A Healthy Journey: Fiona Goes to the Greek Islands

The weather is playing tricks on us. Corfu is sunny and 90 degrees F today, and London is a sweltering 100 degrees F, the highest temperature ever recorded in England. The front page of the evening newspaper has a photo of east London's skyline, partially visible through the smog, and the oversized headline says it all: "TOO MUCH." The buses have become saunas, and the subway is a dangerous place to be, for health reasons. There's another photo in the paper of a male nurse administering oxygen to a woman who has collapsed on the floor of a subway station. Train services are disrupted because of expanding metal tracks, there are many more ambulance sirens than usual, and we are all captive occupants in an airless city with dangerously high toxic air levels.

The windows in the house where I'm staying don't open more than about 3 inches. It's a common anti-theft precaution in London, and maybe it stops anyone from getting into your home, but it also stops anyone in the home from getting any air. A friend told me you should never leave your house keys on a table near the front door, because burglars will poke a fishing rod through your letterbox, "fishing out" any keys within reach.

A few weeks before the heatwave, my three month contract with the internet company in London came to a sudden and premature end. There was a conference call with the head of our parent company in Paris, and he got straight to the point: "I aaave bad noooz. We aaave deecided too clooz zee companee." At 11.30am on a hot and humid Wednesday morning, we all became "redundant," and my three month contract lasted just four weeks, making a big dent in my finances.

To inspire myself in between job-hunting, I tracked down Theodore Kyriakou, the young chef-owner of "The Real Greek", an innovative and highly successful London restaurant. I'd seen his book "Real Greek Food" in a bookstore, its photos oozing with olive oil and colorful Mediterranean vegetables. Theodore shared some philosophies about food and life. (Read Fiona's interview with Theodore Kyriakou, the "Real Greek," now...)

I've been thinking about the connection between emotional, mental, metaphysical and physical health, it's a bit like the universal "What makes you happy?" question. What contributes/detracts from our wellbeing?

A sense of place/community, our geographical location, the people close to us, the rhythm of the place we live in, our surroundings, sense of purpose, spirituality, degree of stress, whether we exercise enough, eat properly, listen to our spirit, etc. You can be in an urban environment, doing what you love and feel free, or you can be in beautiful surroundings in the countryside and feel trapped. For me it's about friends and family, and being close to nature.

The whole time I've been in London, where I lived many years ago, I've felt that I cannot breathe. This city is not for me. People flock to the parks in London to see some greenery, but to me it seems like a poor substitute for the real thing, like filling the bath tub with water if you want to go for a swim. There's a big pond on Hampstead Heath where you can swim. It's so dark green that it's almost black, and who knows what lies underneath the surface, but it is heaven for the Londoners on who bring their books and towels and flip flops and dive in on a hot day. You'd have to pay me to dive into that urban pond. Sitting on the water's edge at Pelekas beach, you can see every little fish, every stone, and almost every individual grain of sand under the clear, blue water. Twenty years ago, while swimming in Greece, I lost a small amethyst stone from a bracelet I was wearing. I searched for it underwater and after a couple of minutes I found the purple stone lying in the sand on the bottom of the seabed.