SATURDAY MORNING … in which the Fish Van arrives and all hell breaks loose!

We woke up to a great Cretan morning with high temperatures and a deep blue sky and resisted the daily banter to one another … “Oh no, not blue sky again …..!” After a clutch of visitors to the house and various outings to meet up over the previous week or two, we had time to sort out the housework of brushing dust from various corners and getting the floors mopped and dry while the temperatures were only hot rather than stifling!

While our friend Mike was staying last Sunday, we had been invited to a barbecue at a house which was a bit off the beaten track. We had had a few problems making contact with these kind people who had issued the invitation and at least knew how to get to Exantas which is a friendly little village literally five minutes away. However, there are a few mini mountains and foothills to negotiate in the meantime. The three of us took our family saloon (as per instructions) down from the motorway on a steep track that ended in someone's olive grove. Turned round and tried the next track down from the motorway and stopped at a house with a swimming pool to discover if whether this was where the party was. Nothing in response other than the barking of a large dog. Down into the village to get more instructions. Take the road for 200 m and turn right at the track and take the right fork. After several more fruitless attempts to find the right track and opportunities to hug olive trees, we returned back to the bottom road and tried to find another track – only to turn into the second one we had taken from the main road. All this time, we could see our friends house enticingly up the mountain but had no idea how to reach it. Eventually we spied some tiny figures on the balcony and shouted across the valley and gave signals in semaphore - LEFT …. or RIGHT? They waved back cheerily and our petrol light came on! We carried on along this track which curved backwards and forwards several times (so left or right would have been right either way) and we arrived hot, thirsty and exhausted after a bit of a safari. It took an hour and all our petrol! It seems that many of their visitors arrive in a similar state of disarray. However once we had recovered ourselves and had drunk several glasses of water we had a lovely time and met a lovely Greek family who had travelled a long way to the bbq and had no trouble finding the place at all!

Spilli was our destination midweek to show Mike a few of the sites and we set off for the mountains where the mountain streams fall down the rocky outcrops right into the centre of the town. Stopping at the cafe next to the Lions Head fountains for a refresher was wonderful and we washed our hands and faces in the wonderfully cool jets of water. 

 Checking the time and realising it was getting late we stopped at Panormo beach for a sardine supper. The need for peace and quiet with lots of shade had us heading for Camping Elizabeth on Thursday only to find that our normal retreat was invaded first of all by a van out of which two smartly dressed young ladies emerged carrying a D.I.Y. Bower and several bunches of flowers and yards of white tulle. Then a very tall Scandinavian vicar arrived and we realised that a wedding was about to take place on the beach.

With Mike's help we managed to put up trellis panels around the upstairs balcony which gives our growing creeper plants a bit of well needed shade and us a little privacy when we want to have a meal overlooking our mountain and nice view. Said mountain has now lost all but a few wisps of snow from the peak and the countryside is taking on the variations of ochre and burnt sienna that we are familiar with.

Our morning peace is very often shattered by the raucous noise emerging from various travelling sales vans selling fruit and vegetables, kitchen ware, clothes and shoes, meat and fish. It is the fish van that seems to have the loudest megaphone and has the villagers rushing past (especially soon after pension day) with shopping bags of tasty fish. Life in the middle of a village is not quiet or peaceful and there are plenty of loud conversations which double in volume as it bounces off the stone walls! There are no riots here, however, thank goodness only lots of conversations about politics.  We are setting off for the CIC Barbecue at Camping Elizabeth tonight and will stay overnight in one of their air conditioned cabins. We have the guitar packed and lots of mosquito nets/repellent. Wish us luck!   

ROOTS AND SHOOTS

Events have certainly been a little hum drum of late interspersed with trips to the Dentist and visits to the beach on very hot days.

We took a photo of our first jasmine flower last week. This was one of the first of the pots we planted and we have been searching for new growth each morning anticipating the green cover it will give us at the front of the house and also the lovely scent as the sun goes down.

A short drive brought us to the beach at Georgeopolis last weekend and the weather was stunning enough for me to sit on the beach in the shade of the palm leaf coverings and do a water colour of the landscape. I was trying to get down on paper the lovely promontory into the sea with a small white chapel nearly at the end of it. Sadly the photo does not do it justice.

A large lump on the side of my gum which I checked with my own UK dentist before I left and which was airily dismissed as a minor low-grade infection had not gone away and was beginning to worry me so I booked up an appointment with Anna's dentist in Rethymnon. Check out the lovely view from the Dentist's balcony!

I had been trying to deal with an abscess all this time and now needed root canal surgery which thankfully was not a painful process except for my wallet. Since the work began to drain the infection two more fillings have dropped out and I am confined to mashed banana and baby food for a few days before we can get all the work done to fix me up! My suspicion that the UK NHS dentist was just taking regular money for doing next to nothing for the past four years was rather confirmed. The Greek dentist was horrified to see all the ugly amalgum used over the years and is doing a good job in patching me up!

We had been looking for trellis to put on the upstairs terrace for some time and now that some of the plants are establishing themselves, the quest had become more urgent. We eventually found a DIY store not too far away and managed to buy three trellises and some wood preservative which was so strong smelling we had to paint them outside the house and drove off all the neighbours in the process who had been sitting on their doorsteps in the evening shadows. Thank goodness the wood treatment had gone off by the morning and we were nice to know again the next day!

On Wednesday, as the evening drew on and it got cooler, K and I decided to go for a short stroll and headed towards the village square. As we turned the corner we were surprised to see fair ground lights and lots of activity outside the primary school. There were balloons on sale, bags of popcorn, a barbecue and loads of parents and children milling about and enjoying themselves. We were ushered into the playground and told that it was the last day of term and there was always a big party and concert to celebrate. It looked so much more fun than any of our school events and I wandered into a classroom to have a look at the children's work realising that I could benefit from some of the infant school writing practice exercises! Sadly, we had missed the concert but we were told that term ends on 15 June every year – so next year there was no excuse to miss the fun!

After lots of questions, I am beginning Greek lessons in a small way with a friend called Kathy who, with her husband, are having a new house built on the edge of the village. She knew of a young Dutch lady with a Greek husband who had lessons herself 3 years ago and still remembers all the pitfalls of learning a new language. So we are having a couple of one-off lessons in the meantime and starting properly in September with a text book, exercise books and a very patient teacher! Kathy and I are currently puzzling through the Greek alphabet and learning to form our letters all over again!

TOURIST TRACKS

Peter, a friend who used to work with Kimon many moons ago came to stay with us for a week and has used his hired car for most of the week which has saved a great deal of petrol costs. He managed to land at Heraklion airport at about 3.00 p.m. and arrive at the party just before 4.00 pm which says a great deal about his driving speed. However the party went well, the weather was lovely and we had a meze for 20 of us at a little taverna on the beach at Panormo. 

The taverna keepers grilled us some sardines, made salads and bread and we had lots of home grown wine as well. One of our friends had made the most amazing cake and there was lots left over to take some back to the village later in the evening. Peter has been a great hit and all the village folk enjoy having a chat with him as he (with a gift for languages) wrestles with the new vocabulary.

With a new tourist in tow and the start of baking hot days at last, we have spent time on the beach at Bali – which during the week is absolutely lovely for swimming but very busy at weekends. K and I watched anxiously from a few beaches while Peter did long distance swims. Then we drove down to the south of the island on Saturday to explore the southern coast and found a hideaway beach at Shinari. We consulted loads of books and maps because Peter had been told about the Samaria gorge and wanted to test his mettle by doing the walk while he was in Crete. We were also convulsed to hear about a friend's experience of doing this walk some years ago when he found himself walking side by side with a young lad who decided to take a bike, diving weights and a rubber dinghy 16 k down the gorge and the kind hearted friend found himself carrying the backpack containing lead weights … as if walking the gorge wasn't hard enough to begin with!

Meanwhile, Kimon has now picked up his European ID Residence Permit from the Police Station which is the first part of trying to get greek number plates for our UK car. We expect that the second part of this quest will be much more difficult and very expensive but there is only one way to find out.

Today, Sunday, we revisited Bali again Peter was enchanted by this little place (about 4 miles East of our village) and wonders if he can find somewhere to rent for a spell. He is going to investigate.