AHOY KOMBOLOY!

(with apologies to Jenny Joseph)

When I am an old codger, I shall wear khaki

With a shiny bald head showing the lumps taken out of it,

And I shall wonder if I’ll ever get my pension in my life-time

To spend on beer, retsina or souvlaki me pitta

Or new sandals every year or even magic crocs

I shall sit down in kafeneions when I feel like it and

twiddle my beads

I shall gobble up meze, swat bumble bottles and never

set off without my katsouna to hold me up.

I can rattle my fishing rod against every fence and

make up for the ‘privations of my youth.

I will be fishing in my kayak off Libya and selling my catch of the day

I won’t need terrible shirts and gaily patterned shorts then, but I might need a
trusty straw hat which is frayed on one side.

I will spend my days picking oranges in orchards, planting a lemon tree and
vine in my garden and watching them grow.

I might be tempted to give up Croziers forever and buy a quad bike or become too old to die young as a Sunday Motorbike Rider.

But until then I will carry an umbrella to ward off stray dogs and a water pistol
to see off next door’s cat

And I will always be sure to keep 5 euros in my pocket of my khaki shorts and
the telephone number of the Health Centre on the wall

In case of emergencies ….

We are having a party here .....

LOTS HAPPENING

Our week has been one with lots of motoring to friends in a number of villages, which wind north or south from the main road of Crete. This road runs from East to West close to the northern coast and roads curl up into the mountains south of it and north of it too in the Apokorono region on the way to Chania. Last Sunday, it was very hot and we ended up at a great and very popular place for our Sunday lunch nearer home at a large taverna called Zizes where the food was very good indeed. The locals all thought so because the enormous place was heaving with people and it had a real buzz as Sunday lunchers trotted in and out of the kitchen to view the variety of dishes on offer. 

 After this busy-ness, we unwound with a coffee at a delightfully old-fashioned campsite called Camping Elizabeth which reminds us of our teenage days and how Greece was back then. We spoke to Elizabeth who has owned the site since the sixties. She applied for planning permission to modernise the kitchen and upgrade the facilities, but found that their whole stretch of beach had been granted nature reserve status and she was unable to make any new developments. Most of her customers were so relieved to hear this and were happy that something on the coastline stays the same. Not smart, not modern, a little tired round the edges but pure sun, sand and sea. There were plenty of tents, camper vans and caravans tucked into the bamboo cover all enjoying a “desert island” sort of a holiday. We love it!

We had the usual round of week day activities, art school, queuing up at government offices (this time for a European ID card which Kimon needs if he keeps his car here). We had bought tickets for the Vamos Arts Festival several weeks ago and needed to find somewhere to stay for a couple of nights. We looked the village up on the internet and found that the Tourist Office had the keys for a dozen or so little village houses and we booked a place for two not quite knowing what it would be like other than it was close to the old school where lots of events were taking place.

We struck gold; it was like Goldilocks Gingerbread Cottage – a small traditional stone built house with lovely wooden beams, beautifully fitted out, we had a little courtyard to have our coffees and really enjoyed our mini holiday break in Vamos. We heard that empty and tumbledown ruins had been developed by local builders to be used for tourists rather than building horrible concrete hotels and the end result was very charming (but I couldn’t help thinking I was in the Cotswolds). The village itself is small butseemed to be full of English people (slightly worrying) and the mosquitos had a wonderful feast while I was there, in spite of a large mosquito net thoughtfully provided.   The star of the show for us was Roger McGough who did a Poetry Reading on Friday night - brilliant and much enjoyed in spite of thunder and lightening outside- followed by a proper hands-on Poetry Workshop for 15 people on Saturday. I had bought Kimon a ticket for this for his birthday and he went along with his friend Nigel who had enjoyed Mr McGough’s poems for many a year. They had a most interesting afternoon and were glad that their pet celebrity seemed to be enjoying his time in Crete.

It is K’s 60^th on Tuesday and we have a party planned on the beach at Panormo at our favourite taverna. With apologies to Jenny Joseph (who wrote the “When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple” fame), we collaborated over a fitting birthday poem – a special commission in his birthday blog. Our friend from Guildford, Peter Gresham is due to arrive on the day and all we need is a nice, sunny day!

Chrona polla!

Village Scratchings

Sunday started this week with an invitation to the Red Cross Fund Raising Event held by our friends Bob and Ev at their lovely house. We had a chance to take a look round the three or four wide terraces of their garden, look down from the height of their village over the sea and look longingly at the swimming pool because it looked inviting on a very hot day. 

This annual event known unofficially as a “Cake Fest” had us sampling all the home made cakes which had arrived on the day and enjoying watching the Greek Red Cross Volunteers tuck in to enormous platefuls of assorted goodies.

It was a good chance to catch up with lots of friends and after this we made our way to Camping Elizabeth – which, before our discovery of Panormo Beach – was one of our favourite places because it reminds us so much of the Greece we remember back in the late 60s/early 70s … just sun, beach and sand with very simple amenities.

As the weather had turned so much warmer, we made the decision to start our daily swim routine and duly managed to do this on Sunday and Monday! However, the rest of the week veered wildly out of our control.

On Tuesday, we met with friends who used to live in Crete and were visiting to catch up with all their long lost friends and had a very pleasant lunch after Art Class had finished. This art course section has moved on to landscapes and here is the view of Kastellos that I was painting all morning.

One of our friends, Anne invited me on a Girls Day Out on Thursday and we met up and left in her car for Vamos. We had a lovely walk around a beautiful monastery which had some very interesting architecture (I would love to take my paintbox) and then off to … Jon, The English Butcher. What a busy hub this is and he was busy all day serving ex-pat customers with sausages, and familiar British cuts of meat, cheddar cheese, home cured ham, bacon and various meat pies and pasties (all of which would be otherwise unobtainable!) Then, feeling more than a bit hungry, we set off for a magical mystery tour to the Octopus Restaurant at the Blue Lagoon.

The weather had been a little bit threatening all day but we drove through different and spectacular mountain scenery. In particular, the plant life seems to be specific to this tiny area with bright red and orange perfectly rounded pin cushions of bushes simply covering the hillside down to a tiny hidden cove. At the bottom was a charming little spot with the brightest light turquoise water I have ever seen.

Greetings from the Blue Lagoon - yes it is really this colour!  

MAKING THE RIGHT CONNECTIONS

The past week has been very full with trips out to nearby villages and down to the beach. We have also kept the pressure up to get the telephone connected and Kimon has been visiting offices and trying to get the job done at last.

We were just about to jump in the car to set off for Kastellos where the Art School is on Tuesday loaded with bags of oranges and freshly made juice to share with fellow students, when Kimon’s mobile rang and I could hear the OTE Engineer talking in Greek to him. He was down in the village square and wanted to know where we were. As we don’t seem to have a conventional address and there are no road names in the village, Kimon sprinted down to the square by the village school and showed the Technician back to the house. We realised that the long wait was because there is only one Technician for this area and he had to wire up a connection in the big box in the Square, then another in another box at first floor level on a nearby house with his ladder and then he had a look at the socket inside our front door. Leaving his ladder against the wall, he jumped in his van and drove back to Perama (the local Prefecture) about 6 miles away and did something at the Exchange before driving back to the village to test the line and retrieve the ladder. It seemed to be a bit of a long-winded way of doing things but we were so grateful for a phone by this time that we just kept saying “Efheristo” again and again. Thankyou! (And do you want any oranges?)

Pushing our luck, we visited the office in Perama that afternoon to see if we could pick up our broadband router box but this could only be collected in Rethymnon where we first started the process over two months ago – so off we went to Rethymnon the next day and came back with our treasure!

AND IT WORKS (SPASMODICALLY)…  it’s progress but not as we know it …. However, we were able to Skype Kate in Melbourne this morning and had a wonderful chat so we are confident that it will work some of the time at least.

We realised that if the Technician had called after we had left for Kastellos, we would probably have had to wait for another six months, so we are thanking our lucky stars (although not counting them due to the efficient football stadium lighting above our roof – see previous blogs).

Art School this term is painting and drawing with a concentration on landscapes. I am really looking forward to it after completing the first session.

We visited the local post office yesterday and glumly queued up at the wrong desk while others arrived and queued up at the adjacent desk and got served first. After a lengthy wait, we asked for stamps to post a letter to Europe and were stupefied when the assistant said that they did not have any stamps. It begs the question – what does a Post Office do all day if they don’t sell stamps? However, the letter remains in my shopping bag until we find … another post office? Our other option is a much friendlier post office where previously we were offered seats and the assistant  reached over a no smoking sign to give K an ash tray while we waited for the time lock on the safe to open for the stamps. The assistant waved airily at the sign and said – “Oh don’t take any notice of that; it’s for the tourists … “ so the ordinary things of life take us by surprise sometimes!

A nice young lady came to the door last night with a sheaf of documents, which we gathered were to do with a Census. I got the dictionary out and we did quite well with questions about us, how many rooms in the house, how was it heated and various statistical requirements. She was joined by her colleague who spoke English very well and translated for her. It was all very amicable and we parted from them as good friends (Would you like any oranges? They declined and we gathered that everyone else in the village had offered them oranges too!!)

K and I wondered whether the arrival of the phone/broadband would be the end of the road for the Croziers Blog which was only intended to cover our “dream” journey-of-a-life time across Europe and then somehow continued and evolved to keep far flung friends and family in touch with us while we were incommunicado. However, we will update our news on a semi-regular basis – in case you have not quite lost the will to live - and find all our ramblings of any interest as we adjust to a new way of life.  

Our friends Steve and Liz will be pleased to know that we finished the gift to Brod and Carolynn who had an amusing post-it note for their front door in order to ensure uninterrupted afternoon naps.   Inspired by the piece of driftwood they left for us, we painted:

I concurred with K's suggestion  that  we put "fiesta!"on the back.

I have just booked flights back to the UK in early July and a further return flight down under to catch up with children and grand-children during July and August – so one Crozier will be going a bit more global come high summer and we hope to have some more news and photos to add to the mix. Adieu for now!

JOTTINGS FROM THE CALENDAR

The weather looked unsettled on Thursday so we took a little spin in the car out to Margarithes which is known by tourists as the Pottery Village and there are certainly a lot of potters and pottery shops to have a look at. We stopped for a quick lunch but managed to block the roadway for the one bus per day which travels through the village an a loud claxon horn made Kimon jump up and run quickly from the table to move the car.

Check out this working tractor from our village – it surely must be a brilliant advertisement for Massey Ferguson!

The alterations to our patch are not pretty but it seems to have done the trick. Top Cat and his smart feline gang have taken the hint and moved elsewhere. Just in case anyone else has a similar problem, we found toothpicks more effective than souvlaki sticks.

　
With the help of friends, was able to get to church on Sunday (about 20 miles away!). It was a lovely morning and I always enjoy the services at St Thomas at Kefalas. I am trying to find others who journey from our side of the island to share the travelling costs. As a member of the congregation was selling plants to raise funds for the church, I returned home with dill, fennel, basil and lettuce plants which Kimon potted up on Monday.

　
We have been on two fruit-picking rendezvous this week and picked some small fruits – a cross between a pear and a plum with multiple stones – possibly medlars - from a lovely lady’s garden. There were too few to make into jam, but they were delicious stewed and served cool with yoghurt. Then to the Perivoli (Nikos’ orchard) to pick more oranges. Nikos found an unexpected box in the corner of his field which he did not recognise and thought it might be a bomb! Kimon thought it looked like a beehive and eventually Nikos was relieved to discover that it was in fact a beehive that a cousin had put there recently without letting him know.

In the meantime, we found absolutely perfect fruit and so much that we didn’t know how to use it all – so I will take bags of oranges to Art School on Tuesday. We are invited to a Cake Sale in aid of the Greek Red Cross at the weekend so I envisage a grand baking day at the end of the week and have been thumbing through my Edmonds NZ (Sure to Rise) Cookbook for failsafe recipes.
　
　
　

Art School Exhibition

An Attempt to post photographs of the Art School Exhibition:

We were interpreting taste, smell and sound in form and colour but sadly there are more that cannot be included.  Adieu until next time!

POTTERING - KRITI STYLE

When we moved into our house, several of the local cats started giving us funny looks and wondered what we thought we were doing planting things and making changes to the local feline public convenience. How dare we! It was not long before we discovered what the little patch of earth in the corner of the front courtyard had been used for in the last year or two while our backs were turned. We were also surprised to find a new form of lighting on the lamp post outside the house – more reminiscent of football stadium spotlights than of a little village in Crete. These horrid lights had appeared all over the village since last Autumn and now give off a daylight halogen glow until 6.00 a.m. Unfortunately we are in the minority that dislike them and for some reason the rest of the village think that they are marvellous – so we were delighted when recent very strong gusts of wind blew the lamp at the front of the house off its hinges and left it dangling at a strange angle. We had a celebration late night drinkie up on the roof terrace and were able to enjoy the stars again. Sadly when we returned from Art Class on Tuesday, someone had called the Electricity Company who had efficiently mended the lamp and put it back again. Botheration! Oh that the telephone company was as efficient as this … we are still waiting for our telephone line.

While we have been busy trying to plant things and get the garden going, Top Cat and his local gang have been undermining our efforts to establish control of our patch. While our friends Steve and Liz were here, we scratched our heads to find a solution to the problem. We have tried pepper, citrus fruit peel, souvlaki and cocktail sticks together with large stones to persuade the local ‘puddums’ to find a nice corner of a field (of which there are many) to relieve themselves instead of our minimal garden. (We also bought a water pistol, but they are much too quick for us!) The end result is a patch, which looks more like the town tip than a lovely garden, but we hope that this is temporary.  I will post more pictures as soon as possible, but we are still operating on borrowed computers and today the internet has rationed me to one photo only!

Meanwhile, we filled up all the large ceramic pots K bought last year with new compost and have planted two creeping trees to give some cover across the pergola; there is a nice hibiscus and some jasmine and we are just praying that the winds stay light so that our plants can get established before being blown away. Winds in Crete are often very strong indeed and frequently bring red dust from Africa which takes a lot of sweeping up and we have to be careful to bring things in or tie them down each night because we never quite know what might happen from day to day. Things seem calmer now though and we have had time to top each pot with a positive arsenal of sharp sticks to ward off marauding felines … oooch!

I took my first swim yesterday. It took 10 seconds max because the water was still freezing but the air temperature was well into the 80s – so we made the most of the sunshine and spent the day at the beach. It was lovely to have friends over for the housewarming party but we were amazed how tired we were even 4 or 5 days after the event – a few restful days pottering about in our patch have been just what we needed.