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!