The Honey Farm on the Hill: Escape to sunny Greece in this perfect summer read!

by Jo Thomas

  ‘So why did it close down, Kostas, the honey farm?’

  He turns away and carries on walking. ‘The herbs began to disappear and we thought it would be good to leave the mountain alone for a while, concentrate on the fresh produce we grow here.’ He plucks a green leaf from the grassy verge and hands it to me. ‘Rocket! Taste!’ he insists, and I tentatively put it on my tongue. ‘Peppery!’ he announces with a smile, and I nod and agree, eating the rest of the leaf.

  ‘So, the herbs and the bees?’ I push. ‘You left the herbs alone to what? Grow back?’

  He nods. ‘But whilst we left them alone,’ he looks around, ‘others have moved in on the mountain. I was born here. I don’t want to have to leave. But if we can’t find a way to make a living any more . . .’

  He shrugs, and I notice that his eyes are watery. I turn away, giving him a moment, and look around me. I can see that this is more than just a farm; it’s a little piece of paradise too. I can’t help it. I want to know more. ‘Why are the animals fenced in?’ I ask. ‘I thought the sheep and goats roamed free in the mountains.’ Last time I was here, I remember, they were dotted all over the mountainside.

  ‘Overgrazing.’ He shrugs. ‘It’s part of the reason the herbs are dying out. It’s safer to keep them fenced in these days.’ He looks up at the mountain as if it can hear him. I follow his gaze. Safer from what, or who?

  We turn to see a gaggle of geese walking towards us. I stand back and let them pass, and as I do, I notice that right in the middle of the gaggle is a duck, walking just like it’s one of the geese. I point, and Kostas smiles.

  ‘It’s not about what or where you’ve come from but where you fit in,’ he laughs. I have a funny feeling I could fit in here too.

  We carry on walking down the hill.

  ‘My workshop,’ he says, and moves quickly towards a black corrugated-iron shed. ‘We chop the wood every day for the oven and for fires in the autumn and winter. It gets cold here in the mountains, lots of snow.’ He bangs his arms around himself by way of explanation, making me smile. ‘And I am making new beehives!’ He gestures proudly to the work going on there, beehives in different stages of completion.

  A little cream-coloured dog jumps out of a wooden crate lined with blankets and comes over slowly to greet me, wagging her tail but keeping her head and shoulders low to the ground, wary but keen to find out who I am. Following her out of the crate, one by one, tumbling and bouncing over each other, come three puppies. I’m bending with open arms to greet them when suddenly there is a loud bark that makes me jump back. I look up to see the black and white dog from the truck that brought me here from the airport. He bounces down the hill from the rough mountain road above the farm, and it’s only as he gets closer that I notice his back leg is missing. He stands above me on the slope, barking rhythmically and incessantly as if on guard, until I put my hands up and step back from the cream dog and her puppies, understanding his message.

  ‘OK, OK. I’m not going to hurt them,’ I tell him. As I move away, one of the puppies, smaller and scruffier than the others, attempts to follow me, and the black and white dog darts forward, barking at me to stay back.

  ‘Sorry, sorry.’ I hold my hands up again, and Kostas throws his head back and laughs.

  ‘He is very protective,’ he says. ‘He will be different when he trusts you.’

  I keep backing down the slope until I’m on the worn path again. The black and white dog stops barking but looks to be keeping a close eye on me.

  ‘Come.’ Kostas beckons me on quickly to an old stone barn and opens up the big wooden doors. ‘The honey factory,’ he announces with a strange mixture of pride and disappointment.

  I peer into the darkness at the rows of empty pots. Oh my God, where on earth am I going to start? It’s huge, and full of cobwebs. I hate spiders! I look at the ferns growing through the walls, and what appears to be a fig tree, and the daylight that is coming in through the roof. This is nothing like the factories I know.

  ‘It will need to be thoroughly cleaned first. And then we will try and make friends with the bees again and see if they will let us have some honey.’

  ‘Just one thing, Kostas.’ I look around. ‘Where exactly are the bees for your honey factory?’

  His smile drops like a stone. ‘Ah,’ he says, as though I’ve popped his birthday balloon. He starts shuffling his feet, then shoves his hands in his pockets, looking at the dusty concrete floor.

  ‘Kostas?’ I ask again. I’m getting a really strong sense that there is more to this than a big old barn that’s been left to rot. And if this trip is going to be everything I hoped, I really need to find out what’s going on.

  ‘No bees? On a honey farm?’ I ask incredulously.

  Kostas screws up his face and waggles a hand. ‘As I said, the bees are unhappy at the moment, the wild bees, up the mountain.’ He shrugs. ‘The herbs on the mountainside are disappearing; our precious dittany is practically nowhere to be seen. The bees are disappearing too. We need to bring them back to the farm. We need to tempt them here with new homes and plenty of herbs. No one wants to go high up the mountain these days. Not since people have moved in up there.’

  ‘What people?’ I ask, but he just shrugs, raises his palms and shakes his head.

  ‘No one knows what they’re doing, but it’s best to stay away. We need to plant up the meadow here with some mountain herbs,’ he points to the valley below the farmhouse, ‘and try and tempt the bees into new hives where we can look after them and make sure they are well fed. If we can persuade a queen into our hives, we will have a chance.’

  We continue walking along the path through the valley. When we reach the field on the other side, he introduces me to the Cretan cows that are grazing there.

  ‘Always have some of these in your pocket and they will be your friends forever,’ he smiles, handing me a dark brown dried pod. I look at it, sniff it and then hold it out to a cow with a calf at her feet.

  ‘Dried carob,’ Kostas tells me. ‘It grows everywhere. It is known as the lost treasure of Crete. When people were poor, especially in the war, everyone depended on this to eat. Especially up here in the mountains.’

  I remember Stelios showing me carob pods on my first day here all those years ago, holding them out in the palm of his hand. He told me how they had kept many people from starvation during the Second World War, when towns and villages were cut off. ‘Like chocolate,’ he said. The cow munches on the dried carob and looks for more, and I smile. I dust off my hands, and then step back and look up to the mountain peak.

  Back at the farmhouse, Maria is calling us from the kitchen.

  ‘Ah, late lunch,’ announces Kostas. On the way back into the house he shows me another room next to my bedroom where he makes his wine.

  We sit in the shade outside and Maria brings out a large laden tray. She serves lentil soup with garlic, onion, carrots and a hint of orange and bay. My tired and flagging spirits are immediately lifted. Afterwards she brings out dakos, the twice-cooked bread covered in bright red chopped tomatoes, chunks of crumbling white mizithra cheese and black olives, sprinkled with freshly chopped oregano and drizzled with deep green olive oil the colour of a peridot gemstone. It is Crete on a plate, the tangy white cheese, juicy olives and tomatoes bursting with flavour all wrapped up in the glorious thick olive oil. Suddenly I feel as though I am right back to being eighteen again. My taste buds do a very happy dance indeed.

  ‘It’s a wonderful place,’ I tell them, feeling revitalised after my early start to the airport that morning.

  ‘After lunch, Maria will show you where we collect the greens. But you must be careful on the mountain,’ Kostas warns. ‘These are strange times. You will be safe if you stick to the lower slopes. No one will bother you.’

  I nod, taking on board the warning and suddenly feeling like the shine has worn of
f the glorious painting in front of me.

  ‘So who has moved on to the mountain? Who’s keeping people away?’ I ask as I run a forkful of dakos around my plate, letting the tomato juice and olive oil soak into the bread and soften it.

  Both Maria and Kostas seem nervous, looking about them shiftily. What is going on? I wonder.

  At last Kostas shrugs and then sighs. ‘No one knows. No one speaks of it. The path that leads up over the mountain to the town the other side is closed.’

  ‘Drugs!’ Mitera pipes up, scanning the valley below. ‘Like the other towns.’

  ‘Ssh!’ Maria silences her. ‘There are many rumours,’ she says.

  ‘Drugs!’ Mitera repeats.

  Kostas sighs again. ‘It may be poachers,’ he says reluctantly, ‘stripping the mountaintop of herbs to sell on to tourists.’ He bites his bottom lip and his big moustache bobs up and down. ‘Or . . . well, there has been a wave of this sort of activity across Crete, gangs moving into hard-to-reach mountain areas.’ He looks around again. ‘They plant drugs in amongst the olive trees and guard them ferociously.’ Despite the heat of the sun, I feel myself shiver. ‘Which is why we need to bring the bees back down to safety. If we can’t reach them up there, we will bring them to us!’

  After lunch I go to my room and unpack. I check my messages; there’s one from Demi, telling me she’s really busy, having a great time and going out with the family to a BBQ at their friends’ house, which has got a swimming pool. I try to ring her, but it goes straight to answerphone. I want to tell her about Maria and Kostas and the bees and how Kostas’s mother keeps losing her teeth. But I can’t, and I’m left with an odd feeling of being snubbed and pushed out. I don’t think I’ve ever spent this long without her.

  There’s a selfie from Angelica and Gracie, Angelica in her hard hat and fluorescent tabard over a low-necked blouse, short skirt and high heels, with Gracie pulled in at her side. They’re on the way to the pub and missing me, they tell me, making their mouths downturned, although that might be Gracie’s usual expression. But it makes me smile and a bit teary at the same time. The factory is going to be shut for at least two months, Angelica says. Gracie is just about managing to eke out her savings by the sound of it and I know I would have been in real trouble if I’d stayed. There’s also a message from Mike, which I leave till last. He says he’s sorry. He made a mistake. It was a one-off. He wants to talk. I hear Gena’s laugh in my head and purse my lips. I have a past to find before I can think about my future. I press delete firmly.

  Later, after a little afternoon nap on my new bed, as the heat goes out of the day, Maria leads the way up the mountain to show me where to collect the wild horta.

  Kostas is pushing a rotavator, a cart-like thing with spiral blades, along the side of the valley, turning over the stony ground there, and I’m glad that’s not my job. He calls and waves cheerily to us. Then he bends to plant out the herbs before watering them all.

  Maria and I wave back and continue past him towards the field of cows in the valley that dips away behind the farmhouse and runs back up the rough track to their neighbour’s small stone house.

  ‘These are the greens we eat with our meals.’ She nods towards the mountain. ‘Wild mountain greens. Actually, I think horta means weeds in English. We are weed eaters!’ She laughs and walks sure-footedly up through the field. I find myself dodging behind her as the cows start to gather around her, and she pats their heads and pulls carob pods from her pocket to feed them. When we reach the fence on the other side of the field under the pine trees, she unties a rope and pulls back one of the panels to let us out, tying it back up again securely whilst still talking. ‘They must be picked, washed and served quickly, otherwise they lose flavour and nutrients. Of course, there are no pesticides up here. Here in Crete we love wild foods. It’s part of the reason our diet is so healthy; that and, of course, the dittany.’

  ‘The herb that the bees love, that made the honey special?’ I say, taking it all in. She nods.

  ‘It grows high up. It is a very special herb. It is known as erontas. Love,’ she explains. ‘Everybody wants the wild dittany.’ She smiles with just a tinge of sadness at the corner of her mouth, then changes the subject. ‘And so this is where I go for the greens.’ She points up towards a small set of steps leading on to the gentle lower slopes of the mountain. ‘We eat them boiled, with extra-virgin olive oil’ – she indicates the twisted olive trees at the side of the track, their leaves lifting in the wind, showing their silver undersides – ‘and freshly squeezed lemon juice.’ She nods to the trees down in the vegetable patch, with lemons the size of rugby balls. ‘They are packed with all the nutrients. People have foraged for horta since Minoan times. This mountain has always provided for our community. It looks after us.’ She smiles again, her eyes twinkling.

  We cross the hot, dusty track. To one side is the place where Georgios turned the truck when I arrived earlier. To the other, down the lane, is the small stone building, with the truck parked outside. In front of us, the worn steps lead up towards the mountain between strong-smelling pine trees. I follow Maria up, her big round bottom making her skirt sway ahead of me.

  ‘We collect from here . . . and here,’ she points to two patches of land, ‘and then one place just a little way ahead, but no further,’ she warns, her face dark and serious. I watch as she begins to pick the greens. ‘No one will bother you here. Be careful not to take the root. We want them to grow again,’ she tells me, putting the greens into the crate she’s placed on the ground. I watch and copy, picking the greens and putting them in my basket.

  As we work, we chat. I tell her about life back home. How the factory burned down and that it will be shut for two months for refurbishment. I don’t tell her about the roof, though; I’ve locked that memory away in one of the little boxes at the back of my brain, only visiting it at night, when I wake up sweating from a nightmare that I’m still in the building and the fire is taking hold and Demi is on the other side of it and I can’t get to her. I tell Maria about Angelica and Gracie and that I recently split from my partner. I tell her how I hoped Demi would change her mind about going to London and would come home and resit her exams at a further education college; even stay on and do something like hospitality. I don’t tell her that I’ve felt like a boat cut loose from its mooring since Demi’s been gone, or the real reason I wanted to come to Crete.

  She tells me that she and Kostas have been together since they were seventeen, and I have a little pang of envy. They are clearly devoted to each other. I don’t ask about children. Something tells me that too may be tucked away in a box, at the back of Maria’s mind. But she tells me how important it is that they get the honey farm up and running, and how she would have to go and live with her mother and sister in the city if they can’t make a living on the farm. Her sister has just had another baby, her fourth. The apartment is full to bursting and there are too many mouths to feed there already. Her brother-in-law has struggled to find work. Jobs are hard to come by. Besides, city life would kill Kostas, she tells me; he hates not being outside. She tries to make light of it, but I hear how important this is to them. They have to make their life at the farm work.

  That evening, after returning from the mountain, we eat stifado, the beef stew that Mitera showed me earlier in the kitchen. It is juicy and tender and melts in my mouth in a slightly sweet rich tomato sauce. There are the wild greens that we picked; the potatoes, soft and fluffy, that Mitera peeled earlier; followed by a large dish of fresh fruit – huge round oranges, figs and quince.

  ‘And . . .’ Maria says with the excitement of a child on Christmas morning, ‘honey!’ She puts the jar ceremoniously in the centre of the table. ‘It is the very last jar from when we used to make it here. I have been saving it for a special occasion,’ she beams, ‘and now we have one! You are here!’ she tells me, and I blush. ‘The honey farm will reopen and we will
have more.’ Her face is positively glowing with happiness.

  ‘Oh, you should save it!’ I say, but she’s having none of it.

  They all look at the jar with smiles on their faces. The honey is deep and dark and looks like liquid gold. Then Maria places semolina halva on the table, a wobbling moulded desert, not too sweet, covered in almonds and cinnamon with a hint of cloves. Such a simple dessert, she tells me, but delicious. Kostas pours home-made wine from an orange metal jug as the sun starts to dip in the sky, big and orange behind the peak of the mountain to the side of the farm.

  Maria serves the halva and hands round the fruit. I take some figs and sit them next to the halva. Then Maria twists the lid off the jar, which is shaped like a small Grecian urn, and hands it to me, eyes wide with expectation. I put my spoon in and drizzle the molten gold liquid over the figs on my dish; then, watched by three expectant faces, I bring the spoon to my nose and breathe in. It smells exquisite. At last I put it in my mouth and suck. It tastes fresh, as fresh as the mountain air, and aromatic. A delicate balance of sweet smooth nectar and the wild herbs.

  ‘I can taste the thyme in there,’ I tell them. ‘A hint of sage, possibly oregano, maybe basil?’ They nod, smiling broadly, eyes shining. ‘But there’s something else. Something different.’ It’s dancing lightly on my tongue. What is the other flavour? A woody taste, bittersweet, puzzling me. It’s cooling and clean, slightly minty. It smells and tastes of Crete, of the trees, the mountain. There’s a fragrant aftertaste, sitting on my taste buds, leaving a lingering flavour. ‘That’s the dittany, isn’t it, the herb you were telling me about?’

  They all nod together.

  ‘It’s . . .’ I hesitate. It’s different. Distinctive. It seems to elevate all the other flavours, balance them perfectly. ‘It’s . . .’

  ‘Magical!’ they finish for me, and I laugh and nod, and suck the spoon clean.

  After dinner, I sit watching the sun set. This is such an amazing place, and Maria and Kostas are lovely people. I hope I can help them. I hope I can help get the honey factory set up and the bees into new beehives.