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 18th
or the 19th 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 18th 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!
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