CHICKEN RUN

We have escaped from the UK summer of lots of rain to blistering heat in Crete and then to NZ winter with ...lots of rain plus hail and even some snow forecast for some parts of Auckland.

I was woken quite early on Monday morning by a loud humming noise as if someone was taking a spa bath as the sound was so loud.  On checking out of the window I saw a large delivery truck dropping off a huge stack of wood for the winter.  NZ like Crete uses log burners to heat houses rather than central heating.  As the weather had been wet and stormy with only intervals of sunshine during the week, Soph managed to fix a temporary rainproof cover over the wood (which was very damp before it got here despite being promised as dry stock!  The same thing happened to us in Crete a couple of months back .)   The family spent the main part of today (Saturday) moving an enormous pile of logs which had been dumped in the driveway to the house.  Darren  needed to retrieve the wheelbarrow and expend lots of muscle power to get the load shifted.

Greenhithe (yes, commuters from Kent it IS another Greenhithe) turns out to be a quiet suburb on the North Shore of Auckland – very green and pleasant.   I have seen Cameron’s new kindergarten, visited the local shops and met up with lots of Sophie’s friends at children’ parties and a baby shower – so it has been all go for a week or so.  I have also walked past the local Anglican/Methodist Church which I hope to go to tomorrow morning if I can rouse myself for a 9 a.m. start.   I have been amused to see the very British  names of some of the other suburbs – Sandringham, Balmoral, Newmarket, Epsom and so on ...

Lots of NZ homes (which are spacious and luxurious by my standards) have a hot tub Jacuzzi in the back garden and I am waiting for my turn when the sun comes out!!  We were all primed and swim suited a day or two ago, but a power switch had tripped out which meant that the water was cold and in need of cleaning and filtering so I am still hoping that my turn comes around soon.

I wish that I had brought my paints with me because this is a corner in Sophie’s garden which is quiet and peaceful. 

Still no news from Melbourne about grandchild number three!  We are watching our mobile phones for the all systems go text but know that Kate will be taken into hospital on Monday if nothing happens over the weekend. All the family in the UK, Crete and NZ are anxious for news; meanwhile Cameron and Hayden are waiting for their new cousin!  

JOIN THE CHIPMUNKS DOWN UNDER

Air New Zealand has changed the design of its aircraft so that travelling Premium Economy introduced me to a new form of seating which had been arranged so that the seats were on the slant.  In theory, this should have provided more leg room but I found myself feeling  twisted out of shape and struggling to find anywhere to fit a full sized pillow and thus had no way of supporting my head for the whole flight.  Consequently, the 2-3 hours sleep I usually managed in the 24 hour flight in a normal seat was reduced to no sleep at all and a very bad back. 

 Arrival at Auckland Airport on Thursday morning was a bit of an early start.  It was still dark – even  after the 30 minute car journey from the airport to our daughter and son-in-law’s new house in Greenhithe Village on the North Shore.  We arrived to a quiet house which began to come to life as the children woke up and came downstairs for their breakfast.  Several  Weetabix later, we were all ready to start the day and after a luxury spa bath and a change of clothes,  we went out into the garden to see to the chickens and feed the fish.  After this, we were ready to get Cameron to his kindergarten and then do some shopping in the afternoon.  It was great to hit the shops and good to be able to read all the labels easily and stock up on Branston Pickle and Cheddar Cheese – which I had not seen for a few months.  I was adjusting to the rapid alteration in outside temperature – heat, heat, heat in Crete, warm summer sunshine in Britain to heavy rain, dark clouds  and coolth in Auckland.  By 8.30 p.m., I was struggling to keep my eyes open any longer so I took off to stretch out flat and get some well needed sleep. 

  

Sophie apologised that the next day, they had booked for Cameron to go to the Chipmunks Centre for his birthday party which turned out to be a great time of playing inside (very useful as there was driving rain outside) and Cameron and his chums went climbing, bouncing and sliding down cool slides in what was basically a large warehouse painted and fitted out as a children’s indoor play centre.  After an hour or so, we were led into Party Room 1 where a feast was laid out and Cameron had a place of honour.  As kid’s parties go – it was a great idea and we had plenty of time to catch up with the other parents while the children took off and let off lots of steam.  It was the first children’s party that I had ever actually enjoyed and Cameron was having a spectacular day.  Still no news from Melbourne about the imminent arrival of grandchild no. 3.

                                                                                                                                                                  

I had been given an I-pod for Christmas and it had been wonderful for photos and playing Scrabble across the globe with other members of the Croziers Clan.  It took Sophie to show me how to access my hotmails on the I-pod which had eluded me since I had it.  This was a revolution and I rapidly managed to delete the spam which had built up over the previous few days

.

 

The new house is a wonderful space with lovely kitchen, bathrooms and garden with space for children, a hen house and a fishpond which is causing a bit of consternation to ensure that this area of the garden is closed off.  On Sunday morning,  we spent an hour or two blitzing the house and sorting out the toy box before heading off to the local pub in bright sunshine with family friends for Sunday lunch.

Darren had spent quite a lot of time on the internet browsing sites such as "Backyard Chickens" and "Urban Poultry" to learn how to care for the hens which came along with the new house.  Today, we had a hilarious half hour at supper and bath time because we had forgotten to gather up the chickens from the chicken run and put them in the henhouse before dark;  consequently Sophie and Cameron armed themselves with a torch  while supper was getting cold trying to get already roosting hens from one part of the garden to another.  They showed their displeasure by pecking their protectors a bit viciously ... I don't think we will forget them another time!

AROUND THE WORLD IN 59 DAYS

KIMON FILLING THE GAP.  Tuesday 12 July 2011.



OK, so Merope has gone off to U.K./ NZ / OZ / UK. (then hopefully back to Kriti). The poisoned chalice falls to me to keep you posted on progress with this blog - at least until M can get her hands on a downunder computer.  After many years of work and a deal of separation (me at sea and in London & M in Kent & London) it has been a steep learning curve to spend all our time together now for the last five months.  The good thing is that the kitchen here, unlike in the UK, is large. We can navigate around each other with fewer accidents with pots and kettles.
Also, here, we don't close doors or windows. So even at 110 deg f (44'ish celsius) we have a breeze of olive, tomato, lavender and jasmine air blowing through (beats diesel !)

Our pal Nikos - the olive and orange baron, as we call him (a dear man) brought me a plate of fish and lemon potatoes yesterday. YUM.
The people here think that, because M is away, I shall starve - BUT I COOK !! Very nice fish though I have to say.
I am therefore spending my time tending/watering our patch and other people’s.

It is the season for very small and very fast flies. The swallows and swifts doing their best to keep the, and the mozzies, at bay before they head back to Africa in a few months. i shall miss them - the swallows, not the flies.

There are times when we chat about what would life be like if we had not decided to move here to Kriti.  Certainly, life here is more simple, honest and healthy. But, of course there shall be pitfalls - are there not always !?

The village seems to have adopted us openly. Especially as M is making great progress with her spoken and written Greek language skills.When she returns I shall insist that only Greek   shall be spoken at home. Normally I can be 60/70% fluent within 2-3 weeks. It has taken me longer this time because we speaka da eengleesh all day. I am dreaming in Greek now - good sign but all greek to me.

I wish we could have afforded to both go to see the children and grandchildren - but might as well have barbecued the bank.  The up-side is that i can go fishing when i want. but M has left a list of "jobs to do" on the fridge. First job - paint the fridge ! HOHO   I must go and get the car now. It is in a body shop being repaired. M hit a wall that was not there. I hit one that was\1  Annoyingly, this all happened after we agreed to sell it to pals returning to the UK. Our car was taking on the beaten up look of a real Kriti motor. Now it will look English again. HiHo, right thing to do (at a cost).

Oh, Nikos the oil just delivered lamb chops and spuds. Plus another 1.5 ltrs of the best olive oil in the world.   Will i ever lose weight ?

Scent from the jasmine is over-powering and the shower scalding hot from the power of the sun.  We have tiny frogs and gekkos out front, so no no slugs/snails etc - great !

Finally, some thoughts of mine following the poetry workshop held recently by Roger McGough:

"SHORES"

Time has no measure

Time has no laws

When lying on your back

On far distant shores.

"CRETE"

Nothing is square

Nothing is straight

Were you too early?

or, was I too late?

HIGH SUMMER AT THE KENTRO

You can tell that the really hot weather has now arrived here in Crete as there is a loud chorus of cicadas at 8 o’clock in the morning and we have been running the air conditioning for a good part of the night. While the thermometer has been creeping up to the nineties and hundreds (in old values) I have been preparing for my flights home and then on to catch up with our daughters down under. So, I will try to keep up the blog from borrowed computers for the next few weeks. It has exercised my packing skills to prepare for summer in the UK plus winter in New Zealand – but hopefully I will have enough summer shirts and winter woollies to cope with both!
In a previous blog we mentioned that Kimon had completed the first hurdle in getting Greek number plates for our British car and then went to find out from the harbour police how much it would cost because despite the fact that we have paid British tax on the car, the authorities in Greece demand that importers of foreign cars pay a swingeing import tax which is on a sliding scale. The older the car – the more tax they demand. The sum was 5,000 euros – a ridiculous amount for our beloved, well maintained but rather old car. [And what is the European Union all about?} Hence, we have had to sell it to people returning to the UK before our insurance runs out. So, Kimon will be on the look out for a second hand run-about, which is very cheap to run, if we think we can afford it. Using the bus looks like an attractive alternative for the time being and will be planet friendly.

We received our first bill from OTE which seemed to be charging us for all the time we spent waiting for our line to be installed! There were all sorts of discrepancies on the bill lined up each with the additional charge of 23.5% VAT – cost enormous. Then we went to the town hall to sort out the water bill, which had not been paid by the previous owners of the house, and we had not received a bill since 2009. Again, cost enormous - but the people there were actually quite kind to us and said that we could pay it in 10 instalments before they put the water bill into our name. It is just as well that all the lovely people in our village are so caring and sharing with their produce because we have been overwhelmed by their generosity.
It started with a bag of courgettes and cucumbers left for us by Nikos. OK, I would make a lovely big flan and take a piece to Nikos and a piece to Costas and Angeliki to say thank you. C and A said thankyou for the flan, brought the plate back FILLED with MORE courgettes and a whole pot of myzithres cheese (a cross between cream cheese and cottage cheese – ideal for cheesecakes!) Nikos was out but anyway brought us a plate of buckwheat stew garnished with the Cretan delicacy of snails. This was a bit more awkward and we are struggling to work out the best response to this as neither of us like snails but it was so kind and generous of him to prepare it for us! Nikos learned to cook when he was a young man in the Army so he is very good at growing stuff and looking after himself. We carefully transferred the contents to a plastic container, washed up his plate to return and now the buckwheat and snails are staring reproachfully at us every time we open the ‘fridge.

Angeliki offered to give me lessons in Greek. I had bought the books at vast expense in a Rethymnon bookshop for lessons with a young Dutch lady but these have stopped for the summer til September. So every evening at 6.30 outside the cafeneon while all the aged males are yarning away we wade through pages of Greek questions, answers and text. I am reading it phonetically but only understand 20% of everything! However, I can now go to Costa’s village shop and say ‘Thelos ena Psomi, parakalo’ – meaning I would like one loaf of bread please etc. instead of the mime and charades I had been employing up until now. Slow progress indeed but every little helps!

We had an interesting experience last Saturday when K and I walked around the village with the movie camera to take a video so that the family can see what the house and village is like. As we emerged from the church and the mill, we noticed that the fortress like building on the opposite hill was completely lit up. We reckoned that there would be a wedding party that evening and we were in for a noisy night. When we reached the Village Square, all the cars and people were walking in the same direction and we ended up being the only people left in the village who had not been invited to the Baptism Party up the hill. By the end of the evening, with the very loud music, celebratory gun fire at various intervals during the night until early morning and the ashen faces of all the villagers the next day, we realised that the only thing worse than not being invited to the party – was to have been invited!! I was really glad to have a quiet sun downer on the roof terrace and watch the proceedings from a safe distance – and we went inside before the guns went off because those bullets have got to land somewhere!