I’m off-air as we perk our pansies on pretty Paxos. While we’re away tanning our wrinkly old hides, here’s a random selection of images that caught my eye. As usual, it’s an eclectic mix of snaps.
First up – a twinkly Christmas 2025.
Then we have our April anniversary celebrations and red wedding tulips.
Our room for all seasons.
And finally, the utterly bonkers.
I think it must be an age thing, but these days, we’ve become creatures of habit. When we stumble on something or somewhere we like, we tend to stick with it. For us, familiarity breeds comfort, not contempt. So once again we’re jetting off to the gorgeous Greek island of Paxos, followed by a couple of days re-sampling the Venetian delights of Corfu Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Well, I say ‘jetting’, but it’s actually car, plane, taxi, ferry, then taxi again. This trip, we’re taking a couple of village people along for the ride. They like a drink too. Yamas!
Yes, folks, it’s that time again when I look back at another year of my missives from the sticks. The most popular broadcasts of 2025 have a distinctly nostalgic feel, with the leader-board dominated by anniversaries and commemorations, righting wrongs, resurrected traditions, memory lanes and old haunts, and topped with a trip to the seaside.
Numbers-wise, Perking the Pansies enjoyed the best year since 2014, so there’s still some life in the old blog yet. Blimey!
What better way to spend a sunny spring afternoon than a trip to the seaside? We’d never been to Southwold, the classy resort on the Suffolk coast because, without our own wheels, it’s a bit of a trek. So an equally classy neighbour took pity on us and offered to take us. We had a…
It’s taken quite a while but we’ve finally recovered from our frolic-filled sojourn on Ithaca. For our second expedition, we were accompanied by a couple of fellow village people who added an extra helping of spice to the mix. We had a ball. We haven’t laughed so much in years. It was well worth the…
Ours is a quiet little village where little happens except for occasional (but mercifully rare) low-level anti-social behaviour – like bored teens on the wacky baccy and cheap cider mucking about down by the river. But there’s one misdemeanour guaranteed to get everyone’s blood boiling – dog poo. Man’s (and woman’s) best friend is big…
People who know me know that I love an old ruin. Nothing gets me going more than a pile of ancient tumbledown stones. When I can’t visit ’em, I watch programmes about ’em on the box. And few TV pundits get the sap rising better than classical scholar Bettany Hughes. Buxom Bettany flits and flirts…
I am bereft. After 14 series over 13 years, we’ve just watched the final two episodes of Vera, featuring the dishevelled and irascible detective from the fictitious Northumberland and City Police Force, played with great panache by the wonderful Brenda Blethyn. Based in and around England’s most northerly county, Vera blends the gritty streets of…
Our double anniversary has sneaked up on us again – 19 years since our eyes met across a busy West End gay bar fit to bursting with a gossipy after-work crowd, and 17 years since we got hitched. This year, we’ve decided to push the boat out and paddle down the Seine. Yes, we’re off…
We joined the enthusiastic crowd of locals gathered on Church Plain in front of the Loddon War Memorial to celebrate the 80th anniversary of VE Day – the end of the Second World War in Europe. The organisers did a splendid job. So too did the kids from the local primary school who serenaded us…
“In the beginning there was work and work was God. After 35 years in the business, the endless predictability made me question the Faith. Liam, on the other hand, was neither bored nor unchallenged but was routinely subjected to the ephemeral demands of a capricious boss, a soft and warm Christmas tree fairy with a…
Last month, His Maj, King Charles, dedicated the first national memorial honouring LGBT armed forces personnel, 25 years after the ban on LGBT people serving in the military was lifted. Before this, those who were – or who were thought to be – gay or transgender were subjected to interrogation and discharge, a brutal and utterly needless…
A couple of summers ago, I wrote a tongue in cheek piece about Dwile flonking, a notorious East Anglian pub game involving two teams of twelve players, each taking a turn to girt (dance) around the other while attempting to avoid a beer-soaked dwile (cloth) flonked (flung) by the non-girting team. Imagine my amazement to…
Once again, a five-year-old tongue twisting post about a game old bird fit for the pot took centre stage – all thanks to the magic of AI. In fact, it’s currently the most popular post of all time. Blimey!
When I put food out for the birds, I don’t expect a big fat pheasant to waddle along and scoff the lot. Bold as brass it was. Where’s the pheasant plucker when you need him? I feel a tongue twister coming on. I’m not the pheasant plucker, I’m the pheasant plucker’s mate, And I’m only…
And what was the most popular image of the year? Drum roll please…
This image of John Garner and me from our first holiday together – to Majorca. Anything that keeps alive the memory of an extraordinary young man is fine by me. As I once wrote in a book…
I remembered John cuddling a weeping stranger at London Pride after the red balloons had been released, each one commemorating someone who had died of AIDS. I remembered John buying a McDonald’s Happy Meal and handing it, without a word, to a beggar on the street. I remembered John helping a drunken tramp to his feet because he’d fallen over and cut his face. I remembered his quick wit and winning smile that lit up my life.
Perking the Pansies, Chapter 15, Jack’s Guardian Angel
Happy New Year to one and all. If I were the praying kind, I’d be straight down on my knees wishing for a lot more peace, goodwill and glad tidings in 2026.
When we first waded ashore to the fabled isle of Ithaca, we stumbled upon a tumbledown wreck of a house, perched by the waterside and overlooking a pine-dressed Frikes Bay. Sad, unloved and barely standing, a wonky For Sale sign hung precariously from the front wall. It was the ultimate doer-upper (or puller-downer and start again-er). But with such a glorious aspect and a view to sell your soul for, we expected it to be snapped up in no time and transformed into something truly magical. Over dinner, we fantasised about snapping it up ourselves. Romantic notions of the perfect place to live out our dotage were encouraged by the robust local plonk. The more we drank, the more possible it seemed.
Of course, the next day, reality dawned and all romantic notions of our place in the sun evaporated. Like many Greek islands out of season, not-so-idyllic Ithaca is cold, wet and closed, wild winter tempests could sweep us out to sea without a paddle and what about healthcare for our aging bones? Also, the prospect of trying to learn a new language with an unfamiliar alphabet made our old brains hurt. The booze from the night before didn’t exactly help. Besides, the curse of Brexit meant it was nigh on impossible anyway. That was two years ago.
Imagine our surprise when, this year, back in Ithaca, we stumbled upon the same tumbledown wreck with the same wonky For Sale sign hanging precariously from the front wall. We started to romanticise all over again. Well, an old boy can dream, can’t he? I wonder…
It’s taken quite a while but we’ve finally recovered from our frolic-filled sojourn on Ithaca. For our second expedition, we were accompanied by a couple of fellow village people who added an extra helping of spice to the mix. We had a ball. We haven’t laughed so much in years. It was well worth the hour-and-a-half delay at Stansted Airport, the three-and-a-half-hour flight to gorgeous Kefalonia, the hour-long taxi trek across the island to the pretty port of Sami, the two-hour wait for the thirty-minute ferry to Ithaca – enough time for a liquid lunch – and, finally, the half-hour cab ride to Frikes.
Even the ferocious squadron of wasps sharing our breakfast buffet each morning didn’t manage to spoil our picnic. Neither did the nasty mozzie bite on my once pert posterior.
Our ouzo-fuelled romp was liberally sprinkled with hot-off-the-press gossip, laced with the lewd and the rude. Here’s a few choice phrases chucked into the drunken conversations. A bit of camp old nonsense, I think, but if bawdy double entendre ain’t your thing, then best change channels now.
“Need to get some water on my aubergines.”
“Our neighbour’s always going up my back passage.”
“Well, there was that time when my friend shat in a Pringles tube.”
“Apparently, Keira Knightley buys her onions from a veg shop in Bungay.”
“So, the doctor just shone his torch up my backside and said, nice and clean.”
“Oooo, you’ve got a lovely little foible!”
“You gotta keep your own hair on your own seat, right?”
“It’s true! She came home with a pickled foetus in a jam jar.”
“So there I was, just standing there holding my swimming teacher’s long pole.”
“It’s like butter off a water’s back.”
And the evergreen classic…
“So, is your cervico intacto?”
“Oo-er. Didn’t know you spoke Latin.”
Massive hugs to our splendid travelling buddies. Thank you for the good times to be treasured. You know who you are.
Idyllic Ithaca, we shall return again.
While we’re perking our pansies on Ithaca, I’m reposting something from the time we first tasted the wine on Odysseus’ fabled isle. So ladies, gents and everyone in between, take a walk in my shoes all over again…
I gloriously misspent my youth trawling the sleazy dives of many of the world’s great metropolitan sin bins – London, Amsterdam, Paris, New York and Los Angeles among them – and cruising the hedonistic no-holes-barred gay fleshpots of Europe – Ibiza, Sitges, Gran Canaria, Mykonos. My dance card was rarely empty and I had a ball. But, there comes a time when the spirit is no longer willing and the flesh is in bed by midnight.
These days, a gentle week around a cool pool with a good book, a glass of something local and Liam by my side is what gets the pulse racing. Let me take you on a walk through laid-back Frikes, our latest tranquil bolthole, a cute village on the northeast coast of the pine-dressed Greek isle of Ithaca.
A few years back, we spent a truly heavenly time on Crete celebrating our 10th anniversary. It was so peaceful, so life-affirming, that we’re thinking of doing it all over again for our 20th next year. As I wrote at the time…
“Our Cretan idyll delivers unexpected familiarity. If I close my eyes, I’m transported back in time to another land of randy insects, loose goats, old men in tea houses and pine-smothered hills.
Ok, no headscarves or hassle, and the call to prayer has been replaced by the chimes of the local blue-domed monastery, but looking at the following snaps – the first of our Cretan digs, the second of our old stone house in Bodrum – you get my drift.”
That was then…
This is now…
Then, guess what we stumbled upon at the end of our recent modern-day Greek odyssey in a hidden corner of our Aegina hotel? We took it as a sign from the gods.
So we’ve decided to return to the place where the original odyssey of Homeric legend ended. Yes, we’re going back to Ithaca and, unlike Odysseus, it won’t take us ten years to get there.
Our modern-day Greek odyssey came to a sweaty end with a few days on the pretty island of Aegina, just a short ferry hop from the Port of Piraeus in Athens. We arrived at the port on the hottest of days and everything was overheating, not least Liam’s mobile phone, which decided enough was enough and shut down without warning. Unfortunately, our ferry e-tickets were loaded into his Google wallet, so blind panic started to set in. A nice young sailor felt our pain and let us board anyway.
Liam had booked the gorgeous Bamboo Cottage in the lush grounds of the Rastoni Hotel, and it was perfect – just the ticket for winding down and resting our weary bones after all that exertion clambering over tumbledown stones perched on hilltops.
Being so close to Athens, Aegina is popular with city day trippers and weekenders who like to party. Come sundown, the fancy harbourside bars and restaurants fill with trendy young things doing what trendy young things do everywhere – chatting, flirting, larking about and having fun. We preferred the backstreet bars where the ambiance is less frenetic for those of us longer in the tooth.
On our last night, just after the waiter had taken our food order, there was a sudden power cut, plunging us all into darkness. Memories of long lights-out nights in Bodrum came flooding back. After a few moments, a generator fired up. As the courtyard filled with diesel fumes, a small lapdog in a massive pink bow at the next table yapped in competition with the mechanical beat. Mercifully, mains power was eventually restored, the air cleared and we were able to eat our meal without the restaurant smelling like a petrol station or us choking to death.
We left the Rastoni Hotel the next day with fond farewells from our kindly hostess. She asked us to come back again. That would be a big fat yes.
I’ll leave you with an image of the Alps as seen from the window of our return flight. Missing Greece already! I feel another trip coming on.
Our final sleepover on our three-day Greek odyssey was in a slightly faded, old school hotel with gaudy trappings that wouldn’t have looked out of place in one of Saddam Hussein’s flashy palaces. Nevertheless, our room was clean and comfortable, and meals were wholesome and plentiful.
Well-fed and watered, we journeyed to Delphi, the sacred precinct dedicated to Apollo and considered by the ancient Greeks to be the navel of the world. In fact, the name ‘Delphi’ likely comes from the ancient Greek word ‘delphys’, meaning ‘womb’. As such, Delphi held unique religious and political influence, attracting pilgrims from across the Mediterranean. It also attracted their cash and ‘corporate’ bungs from city states competing for holy favours. Ye Gods, those ancients knew a thing or two about raking in the cash and making a mint.
The sanctuary was most famous for the Oracle of Apollo, whose cryptic prophecies would be delivered through the Pythia (a priestess) after she sniffed something she shouldn’t. People could wait months for a chance to consult the pretty-boy deity, but a sneaky backhander might get you to the front of the queue.
The entire enterprise was closed down by the puritanical Theodosius I in 391 – the very same Christian Emperor who called time on the Olympic Games two years later. I bet he was a laugh at a party. Just like Olympia, it’s hard to visualise how magnificent the sanctuary once looked in its heyday. But Delphi’s position, cradled by lush pine-clad mountains, is even more spectacular, and the museum even more impressive.
After more tales of the ancients from our guide, Demitrios, it was time to head back to the big city. But not before a lunchtime pit stop in Arachova, a cute little town of narrow streets and stone houses clinging to the slopes of Mount Parnassos.
Our grand tour may have reached the end of the road, but we’re bringing home the lurv with our very own piece of classical Greece – an image of Aphrodite, a memento to hang on a wall. It’s not the real thing, obviously. No smuggling out priceless antiquities in our hand luggage. No, we picked her up in the museum shop. Now for a well-earned rest from our sweaty labours. Aegina’s up next.
After a restful night and a bountiful breakfast buffet, we were back on the road for our morning reccy of the sanctuary of Olympia, birthplace of the Olympic Games. Just like their modern reincarnation, the games were held every four years and featured a series of athletic competitions. However, rather than the pursuit of national glory, with all that jingoistic flag-waving, the first games were a religious festival to honour Zeus, top god on Mount Olympus.
According to Demetrios, our all-knowing guide, the entire enterprise was a licence to mint money, with gifts to the gods flooding in from across the Greek world. Unlike most Olympiads these days, it made the hosts filthy rich.
The male competitors always competed in the buff. Imagine the sight of sweaty fellas in their birthday suits dripping in olive oil without a jock strap between them, their family jewels swaying from side to side like weights on a grandfather clock – surely they must have done themselves a mischief. But I guess that was the price they paid to be poster boys of their time, to be feted and fantasised about.
Women were not permitted to participate in the main games but had their own, separate events known as the Heraea Games, in honour of Zeus’ missus, Hera. They had to be unmarried, and unlike the ripped blokes, they kept their kit on.
The games ran for about a thousand years, from 776 BCE until 393 CE, when they were abolished by that Christian zealot, the Roman Emperor Theodosius I. The buttoned-up killjoy probably thought all that homoerotic nude wrestling was the work of the Devil.
It takes imagination to visualise the once magnificent temples and civic buildings. Nevertheless, the setting is stunning. And the museum is pretty good too. Liam was thrilled to be able to place his big toe on the ancient starting line at the very first Olympic Stadium. He kept his knickers on, much to the disappointment/relief (delete according to taste) of the gathering crowd.
Perking the Pansies 