Pollen

Skopelos island is 80% pine forest, making it officially Greece's greenest island. Travelling by boat along the Northern coast is mile upon mile of uninterrupted forest with no sign of civilisation at all. It quite takes my breath away. At the moment the trees are all in flower and everywhere you go is covered with a fine layer of yellow/green dust that is pollen from the trees. On rocks beside the road you could be forgiven for mistaking it for lichen and around the edges of puddles it could be sulphur. It triggers allergies in some unfortunate folk, luckily not us. But mostly it blocks swimming pool filters and encourages the growth of algae unless you pay a lot of attention to your pool.

Most pools are larger than ours, and most people have metered mains water. We do not have mains water, instead we collect rain and store it in vast tanks. Our collection system is highly sophisticated to allow rapid collection during short but heavy summer storms.

So whereas most people keep their pools full and treated and circulating all winter, we empty ours to save on electricity and chemicals and then re-fill it just long enough before our first guests of the season arrive in order to get the chemical balance perfect. So we will refill ours in late April but personally, I won't go swimming in anything until at least June. I have become acclimatised to these temperatures now.