On a Greek Island: a Season in Zakynthos

Hailing from Ireland, but based in Australia with his family, web developer Ralph Lavelle was tired of office life in Brisbane. You know how it is. So he went to Zakynthos, the Greek island his wife Tina's parents come from, to see how he and his family would get on living there for a season before he had to face real life and get a job again.

While they were there, however, it began to look like Greece could find itself out of the Eurozone any day the way things were going in Brussels between Syriza and the troika - oops, the "institutions". But the Greeks are resilient, and Zakynthos itself has seen off earthquakes and invaders over the centuries. It turned out to be an ideal base from which Ralph could launch a full-scale attack on the language, the music, and the culture in general, while his two kids were sequestered away in a village school.

A warm-hearted account of life on the Greek island of Zante, written by someone lucky enough to have spent a season playing guitar there, reading books there, and above all, doing nothing in particular there.