Our midlife odyssey to the Peloponnese There was a small group of British expats in the village who kept to themselves, but became livelier, and slightly tetchy, when they realised that journalists were now in their midst. They assumed we had come to their hillside eyrie for no other reason than to write exposés for British tabloids, which of course we hadn't. Rural life in Greece, after a quiet Scottish village, was raw. Apart from never-ending heatwaves, water cuts, and struggling with Greek bureaucrats (especially to get broadband connected so we could file some freelance stories), we squirmed when we discovered a nearby lane was being used by farmers to skin goats for spit-roasting at village celebrations. Then there were critter invasions: several black scorpions turned up inside our rented stone house in quick succession, and giant hornets like F-111s patrolled the courtyard all summer. From the start we aimed to integrate into Greek village life - no small feat in a region such as the Mani, with its long history of clan warfare and Turkish interlopers - but we were helped after meeting one of the village's most eccentric, lovable characters, a goat farmer called Foteini. It was Wallace that, despite our qualms about his manic behaviour, brought about our first meeting with Foteini while dog-walking. She was riding her donkey near the village and came to a screaming halt when she came across what she thought were two foreigners taking a small sheep for a walk. That's what Wallace looked like to villagers, with his white body and black face. They had never seen a Jack Russell before. It sparked a friendship with Foteini that remained during our stay in the Mani. Foteini was a feisty pensioner who rode a donkey every day from the village to her farm, loaded up with incongruous bits of cargo. She took us under her wing and initiated us into all manner of rural customs. We regularly had coffee at her farm, a ramshackle place full of junk, where an old sink under a tap was propped up on an ironing board; and Greek coffee, made on a camping stove, was served under trees swarming with hornets. And we loved every minute of it. During our first autumn, we helped Foteini to harvest the olives from some of her 200 trees. It was our first experience of harvesting the traditional, back-breaking way. While she climbed into the trees and cut down branches with the fattest olive clusters, we bent down and bashed them off with sticks, on to ground sheets. It was the hardest manual job we'd done. Were we crazy after all? Yes! Here we were, having an adventure in the Mani, a part of the country even Greeks still describe as wild, in a time of economic suicide. We were in an olive orchard with a woman in wellies, wielding a hacksaw at ancient trees on a lethal ladder. In our bid to engage with Greek life, we went to village events, church services, even a funeral, but no weddings. We made many Greek friends, who invited us to their homes and shared their stories, much of which I have written about in my new book, Things Can Only Get Feta. We saw first-hand how the economic crisis affected these people with job losses and wage and pension cuts. We also saw just how stoical Greeks can be in difficult times. We also had a few daft escapades in the region, mostly sparked by having Wallace with us. During the first winter we went to a large archaeological site near Kalamata city. A stern attendant told us we couldn't take Wallace in, even on his lead, but rather than giving up, we went back to the car and put him inside a backpack with the lure of chicken sandwiches, and smuggled him in without anyone noticing. It was hilarious, even though it didn't all go to plan. Despite Greece sliding deeper into economic and political disaster, we retained our enthusiasm for our Greek adventure and stayed in the Mani for three years, with Greeks telling us this time we were mad. But as Nikos Kazantzakis, author of Zorba the Greek, said: "A man needs a little madness in his life." Marjory McGinn is a freelance journalist now based in Scotland. Her book, 'Things Can Only Get Feta' (Bene Factum Publishing), is available in paperback and on Kindle via Amazon. Visit bigfatgreekodyssey.com