A trip to Hades or the Elysian fields?

A recent trip to Greece to research my sequel to The Long Shadow was partly work, partly pleasure. I always have a strange love-hate relationship with my mother's homeland. She had the same as well. It's because of the emotional investment in a country that is a part of one's genes. Greek experiences have always been deeply emotional and sometimes a little crazy. It certainly stirs and wakens the more sluggish, contented, country loving English side of my nature.

I found that, as always, media reports of a country on the brink of civil war are exagerrated. Northern countries don't understand that the Greeks have always been on the brink of civil war, always torn between left and right and find that a central viewpoint is not that easy to maintain. But despite this they retain their Homeric generosity, kindness and affability and life goes on as ever. The bars and eateries are full, the tourists roam freely and I felt safer at night in Athens than in my quiet little home town in England.