Another summer unfolds on Skopelos Island, my home for the next 5 months. All around, Villagers call out: "Kalo Kalokairi"— good summer!. It is an exciting time full of promise, renewal, and a dash of mystery of what another summer on the island will bring. I prepare with a purchase of a lined composition book from the local stationery store. Here I will capture stories as they percolate in the months ahead.

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It is my fourth day here and I am dog-tired after the long flight cross- Atlantic, then north by taxi from Athens, then east by ferry across the Aegean. But after a few nights of healing sleep, energy and equilibrium begin to return.  I lace up my hiking boots and set out with my dog, Simba for an evening trek across the rolling olive groves. We reach the house of Xristos,  following the tiny winding path up to his kalivi, a small farmhouse, where I peek in windows and yodel "yiasou, yiasou" and Simba gets alert expecting a head to pop from a doorway. No one appears as Xristos at 92 stays in the village, making the journey only in the kindest of weather.

The hills behind the kalivi are carpeted with soft grasses, the olive branches dense after winter rains. All  seduce me and I climb higher and higher not knowing fatigue until we reach the Raches Road, the very high ridge above Skopelos town. Here a tarmack road stretches but not a single car or motor bike pass. Down in the valley beyond toward Anaias, the tiny hill village, in a lush vineyard I see figures moving about cutting wood. It’s not far now to the overgrown donkey path, a short-cut that takes us past the Drossos house. We climb the steps and wander freely in the yard knowing all is shuttered, the pool waterless just a yawning cement hole. April is a blessed month of privacy and also trespass. I go where I please for another month or two until summer visitors invade the island.