GI, QI and the Perils of Scrabble ...

21 days, and I am still battling to access my old Hotmail account with all my contact details. I have filled in forms, tried telephone numbers which turn out not to be numbers but press button systems sending you back to a computer link, tapped the same old links dozens of times and been returned to the same road block. It seems that my old account may be gone for ever but my brother (who has been staying) and myself have done our best. I have written a sizeable number of howlers whenever given the opportunity to type text into a box which unwisely asks for feedback …so I gave it to them ... and the rest! The bottom line is that the Microsoft Corporation is not interested in assisting people who use their free service. So …. if anything goes wrong …. you are on your own against a thousand rafts of computer generated boxes, loops, bothersome pages and web forums which result in impasse.  I did everything they asked me to but IT DOESN'T WORK!  

Anyway, we had much more interesting things to do this week while my brother and his two sons came to stay for a week. It was fascinating as each of them had about three electrical gadgets and attendant power leads to keep our intermittent electrical supply whirring, so the air was full of electronic bleeps, music and buzzing as they gazed into them and compared APPS. K and I tried to get them out of doors as much as possible (to compare ABS - well lathered with sun protection) so that they could see what Crete has to offer outside the world of cyberspace. Our local beach was a bit tame on our first visit but we took the kayak down to the harbour the following day and all managed to have a skull around the boats moored there and a good long swim. Luke and I thought we saw a shooting star after supper one evening and we kept our eyes open for more over the week because August is meteor season. Luke would have liked to spend much more time creature hunting in the steep cliff faces and the rock pools nearby.

At the end of most days, Scrabble and card games have been out of their boxes and lots of arguments, online dictionary checking and callings of “cheat” ensued. Kieran and Luke will never forget the uses of the letters G and I or Q and I on the Scrabble Board for a very long time. Long live Scrabble – it got all our grey matter working but those who play Scrabble together might not necessarily stay together! Fortunately, we have 'Words With Friends' to fall back on!

All our favourite places are heaving with tourists at the moment so our trip to Bali was a bit cramped but we made the most of a pedalo ride and a go on a jet ski to take a look at all the bays around the rocky headlands and we tried to impress on our guests how beautiful it was out of season!

We visited Rethymnon on the bus and explored the Fortezza and the Old Town, went to Water City (a complex of swimming pools, tubes, rides and flumes down from the mountain escarpment) where I promptly fell over on the slippery paving and sprained my ankle. We were warned to get there early, which was good advice, but there were zillions of people, loud hip-hop or rap type music from the speaker systems incessantly and then life guards who had to blow whistles at people very loudly, to make them hear anything over the annoying sound system. Fortunately, K did not go, he would have hated it and after the ankle sprain, I had to find the shadiest corner I could and settle down to read my book but I think the boys had a good day! That was Saturday, and we tripped up to Margeritas on Sunday for a pleasant meal and a visit to our favourite pottery shops where we made the most of Sunday which tends to be too crowded on the beach.  Sunday is the day that all the Greek families take time to go out and spend time together which we applaud, but the impact is that everywhere is always busy and crowded on Sundays in the school holidays.

On Monday, all the boys had a sensational day swimming in quite rough seas. I was tipped into a diagonal somersault almost immediately (Tom Daley, eat your heart out) and with the dodgy ankle decided it was a bit over the top for me! However, the boys stayed in for hours surfing through the large breakers and bobbing in and out of the waves on li-los and inflatable tyres. Every pocket on their swimming trunks arrived home full of seaweed, which must be a sign of a good day out. Their last evening was spent at Maki's. This is an eating place out in the narrow street of Panormo bordered by the Bakers, the Butchers and the traditional Cafeneon. We trooped inside in a line while Maki showed us what he had cooked that evening – peering under foil lids and peeping into the refrigerated unit to check out the options and make our choices. Then we sat under the bougainvillea and stars and enjoyed a great meal. Even Maki's was operating two sittings for meals this week. There was a brief drama whilst Kimon searched every pocket of every bag he had with him for the car key, but all was well in the end and we got home too tired for Scrabble, packing or anything else! The week had flown by all too quickly.

A BIT OF A PICKLE

Harbour beach at Panormo

Like you, I expect, we have been following Team GB at all the Olympics events and glad to see that all the places look so picturesque on the TV screen, even if it was raining in sheets round Dorking and Leatherhead for the Women's Road Cycling last weekend. The atmosphere looks good and the sports teams are giving it their all. We have particularly enjoyed the rowing and show jumping events and have been cheering on our teams – even from so far away. The roadsides and trees look so green and, with such dry weather here, there has been the danger of forest fires, if people are not careful enough. The local authorities are busy everywhere cutting back the trees, bushes, grasses and oleanders along the road sides as a precaution.

Talking of fires, I had spent the best part of two days incandescent with rage at the hacking of my Email address which had all my daily subscriptions arriving each morning, my entire address book over 15 years, now unattainable, and nothing in the way of Help Desk Support (nothing) from the rich corporation of Microsoft.

In case it helps some other unfortunate, please delete and do not open any Email with the subject “Private Message”. I had already done so when I saw the message from a friend I had just been trying to speak with on Skype. As our call kept dropping, I thought that this was a follow up. She had tried to let me know but by this time it was too late. I understand that these things happen from time to time, but to expect people to wander blindly through web page forum after web page, searching fruitlessly for a help desk or telephone number, following all the instructions and still getting nowhere is absolutely infuriating! If I try to get back to my account, I am presented with a bogus form to fill in asking for all sorts of ID information, passwords and credit card numbers. All I needed was to speak to someone whom I could be sure was genuine because I could not believe any of the web pages appearing on the screen were true. It's a horrible feeling being abroad and left in cyberspace without a paddle for ever wondering if all your connections and passwords have failed. (Yes, she is going to blow her top, Captain!) Anyway, we spent two hours running the virus protection full scan, filled in a bogus form and then hastily erased everything, found every online web question and answer forum and left bitter complaints about the complete lack of assistance to sort things out (which would not register, because I couldn't sign in with my Email address ….Catch 22 again and so on). Such is life. If you need my new Email address it is captioned below but I am not even sure that my blog or Facebook will hang together much longer because they are based on my original Email address. Aaagghh!

New Email address - not so different!

So if we disappear off the planet and you cannot make contact, this is the reason!

Melons galore !

Meanwhile in blisteringly hot Crete, tempers other than my own have been frayed. Lots of Athenians have arrived in town with big cars and noisy children; our water tank has been replaced under guarantee and has stopped leaking everywhere and we are overwhelmed by the second glut of cucumbers, aubergines and wonderful figs! I have been slaving over the pickle jars to ensure that the large crop is not wasted but everyone's vegetable gardens are obviously coming to fruition simultaneously and I feel as though I am living in the realms of the magic porridge pot which never stops boiling over. We cannot get the fridge door closed! The beaches are heaving with tourists, which is good to see but we are not venturing out for swimming until tea time most days.

Two jars have been given away already!

The heat is getting to everyone and it was almost to the point of shotguns out yesterday. Friends of ours building a house in Crete (always a very risky enterprise) have had one problem after another with builders, licences, lawyers, neighbours, bureaucracy and so on. They are nearly at the point of completing and moving in – then the man owning the field opposite the plot pronounced that he was going to build a fence across the access road to their house because the roadway (which they have been using for 3 years) belongs to him (It doesn't but we have heard of this ploy being used before) and their lawyer who was dealing with the issue is on holiday for three weeks. It seems that blackmail and crossing palms with silver is at the bottom of it, but it is a bit of a scar on our little village which has always seemed so friendly to us but can close ranks when it comes to outsiders invading their space. A road block is a bit critical when the cement lorry is on its way, though, and people are coming and going to deliver goods and materials. Our friends have been grossly overcharged for work, in some cases paid twice over when one builder left the project and all the workmen had done the work, but not been paid. That individual had “sold” them a piece of land which did not belong to him and the horror story gets worse as they try to sort it out. Other workmen have left the site leaving broken and wasted items scattered everywhere and over-ordered materials which were not required. Painters came one day and left taking all the equipment and paints with them which subsequently 'disappeared'. When they turned up for work again needing more materials and equipment, they demanded more money over and above what they had already been paid. K & I wonder if it would have been easier to rebuild or renovate one of the very many existing houses needing tender loving care instead of covering the landscape with even more concrete, and with such a hassle. At least everyone would know the dimensions of the building plot and services would be laid on already. Every single stage of the build has met with some sort of opposition or dispute. We are agog with every new happening which is so like the worst kind of soap opera. Our friends should write a book when they have recovered from all the stress involved, even though John Humphreys and his son did it first.

Even if it lacks refinement and would never feature in Homes and Gardens, K & I realise that we got off very lightly with our little stone house!

A cool evening at last with the moon rising over the mountain