Month: August 2026

End of the Line

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Flight EZY2804 to Bristol, Somewhere over Greece. 13.08.

Inch by inch, mile by mile, the wild ride of the summer of ’26 is drawing to a close. Outside it’s approaching the high 30s again, but the fierce heatwave that has held the British Isles in its grip all summer is being swept away by the first cool winds of autumn. Over the last two months I’ve seen it all: scorching heat, howling blizzards, thunder, rain and snow; mist, fog and diamond dust. It seems only right that as my life settles back into some kind of order, the weather should follow suit.

It took just shy of two hours to get from the apartment to Eleftherios Airport, but I did add to the commute by walking to Syntagma Station via the National Garden. I didn’t want my last memory of Athens to be the air-conditioned carriage of the underground, and I needed a wake-up. A steady drip on the plastic roof over the patio beside the bedroom kept me up late last night, until I used a bit of science and drowned it out with a rain track, after which I fell asleep in seconds. Fun fact: the constant change from sound to silence in a steady leak triggers the body’s defence mechanisms, anticipating a threat for as long as the sounds continue to change. White noise, on the other hand, is far less threatening, no matter the volume. The signal wasn’t superb, so thank goodness somebody thought to upload several hours’ worth of rain recordings to Spotify – I wouldn’t have cared much for a YouTube ad waking me up every five minutes.

August is nearly over. Just over a week of summer remains – but it’s certainly been a summer to remember. I’m not sure I deserve even half of the miracles I’ve had the good fortune to witness since I stepped out of the door back in July with a backpack, a suitcase full of winter clothes and a smart new wedding suit – but I’m grateful for every single one of them.

It’s very easy to hit thirty-two and look around at your world with a rising sense of anxiety as everyone marries off and starts to lay down roots. Find them while you’re young, they say – and yet here you are, single and rootless. When will it be my turn, you catch yourself asking. But I think I’ve cracked it. The question you should be asking yourself is very different. Would the child I was look at me now and take heart?

I think he would. I haven’t found Her, but I have found my way back to the thing that made me happiest: the wild. If the eight-year-old me knew that in my thirties I’d be traveling the world in search of pumas, albatrosses and giant tortoises, I think he’d be ecstatic. Nobody could ever dream of replacing Sir David Attenborough or Valmik Thapir (or any of the great wildlife presenters of my childhood) but the fact that I get to live in the world they showed me when I was just a boy is the greatest gift of all.

What was the highlight of the summer? It’s such a difficult question. Dancing with Alex and Elena at their wedding? Teaching my first ever English Literature class? Celebrating Spain’s victory over Argentina in the World Cup Final? Swimming with turtles, sailing with albatrosses or watching a fully-grown mountain lion tread through the snow just feet away? Every one of them has been written upon my heart, which is now so very full. I thought my happiness was conditional upon finding my other half, wherever She may be, but this year I’ve learned to find it in myself by allowing me to be me, the way I always wanted to be.

September is always a bumpy landing. September brings Inset, the annual safeguarding talk that makes me question whether I believe in this job, and the return of a fresh-faced generation of students that remind me that I’m in the best line of work in the world. September will be familiar – I know what to expect – but this time, something feels different. I don’t think I’ve ever gone into the start of a new school year quite so positive. I just have a feeling that, finally, things are going my way.

Oh, for sure. There will be trials ahead. There always are. But I know I can face them head-on as a man, supercharged by a summer of light and life and animal encounters.

In many ways, I haven’t changed since I was eight. I’m still writing the same book about a a brave hero and a red-haired princess. I’m still listening to Juan Martín and Michael Jackson. I’m still singing in school choirs, dancing with every fibre of my being when the beat comes on and playing a passable passage on the violin when the occasion demands. I’ve added a few languages to my roster since then, changed my look a few times, and loved and lost and learned to live again – but fundamentally I still hold true to the same values I built up as a kid. Teaching has allowed me to hold onto these things, and for that much I am truly grateful.

England welcomed me home with golden fields and petty public transport pencil-pushers. The bus driver from Bristol wouldn’t let a girl on the bus because she didn’t have the right ticket and wasn’t helpful at all when she looked distressed, there being few other buses around on a Sunday afternoon. Three of us got up to help her out but the man in front got there first and bought her a single ticket. On top of that, I arrived just in time to catch an earlier train, but the man at the ticket barrier at Bristol Temple Meads wouldn’t let me through on account of the fact that my ticket was for an hour’s time – “you don’t need to be on the platform yet”. With two thirds of the southbound services cancelled, he was probably trying to stop me from using my Advance Single ticket on board an earlier train where there would almost certainly be no ticket checks… but really. I’m out of the country for nearly two months and the most trouble I have with public transport is back to back on the day I get home…? If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s jobs-worthiness, and we English are especially bad at it. When I manage to escape this country, that kind of behaviour will be top of the list of the reasons that drove me away.

Anyway. I’m home, in the familiar comfort of my flat, and July Me had the common sense to stock up so I’d have something to eat when I returned in case the supermarkets were closed – which, being a Sunday afternoon, they inevitably are. Just occasionally I surprise myself by planning ahead.

Here ends the Great Adventure of 2026. It’s been a blast. To those of you who have been reading my adventures, known and unknown, thank you for coming along for the ride! It’s nice to know I’m not always speaking into the void. I’ll write a little less when term kicks off, but do stick around for the next adventure – whenever that may be! BB x

Grand Tour

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Smile Restaurant, Athens. 20.02.

I was half-tempted to go to bed without eating this evening, but after walking past a sign in a shop window saying LOOK AFTER YOURSELF in big white print and then seeing a team of chefs preparing sea bass in the next window along, my instincts got the better of me. Chances are this will be my last meal out of the summer, so I might as well make it a memorable one.

I got to bed shortly after six fifteen, after Thomas and Maria dropped me off at the apartment. The wedding festivities went on until well into the early hours of the morning, with the last of the dances wrapping up around half three. Alex, Peter and company enjoyed a few Cuban cigars, blowing liquid smoke rings into the night sky, while the venue staff slowly started to pack up. There was talk of a swim to cool off – had I brought my swimsuit? No, I hadn’t! But that didn’t seem to be a problem. A short pit-stop at Elena’s parents’ house sourced me a pair of trunks and then we found a parking space down by the beach.

Naturally, at half past four in the morning, it was nearly deserted. Just a couple of Greeks listening to trap music over a boombox and a lonely soul sitting on the breakwater and watching the stars.

I’ve never done a night swim before – at least, not in the Mediterranean. I might have gone for a dip after dark with Lucy and Emily many years ago in the summer I left school, but those memories are hazy now – and the cold waters of Whitstable are incomparable to the Aegean. It felt like stepping into a bath. The water was so clean and so clear that I could see all the details of my toes and the ripples in the sand below by the distant lights of the beachfront alone.

My mother used to tell me stories of starlight swimming in the Mediterranean in Barcelona back in the 80s. I’ve clearly been missing out. These beaches are absolutely rammed during the day, but by night you pretty much have the place to yourself, and the water is only slightly less warm. To the Greeks, perhaps, it might have been tepid, but after the chill of the North Sea and the cool waters of the Humboldt Current, it felt incredible. I didn’t feel in the least bit tired, either, though that may have more to do with the fact that I’m almost certainly still on South American time rather than the restorative properties of the Mediterranean Sea.

I slept until noon and waited out the heat of the midday sun in the cool of the apartment. I ummed and ahhed about going up to the Acropolis and ultimately decided I’d be mad to be in Athens and not see its most iconic feature up close. Missing Machu Picchu was… a choice, I’ll admit. But Machu Picchu costs hundreds to see, whereas the Acropolis is a flat 30€. So I packed a bottle of water and set out into the afternoon.

Athens is very quiet around four in the afternoon in August. Most of the city folk are sensibly avoiding the lingering heat. It’s only when you reach Makrigianni Street and the Acropolis Museum that the city suddenly springs to life – with tourists, that is. Germans with peaked caps. Koreans with parasols. Spaniards with GoPros and Americans with sweat-stained XXL tee-shirts and portable fans. All of them defying the 37°C heat to see one of the most famous architectural treasures in the world.

You have to meet your timeslot with these Acropolis tickets, but once you’re in, you can spend as long as you like in the area. The city seems to descend en masse shortly before sunset around 7pm – the lines were immense as I left – so I wouldn’t recommend leaving your visit to the last minute.

With time on my hands, I hunted for cicadas in the olive trees along the path. It wasn’t hard. Once you get your eye in, they’re very easy to spot, despite their cryptic camouflage. You just need to listen closely and look for the little white stripe at the bottom of their abdomen.

Check the trunks from different angles at first as your eyes adjust, because they really can disappear against the surface of the bark. Once you recognise the white stripe, you’ll see them everywhere. I found four on a single trunk by the Sanctuary of Dionysus.

It can be hard to find peace and quiet within the Acropolis complex, as its swarms with tourists at almost all hours of the day. But there are quieter spots. Curiously, the Erechtheion doesn’t get as crowded, despite being directly opposite the Parthenon itself. I suspect many tourists only go up to the great temple itself and then come straight back down.

An olive tree grows in its ruins, in the same spot where the sacred tree that was the symbol of Athena’s gift to her namesake city once stood. A couple of Americans called it a cicada (sick-aider) tree when asked. Two others said they were glad they’d got ChatGPT to give them the lowdown so they didn’t have to hire a guide. I even heard one family – specifically the adults – opine that the only way they could have got a crane inside the Parthenon was by airlifting it into the centre by jet.

Sometimes – just sometimes – I’m extremely grateful that my American adventure ended in heartbreak. Some of the most intelligent people I’ve had the fortune to encounter are from the States, it’s true, but also, some of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard have been said in that American drawl.

I’m always terribly conscious that I’m just another tourist with a smartphone in places like this, so I sat in the shadow of one of the Parthenon’s colossal columns and sketched the temple ruins in my journal. I’d like to think somebody might have sat here doing just that a hundred years ago, and perhaps a hundred years before that, in the time of the Grand Tour, before Apple put a camera into every hand on the planet.

That being said, it is a fantastic place for people watching. So many different people from so many different parts of the world… You could come up here with a sketchbook and spend hours drawing, if you had the time.

The internet seemed to think that wild tortoises might be found around the boulder-strewn path up to the Eptathrono, just opposite the Acropolis. I looked everywhere, but I didn’t find any. I guess I lucked out with the giant tortoises last week, which are – admittedly – a heck of a lot easier to spot. Still – you should always leave something to come back for, right? The view from the top was worth the climb, too.

I’ve made it back to the apartment and have managed to put my feet up at last. I’m quite happy with this afternoon’s adventure. This time tomorrow – for the first time in nearly two months – I’ll be back home in Somerset. All good things come to an end eventually, right? But not before their time – and it really has been a truly wonderful time. The very best of times.

I might post once more tomorrow to hit a 50-day streak. It’s been fun writing every day all summer, but it does help when you have something to write about.

See you in the UK! BB x