HEAVEN'S OVERTURE

Before the rain storms .......

Not much sleep to be had tonight. Well, it had to happen – didn't it? The lovely sunny break of last week has been overtaken by a new weather system bringing heavy rain for days on end. And it is now a bit like living in a cave. Our mended, sea-worthy roof has proved not to be mended or sea-worthy at all and I have been awake most of the night listening to rain pouring from the water spout outside and other dripping noises all suspiciously closer to home which required investigation. A trip upstairs with whatever buckets and bowls I could find, a shift of furniture … and a nice hot cup of tea have woken me up completely. Now, I am listening to an orchestra of sound as drips fall from various heights into glass and plastic containers (Dunk, plonk, dunk, dunk pling) and the waterfall into the concrete yard at the back of the house produce a soundtrack which is hardly conducive to a good night's sleep. (And, several hours later it is still raining!)

Fortunately, the first night of rain turned out to be the worst. We have had quite a number of showers and downfalls since then but on those occasions, the roof did not leak and in any case, the bowls and buckets did not collect very much at all. The ancient roof is mystifying but we have heard of some magic roofing compound which seems to have worked on many of our friends' ancient roofs so that will be the next thing to try! We need a spell of fine weather first before we can get access! For five days the range of high mountains has disappeared completely into grey gloom and, if you did not know the landscape well, you would not know of their existence. There were also a number of problems with the trip-switch to our electricity supply but more about that later.

The view committed to memory for next watercolour landscape

We did manage to get a decent walk in last weekend. However, the first unexpectedly strenuous task was managing to get our wellies on. (I am sure it was never so troublesome when we were younger – what happened?) Then we waddled self-consciously in our obviously so-new gumboots down the alley way, across the stream and walked up the path which we can see from our house. Someone has a lovely smallholding there with healthy looking goats, chickens and geese and we paused to take note of how well cared for they seemed to be. We were barked at by several troupes of ferocious dogs and, as we climbed higher, we were confronted by a horrible looking canine tied up next to some pig houses. Discretion being the better part of valour – we promptly decided to retrace our steps and jumped in every puddle we could to dirty our boots a bit on the way down the path. Then we walked around the base of the escarpment to the other side where there is a steep track past a slate cliff up to an old football pitch, across an olive grove to the old dry stone base of a deserted windmill. From here is a really good view of the village from the far side of the valley. The sun that day was good enough to take some photos and commit the view to memory. The air was clear, the view of the mountain was unfettered by clouds and we both said almost simultaneously … “Wouldn't this be a great place for a picnic …?” (Cretans would think we were crazy to have a meal in such an out of the way place!)

The old windmill

So, you've guessed it – there is not a lot going on; we have a CIC country walk planned down in the south of the island finishing in Plakias on Sunday (and I am mentally sorting out foul weather gear) which will be good for us. Kimon is grumbling about 'organised fun' but we need to escape for at least a day to combat accumulated cabin fever this week. Our old stone house is very cosy when the log burner is going but we realise that our log pile has taken a bit of a beating; we probably will have to order another stack of logs to keep the house warm into February and there is no point in stinting on this. We have been trying to get as many inside jobs done as possible, but these are mostly chores and I have spent a lot of time knitting jumpers or sorting out landscapes from my old sketchbooks which might be worked up into a few greetings cards while K has been chopping wood and trying to keep everything under cover.

Christmas came at last - in spite of the weather!

And … at last, the Cretan post came good and delivered the longed-for parcel from Australia this week with a full photo album marking the first 5 months of our latest grandson as an Aussie but now having adopted Kiwi citizenship in preparation for their return to Auckland. Yippee! We were so glad that the pictures reached us safely.

Kimon writes: “Consider; we do not have a letter-box, so we found our post left on the back window of the car outside, beneath the wiper blade – this by our friendly lady from the kafeneon (Aggeliki), to where the post is delivered … and …. what a relief that the electrics seem to be OK now. We had seven “trip-outs” on the fuse board the other morning. Then the main meter trip blew – and had to press the red button, “like a nervous man” in a howling gale and lashing rain (K, that is, in now well-muddied gum boots and wet clothes).

It's real life Croziers – but not as you know it!!!