Crocus

So if August seemed long, September was over in a flash. The wild cyclamen popped up all over the place on 1st September, or as we like to call it in our house, Samovar Day* It had been my intention to blip a cyclamen during September but then suddenly, goodness me! October was upon us and with it the wild crocuses. So here is a wild crocus. They are larger, brighter, less common and shorter lived than the cyclamen, so I grabbed this opportunity as soon as it presented itself. I can return to cyclamen later, even though I do associate them with September.
Corrected below by TonyG - these are Sternbergia.

Today was a bit bonkers. We were up at 5am so that Spousie could drive our guests to Skopelos Town in order to catch the only sailing that would get them to the airport in time for their flight. We had booked their rental car for them locally and while the rental company had been perfectly happy to leave the car unlocked and with its keys in the ignition for a 2am arrival (paperwork, driving licence and credit card details to be dealt with following a good night's sleep), they were not happy for a drop-off 30km away. So the car had to be dropped off on Thursday night and I drove the guests back to the cottage ready for an horrifically early start.

While Spousie was driving to town I was getting the cottage ready for the new arrivals who were not at the whimsy of Thomas Cook and who had arrived on Skiathos early on Thursday, so they would be ready to catch the late morning ferry. Spousie back, cottage ready, still a couple of hours to go before meeting the new arrivals so a quick nap was in order.

Only to be awoken by the new arrivals phoning to ask if it was OK for them to bring a car over from Skiathos and could I please cancel the one we had agreed some six months earlier. I wasn't thrilled, neither was Spousie and neither was the ever-accommodating local car rental place. I met them from the ferry and took them to the supermarket.

That section of road by the supermarket is supported by a massive retaining wall, the road, wide enough for trucks and buses to pass in opposite directions, having been cut into very steep hillside. Beside the road is a sheer drop of at least 3metres. Mrs Guest locks her car and then loses her keys over the edge. One extremely good reason to rent a car locally I think. I asked the supermarket boy if he would please go into the area below the road and find the car keys for us, which he kindly did. It was very lucky that that particular piece of ground is so well-kept as the vast majority are really rather wild. I thanked the lad. She didn't bother.

*Samovar Day dates back to 1st September 1980 when I was in Cairo with my sister. During August we had been offered iced tea but now that September had begun, we were offered hot tea. Nothing at all to do with the temperature, it was still insufferably hot, it was simply that the Cairenes had decided that overnight we had slipped into Winter.