Falling in love again

http://http//www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYXg7LlzyO8

I`m a reasonably faithful kind of person, but as we approached that snowy peak through the flower filled high grassy meadows of Vardousia, I found that I was in an emotional turmoil inappropriate for one who heart was given elsewhere. It seems that Giona was being replaced. I had fallen in love with another mountain! And not just any other mountain.. Giona`s next door neighbour, in fact. It wasn`t Giona`s FAULT that I went to parts of it that were dusty and had no water, but somehow I blamed it. Yes, I had felt the old magic briefly as we camped by the Mornos river, but the violent attraction that Vardousi was now exerting was lost. The thrill was gone. A Crisis! I knew exactly what Lola is the Blue Angel was talking about. in "Falling in Love again" Listen to the song, (I hope link posted above)but where she uses the word men, substitute the word mountains. Also, with mountains you don`t have the problem of finding a nice way to dump them. Of course falling in and out of love with mountains is a pretty safe thing to do, since the mountains don`t give a toss is you love them or not, and also there`s no risk.. if you fall in love with a mountain it`s not going to break your heart or have jealous tantrums or anything. But perhaps we should all fall in love with mountains, because then we would try to protect them from harm. And also there is a beauty and a sensual stimulation that does in some way replicate some of the thrill of being in love. I mean the shock of joy and the intense delight I felt when George and I left the dark forest and walked out into the flower scented greenness of the sheep meadows below the peak of Vardousi shook me with its force. Many of the marsh and meadow plants I saw in such abundance were familiar to me from my childhood..milkmaids smocks,kingcups,buttercups, daisies, oxlips, heartease..all those lovely names all those loved flowers. Nostalgia is a very strong emotion too, and these marshy uplands brought all those sunshiney memories from childhood flooding back. The grass was lush and George was able to gorge himself. They told me that on June 1st the sheep come to graze these meadows. 7,000 of them arrive from the plains of Attica. Ist June is the traditional date for Vardousi. Every big mountain with upland meadows in Greece has a transient population of sheep and/or cattle that come to graze it in the Summer, and which are either slaughtered at the end of the Summer, or are transported back down to the lowlands for the winter. There are careful arrangements about the when and where of these transient populations..some mountains allow sheep everywhere, others give cattle first choice of the pastures,and the sheep must make do with the drier higher ones, or can use the cattle grazings when the cattle have done with them. Some areas are fenced, and the grass is kept for hay.Only when the hay is collected can the sheep graze those pastures. The date that the animals arrive is crucial. If they come too soon then there will be too little grass, and the hungry animals will destroy the pastures by grazing too close. If they come too late the grass may have gone to seed, and many annual grasses die after they have seeded. If they are grazed it prevents them setting seed too soon. So the traditional dates are based on the local observations of the weather and grass growth patterns. They do not take global warming into account. Thus, the grass on Vardousia was ready for the sheep to graze.. that's why there was so much grass for George, but the sheep wouldn`t arrive for 2 more weeks. People in the village of Athanasios Dhiakos realised that the grass was ready but the sheep were missing. But they told each other and themselves that as long as it rained everything would be fine. "And does the rain fall as it used to?" I asked. No. they said. The grass grows because there is wet from the melting snow. The snow used to melt at the end of May, now its nearly all melted already. "But if it rains there`ll be plenty of grass" "and if it doesn't rain?" "It`ll rain" The track from Athanasios Dhiakos is in the process of becoming a road. So it was no fun to go along. As soon as I could I found a smaller track and got lost in the forest. And a very fine place to be lost it was too. A river, a riverside sheep pasture, a cherry tree to camp under. Perfect, even if it wasn`t Vardousia.