Sitting in a lovely little restaurant, in the old town of Rethymnon, under the hanging strands of flowering bougainvillea, its blooms in variegated and intense pinks.
Our waiter arrives. With our meal I order a glass of white wine—the local krasí—the waiter bobs a pony-tailed head and disappears into the restaurant. When the Cressi arrives, instead of a glass of white, it's an enormous glass of red.
'I didn't order red,' I say politely, 'I want white.'
From behind a bohemian moustache, he regards me with mild suspicion, as though I must be mistaken and then says bruesquely:
'I will change it.'
He returns a couple of minutes later with the desired glass of white Cressi - an equally enormous glass - generously filled. Depositing it demonstratively and without slowing his stride - to take the order from the next table—he places it on the table in front of me and says quite seriously:
'There—I painted it!'
