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!