommodation prices are at their peak. School summer holidays were designed for milder British climes, not for the benefit of airlines and the rapacious tourist industry. The crowds at Edinburgh Airport at 3:30am were of Murrayfield proportions, the Wetherspoon breakfasts were creating bulging bellies, and even the champagne bar was bubbling with alcohol seekers. The queues for luggage drops extended outside the terminal buildings, and with most folk dressed for the heat of arrival, it was apparent that the tattoo parlours had had a bumper year.

EasyJet landed us ahead of schedule, and within half an hour, we had parked our modestly priced Nissan Micra at Lidl. Greek prices had escalated since the last visit ten years ago. Google Maps helped us escape Kerkyra, the main town, and reach the north coast. Our modern villa was grafted onto the limestone bedrock and gave us stunning views of the nearby coast and the Albanian Riviera. The pool was calling, and later we walked up to the nearby village of Kontokali for a fine Greek meal at Harry's Taverna before retiring to air-conditioned rooms that made sleep easy.

Corfu has changed since my first visit in 1970, when we picked up people on an emigrant's boat from Piraeus to Brindisi in Italy. We had blagged our way to a passage on the boat to complete a 4-week student holiday in Greece and Italy.  Our return flight to the UK had been booked from Milan so we had to hitch hike up Italy calling at Rome and Florence en route, my optimism was unregulated. The cost of the passage to Italy was 110 drachma or £1.50 for a 24-hour sail through the Corinth Canal, a stop in Corfu and a meal of pasta was included. We slept on the deck along with Greek families who were escaping the colonels and seeking work in the newly opened Alfa Sud factory in Naples. 

My next visit to Corfu was in 1981 with our 1-year-old daughter, our first holiday as a family abroad. We stayed at a large tourist hotel at Roda Beach, not far from where we stayed on this occasion. Aileen had wanted to bail out; the meals in the large canteen-like dining area made you nostalgic for school dinners. We hired a car and sought out the best beaches on the north west coast in friendly local villages with the odd taverna and an absence of tourist tat. It was an important lesson; we never had a holiday in a tourist hotel again. We next passed through Corfu on our way to Paxos and saw the sprawling development that had taken place. On this trip, I was careful to book a villa in the north of the island, close to the better beaches and away from the crowded holiday resorts. There are now 150,000 people living on Corfu; only Crete and Rhodes, both far bigger islands, are more populated.

The villa was modern, well-equipped with air conditioning and a pool that proved essential as temperatures were in the mid forties for much of the week. The record temperature was equalled on our last day, according to the driver of the mini bus that took us to the airport after the car drop. We made visits to Aghios Georgiou beach, where we had spent several days in 1981, when it was a gorgeous, long sandy beach with just a couple of tavernas. Today it is developed with many hotels and restaurants, the beach is littered with sun beds, but it is still beautifully located between two headlands. As is the nearby village of Afionas, where there is a wonderful walk down to Porto Timoni that we made after the afternoon heat receded. 

We made a couple of trips to the nearby village of Kassiopi with its picture book harbour, from where we rented a boat for a voyage along the coast and contemplated a quick trip over to Albania, a 3-mile voyage that had been achieved by two holidaymakers from Kilmarnock in a pedalo a few years ago. The young woman who hired us the boat thought that Greece had been at its best in the 1970s, when beaches were unadulterated with hotels and cafes, when transport was buses and scooters, and local tavernas provided simple meals. I agreed, having had the pleasure of four island-hopping holidays, travelling light with good companions; sleeping on deck or beaches, or in caves and whitewashed cottages that had no water or electricity. I visited 15 Greek islands in those halcyon days. reading novels like The Magus by John Fowles and exploring ancient sites when you were able to amble around them without tickets.

On other days, we visited the spectacular coast of Cape Drastis by Sidari and made an early morning climb up Corfu's highest mountain, Mount Pantokrator, from Old Perithia. Most of the time, the villa and the pool provided the most comfortable place in a week when the temperature was heading to new records. We ate out most evenings, the tavernas provided good Greek food, and the hospitality was always good. Would I go again? Not in July or August, and probably by train and boat or a tardis to go back to the 1970s. The queuing and waiting at airports and the sense of being packaged is contrary to the very essence of enjoying the uncertainty and delights of travelling.

Albanian view

A place in the Sun, Old Perithia

Mantis on arm chair

Logos, Sunset beach

Logos

Cape Drastis

In the Mountains

Arilas Bay from taverna

1970s Greece

Firecracker Plant

Path to Porto Timoni

Agiou Georgiou Bay

Bougainvillea

Kassiopi Harbour

Villa Arreti

Mount Pantokrator, Corfu

Mount Pantokrator on ascent

Friday, 25 July 2025

Ascent:      450 metres
Distance:  11 kilometres
Time:        2 hours 48minutes

Mount Pantokrator    909 m   1hr 28mins

At 909 metres, Corfu's highest mountain wouldn't quite qualify as a Munro, but it is nearby, and it is my tradition to climb the highest mountain on any island that is visited. It was to be the hottest day of the holiday, and the temperature was to rise to 42°C. We started at 6:30am for the 8-kilometre drive to Old Pethithia, the oldest and highest village, at 450metres, on the island. Gregor was to run it, and my intention was to walk up as far as the ridge at 650 metres, from where I could view the island and the nearby shores of the Albanian Riviera. I doubted that my groin strain and aching legs would take me any further.

It was still cool, and the morning breeze made ideal conditions for the walk as Gregor ran off in pursuit of the summit. I found the narrow marked path that twists its way through the limestone and burnt-bark olive trees; Gregor missed it and ended up on convoluted dusty trails for 13 kilometres to the summit. The path emerged on a higher trail road that took a more direct route to the summit.  I decided to head along, expecting to meet Gregor on his descent, at which stage I would turn back. I was walking more easily than expected, and unexpectedly met Gregor at a junction just 1.4 kilometres below the summit. He was still running his ascent but had done an extra 7 kilometres. I decided that the final section involving a climb of 220 metres along a metalled road was worth the effort. Two cyclists pedalled past on sections that made Mont Ventoux look easy; my shouts of 'Allez' were probably not appreciated.

The summit was a disappointment, with a collection of phone masts, a mini Eiffel Tower and fencing around the high point. Gregor was chatting to the cyclists and was ready to run down. There was no place selling drinks, contrary to the blurb about the summit. I scrounged a mouthful of water before beginning the 5 kilometres of descent as the morning heat began to intrude. I was down shortly after 9am. The car battery was flat from overuse of the air conditioning, but a friendly local from somewhere in the Midlands of England was on hand with some jump leads and advice on the restaurants in Old Perithia that we hope to return to this evening. We were back at the villa by 10am, desperate for a litre of water to revive our dehydrated bodies. It was already 38°C.

Path to Mount Pantokrator

Dried limestone vegetation

JCBs get everywhere

Memorial

What's wrong with a cairn?

G&K at summit

Digital Destruction

Looking over to Albania

Pace, Disruption and Progress

Another Rabbit Hole for HS2

In recent weeks, we have begun to hear both severe criticism and praise for President Trump, the dealmaker and the great disruptor. The deals haven't worked out in Ukraine and Gaza, and the beautiful tariffs have spooked the markets, prompting a spiral of inflation and a loss of American soft power. The pace of announcements has been relentless, causing significant disruption in the financial markets. It has become one of the tools of populism, challenging the post-war consensus on international agreements and the role of the deep state.

Admittedly, some things are getting done, like tax breaks for the wealthy, the return of illegal immigrants, the slashing of international aid and the closure and sacking of staff in federal agencies. None of which will help the less wealthy. Elon Musk has been axed and is promising to fund a new political party to break up the binary politics of the Republican and Democratic Parties. The Big Beautiful Bill is upsetting the markets, and according to a CNN survey, it is opposed by 61% of the electorate. The MAGA core is becoming tetchy about the President's relationships with Putin and Epstein, and his reluctance to release documents. These disruptions are damaging to the poor and oppressed in America and cutting off funding for the third world. Government departments and Universities have been subject to severe cuts in funding as Trump seeks to settle his prejudices against what he perceives as liberal institutions. They cost the federal government too much, in his opinion, as he tries to cut wealth taxes and impose his oligarchic tendencies on an increasingly tribal America.

Despite these problems, some lessons can be learned from Trump's mode of operation. Things move at a pace, and some disruptions, such as the funding of  NATO, have led to a reset of the partnership with greater costs and responsibilities transferring to Europe. Efforts by previous Presidents of the USA to achieve this rebalancing had fallen on deaf ears, but Trump's threat to withdraw funding has achieved a shift in Europe's willingness to take greater responsibility. Contrast the rapidity of change and the pork-barrelling that Trump has introduced; however, we may despise the methods, and the outcomes are in stark contrast with the UK's plodding attempt at change. 

The UK's response to various crises, such as the infected blood scandal, the post office IT scandal, the Grenfell Tower Public Inquiry or the Covid Inquiry, has involved years and in some cases decades passing without any outcome for the victims. The government has specialised in creating rabbit holes to avoid paying compensation, whilst building structural rabbit holes for HS2, Nuclear Power Stations and airport expansions. These national infrastructure projects have been a cash cow for financial and construction consortia, even further enhanced as they identify constraints and run behind schedule. The failure to tackle social care has been a dereliction of governance by successive governments since Andy Burnham tried to obtain a cross-party agreement in 2010. The housing policies since the Thatcher years have been a similar bonanza of easy money for the house builders, the estate agents, surveyors and bank lenders who have escalated prices whilst reducing the completion of new houses. They are the modern middlemen with greedy girths and little social conscience. The same could be said for the private landlords, often second-home owners, who have ratcheted up rents as the supply of social rented housing has been depleted by the government's doctrinaire diminishment of Council Housing.

In the UK, we seem unable to make anything happen because of our obsessively antiquated procedures, poor-performing regulators and our uncodified constitution. Together with our excessively centralised governments at Westminster and Holyrood that operate with short-term visions and long-term actions, we are locked in a cycle of chronic stagnation and a growing disillusionment with our government.

It requires governments to up their pace and indulge in some progressive disruption. Think about Rachel Reeves' ill-thought-out proposal to build an additional runway at Heathrow. Leaving aside the environmental, transport and financial objections, the supposed justification is growth. When do we need growth? Now. When will it produce results? More than ten years in the future. A short-term vision and long-term action with unspecified costs and huge disruption to local communities and the M25. It is the result of ministerial weakness in the face of corporate lobbying for the 'Big is Beautiful' movement that fills company coffers and leaves the treasury picking up the tab. Think HS2, the Water Companies, the Edinburgh Trams or the A9 improvement. All are costing much more than anticipated and taking decades to become a reality, if they ever will.

So, what is the alternative? The Labour Government has been in power for a year, and despite campaigning under the banner of 'Change', there has been far too little progress. This has been celebrated with glee by the press, as well as being obvious to the electorate. Starmer believes that things are not broken, and Rachel Reeves has succumbed to the Treasury orthodoxy and made several poor decisions. Repeating ad nauseam that the £22 million black hole left by the Tories had to be fixed is a turn-off for most voters. They have been over-cautious, and some radical changes should have been put in place. Maybe some focused disruption would help instead of the constant setting up of inquiries would help. Equally, there must be a willingness to simplify or streamline procedures by eradicating outdated legislation, speeding up enforcement by regulators and government agencies. There would be benefits from simplifying and devolving some taxation, cutting out the financial middlemen of housing and construction. The government needs to trust in localities to drive the agenda for change, but this is palpably beyond the mindset of distant government departments and their ministers.  

A new simplified written constitution would help, as would simplifying the tax system to make it easier to understand, less likely to be avoided by clever accountancy. Income tax and national insurance should be integrated into a more progressive personal taxation regime. VAT needs to be simplified and extended to some activities that are hugely damaging to carbon emissions, like air travel, and to unhealthy food and drinks. The housing market could be loosened by reducing or eliminating stamp duty, and what about encouraging factory-built sustainable housing instead of supporting the cost-cutting, space-denying, profit-maximising offerings from the volume builders? A little bit of disruption would maybe speed up progress and create a vibe of optimism and growth, but it needs the government to trust communities, businesses and local democracy if it is serious about change.

Favourite Places - 1 - Langdale

Above Cathedral Quarry looking over Little Langdale 

I was sitting on a hill above the Cathedral Quarry in Little Langdale, looking over the open jaws of the Cathedral to Langdale and beyond, the Helvellyn Range provided the horizon. I have been here many times before, and it always gives me a deep sense of belonging. As do so many locations within a couple of miles of Chapel Stile in Great Langdale. Slater's Bridge and the Cathdral in Little Langdale, High Close Youth Hostel, the circular walk to Skelwith Bridge and Elterwater via Colwith, the Britannia Inn, the Old and New Dungeon Ghyll pubs, Loughrigg Fell, Silver How, Elterwater Quarry and the Great Langdale Beck. It may be because I was conceived in the Langdales Hotel, when my parents honeymooned there. It is now Wainwright's Bar, part of the Langdale Estate where we have taken a week's holiday for the past 43 years.

As a young child, we visited Langdale a couple of times a year in a hired car. We had a family holiday when I was a 16-year-old at a nearby campsite on Neaum Crag. I swam in the River Brathy and made my first solo hillwalk from Silver How to Blea Rigg and the Langdale Pikes. I was down at the New Dungeon Ghyll to buy my first pint of beer in a pub before noon, and I was thirsty. 

The following year, on my first holiday with friends, we stayed at the High Close Youth Hostel. On a glorious July evening, we listened to records on the lawn where I was captivated by a girl from Leeds, and we arranged several rendezvous over the next week as we walked over the fells between hostels. 

During university days, I visited Langdale to climb on Gimmer Crag with two of my friends who had joined their university climbing clubs. We climbed most of the high fells, sailed in Windermere and spent a New Year at the Bowder Stone cottage and saw in the New Year with Beryl Burton. On moving to Glasgow, my journeys to Lancashire would usually involve a diversion through the Lakes, very often to Langdale to climb the fells. 

We bought a timeshare at Langdale in 1984, and on the first visit when the children were 2 months, two and three, we took them on an ambitious walk up the Langdale Pikes, Gregor strapped to Aileen and me carrying and cajoling our daughters; it was probably a bit ambitious. In the following years, they learnt to swim in the pool, climbed many of the Lakeland fells and visited all the sights as we swamped them with Beatrix Potter books and Wainwright hills. We have only missed two years, both owing to my work commitments. 

We watched our family grow and fledge, we walked almost every path, and visited most attractions and pubs. I climbed all the Wainwrights and hope to complete a second round soon. Langdale is a favourite place, where I started life, it is my all-weather playground and where my memories of life's journey tumble over each other. 

Langdales Hotel now Wainwrights

Langdale Beck by Langdales Hotel

High Close Youth Hostel

Lodge for 43 years

View from our Lodge

Happy days

Brtannia Inn

Family on Loughrigg Fell

Slater's Bridge

Poo Sticks?

Aileen on Slater's Bridge

The gate to Rydal Terrace

Grasmere from Rydal Terrace

Langdale from Loughrigg Fell

Inside the Cathedral

Langdale Pikes from the Quarry

Elterwater Quarry

Gregor and me on the Colwith to Skelwith Trail

Langdale Estate, Loughrigg Fell and the Amritt Museum

Langdale from Loughrigg Fell

I was making the best of my annual Lakes holiday despite being unable to attempt any longer hillwalks. I had planned to climb 20 Wainwrights earlier in the year, but things change. I walked on the first two days, but aggravated my groin strain, and my legs and hips were aching, something I had never known in the past. 

On day 3, I spent 4 hours on a tour of the Langdale site with Andy, the head of grounds maintenance, as he narrated a detailed and personal history of the Langdale Estate from its days as a gunpowder factory selling its products to the United States to the present day. The 35-acre estate was then bought by a local businessman, Richard Hall, who built the Pillar Hotel and converted former industrial buildings into cottages. He allowed two huts to be rented to rival climbing clubs from Lancashire and Yorkshire, and they competed to find new routes on Gimmer and other local Crags. He also made available an old barn to Kurt Schwitters, the German Dadaist, who was responsible for the Merz movement that was a precursor of Pop Art. In 1947, Schwitters began to create what became the Merz Barn, the slate wall of which has now become an exhibit at Newcastle University. Andy's talk was authentic and revealing and should be captured on YouTube. He told me he was cooperating on the production of a book, but it would never inspire the imagination in the way of Andy's oral presentation as we walked around the estate, firing questions that gave Andy the scope to produce real-life answers.

The next day, I agreed to meet with Mark for a gentle walk around Grasmere, no hills allowed. I met him on the Loughrigg Terrace overlooking Grasmere on the flank of Loughrigg Fell; we had walked in from opposite directions. I have been up Loughrigg on dozens of occasions. Wainwright devoted 16 pages to it in Book Three of his Pictorial Guide. Loughrigg Fell he wrote has "a bulk out of all proportion to its modest altitude: but no ascent is more repaying for the small labour involved in visiting its many cairns, for Loughrigg has delightful grassy paths, a series of pleasant surprises along the traverse of its summits, several charming vistas and magnificent views, fine contrasts of velvety turf, rich bracken and grey rock, a string of little tarns strung out like pearls in a necklace and a wealth of stately trees on the flanks." Wainwright could certainly string out a sentence.

Start of Loughrigg Terrace

Grasmere from Loughrigg Terrace

Needless to say, we climbed Loughrigg Fell up the steep, well-made path from the terrace. There were two others at the summit, a full-on fell walker who ranted on about how he had walked all the Lakeland hills in dire conditions. Mark was quiet, but I could tell he wanted to escape. I decided to put an end to the lecture by telling the walker that Mark had completed 23 Wainwright rounds. He stopped talking, aghast that he was a mere novice. We were able to have a friendly chat with the Indian lady who was standing nearby and wanted a picture taken at the summit. Mark then suggested returning to Ambleside by all the cairns that Wainwright had eulogised about. It took about two hours as we zig-zagged along the velvety turf, wallowing in the vistas and magnificent views.

Windermere from Loughrigg Fell

Velvety Turf

I had a notion to visit the Amritt museum in Ambleside to study the life of Kurt Schwitters, so we headed back in that direction. My groin and legs were giving me some distress by the time we reached Rothay Park. I was thirsty and hungry, so I dropped into the Apple Pie Cafe for lunch, washed down by a carafe of water. The Amritt was quiet with only a handful of visitors, despite two excellent exhibitions of Beatrix Potter and Wainwright. There were only a couple of Schwitter's paintings in the museum, but the other exhibitions held me for a couple of hours. A video of Wainwright was playing, and I found myself laughing aloud along with a lady who had entered the room. She was on a mission to complete the Wainwrights that her late husband had started but were unfinished.  She had her doubts about whether she had the endurance to do this, as she was born in the same year as me. She was in the Lakes to visit his ashes at Black Sail, and I sensed that she was looking for some company. I might have offered to help, but I doubted whether I would be able to walk in the next couple of days. Mark, not for the first time, had taken me to the limit.

Merz Barn Wall

Schwitter Painting of Bridge House, Ambleside

Schwitter Painting of Lakeland Farm

Schwitter Painting