Smoke

Last Thursday a spooky sort of cloud in a really weird yellow grey colour was slowly unrolling itself across the Gulf when we got up.  If it had a mind of its own, that mind was to avoid Piraeus.

It unfurled south of here and inched towards the posh suburbs east and south of us.

F got photos of the it's brewing caldron as she rode her bike around the docks and the waterside park.  From there she could see that it was carefully wrapping Salamis in its grey suffocating blanket, enveloping Angistri and Aegina, thick white edged swirls leading its darkness, then heading out to sea in front of my balcony; a rolled carpet being kicked out to cover the floor. 

It looked like smoke but we couldn't smell anything smoky - unlike the summer fires in the first year we were here.  You could smell smoke from the Peloponnese then.

Later that day F swept up the eternal (infernal) dust on our balcony an commented casually that it looked like it had ash (or paint flakes) in it.

On Friday there was more ash-like stuff on the balcony, and after arriving at Patras Mr B rang and confirmed that he had driven through smoke en route.  So it was ash.  It had been smoke.

Imagine what it must be like for the people in St Vincent and Grenadines...