Thoughts from a Small Greek Island #2

I live on an island where it seldom rains between May and October. Temperatures are in the 40s centigrade in the summer and can drop to freezing in the wet winters. The terrain is steep and rocky with little topsoil and even less ground water. Trees grow very slowly in such conditions. Even the indigenous ones struggle to survive. Among the rugged windswept conifers, terebinths and straggly Kermes oaks, the handful of Valonia oaks on the island stand out as landmarks.

This one, in the Lieni region of Chorio, the old upper village, is reckoned to be around 500 years old. According to local historians, at one stage in the early 1800s the village school actually used its shady branches as an open air classroom in the stifling heat of summer. Then it provided welcome shade over a footpath up to the cemetery at Agia Marina and the monastery at Profiti Ilias (Prophet Elijah) on the slopes of the Vigla. Now it is the only patch of shade between Kampos in central Chorio and the first clumps of conifers at Agia Marina. The only road from Chorio to Panormitis passes beneath its branches, many of which have been inadvertently lopped by high vehicles crawling up the mountain on their way to Panormitis bay on the south-western shore of the island.

There is still a bench for hot pedestrians and it is a known landmark for identifying locations in a place where there are no street names or house numbers. Many a description starts with, "You know the big oak that overhangs the road at Lieni? Well, if you get off the bus there and then ..."

This photograph was taken last week, before the last leaves dropped. It will be bare for a couple of weeks and then, at the end of February, the new shoots start to appear. The tree provides a home to countless birds at various times of the year, including the little owl and the scops owl.

Will it make another century or more? I don't know but I have known and loved this tree for a quarter century myself. Its tenacity is an inspiration. It has seen Ottoman sultans and other foreign occupiers come and go. It has survived Second World War bombing raids. When the world seems chaotic, that tree is a constant.