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!