URBAN TRAVAILS

Conversation about the Greek Election results was slightly marred by the amount of hardware inside and outside my mouth because I was at the Dentist, being treated for the last of the appointments for root canal surgery as, masked up with drill in hand, our nice Dentist gave his view on the latest results. This was the best insight I was likely to get as his English is very good and, as a successful Practitioner, I guessed he would have an opinion about what was being cobbled together by all the big-wigs in Athens. He was glad that two of the parties got a reasonable result to enable some sort of coalition to be formed but he noted that the Communist Party had received a small, but significant share of the vote, unlike the Neo-Nazi Party whose representative was mad enough to attack two other lady politicians on a TV programme – all good telly, but he was probably provoked. Nevertheless, most people were relieved to see him 'shoot himself in the foot' so publicly and further discredit a discreditable party. On the other hand, the Dentist seemed to think that the Communists would be a very strong party in opposition and that this would be a good thing. I was not sure that I agreed with this. I tried to say something well-thought-out and intelligent but with all that hardware in my mouth, my ability to respond was limited … which was probably just as well.

However, from our point of view, the grapes on the vine are blooming nicely, our tomatoes are coming into their own and, pragmatically, the cash machines are still working and doling out Euros, the buses are still running and the Electricity Board is still open for business. Nothing much seems to have changed over the last year as far as we are concerned other than the price of petrol and the price of electricity. Watch this space. All that is needed in Crete at the moment is for lots of people to spend their holidays here and fill up all the hotels, villas and facilities that have been lovingly prepared for them at considerable time and expense. The weather is great and the food freshly grown, simply prepared and very healthy! There is a lot being written about the benefits of the Cretan diet, but we are beginning to find that we are having to limit certain items to preserve our waistlines.

While all these political machinations were going on, we knew from our lovely musical Optician, (who had recently fixed my broken glasses for nothing - a task too hard for any of the Opticians I visited in the UK) that a concert had been planned at the old Mosque in Rethymnon on either the 18^th or the 19^th of June. Publicity for events like this are always a bit haphazard and a start time of 8.30 is always likely to mean 9.30 pm in reality. After the dental appointment, I met up with Kimon and Anna at the Chessboard Cafe on the way to the Bus Station. The concert would be on the 18^th June … that same evening … and as we had an electricity bill to query, an art class to attend on the next day and a conglomeration of activities in town over two days, we stayed overnight in Rethymnon to squash everything in.

The concert was lovely. Basically staged by a ladies' choir, plus a few young male singers and some very accomplished musicians. The programme was mixed with lots of classical, operatic, contemporary and traditional Greek songs. I preferred the choral pieces which came over beautifully in the lovely acoustics created by the restored domes of the old Mosque – but it was terribly hot and stuffy. The guitarist and bouzouki were especially good to listen to. I was amused to see, as usual, all the audience standing up and moving around during the programme, talking on mobile phones and texting. There did not seem to be any discipline at all and people arrived and left all the way through the programme, videoed it on their mobile phones and shifted about continuously. In fact, the movement of people was so constant that it did not seem to upset the singers one bit and they worked smoothly through an extremely full programme. I really enjoyed it. Once we had emerged into the relatively cool evening air (but still very warm), the CIC lot who had been dotted around in the audience found each other and decamped to the Galero near the Rimondi Fountain for a drink and chat before leaving for home.

Driving in Rethymnon and finding somewhere to park is always a hassle, so we thought that leaving the car at Panormo and taking the bus would simplify things. Travelling home by bus is always a bit of a Lottery as the dispatchers always want to make us travel by the Hotels Bus. This is normally a bendy bus which, avoiding the national road, travels along the seaside resorts route picking up and dropping off all the tourists from the hotels along the way. As the main line bus did not stop, we had no choice but to catch it on Monday morning making me very late for my dental appointment. It takes twice as long as the main line bus, is absolutely heaving with strap hanging passengers and K and I avoid it like the plague, as far as possible! 

A young English couple were sitting in front of us on our return bus yesterday trying to get back to their hotel who were completely scuppered. They had arrived in Crete the night before, had no idea where their hotel was and had caught our bus to return which took them much further than they needed to go. Cretan style, there was nothing for it but to offer them a lift. So we got off the bus at our stop, jumped in our car parked at Panormo and drove them back – nearly into Rethymnon! Their hotel had given them no indication of where their hotel was in relation to the rest of the city and they had not realised that there were suburbs and outlying resorts along the coast. We turned off the national road where the Hotels Bus did the day before and drove along until we found their hotel. Then we had the task of getting back on the right side of the national road for our return journey (which is not always as easy as it looks) and got home eventually, with only a slight detour to Adele, very ready indeed for a NICE CUP OF ENGLISH TEA.  After two hot and busy days, it was good to get home at last!

THE PIRATES OF PANORMO

The Pirate Ship in Panormo

Within one hour, it seems that all the “must haves” and “must do's” on my Jobs To Do List have resolved themselves without any effort on my part. What a relief - as it is too hot to move at the moment.

Last weekend was a busy time away from home visiting the Kalamitsi Arts Group presentation of 'Sandcastles' by Bob Larbey produced by the Toneel Theatre Company and featuring our long time pal, Nigel from Gravesend, in his role as William Patterson. We had our friend Beverley with us and had booked a night in Vamos at our favourite little cottage “Jasmine”. Locals in the village of Vamos had been distressed to see so many tumbledown houses and had fixed up a few in the traditional Cretan way to let out to tourists. We picked up the keys from the charming crew at the picturesque Vamos Tourist Office which has a bougainvillea canopy around the door and sleepy cats on the front steps. K shamelessly chatted up his friend Klio from last year and managed to secure a bargain deal and, remembering our stay of last year, I took a couple of mosquito machines with us and packed a few breakfast essentials!

Stage Set for Sandcastles

The play was close to our hearts because we are long-term enthusiasts of Beach Huts and the play was about the adventures and misadventures of the occupants of three beach huts on the South Coast. Nigel was a bit of a star, in spite of his stage costume of woolly socks and sandals and a thick jumper in red-hot temperatures; the after play party at Vamos's best restaurant was also great fun, but I was put out to discover that I had arrived back home the next day having left a full pot of home-made marmalade behind in Jasmine Cottage's little fridge. After all the massive marmalade production of last year, I am also shocked to find only ONE JAR LEFT … Bother!

"Back Stage"

We had been following the fortunes of British weather via the Internet News and were puzzled to hear about such cold temperatures and heavy rain in the UK. The spectacle of the River Pageant to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee had been so well organised , but we were sad that the weather had not been kinder for such a big day. I kept wishing the Queen could go inside, sit down for an hour or so and have a nice cup of tea. Meanwhile in Crete, the temperatures have crept up and up so that it is now 38-40 C and a bit steamy at night. We are trying not to use the air-con too much but it so good to have a 10 minute blast now and then. K had his first proper swim today, not counting the ducking from the pedalo, and the water was silky smooth and nearly warm! Mount Psiloritis has lost all but a few scrapings of snow while the atmosphere is hazy and hot, hot, hot.

Lunch at the Ocean Office closely monitored by the Pirates

Bev had been to Greece before but never to Crete. She arrived with a suitcase full of goodies (including thermal underwear!) and seemed to enjoy her week and the opportunity to unwind in the sun. We introduced her to our favourite beaches and worked down through a succession of sun protection factor tanning lotions as the week progressed. We visited Anna's newly renovated house in Filaki and lunched out with a lot of our chums under the trees before some of our number had to return to the UK. 

Lunch under the Mulberry Trees at the Bear Sanctuary Garden

We managed to show Beverley a bit of Rethymnon whilst I was on a brief trip to the Dentist for more root canal treatment and I stood my ground at the Dentist who insisted that the treatment was painless and I would not need an injection whilst I said that I wanted one anyway unless he wanted me to screech loud enough to bring the surgery down and frighten everyone in the waiting room! The Pirate Ship seemed to be keeping an eye on Bev as it appeared twice in Rethymnon on Friday and again in Panormo on Monday but we managed to keep her safe from their clutches!

Georgoupoulis

After Bev's return to the UK on Tuesday and a week full of driving, K's eyes were on stalks. I decided it was time to have a bit of a sort out of the dusty bedroom cupboards and I had just said to K that we needed to dispose of the large old TV which had been encroaching on storage space for AGES! We were wondering whether we could just dump it by the village rubbish skip or would have to take it somewhere in particular. After a dusty half hour, we made off for a welcome cooler in the sea. I even had time to do some Greek language study today. At Chapter 5, I have reached the startling progress of being able to introduce myself, say where I live and say that I have a husband and three children. Pathetic really after all this time, but I do understand much more of people's conversations.

Relaxing later after an innovative supper whistled up from eggs (gift from Kostas a the shop), grated courgette (gift from Kostas at the cafeneon), onion, carrot, herbs, potatoes – which magically seemed to end up as a frittata, I was just having a quiet coffee on the terrace while K was chatting with the village chaps on a nearby doorstep. Five minutes later, all by co-incidence, he returned with a bag of oranges (from the cafeneon) and a request from newly retired bodyguard Kostas (one of three neighbours all called Kostas) that his TV had blown up and he would be very grateful for our old steam driven one! Yay! It is great to see the benefits of recycling close-up and I have nearly enough oranges to make another supply of Skepasti marmalade.

FUR COATS AND FISH SPAS

Kimon the Chef contemplating Chateau Crozier sometime in the future ..

There are many things that are difficult to comprehend about living in Crete (or anywhere else it seems). At the moment, we are all holding our breath to see what the second round of elections – due to take place on 17 June – will throw up. Nobody knows whether Greece will be maintaining or walking away from the beleaguered Euro. The results will probably be hard either way and I guess everyone, whether politician or not, finds themselves between a rock and a hard place looking madly for a life preserver.

Meanwhile, the growing season carries on much as normal in our village. The gifts of melons, cucumbers, tomatoes and horta (wild greens – a bit like spinach) carry on in their own unchanging order. Mr Raucous fish van with his horrible megaphone even gave K a bag of fish the other night. The cacophony was so deafening, while we were trying to listen to a radio play, that K went down in high dudgeon to ask if he could turn the noise down. Mr R F V had left the megaphone blasting while stopping off for half an hour inside the cafeneon for his coffee.  Meanwhile, we were going crazy. 'Stop and have a coffee', he said 'and have a bag of fish – they won't keep and what am I going to do with them?' As we had eaten already, the last thing we wanted was a bag of fish, but he would not take No for an answer and our neighbours on either side were delighted to have half each (and we returned the favour of the bag of horta from the previous day). Somehow honour had been satisfied without a penny being spent. Oh that the problems with the Euro could be solved so simply! The nice thing about barter is that nothing is wasted, but you end up eating all sorts of meals you never planned for.

Birthday fun included lots of references to fishing and kayaking!

Fishing boat and fisherman from K's wonderful cake

The one meal we had planned for this week was K's birthday and we ate at the weekly barbecue held at Camping Elizabeth. Here is a place of sanity where nothing essential has changed since the 1960s and the grounds have been designated a preservation area of natural beach and sand dunes whilst to the left and the right large concrete hotels have been allowed to swallow up too much of the Rethymnon coast. Thank heavens there is one area of the beach where turtles can safely lay their eggs and peace and quiet prevails among the bamboo and tamarisk canopy. Kind friends had made his day special by baking a brilliant birthday cake (which sadly got eaten before we could take a photo) and coffee and cupcakes at our favourite coffee shop in Panormo.

Vinzi's Coffee Shop high on the Battlements in Panormo

The drive to the campsite took us through a number of resorts with the hideous profusion of crowded souvenir shops, supermarkets and bars. The hapless motorist needs to negotiate clumps of tourists, trucks and bewildering motor bikes and scooters whizzing towards the car from all directions. It is not for the faint-hearted.

Most people we know are mystified by the large number of Russian Fur Coat shops that have sprung up in Crete along the coastal resorts. Nobody would think of Crete as being the first place on earth that anyone would be likely to need a fur coat, so their growing order of importance and opulent modern showroom buildings are a bit of a puzzle. However as there are masses of Russian tourists in our local resorts at the moment, we can only suppose that Russians are now able to buy furs and take them back home with them?? If there are any rich Athenians left, they may make such a purchase as essential holiday shopping ?? Certainly, the Cretans do not have the anti hunting, anti fur lobby which exists in the rest of Europe – so perhaps this is one of the few places where they can be put on sale ?? We are open for comments and any further inspiration on this subject would be welcome.

Kayaking on Tuesday

Similarly, we are agog to see dozens and dozens of Fish Spa premises in the big towns and wonder if the world has gone a bit crazy. With a beautiful clear, turquoise sea right on hand for paddling and swimming, who in their right mind would want to pay good money to dunk their feet in tanks of water previously occupied by other hot, sweaty feet belonging to souvlaki-eating tourists and a handful of unfortunate fish while crowds amble past gawping (or similarly mystified)? Every time we visit Rethymnon another couple of establishments have opened and we cannot believe that anyone can make a living this way. Full marks for trying though and having a go.

Keeping up with the news we read or see on line is like being swept up in a bizarre dream about The Emperor’s New Clothes where none of the arithmetic adds up. There are so many questions such as Bankers' Bonuses, the value of Advertising budgets, Football Players' Pay, Television programmes, Nations living on endless credit which is based on … yes, well nothing, that I can get a grasp of … and now Fur Coat Showrooms in Crete and wall-to-wall Fish Spas... Is it just me or has the world in general lost the plot?

Ever a fan of the Goons, Kimon quotes Spike Milligan when it comes to plotting the future ..., 

Spike said: “If nothing is planned, nothing can go wrong.”

As few things 'go' without Faith and Trust; my viewpoint is a bit different, but that is another discussion entirely.

KALOMINA!