CAR-KNEE-VA-LEE

Found:  One Castle Turret from last year

Exactly a year ago, I had just had my last day of work in London and we had spent the weekend packing our old car to start the drive down to Crete. I well remember the freezing cold wind and K clearing out the top box removing wellingtons and warm coats to put up in the loft - “because we would not be needing foul weather gear in the Southernmost tip of Europe”. How much we have learned in that year, and how we wish we had brought all those things with us! We still hope to get back into the loft in the UK and retrieve our winter layers because Crete has had the coldest, wettest winter ever and we know that if we get all our belongings with us, it is almost bound never to happen again!!!

It is hard to believe that we arrived in Crete a year ago on 'Clean Monday', the Orthodox equivalent to Shrove Tuesday and, by now, we should have cleared all the rich, fatty foods out of our store cupboards in order to to spend a healthy, lean 50 days (!) living on lentils, beans and fresh vegetables. These things are all so good here that it is actually not really a hardship and apparently, we are allowed to eat meat on Sundays – so things aren't really that difficult.

Carnival Weather at last!

We had never really experienced Carnival, so K and I set off with lots of party food and some fancy dress in the car on Saturday morning and not at all sure what to expect. We had heard that the music and impromptu musical instruments (air horns, trumpets and whistles) made things very noisy indeed and too much for lots of us oldies. However, the atmosphere on Saturday in the town was very jolly and a few fancy outfits appeared walking up and down the streets which increased as the evening drew on.  As night fell,  the music got louder and there was lots of activity in the town square where we were all drawn into long lines of Greek dancing.  It was a big crush, but despite all the jostling, very good natured and not a bit of trouble anywhere.  The aim of the evening was to welcome the Carnival King and teams from the previous year gave last year's Carnival costumes a second wearing. On the way back from our perambulations, we bumped into our friends Kate and Luc looking magnificent.

Luc and Kate in last year's attire for Saturday night

Sunday was the big day itself and we set off for a walk along the sea front and were relieved that it was so lovely and sunny. Anna and I decided that it was a bit like working at an enormous complex of film studios where dragons with long horned tails collided with spacemen and court gentlemen and ladies thronged along the pavements with sailors, pirates, smurfs and cowboys.  Roman centurions jousted with doctors and nurses, and little girl fairies were holding hands with dragonflies. We just sat and drank our coffees while the whole spectacle unfolded before us. My home-made decorated hat and carnival mask looked a bit tame compared with all this, but everyone had made an effort – so it was good to join in.

Three coffees please!

At 1.30 all the roads were closed by the police, and things began to quieten down as everyone made their way to the main road for the carnival route. We bumped into our friend who had been up there taking photos, but even though he was much taller than us, he had not been able to see anything and said the noise was horrendous - especially the thousands of whistles.  We realised that we would get a better view of all the floats and teams on the big screen TV in our local cafe/bar - Galero. It was easily the best place to be, and about 25 minutes after each team had strutted their stuff in the carnival parade, they all arrived back from the throng walking past the 'Galero' in gangs of red, gangs of green, gangs of blue – amazingly costumed and all in very good spirits. Demitri our friendly waiter at the Galero had taken on a piratical persona for the day.

The Galero did a roaring trade, especially when the parade was over!

The scale of Rethymno Carnival was enormous. There were 46 teams entered – each team had at least twenty to fifty members. Our friends, Kate and Luc were in a team of 600 – all dressed as rabbits! The costumes were wonderfully made and we wondered if the production of these outfits contributed the total annual income for a factory or seamstress. Kate and Luc tell us that there is a great social life involved to belonging to a team with lots of opportunity to meet people at parties before and after the Carnival is over.

Rabbits Galore - 600 of them - including Luc and Kate

After an hour or so, many of the carnival teams had walked back and congregated where we were and the pavements were heaving. By 7.30 p.m. every cafe and bar which had opened especially for the day was full to bursting and we repaired home to finish up party food and collapse on the sofa, but parties of characters were still roaming up and down the narrow streets and we kept peeping over the balconies to catch up with the fun.

Not sure what these people were portraying...

So, today is 'Clean Monday' – the day for going on family picnics and flying kites. On our journey home from Rethymnon to the village, every road junction was filled with stalls selling brightly coloured kites and the wind was blowing wonderfully! The weather had been perfect for everything all weekend.

These costumes looked great against the Venetian buildings 

The last blog promised a report about the rest of the week, which had been a very busy one – with three trips into Rethymnon. Art School on Tuesday was wonderful. All of us have been finding the winter time hard going and need the time together to exchange views, friendship and enjoy each others' skills. We have had the extra inspiration by having a life model for the past few classes and on this day we were concentrating on making portraits. For fun, the group took a handful of damp clay and made a small portrait head to give us all the idea of the “all round” view of the person and then we took to paper and paint to produce our portraits. It was great and I would like to do a few more, if I can find someone to model for me. There are some fantastic faces here in the village but I do not know if it would be politic to set about drawing any of them! 

20 minute sculpture.  Line up of the usual suspects!

 The Archaeology talk about Crete versus Cyprus gave us lots to think about because the history and development have obviously varied considerably. It would be good to take a look at the artefacts – ceramics and jewellery mainly – to see how different the separate schools of art and crafts compare in the two island cultures. I think some museum trips are needed before too long to see everything first-hand - the slides illustrated beautiful designs in both cases.

ABSENT FRIENDS

The sun came out with full measure on Sunday and we woke to a magical morning – the first really warm day with a nearly cloudless sky but it was overshadowed by the sad news that our elderly friend Nikos, who had been such a kind old man and good friend to us when we arrived in the village had died in hospital in Heraklion at 6.00 am on Saturday. Up the lane there were two large wreaths by the side of his front door with a notice of the church funeral to take place at 4.00 p.m. on Sunday afternoon.

We were sad to lose such a kindly presence and needed to ask what the procedure was to make sure that we paid our respects in the appropriate manner. It took quite a long time to unearth black clothing from drawers and cases and Kimon found a black tie, which was something of a miracle. Our new friend Kostas, who had just retired from his job in Athens and knew Nikos' son very well said that he would let us know what to do. Accordingly, at 3.45 p.m. every soul from our village dressed in black and sober colours walked up to the little church to pay their respects. There was a sand tray of tapers on a pedestal outside Nikos front door.  The tradition is for people to drop by, offer sympathy to the family and light candles during the day so there were dozens of chairs all the way up the lane. We all waited for the family to emerge from the house; the priest began to toll the church bell and everyone followed the party up the hill. As the coffin is left open until after the service, most of us were content to stay in the background and pay our respects from a distance. It struck me as a gruelling experience for the family to organise such an event in such a short space of time but this is obviously the established practice. Posters printed, flowers organised, bakers instructed, people on hand to steward without any notice. However it all proceeded smoothly, very quietly and with great dignity.

The little church would never have housed all of us and I was mindful of getting trapped inside as on Christmas morning, so most of us stood outside while the service took place and the weather was STUNNING – almost too hot in the sun (wearing black) and too cold in the shade, but beautiful enough to give you a foretaste of heaven. From our spot, we could see a clear view of the mountains – the clearest yet this year – glossy and shimmering with new snow in a cloudless blue sky. After the proceedings the whole multitude shook hands with the poor family – wanting to somehow give strength to Georgia who had lost her husband just before Christmas – and accepting a little cake, beautifully wrapped, we took our leave – adding prayer upon prayer for all the family who were so pale and drawn. What a ghastly ordeal for them. Afterwards, back down the lane again, we warmed ourselves at Kostas and Aggelica's cafeneon where the woodstove was bursting with heat and the warm blanket of air embraced us in from the cold shadows;  we toasted Nikos and were thankful for his friendship.

It is been a very busy week with Art School, a lecture on Archaeology – a tale of two islands, Crete v. Cyprus – on Wednesday, Anna's birthday on Thursday and the Carnival at the weekend. I will put all this extra news in another chapter next week, but we thought that dear old Nikos deserved a blog to himself this time. Meanwhile K is worrying about Nikos' chickens, his olive groves, his orange trees and his garden, but I am sure that his family and the village will have all this well organised.

SOARING ON THE WINGS OF EAGLES

I am typing away inside whilst outside, K is bashing away with his new axe to make a store of small kindling to get the fires lit each night. It took several days to get to the hardware store for the second load of fix-it supplies because we jumped in the car on Friday morning – only to find that the car battery was completely flat. The only way we could get going was to call out the garage mechanic from Perama on Saturday who drove over and put in a new battery and we returned there on Monday for a diagnostics check. After buying groceries and paying our water bill, we returned home with a length of drain pipe for the terrace tied to the roof of the car. K and I were so glad that the car got us safely to the airport and back last week, when we needed it, and were relieved to trace the battery leak to a faulty boot light – now fixed. The weather has not stayed dry long enough to tackle the new drainpipe but that joy awaits us.

The weekend weather was not too bad with sunshine, lots of cloud and a couple of intervals when we could take a cup of coffee outside on the terrace and enjoy the view of the mountains. On Saturday, the sky had thin wisps of cloud combed across a blue, blue sky with a beautiful shaped formation over my head in the shape of a phoenix. We hope this is a good omen for the Greek economy as all the news reports from Athens via the BBC have been a bit alarming – Athens is a long, long way away from Crete geographically and emotionally but it is clear that things are beginning to bite. There are hardly any cars on the road and some people are finding things hard. Many Brits – mainly the younger generation - are selling up to return home and the older ones, now retired, who live here are now being required to pay both British tax and Greek tax on their income on top of a new house tax, and 23.5 VAT on all other purchases. This, with a devaluation in the value of the pound does make a big difference. What with cutting pensions, also doctors/teachers' salaries and making whole rafts of civil servants redundant, it is difficult to know what more the Greek government can do to reduce its spending and pay its debts.

Moving to winter grazing ....

Meanwhile – far away from the alarming news reports, high up in a blue sky, tiny dots of eagles circled on the air currents and looked far more as if they were at complete leisure than homing in on prey for their next meal. One large eagle, however, circled round for a few times directly over the terrace and seemed to be having a good look at me! I stood up, spread my arms and tried to look as large and indigestible as possible! Enjoying my solitude, I had been thinking about the annual way of life here. We have realised that for many, the year is in two halves based on the demands of the tourist season and had imagined that this was a fairly recent development. But, just as in alpine places, there has always been the movement between summer and winter grazing, living up in the mountains or down on the coast and we have come to see how this works its way out. Many spend the winter in the towns and villages and have a small retreat place/shack for summer high in the mountains when the towns on the coast are jammed with foreigners! I well remember the start of summer last year and the arrival of lobster pink, Hawaiian shirted, crowds of holiday makers in enormous shorts, hunting in packs and wobbling along the middle of the national road in very small hire cars – it all came as a shock to the system after the quietude of wintertime and the sober attire of the Cretan villagers.

Cozy evenings .....

In spite of warmish days, it is still very cold at night and we are becoming adept at timing the collection and stoking of the last log of the day for the fire with closing down chores then jumping into bed with warm jim-jams and two duvets! We have obviously become much too soft over the years by having centrally heated houses. I was concerned to visit an elderly couple on the outskirts of the village who own a lovely centrally heated house but were having to spend their days in a tiny outhouse/shed where they had a wood burner because they were totally unable to afford oil for their central heating system. Heating oil has doubled in price here over the past year. They are very hard-working people who have spent their whole lives growing all their own produce and living the good life; it seemed wrong that they were the ones to suffer now because of the economic crisis – certainly not created by them or their neighbours. All the people we know in the village are extremely hard-working on the land and in the community and it grieves us to observe that it is typically the ones with the least who have to pay the price. …. And don't get me on the subject of Rating Agencies …. who are they? …. what good do they do? ….. who pays THEIR wages? And how dare they 'rate' sovereign nations with their completely worthless opinions injecting loss of faith. And where did all this sub prime loan nonsense begin? [I've finished ranting now.]

….... Anyway, a friend came over yesterday with a large box of English paper-back books which are like gold dust and very welcome. We really look forward to the evening time when we can fire up the log burner and warm up the living room to get out our books, music and other stuff.

We can't tell you how good it is to pick up BBC Radio via the computer and have soaked up ancient comedy series from Radio 4 Extra and relived Hancock, Beyond our Ken and other series from the 1950s along with panel games, quizzes, Pam Ayres and the Charles Dickens Anniversary of books and plays. Definitely a lifesaver over the dark winter months while we are about our daily chores or relaxing in the evening.

This is a bit of a downbeat blog but we are in fine fettle and looking forward to Carnival next weekend when Rethymnon will be a blaze of colour before the start of Lent and we hope to break out of hibernation!

IT'S RAINING CHAIRS!

We had some lovely Spring days over last weekend but more rain was forecast and … true to form .. the rains returned today just as we put the washing out.

On Saturday K's sister and our friend who was staying with us all went to a 'Milonga' at the Carob Mill in Panormo. We were not quite sure what to expect but the posters looked impressive and we went along anyway thinking we might see a demonstration of Tango type dancing at the specified start time of 9.00 pm. We went for a meal first to get to the big event on time. The beautifully restored Carob Mill – now a hall/gallery/stage/theatre is a very nice venue and at 9.30 pm. we were nearly the first people there waiting expectantly at the candlelit tables arranged around the edge of the hall. 10.30 came and nothing happened and we even giggled feeling as though we were waiting for a Parish Beetle Drive and had somehow got the wrong night.

11.00 pm. came and a New Year cake was cut and shared with the people who had at last begun to arrive in dribs and drabs – all under 30. At 11.30 a lonely duo of accordion and flute began to play some tango music and still nothing much else happened. After about 20 minutes some young people took to the floor – the ladies wearing cut away tops, short skirts and very high heels and the couples started to tour the dance floor with complicated Latin American flickety dance steps – taking it all very seriously. So that is what a Milonga is! By this time we had taken drinks with our meals, and more refreshments while we were waiting. We realised by nearly midnight that it was not really the entertainment we had been expecting and we needed to get home while one of us was still OK to drive the car … (me!) and wondered why everything seems to start so late in Crete?

After a slow start the next morning and after several cups of strong coffee, three of us went for a lovely country walk in the strong sunshine looking at the spring flowers that were beginning to shoot up along the hedgerows. Arum lilies, wall flowers and anemones were appearing as well as the bright yellow/green flowers of the clover that covers almost everywhere in a bright carpet.

There were lots of things to do on Monday morning in Rethymnon. On returning from the CIC coffee morning on Monday (Kimon came under protest), the car was buffeted by strong cross winds on the national road in several gusts and we arrived to find our chimney pot outside the front gate and our next door neighbours telling us that the chimney stack and pot had landed in their garden which must have given them a nasty shock. Nikos the Wood, another neighbour said in Greek, “Watch out tomorrow, it will be raining chairs!” - the Cretan equivalent, no doubt, to cats and dogs. K had to negotiate getting up to the top roof -with a ladder slightly too short- to do running repairs in a 'hooghly' with a tin lid, sticky tape, polythene and a big stone to keep the rain out and we had to spend one evening without the log fire until he could get to the hardware shop for supplies.

Maddeningly, I had to forego the first Art Class of 2012 because the repairs took precedence. While K was up on the roof assembling the new stove pipe and chimney pot, I was down on the tiled terrace which looked like a paddling pool and needed to be drained urgently. We realised that we will need another trip to the hardware shop in the next day or two to replace the terrace downpipe! Whilst on ladder-steadying duty and roof-watch, I baled out 8 buckets of water with a dustpan and then K had to shimmy down off the roof and unblock the drain pipe which is too small for the task. Who needs to join a Gym? Our daily round keeps us fully exercised – especially at this time of year: woodcutting, sweeping and mopping, moving airers of washing inside and outside according to the weather, keeping the fire cleaned and stoked – on top of the usual day to day run of household chores! Rustic simplicity indeed!

Then after another airport run early this morning, K and I collapsed in a heap and have decided to hibernate for the rest of the week. We realised that we had had an exhausting few weeks and would never make it as proprietors of a B & B!

Roll on Summer - and Nikos had been right – it IS raining chairs again!