Costa has a fish taverna on the beach at Astros. The restaurant is in a small square non descript building that faces the road that runs parallel to the beach. As you walk from my father’s apartments it is the last and best restaurant of six eateries. There is one other fish tavern, two restaurants…

My father was hospitalised 3 times. Once for a coronary bypass, then for a haemothorax (blood on the lung) after the bypass, and lastly to have ventricular defibrillator inserted. Each time he would want a private room. I suppose like all of us he liked his privacy. Like all of us it was easier to…

Uncle Piet was my father’s first cousin. Their fathers were brothers. But my father held Uncle Piet as an older brother, a village sage to cut through the smoke and mirrors of the modern world and to keep him from losing direction. Uncle Piet was 20 years older than my father. He arrived in South…

Advocate Barbie was convicted recently of, amongst other things, child abuse. Before she was dragged into the underworld she was held in high regard in the legal and fashion stakes of South Africa. Pandenaughty's Golfing Promotions idolised her. The Chairman, my father, and secretary, George Dracatos, his attorney, offered support by way of letters and…

Yesterday I saw a humble patient in the clinic. He has been with me since the beginning of the year. He has been unable to return to heavy work in the factory after I operated on both his shoulders, but is positive that by next year he will be back. He always jumps up from…

My father was a very good planner. As he always said, he planned for the worst scenario possible. I always thought this was inherently a Greek form of negativity. I have come to realise that most Greeks use it as a smoke screen, to talk as if the worst has befallen them, yet meanwhile they…

I thought it was only in marriage where I had this sort of conversation: “What’s the matter?” “Nothing.” “But something is bothering you?” “Just leave me alone.” But as the years have passed and egos have softened more often than not, with a bit of space we can share the problem and halve the worry.…

Two nights ago I escaped the first snows of Vienna to watch Madame Butterfly at the Volks Opera. This is not quite as grand as the State Opera, but opera is about the music, the singing and for me, the acting. That’s because I just cannot understand what they say. I might catch a few…