25 years since I last walked her streets, chatted with her locals and rubbed shoulders with my family who live there I found myself as I had on my first day in the village 25 years earlier, standing in the centre of Ambelokipi’s town square early in the morning watching the town wake.

As then, kids on cycles would ride up to me and stop and stare, conversations would end and turn to whispers and knowing nods, some of these familiar strangers would come up and welcome me, or simply say hello as if it was yesterday or the day before they passed me on their way to buy bread.

The zaharoplasteion (cake shop/coffee house) that used to occupy the building across the town square from my grandmother’s house had now become the bakery so although there was still some activity there it didnt have the buzz that people sitting around drinking coffee and sticky sweets can bring. As a result the town square had also fallen relatively silent, and although it could never have been described as beautiful it was clean and reasonably welcoming, standards had slipped a little.

I went for a quick tour of the streets surrounding the house, the old school replaced by a relatively new one, a second church built in what was the ruins of the old part of the village, in the area where i remember my grandmother Konstandina telling me once had the illegal school for children teaching them something other than the official language of greece. The road out of the town on my grandmothers side of the village hadnt’ changed, a steep descent to the river, all the roads where now paved but several houses were recognisable. The old kafeneio “rouska” was still there and showing its age.

I sat with my grandmother on the some examples of the plastic outdoor furniture that have swept across greece on the back of gypsies trucks like some kind of non biodegradable prickly pear infestation. We shared stories old and new in between interruptions by the various close relatives who had been told of my arrival. My Father’s sisters arrived,

My father’s family has always fascinated me as their characters tend to cross an entire spectrum, in melbourne my aunt Frida was serious and aloof, whereas my aunt Evdoxia was always happy despite living a life of struggle, they were mirrored by my aunts Olympia and Afroditi in the village. Afroditi was the family clown and a quite talented one at that, Olympia although sweet and reliable probably hadn’t said or done anything particularly amusing in her life, it would just waste time one could spend working.

Around midday my cousin Diamandi and his father Yianni arrived. When i was last in the village it was Diamandi who took me in as such, his father ran the only taverna (psistaria) in town “Barba yianni’s” and Diamandi and I wouild spend each morning placing chunks of meat onto skewers, large numbers of which legend has it i would also consume that same evening. Diamandi was several years older than me, but we talked pretty much non stop during the times I was with him, he helped me learn a great deal abiout Greece, the language and culture that I otherwise would have not seen.

He had changed no more than I had, and I felt this bond immediately snap back into place, into a small notch in my heart that i had forgotten existed.

The next few days were spent walking the town streets, meeting relatives and family friends, few of which introduced themselves but all of which ask me to give my regards to my parents.