EIGHT YEARS 322 DAYS / DAY ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE: THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2024

We walked to the top tip of the town, Hora where we are staying. We had heard that when it is full moon (tonight) as the sun sets the moon rises so we wanted to see this. It was really windy which had caused gorgeous waves on our secret beach in the day but we waited and waited, my feet getting colder and colder….finally we noticed the moon actually rose somewhere else behind hills and clouds and was a huge anticlimax but the views were amazing and we had persevered! We commiserated with gyros and beer. The tip of that mountain is where we climbed to the monastery the other day.

Busy but great day at work with favourite colleagues. Love my job and still find it challenging and rewarding.
After work hurried home on the bike, so we could head up to our summerhouse.
Finding the garden looking stunning in autumn colours and seeing that this little flower planted in the summer, still illuminating with strength and beauty. Aahh.

EIGHT YEARS 316 DAYS / DAY NINETY-NINE: FRIDAY 11 OCTOBER 2024

We rode the moped we’d hired across the island to a monastery where we visited the nun and her monastery and she gave us the greek version of Turkish delight. We played with the cutest friendliest kittens, then walked to the top of the mountain to visit another monastery. The views of the ocean and vast rocky mountain were stunning.

Inviting nature inside and feeling immediate stress relief. 

(Capaldi, C.A., et al., International Journal of Wellbeing, Vol. 5, No. 4, 2015). The biophilia hypothesis argues that since our ancestors evolved in wild settings and relied on the environment for survival, we have an innate drive to connect with nature. The stress reduction hypothesis posits that spending time in nature triggers a physiological response that lowers stress levels. A third idea, attention restoration theory, holds that nature replenishes one’s cognitive resources, restoring the ability to concentrate and pay attention.