A beautiful butterfly.

Lindos in Greece is an idyllic place. Well it was then in 1973 maybe not quite so nice now. I believe Lindos means the ‘beautiful place’. There is an acropolis there and local men offer to carry tourists, most of whom are American, up to the Acropolis that is perched on the clifftops above the impossibly beautiful white washed narrow streets on their donkey for a fixed fee. Now I have to say the villa where we stayed was superb the grub just excellent and the two ‘villa maids’ were great fun. Martin and I became friendly with the girls who both had local Greek boy friends. The wine flowed and in truth martin and I were quite a double act as our humour and approach to life seemed to be non standard amongst the rather boring other guests who were generally young executives looking for love having by passed their youth. Through the villa girls we met the local and before long I was trusted with a donkey. I had so much fun posing as a Greek ( despite the obvious deliberate mistake of my far from Grecian skin). Martin favoured the bar and he would sit amongst the locals sipping ooze and hurling comments in my direction as I passed by with my donkey and rider. I so wish I had a picture of the time. On one level it was silly but on another it was just what I needed. My year of depression and difficulty slowly receded into the evening sunset.

After one week the villa emptied and a new crew appeared we were the only ones left.. Through the curtains of a mental hangover I noticed a slim beautifully proportioned your woman. She had a captivating smile and everything about her oozed style. She was twiggy like in proportion, her hair was beautifully cut and her nails painted. She wore a flowing dress. I clearly remember thinking of the ‘most beautiful butterfly’. I was all confused. I told Martin ‘I was in love’ and he laughed. That night at dinner I was very quiet and I was consumed with jealousy at the two people who flanked this woman chatting to her and she animatedly chatting back. I was in confusion as I wanted to talk to her but I feared being rejected.

The following morning I accidentally came across her on the beach. She was sunbathing in a bikini revealing a very muscled perfect body-if a little thin I thought. I had had a ‘livened’ my regular 11 AM ‘bloody mary’ and I reached down and buried her left leg with sand. Would you like to join me for a drink in a little bar I asked? ‘No thanks’ she said and my heart sank. I was about to move off but she said some words I will always remember, ‘you had better bury the other leg as I cant stand uneven tans’.

I introduced myself and soon we were chatting. I was quite good at water skiing and I invited her to accompany me on my ‘friend’ Yanni’s boat. Yanni was one of the Villa girls boyfriend. It was a commercial affair but he always gave me a discount. I showed off of course and I persuaded ‘Lizzie’ to have a go. It was her first time and she struggled through two attempts to ‘get up’. There was a look of determination on her face that filled me with admiration. To her delight on the third go -success. There she was skiing along a beautiful smile lighting up her face. I felt quite giddy as I helped her back into the boat. Apparently the villa girls had taken Liz aside and warned her to be careful of men like Martin and I, why on earth would they do that.? However after evening cocktails I found myself painting Liz’s toenails. We were chatting about everything and it felt so good. We went to the disco and we danced to the songs of John lennon and Richie Havens. She swirled around her dance style spectacular. Later late at night we sat on the villa rooftop and we shared life stories. It seemed we both had similar ambitions to live life to the full and at some stage to make our individual family life the most important thing in our being. After one night this was quite thing to share. It seems so natural for me to talk to this woman like no other I had ever met. As dawn was breaking we bade each other good night. I clearly remember lying on my bed a tear in my eye. I had met someone really really special.