It was the octopus that moved first. The eight-legged stifado on the plate in front of me shivered. The cry went up behind me: “Seismos!” And then a last forkful of caramelised baby onion, a draining of the glass of Paros red, and a mad mass exodus via a door that wasn’t designed for panicky escapes from earthquakes.

Which is how I came to be pressed ascloseasthis to a flaxen-haired beauty whose alarm served only to heighten both her cheekbones and the limpidity of her eggshell-blue eyes.

“Guten abend. I think it is a good idea to leave, yes?”

She possessed that clear, singsong voice you associate with lush green pastures, wooden chalets and milkmaids. Which was lovely, but slightly out of place here on the Greek island of Alonissos.

Alonissos is the titch of the Sporades – the spread-out islands. The gods on nearby Mount Olympus tend not to smile on it, though. In the 1950s, an outbreak of phylloxera destroyed the important wine industry. Many of the growers took to fishing, only for theMonachus monachus seal to become an officially endangered species and the Greek government unexpectedly to declare the waters around Alonissos a marine park and impose tight controls on the fishing grounds.

Then, in 1965, an earthquake flattened Chora, the hilltop capital, and the citizens were forced to move out – only to watch as northern Europeans later bought up the ruins for a song and started renovating them. Bit rum, isn’t it?

“I’m no expert,” I replied to the girl, “but I do know that Greek schoolchildren are taught that the strongest part of the house is the frame above the front door.” Now, it could be said that this suggestion, although based on truth, was offered up only because I was reluctant to surrender our proximity.

“But there are people trying to get out,” she remarked, not unreasonably. “No, I think an open space as far from tall buildings as possible is the safest place.”

So we walked along the beach, keeping an eye out for a tsunami, introduced ourselves and, in that way that total strangers on holiday do when they click at all, spilt out our potted autobiographies in 20 minutes flat. Then we found a little backstreet bar, where the owner’s main concern was that the quake appeared to have put his till out of action, meaning he was unable to provide receipts for the taxman. “If he comes, tell him this is your first drink,” he said every time he filled our glasses.

An hour or so and half a bottle of Metaxa later, Anna-Marie began to give some thought to her night’s lodgings. “What if there are more tremors? I’m on the middle floor of a three-storey apartment house. I won’t get any sleep for worrying. What about you? Where are you staying?”

“I have a tent on the campsite.” “In an open space..?” “As far from tall buildings as possible. In fact, there’s not even a tree in the field.”

This seemed to quell her fears, as she took a gentle hold of my arm and nothing more was said.

Later, in the confines of a very snug sleeping bag that would not, on reflection, have provided much protection from another quake, a voice asked: “What do you think that was?”

“What what was?” “On the Richter scale. What do you think it regis-tered?”

But modesty forbids...

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