… Scream “Doors!”
The past few days have been idyllic and we took a walk to the edge of the village enjoying all the views of Mount Psiloritis just South of us and the White Mountains in the distance to the West. The hedgerows were bursting with life – marguerites with bright florescent colours, mallow, purple thistles and bugloss whilst the church yard bushes of jasmine and myrtle were breaking into new leaf and blossom. Bees and butterflies were working overtime and we turned to see three beautiful goats trotting up the path towards us trailing their leading ropes and followed by their owner, Andreas pushing a wheelbarrow. He walked at a slow pace and stopped to let the goats eat some of the wayside grass every so often and chatted to us about the wonderful weather. One of the goats was in kid and he was moving them closer to the village. On the other side of the stream we could see flocks of sheep amongst the long sunset shadows in the patchwork of fields opposite.
Villagers' chairs were hauled outside yesterday. The weather had been so good that I joined all the neighbours in our corner of the village sitting on chairs or doorsteps surrounding the small plateia outside the cafeneon. This was the same place where everyone had a ringside seat two years back on the day we bought our kitchen chairs and feeling a bit like an embarrassed Goldilocks, I had tried various wooden seats sold from the back of a truck amidst a cacophony of banter. At that time, I had been overcome at being the centre of attention while all the neighbours discussed our purchases but Greeks have no such inhibitions and shouted that we were paying far too much for those chairs! However, yesterday afternoon was less of a circus; we all chatted quietly, Angelikki topped and tailed her beans, Kosta (recovered from his spell in hospital) brought a table over to us and Alekos with the big, metal, three wheeler diesel truck sheltered behind it when the sun got too hot. His wife sat reading sheets of paper with a towel over her head (honestly)– it must have been a difficult subject so we did not interrupt! Nikos the Wood, was nursing a sore knee and needed a walking stick and we tried to offer him some Ibuleve cream to ease the pain. It was a lovely peaceful moment with good people and we were glad to relax into it. What a difference a year or two makes.
Over the previous few days, K had been making a screen door to keep insects and creepy crawlies out of our kitchen. We had progressed from various bead curtains, netting and so on to the realisation that nothing but a proper screen door would fit the purpose. The struts of wood had been painted with wood preservative and the basic framework was now in place. I kept looking at it and wondering what the end result was going to be and whether it would spoil the look of our front porch. Would it be another Crozier?* With each stage of the process, neighbours stopped and passed the time of day and asked what Kimon was doing making a 'Sieve' Door and how much it cost. After we had visited the hardware store for extra supplies of brackets, netting and a staple gun, he set about finishing it off and began working out how to set the hinges and hang it in place. After a lot of adjustment, the door was finished and fitted perfectly. True that the brushes kept falling off at the top and needed drilling and fixing, but after a few days, the job was complete. The result was that our vociferous neighbour immediately wanted one and Manolis said he wanted one and Nikos thought that he might like one to keep stray cats out and …. everyone in the little village who had never even thought of it before wanted one! To think that all the experience of our lives led to this moment in time – making 'Scream Doors' for houses in the village! We are not sure the lads at the Wood Factory will be very happy about it and K was not at all keen on going into business. In fact he had enough of Screaming Doors for quite a long while.
Fortunately, we have a lot of outings in the next few days, so we hope that the craze will have worn itself out by next week.
*It occurs to us that the significance of the Crozier trademark has never been fully explained in our blogs, but we will leave that for another day.
Adio-sas
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