Saturday, September 08, 2018

Postcard from Skyros

Regular readers will know that this primarily-Frome-focussed arts blog goes off, geographically speaking, annually to an island in the Aegean where Greek heroes hid, where Cretan pirates roamed, where the quintessentially English Rupert Brooke has his grave, and where now Skyros Holistic Holidays offers creative 'alternative' activities both in the main town and on the wild west coast, at Atsitsa Bay.
That's where I am at this moment, in a beach bar with wifi and exquisite soft-sandy beach and warm azure water, to which I shall shortly adjourn. I'm now midway between two sessions: here's last week's supergroup, posed in dappled light which unfortunately makes them look as though they're mid-way being beamed up to another planet, and my other awesome group, the 'Sunset Writers'... and here's our sunset view as we wrote. We did other things too: there's a wide range of options throughout day and evening - including aerial dance - and the food here is fantastic, all created by superchef Taki. And now these amazing groups have both gone, and new people have arrived, for another week of mornings immersed in creativity and afternoons immersed in water...

Avid Frome-followers keen to catch up on culture-goss, therefore, will find this post disappointing - I can tell you nothing about the Fat Boy Slim gig at  Cheese & Grain, which I would have give my eye-teeth to be at if I knew what these dentures are - though in compensation, here last week we had ecstatic dance, bopping in the bar, and a late-night hut-rave. And singing in the cabaret, and harmonising on the beach... The only home news I can add is that legendary music producer & singer/songwriter Ethan Jones shared his songs in the unlikely venue of Sagebury Cheese Deli the night before I left (next-door Raves from the Grave is so cram full of recordings in every format there's no room for a guitar to be unstrapped, never mind played to a rapt audience) and he was terrific. Leonardo's Bicycle at Three Swans afterwards gave us a fun tour through the 60s in song, and after that I know nothing.... I console myself with the extraordinary beauty of this island, the amazing people who come to Atsitsa, and the awesome, entertaining, sensational, & sometimes magical experiences it provides.

No comments: