A mobile shepherd

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In between the two castles I have to give a shepherd a lift, because if I hadn't stopped I'd have run over him; I guess he's been down into the village for his lunch, in which, judging by his breath, garlic featured to a fairly prominent degree ...

He has with him the most beautiful freshly-made-and-still-wet crook, he's very proud when I admire it, and says he's going x km up the hill - he doesn't use one of the Greek numbers I know, so it's more than five ...

After a while we meet firstly one of his donkeys, and then some of his sheep on the road, and he simply uses all his normal signals, whistles and shouts from inside the car, they recognise them immediately and begin running in front of the car in the direction he wants, and even turn off the road up the right gully ...

He takes the time to ask if I'm German, and when I say English he says in English "Ah, very good", and in Greek something like " 'Tis a pleasure to shake your hand, sir", and a bit later on "Afghanistan ... gibberish-gibberish ... kaput", which leaves me wondering what the news really is ... fascinating that that kind of thing is of central importance even to an 80 year-old Cretan shepherd. At least, he draws an '80' on the dashboard as he gets out, and I guess it's his age ...

I find his shoes specially interesting - very nicely made leather and with soft finishing at the edge where it meets the calf, but not at all well-fitting ... They might even be someone else's cast-off Ecco's, actually ... I offer him something from my water bottle, but of course he has his own. His parting replique is a truly heartfelt "Addío", and it feels so good to be able to say the same, in the same tone ...