OUR FIRST CHRISTMAS IN CRETE

With all the ingredients that made up Christmas this year – far away from most of the family, poor weather and meagre funds to spend on presents – it could have been a miserable time but wasn't!

First of all, we took our mulled wine down to the cafeneon on Christmas Eve as a little Christmas warm up for our kind friends there and although they were not used to wine which did not accompany a meal, they were reassured when I served it in small coffee cups and it came with a tray of cake and mince pies. However, they could not accept even this tiny offering without giving back a bag of oranges and a bag of eggs. How they would have coped with a full-blown Christmas present is difficult to say because I came to the conclusion that it would just make things even more difficult – so I still have a bag of small items bought at the Christmas Bazaar to think about later.

I asked about the start time of the service in the village church on Christmas morning. They were a little vague about this – Angeliki said 7.00 a.m., Costas said 8.00 a.m. (or when the bell rings (“… hear it not Duncan ...”) – so when the Church bell started to ring at 7.10 a.m. I scrambled into clothes and rushed up to church thinking that it all would be happening already. I was the only person in the congregation and had my pick of chairs so sat at the back to see what would happen. Over the next THREE HOURS people started to arrive (largely when they felt like it) lit candles, kissed icons, greeted one another, spoke on mobile phones, stood up and sat down a lot while one, two and then three people chanted from books at the front. Every so often the priest appeared from behind the screen and did something for a minute or two and then disappeared again where from the “noises off” I began to wonder if he was looking for a screwdriver at the bottom of a very full metal tool box. Also, the red damask curtain over the doorway in the front iconostasis kept twitching and being poked from the back and it reminded me of a school play when there were lots of children on a stage waiting to start – except it was only puppet theatre size. You will gather from this that I was way out of my comfort zone and trying to piece together a liturgy from the odd snatches of words that I could hear – kyrie eleison, cosmos, Jesu, Christos and Alleluia! Feeling very much as if I was in the land of C S Lewis (ie. Narnia when it was always winter and never Christmas), it was very cheering when Father Christmas arrived in the guise of the priest who was now wearing a long red cape and carrying an incense burner to which lots of sleigh bells had been attached. (that was what the toolbox sounds had been all about) !  Reassuring sounds of Amins, amen, Amin started to happen and the chanters at the front snapped all the books shut and ladies began to pick up their enormous handbags. Alleluia indeed – we had friends arriving for lunch and I had been there, trapped behind all the late arrivals for hours, thinking that I could easily slip out when there was a natural break … all my assumptions had been WRONG! I really did miss the good of C of E, a few old fashioned carols, a few quiet moments for my own prayers and the familiar lessons of the nativity – although Radio 4 Carols from Cambridge had been a lovely start to Christmas the day before.

The dog's loved cheese straws!

Puppy-dog found a nice spot close to the fire

The next ingredients to our Christmas pudding were the arrival of Anna with a lovely fresh turkey to get quickly in the oven, and Nigel and Maria with a box of hard-to-come-by crackers, mountains of bags and bundles and their three dogs. Our friends had hoped to leave their rescue dogs with neighbours for the day but with a new – not yet house trained puppy – this had not been possible. So with a few power cuts, a kitchen full of doggies sniffing tantalising smells of turkey cooking and a puppy who kept wanting to stand on our feet while we were wielding pans of hot stuff – it could have been a disaster but somehow wasn't. The dogs soon settled down, we did play all our silly games, had a fantastic turkey dinner and lots of good cheer.

We were delighted with our "loo warming" present!

Our friends are very creative and brought several home made items, good ideas and kept us laughing while Anna firmly insisted that she did not want to join in the game and then kept joining in anyway, despite all her protests. It all worked very well and not a TV set in sight! The best idea was a jam jar full of extra one line cracker jokes which Nigel had noted down over the previous few months and put on slips of paper to share at the table. 10 out of 10 for creative ideas! Maria kept every scrap of cracker and wrapping paper to re-use for collages, paper sculpture and origami artwork. She is sought out for her handiwork where they live and makes a small living from making fine crochet, needlework and woven items also giving lessons from time to time. It is great to spend time discussing art and crafty things with Maria and a real shame that they live such a distance from us.

Extra Christmas Cracker jokes were a good idea!

Sadly everyone had to leave quite early in the morning and left us with a house full of food which we are trying to either eat, share or conserve in some way or another! We have had lots of skype contacts with family in the UK and Oceania – a great comfort in the depths of winter and a wonder to catch glimpses of their hot summer. We are off now to get some logs in and keep the home fires burning for the next few days. Chronia Polla and God bless us one and all!

GETTING READY FOR CRETAN CHRISTMAS

K and I had always understood that Christmas in Crete was far overshadowed by the celebration of Greek Easter, but we have been surprised to see all the shops decorating their windows beautifully with very artistic displays and the odd snatch of a Christmas carol at one or two street corners. There were many more Christmas Cribs around than in the UK and so we are confident that the Cretans haven't completely forgotten about the child born in a manger and what it was all about in the first place. We thought it would be interesting to discover the local traditions and, for our part make some mulled wine and mince pies to take round to our neighbours Costas and Angeliki at the cafeneon on Christmas Eve either before or after the village church service and hope that this will be acceptable.

As Christmas trees do not grow on the island, all the trees we have seen are artificial imports and therefore very expensive. However, when we were pollarding our tree at the front of the house earlier in the autumn to give Angeliki's goats some welcome greenstuff, one of the lower limbs did have a rather Xmas tree type shape – so we took off the leaves, put it on one side and thought about how we could use it instead.

It looks OK from a distance!

The result was slightly in the style of Salvador Dali but if you stand at the right point in the living room and close one eye – it does look very festive. Along with the gifts of oranges, cinnamon sticks, cloves and nutmeg, we have enough to make the house look pretty and will not go short of vitamin C over the festive period.

Looking West with the White Mountains far away on the horizon

December weather is very warm in Crete but I have learned that it is warm outside and cold inside the house. On Sunday, we noticed that there were a lot of strange people in the village making their way to the village church and we wondered if this was a special Greek Orthodox festival. The weather was sharp and cold when we got up, but the sun shone strongly and we thought we would explore the olive groves and vineyards beyond the village and find out whether we could walk down to the sea. Our path took us up hill all the way and small birds with songs like skylarks darted in and out of the long grasses as we made our way through farmland, olive trees, heathland and rocky slopes for a good long walk. A flock of sheep hopefully made their way over to us expecting that we would bring them feed – but soon realised that we were not their owners and turned away again. We kept climbing up and up until we could see a magnificent view in all directions. Blue, calm sea in one direction, Mount Psiloritis to the South covered with a silky sheen of fresh snow and ice, the White Mountains to the West and a rumpled counter pane of fields, villages, orchards and olive groves closer to us. With all the thick layers I had donned in the morning, I was boiling hot and had to take off coats and jumpers until we got home and went indoors again. 

We were too high up to reach the beach

Kimon was ready to go back!

Sadly, we learned that the people going to church were attending the funeral of our friend Nikos' son-in-law, which means that his daughter Georgia has been widowed early in life with young adult children. We had no idea and were grappling with words when Nikos, visibly shaken, came round to see us later on. It is at times like this when not having the necessary Greek words is a real burden and shows me that I have to try much harder to learn. I ended up doing the only thing I could think of by baking a cake to show our feelings, even if we could not articulate them.

With the financial troubles and austerity measures which have now been imposed, things have changed a lot during the year we have been in Greece, Many of their government departments are being completely shaken up and we have so much more to learn. However, we realise that most Greeks are struggling to understand all the new systems which are being put into place – so we are not alone and will have to puzzle it all out together.

We are planning to have friends to stay over Christmas weekend and plan to gather around the Log Burner here at home, with good traditional fare and home made gifts, silly board games and Skype on all day to catch various children in various parts of the world. Cretans have a celebration dinner of pork on Christmas Eve. We have learned from our village friends that simple gifts of food and friendship are best and have surprised many of our friends by sharing big bags of oranges, lemons and olive oil which are so much more scarce and expensive in the towns. We swapped oranges for broccoli during the week and wonder if this may be one of the ways forward as people's belts are having to get tighter. We think that it was a lesson learned well here in the chequered history of the island which has been occupied by so many different forces over the centuries - that everything had to be tended and grown for sharing – and it seems to have become a long term tradition. What better way to encourage true health, wealth and happiness.

HAVE A WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS & NEW YEAR.

DECEMBER IN CRETE or PLUMBING THE DEPTHS

Christmas items for sale from a local school

Last year when I was still working in London and travelling back and forth to work on the train, my sister in law kept phoning us up from Crete to tell us how wonderful the weather was and how they were all still swimming because it was so hot. As we were falling over on the ice in England and freezing on station platforms at unearthly times of the day and night, all this news was absolutely sickening and we kept begging her to stop.

With this in mind,  I won't go on too much about the beautiful days we have had for the last few weeks and how we keep pinching ourselves and reminding ourselves that it is December already and how will we get used to sunshine at Christmas time.  Where did this year go?

It has been a very topsy-turvy month for the Croziers altogether. First of all, we noticed that a small puddle on the bathroom floor which we thought just appeared after a shower onto the floor tiles and was not anything to worry about.  As time went on, we realised that it was a more serious leak and that a pipe must be broken somewhere. Sadly "Hunt-the-Pipe" could not take place without dismantling the entire bathroom – which was on our list of things to do – but not yet a while due to financial constraints. However, we realised that the work had be be brought forward and our friendly builder turned up with trailers, concrete mixers, picks and shovels and took the whole room apart - floor, walls and ceiling. 

We were actually very glad to see the back of the faded rose pink wall and floor tiles and set off to choose a new colour scheme. The builder switched round everything to give much more space, we have nice lights, mirror, storage, heater and no intriguing port hole into the shed (!) Check out before and after photos below (and sorry to be so boring but in a small village this sort of thing is hugely exciting and the workmen kept our neighbours entertained for 10 days).

Chania Waterfront 3rd Dec

As we had no working bathroom, we spent the time as guests of K's sister in the bright lights of Rethymnon and I had the chance to do Christmas shopping and prepare for the Annual CIC Christmas Bazaar in Chania which takes place every year to raise a lot of money for local charities. What a production! There were 60-70 stalls rented by local traders and some came even from Athens to sell their wares. Ceramics, textiles, jewellery, woodwork, home made food, drinks and preserves, soaps, decorations, metalwork – loads and loads to look at and charity raffle stalls run by CIC members. K and I manned the Bottle Stall – ably assisted by other members but the star attraction on our stall were the volunteers from the local Red Cross who turned up in their uniforms, donned Santa Hats and really got us better organised. If nothing else, I have learned the dos and don'ts of running a tombola because it is much more tricky than you think – especially if the event has to last over two days and you have to find some way of not running out of bottles!

The local Red Cross turned up and raffle ticket sales picked up!

The quality of entertainment was amazing with a school choir singing Greek and English carols, a jazz singer, a children's entertainer who did magic and all sorts of clever juggling tricks and then a brilliant circus performer who played loads of musical instruments and sang, wire walked, unicycled around between all the stalls and was astoundingly good. All this while, there were two kitchens – one inside and one outside providing chilli, mulled wine, sausages, teas and coffees etc. We believe that the bazaar raised over 12,000 Euros for local charities which was very impressive in these hard times.

Setting up the stalls in the old Customs House

Look Soph - they even had a Sindy Doll Boutique!!!!!

We were exhausted when it was over and needed a few days to unwind which was unfortunate because there was a lecture in Rethymnon on Archaeology a couple of days later with intricate catering arrangements including a buffet lunch which seemed to be slightly beyond the capabilities of the place where the event had been held but was enjoyable all the same. Then, once this was over, we drove back to the village to see what state the bathroom was in. Of course it was a vast improvement but there was builders dust and mess which had spread throughout the house and it needed sweeping, scrubbing and mopping from top to bottom. Every shelf and every cupboard! So today has been Cleaning Day One and tomorrow will be Cleaning Day Two!! Enough for now – we are absolutely flaked out!

BEFORE .......

AFTER!

HOW GREAT THOU ART!

We needed to be rescued yesterday. The weather was a perfect for a winter's day and we set off for a bit of fresh air and the idea in our minds of getting a bucket of earth (for geranium cuttings) and some stones from the beach (to stop the cats from next door scrabbling in the plant pots). We headed for our nearest deserted beach at Geropotamos and waded about in the sand checking seaweed and pieces of driftwood washed up by the recent stormy seas.

Having collected the one or two items needed, K decided to drive the car into soft sand (which our UK car would have taken in its stride) but our little runabout did not like at all. We tried to dig it out (fortunately having a trowel with us), we tried car mats, palm leaves and bits of plank but could not shift the car from the pit it was steadily digging for itself! What to do with most of our friends now safely back in the UK? After scratching our heads for several minutes and glumly watching the sun go down behind the cliffs, K phoned 'Adonis the Wood' (who had made windows and cupboards for us) and who arrived a little while later in a big 4 x 4 truck driven by his friend. We were so grateful and hope to find some way of saying thank you to them before it is too late. I was just mentally wondering if we would have to spend the whole night there and was looking around for inspiration!

One of the best things about our little stone house is the view from the roof terrace over the mountains. The sun has come up the last two mornings revealing Mount Psiloritis – which has been hiding behind a cloak of thick, dark cloud for weeks now – gleaming in its new winter snow covering. Our first sighting was awesome. It is the highest peak on Crete and we stopped for a real “How Great Thou Art” moment. The subsequent minutes trying to catch the beauty of it on camera were a bit of a let down because of course the colours all merged into one another behind the lens. However, my happy snappy pocket camera did better than Kimon's super-duper digital camera bought at vast expense. To be totally honest, we have still not figured out how to download the photos! Such is life these days – technology is beginning to run too fast for us to keep up.

Sunday was a fantastic day – warm in the sunshine and too good to stay inside, so we found a great place to go for Sunday Lunch at Lappa near Argiroupolis. We walked around the little gap between two mountains where the water pours down in a succession of waterfalls. It was so sheltered and well watered that banana trees, avocados and citrus grew amongst the forest trees. I bravely tried to forage and found nearly edible items to take home along with an armful of kindling to start the fire that night and K found the remains of the old Roman aquaduct. We were relieved to see a table and chairs all set up outside an old mill which had been converted into a lovely warm place to eat. Being British and enjoying the fine weather, K and I promptly sat down at the table outside and the owner politely brought us the menu. After half an hour or so more cars arrived in the car park and several car loads of local families began to arrive well muffled up in fur and leather coats, hats, scarves and gloves eyeing us suspiciously as they passed our table and hurried inside to warm themselves by the roaring fire. The owner was worried about us in the cold outside and invited us in but we stood our ground and ate our meal outside, airily claiming that as Brits we were ready for anything and thoroughly enjoying the unusual menu, but surrendered at the coffee course and scuttled indoors out of the sun (and wind!)

We managed to get back to Art School this morning and it turned out to be a bit of reunion because I had not managed to get there since the beginning of the summer. The big bonus was that K stayed with me and the whole class worked on a still life of different pieces of shiny glass and, as always, it was wonderful to see all the different interpretations from the class members. Some were fanciful, some architectural, some illustrative, some completely zany. It was a lovely morning and we all realise that it is a privilege to be there – even though times are hard and the cost of classes has meant that numbers have fallen in recent months. K kept protesting that he could not draw but actually produced a very fine drawing with a real style of his own. (Hope we can get him to continue.)

We have deduced that our post arrives weekly on Tuesdays – which is a bit unfortunate if one's birthday happens to be on a Wednesday – but we had a bumper bundle today and lots of desk work to get down to while a stew bubbled on the wood stove. We are so grateful for this huge burner which warms the whole house and are hoping that the wood pile lasts us through the winter. The days have been lovely and fine but the temperatures are really dropping at nights and we keep having Crozier (slightly Heath Robinson) ideas about hot water bottles and warming pans! We will also have to have our bathroom dug up and replaced in the next week or two as we have sprung a leak in the floor. To conserve money, we had tried to wait another year before doing the work but a skating rink on the marble floor has brought the vague want to a priority. We look forward having a room which is 'P I N K' no longer and the use of a fully functional washbasin which we can get to without the oddity of first climbing into the shower pan …. Greek plumbing does have dubious results sometimes ... and we hope for much better  …. say no more.

MONSOON

"....Hello Mother, Hello Father – here we are at Camp Granada

It is very entertaining and they say it will be fun when it stops raining!....."

We are battling hard against feeling down in the dumps. THREE days of diabolical monsoon rain and we are holed up at home. The phone has stopped functioning but the broadband is working. A mystery to be solved by the telephone company when we are brave enough to go into town next. We have started to light the log burner and today cooked supper and boiled kettles on the top very effectively but the house does smell very strongly of wood smoke and I feel a bit like a well smoked kipper if I spend too much time indoors.

Our nearest village, Panormo is virtually closed up with only a couple of restaurants semi open and one or two super markets (thank heavens). All our favourite haunts look strangely deserted and a bit bleak as we do our shopping and post our letters. There is not much to hang around for and we will need to think about a complete change of activities as the weather draws in and we hunker down for the winter. ...Although we did pass these two 'villagers' in the road on our way to the shops.

Enforced time at in doors has meant following a few home-spun pursuits. We have tried to design a simple weaving loom and are working on the design so that we know how we can make improvements if ever we can get the materials to make a much larger one. K used up all the panel pins in his stock to construct it and the internet is surprising helpful in offering a range of refinements for our designs. The small loom is enough to make a small bag or place mats, but we are thinking big and have ideas of a large floor rug in the colours of our choice and with more than a bit of luck and hard graft. We saw a hand made rug on our last trip to Chania which cost 900 euros – which was lovely but out of our reach.

We had a call on our mobile from a friend whose house is perched on the side of a mountain and who had fallen down the stairs and broken her leg a few days before. She had spent a dreadful night in the local hospital while they kept her under observation. Without family on hand to take care of her and as a professional UK nurse, she was horrified enough to leave first thing in the morning because she knew that she would be better taken care of at home in her village. So on Saturday we braved the track up to her house and drove back to our place for lunch (copying my Mum's recipe for stuffed tomatoes with garlic prawns – yum) in the hope that it would make a change for her. (Note to self: Remember to always use the non-slip mats on the bathroom floor – even if it does make you feel like an old lady because the consequences of falling on stone or marble floors are never good!)

The arrival of a large consignment of oranges from Niko's orchard (which we had supposed were finished for the year) meant that marmalade making called and K spent nearly a whole day looking for the small plastic spigot which fitted inside the juicer so that we could make orange juice for breakfast - but after an all day search, no joy. After a long look at said juicer, and the realisation that there was no Crozier alternative which we could cobble together, we think we will have to buy a new one, which is a real nuisance. Niko's orchard was packed full of beautiful fruit and the trees were bent double with yet more amazing oranges, a load of which he is saving 'for Christmas'.

We found the DVD of Mama Mia and put it on this evening to cheer us up. A good sing along and the vision of a nice place in Greece with some fine weather …. and it worked! Hmmmm!

Hark! There is an eeerie silence from outside the house. The monsoon rains which have been cascading down for days have STOPPED for a minute. The dying embers from the log burner are warming us through, our old whistling kettle is beginning to come to the boil and things are looking up. Kallinichta!

NEW FOREST BLOGGARDY BLOG

A gaff in booking my flight over the internet meant that I had booked two weeks in the UK instead of the intended one week away from Crete.  In the end, it turned out to be fortuitous but a bit of a difficult time in the UK sorting out banks, pension and wishing for things out of the loft such as wellingtons and the electric blanket, which I did not have time to access!

 

I had wanted to book a hire car for the planned week in order to get all these jobs done but did not think I could run to a two week hire charge (plus the insurance waiver thingy and the deposit) so it was a good few days before I could get mobile and be of any use at all to Mum and Dad who were going through a bit of a rough time having both had minor ops and in need of some hands on support.  After a few days of doctors and district nurses visiting and hospital appointments to keep, things got much easier.    Prayer works!

Trips through the New Forest are always enjoyable and we were glad to see the colours of autumn wherever we travelled - along with the horses, ponies and, on our way from the airport, a deer which ran out across the road and was thankfully un-injured by the car ahead of us.  I spent the few days I had the hire car driving very slowly and carefully (and rehearsing in my head all the time "keep to the left, keep to the left!" ).

Meanwhile the news from Kimon in Crete was filtering through.  He had decided to get some painting of walls done while I was away – which we have realised is a Firth of Forth job since the walls peel constantly, and have to be repainted every year – come what may.  Stone houses are lovely and cool, but they do have one or two drawbacks.  He was not surprised to have the water cut off on Thursday but this happens often and rarely lasts for more than an hour or two.  In his case, the Friday was Oxi  Day.  A commemoration of the day in WWII when Greece was invited to collaborate with Mussolini and said “Oxi”  - which means NO!  It also means that it is a Bank Holiday and the Water Board would not be at the other end of the phone! 

The village was up in arms 4 days later when there was still no water;  apparently two pumps in the water pumping station had broken down at the same time and they were waiting for parts!!!  Yes, it was really fortuitous that I was not there.  Goodness knows how all the elderly of the village coped without running water all this time – although the lads living next door levered the lid off their well and were last seen lowering buckets to fill some containers and I think that others had taken buckets and bowls down to the stream! 

How bizarre to be in front of English TV again.  I have found so many alternative ways to spend my time over the previous few months,  that I find it quite difficult to sit and watch for any length of time.  I noticed also how forbidding everyone looks on the pavements as they go about their business and how little people greet or talk to each other.  The other side of the coin is that getting business done in England seemed so simple and what would take us a whole day of hassle in Crete as we wrestled with government offices could be achieved in 45 minutes in New Milton! 

As for Tescos over half term – all those things, people and children!!!  All the hoo-ha over Halloween and firework explosions!  What a stir all this frenzy would attract amongst our homely Cretan neighbours to contrast with our dead-pan acceptance of it all.   Our little store-room shop in the village (they turn the light on when you enter and turn it off again when you leave!)  makes life so much easier and less stressful with only one make of everything on the shelf ... if it has run out you have to think of something else to make for supper.  In spite of that, I confess I have bought lots of goodies to take back to Crete with me such as Tea, savlon, supermarket boxes of aspirin, paracetamol and ibuprofen as well as cheddar cheese and bacon.  It will be really good to bring these goodies back from good old Blighty with me.  I hope my suitcase is big enough!

HALCYON DAYS AND GARLIC MELON

While we were out today, it was hard to believe that last weekend, we had the first of the October rains – heavy monsoon downpours – which tested the sea-worthiness of our ancient roof and found it lacking in one or two spots. We needed to contact our friendly builder who arrived a day or two later armed with all the materials and equipment to sort it out and with the word of advice that we needed to think about an annual inspection each September to keep out the harsh elements of Cretan winter. Fortunately, since Leo, our son arrived, we have had wonderful sparkling sunshine although it is getting quite cold in the evenings and early mornings.

Checking the roof

Our lovely dry woodpile, also got a drenching but we are planning to design a fitting crozier contraption to keep our winter fuel nice and dry because we are certain that a ready stock of firewood will be needed in the next few weeks. I never thought that I would need a year planner in retirement but I can see that the planting, harvesting and storing for the winter months will conform to a very fixed pattern and we need to be fast learners ! The sales van selling winter boots, shoes and slippers has just stopped to announce his wares outside the door and our neighbours have been queuing up to make sure that feet are well protected before winter starts. I have unearthed the hot water bottles already and they are doing a sterling job to keep our beds aired.

Leo was happy to chill out, swimming, fishing and sleeping off large meals – so the week so far has been very relaxed. We have been a bit limited as to travel as there has been a General Strike for two days and a tanker drivers strike for a length of time unspecified. Therefore we have been puttering about locally and conserving 'benzina' as far as possible. I should say that we have managed to buy a lovely “new-to-us” (but second hand) car – which is economical, LH drive and fits the bill as regards the small runabout we had in mind. Were it not for various kind friends in the Cretan International Community, we are fairly sure that all these car sales and purchases would not have been possible. People returning to the UK bought our English car, which we could not keep in Crete without paying exorbitant import duty and someone selling their house and car let us buy their Greek car. We hope that we can sort out the various bureaucratic needs required – especially with most government departments choosing to strike here and there without any warning. We are not expecting to get any post for 2 weeks either - so ignorance will have to be bliss for the time being.

As we had an in-house Golf expert, four of us closed in George's Crazy Golf in Rethymnon yesterday as Anna had been challenged to a tournament recently and, not having played at her best, wanted to pick up professional tips to up her game while Leo was around. This was a great fun although one or two of the holes were plainly impossible (golf ball through a miniature basket ball net with a plastic putter??) but we enjoyed the challenge and Kimon should have had to pay for drinks once we reached the 19^th hole as he scored the only hole in one! Anna feels more confident for her next golf outing and shamelessly admitted that it was better to drink the retsina after the match than before!!! It was my idea of sport which was inclusive, enjoyable without anyone taking it too seriously.

Bali is a favourite haunt for most of our visitors and we have spent two lovely days there under a clear blue sky reflected in silky flat water. Delicious for a few last swims of the year and clear, clear water in the harbour where shoals of tiddlers, small fish and enticingly larger ones can be seen in the water alongside the boats tied up. Today K and L fished all morning but caught only tiddlers while I did a water colour painting of the harbourside with cliffs and mountains in the background. On the way back and with strikes in the back of our minds, we prayed that that cash machines were still operational so that we could pay the builder who had been hard at work labouring on our roof while we had been lazily unwinding down by the waterside!

Tomorrow we visit Rethymnon by bus (to conserve petrol) and Leo will have the chance to explore his favourite haunts from yesteryear.    I can supply the recipe for garlic melon to anyone mad enough to wish to sample it!!!!!

FIVE ON THE SUNSHINE TRAIL

Coffee at Vinzi's

We had fun showing our friends all our favourite places and they were blessed with reasonably fine weather for October which is traditionally the month for heavy rains.

Vinzi's in Panormo is a lovely coffee place at the top of the cliff perched amongst old castle fortifications and overlooks the little harbour and a small, sheltered beach. Marina, the proprietor treated us to delicious HOT chocolates, and nice ice cold beers and we fought over the different variety of crisps and peanuts while enjoying her choice of music.

Having Lunch at Margaritas

Margaritas is a famous tourist destination being a village not far from us up in the mountains where 15-20 potters live and work. It is a very pretty village, with a number of very interesting churches, the remains of an old monastery and a new monastic building on the way out of town. The five of us wandered up and down the narrow streets looking at all the ceramics and enjoying all the new ideas. One French potter had made a range of interesting musical instruments and another traditional pottery showed a range of huge Ali Baba pots and ceramic basins and seemed to give pottery lessons.

Raki Making Time

We sat down at the least super smart of the tavernas for lunch and ate a really splendid meal from the small menu which the lady proprietor offered. Each of the dishes chosen was good and we ate under a shady vine while we watched 'Superwoman' at her work. The lady (Elina) supervised the Raki making which was taking place in the back garden, cooked and served the meal, looked after their grandchild and totted up our bill. We took photos of the Raki Still with the fire glowing underneath and discussed how the process worked, stopping to take pictures at various intervals during the meal. Eleni gave us all a bottle of her Raki from last year's vintage with the change from our bill. We noted on the way out that she ran the local Post Office as well … What a woman!

Simply Huge Minoan Pots at Knossos

Sir Arthur Evans controversial reconstructions at Knossos

The best day of the week was Sunday when we were booked for a tour with the Curator of the British School of Archaeology based next to the palace workings in Knossos near Iraklion. Don, our guide was immensely knowledgeable and even if we had been to Knossos previously, all of us agreed that the input from our Guide added a new dimension to the whole day. We learned so much more about the history of the place than we had read in the past or learned before. We were amazed that the settlement at Knossos went back many more centuries than the Minoan age, which we knew about, before the Bronze Age, and there was evidence of settlement there back to Neolithic man with so much more there still to uncover. It made me want to do a bit more homework.

Style of Minoan Wall Paintings with interesting details

The Throne Room

As the tour of the workings ended, we had a meal at a taverna nearby and it was at this point that the heavens opened and the rain began to fall in buckets. Fortunately, we all had umbrellas and concluded the tour by visiting the buildings of the School of Archeology, which has a wonderful library, accommodation for visiting archaeology students and an enormous place to study and store artefacts. I was amazed to find myself walking past the Villa Ariadne – a house built for Sir Arthur Evans at the turn of the 20^th century and a place with a rich history of its own as a school for archaeology, a field hospital, the headquarters for occupying forces during the war and a rather imposing house which has now become too costly to maintain by the Greek government! However, having read Ill-met By Moonlight, the opportunity to see the scene where that story took place was unmissable and I was hooked!

Entrance to the Villa Ariadne

The last of our party had to fly home from Iraklion Airport after the day out and we were glad that they had had the best of the weather because it hasn't really stopped raining since then! The torrential rain has gone on for three days and nights but we woke up to a lovely blue sky this morning to cheer us up. We are keeping our fingers crossed that there is some more sunshine up there stored up because our son arrives for a visit next week and we want him to get the chance to see some sun!

PRICKLY PEARS!

We were so pleased that our long delayed celebration of being 60 and retirement by inviting friends to stay happened this week and the party – most of whom we have known for 40ish years arrived at the beginning of the week after furious moppings and sweepings to get the house ready. It was a reprise of “Five go Mad in Dorset” from recent years when the round of 60^th birthday celebrations began. 

Jane and The Prickly Pear

 J (the food stylist) pronounced that she was going to spend her time food foraging and supplies of unripe olives and rock hard pomegranates are now on the front walls waiting for the sun to do its job along with a bright pink hat which was similarly foraged from a nearby beach and awaited a new owner. Fortunately we did have some marvellous tomatoes and a deliciously sweet melon given us by our kindly friend Niko to await their arrival. Our friends arrived from Blighty laden with gifts – just the sort we love – 2 x sachets of fresh ground coffee for a filter machine, a large hunk of cheese, biscuits and a brilliant tee shirt for Kimon, whose lotus-eater wardrobe was in dire need of a makeover.

There were lots of activities to herald their arrival like a Renaissance Festival in Rethymnon with all sorts of activities staged over a week – traditional Cretan dancing, classical music and jazz to name a few – so we set off for the bright lights of Rethymnon on Tuesday evening to see what was happening and made a return visit on Wednesday to take in Jazz and renaissance music.

They were delighted by the charming lanes and alley ways of the old Venetian quarter which have recently been repaved and combine the lovely antique street lights with eco-friendly light bulbs. We spent a little time at the Pottery Cafe which has a beautiful back garden and had a meal at one of our favourite ports of call. I chose a dish called Imam Baldi (which translated means the Imam fell down in delight over the beautiful flavour of the dish) and it had the same effect on me except I was ill for two days following. We wondered whether it was food poisoning until all the party began to drop like ninepins a day or two apart from each other. … So much food has been bought and/or foraged but little eaten since then!

Fortunately, the British crew have recovered fairly quickly and have taken off to Bali for a swim today while we catch up with sleeping and laundry. We hope to be more in the swing of things after the weekend – and we had been invited to take part in a Greeks v the Rest of the World Cricket Match which sadly none of us felt well enough to tackle. This would have been worth attending for all sorts of reasons but especially to find out where there was a large enough expanse of soft, flat ground for a cricket pitch – this is not Corfu after all! If there is an expanse big enough for a Cricket pitch hereabouts, we know of a very interested person who would like to bring a team out to Crete so it was the kind of information we needed to follow up. However, bugs stopped play.

We learned earlier in the blog that there is no such thing as a free lunch when our complimentary lunch courtesy of Minoan Lines meant (but was not stated) that a meal for two was free for everything on the menu except fish – when we had just chosen fish.    Soooo the foraging of prickly pears had a similar end result with much use of tweezers, magnifying glasses, savlon and the ruination of washing up sponges, gardening gloves and a shoulder bag (all of which were infiltrated by almost invisible spines) to produce a fruit salad which was not nearly as tasty as all this botheration warranted. No wonder the Cretans treat these monster cacti with the respect they deserve! Any suggestions for the removal of prickly pear spines from clothing gratefully received (patent pending - we did google it .. and ended up boiling affected articles in a preserving pan rather than transferring said problem to the washing machine and causing even more hassle .......)  However, at such an auspicious stage of our lives,  it seemed important to taste this delicacy once at least so we can tick it off our bucket list. EVIVA!

Five Go Mad in Bali (Crete) - Liz, Kimon, Jane, Steve 

They were all watching The Calypso!