Exploding oven doors, broken dip-sticks
and all manner of silly happenings have taken up so much time this
week. We got yet ANOTHER delaying message from the French Pension
Service which seem designed to send up my blood pressure and kill me
off so that they don't have to bother about sorting out my very small
portion of pension. Sadly GGGGrrrrrrr in English typed into Google
Translate ends up as GGGGrrrrr in French also! We wonder if going to
work each day protected us from all this time-wasting nonsense all
around us now we are retired? I was a bit cross with Kimon for even
thinking about checking the oil and water in the car before I went to
Art Class on Tuesday because the entire dip-stick and housing came
away from the sump (whatever that is) and we haven't been able to use
the car all week. We spent many happy hours with the Greek Yellow
pages trying to find the Opel Dealers and the supplier of our cooker
to order spare parts and this exercised all our language abilities to
try and describe what a dip-stick was in Greek ….. (Rodders - they
call it a Diktis Ladiou …..) Anyway ….. enough of all this!
Later in the week, I had a great afternoon with Liz in the village
making cards with the biggest stock of craft supplies I have ever
seen. Her Apothiki is set up as a Craft Room absolutely bursting
with excellent stuff! We had a great time embossing, snipping,
glueing and glittering. There was so much to choose from that I was
spoiled for choice. Oh yes, and at the Post Office on Monday where I
went to dispatch parcels down under was a situation which could only
happen here. Behind the counter were two men; one was our usual
helpful chap who always sorts out our postage costs but next to him was a
man face down on the desk. I was at the Post Office for 15 minutes,
and despite many comings and goings, this recumbent fellow did not
move a muscle. I hope it was some sort of hangover and they were not
waiting for an ambulance. The lady from the supermarket dropped by
and asked about him. I gathered from their muffled giggles, that it
must have been one hell of a party!
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| We met at the Potami Dam |
Last Sunday, the CIC went on an outing.
About a dozen cars met at the large dam south of Rethymnon and our
Guide Joanna, who is a graduate of the University of Crete, gave us a
talk and a tour of some special places and routes where the members
of the allied forces had been hidden during the war on their
difficult journey through the mountains to be picked up from the
beaches down in the South of the Island. Such assistance was very
dangerous at that time and there are whole villages which suffered
terrible reprisals for their part in helping soldiers to escape.
Joanna sketched in the characteristics of the peoples who lived in
the deep gorges to the East of Mount Psiloritis and to the West of
the mountain. She explained how different colonies of peoples came
to settle in different landscapes and how they managed to scratch out
a living in different locations. (She is obviously an expert in
anthropology). We took photographs at a sculptural memorial to all
those brave souls in one village and their priest, who took terrible
risks to hide escaping allied soldiers. We drove to the village of
Apostoli and looked at other work of the artist who had carved the
memorial stone and in a glimpse of the slopes of Mount Psiloritis in
a short gap in the clouds, we could see some slopes with a small
dusting of snow. Our noses and ears were certainly feeling cold in
the damp atmosphere so we were glad to sit down at the restaurant
where lunch had been organised to have a swift raki to warm us
through.
 |
| Calliope shows us her house |
As lunch was not yet ready, we then set
off for another walk around the village where we admired the ancient
oak and olive trees and the pretty houses set into the steep
hillsides. A lady called Calliope showed us the interior of a
traditional house which I found fascinating with pictures of
ancestors, an apothiki containing the largest wine vessels ever, and
the brightest of rugs on the floor. I was amused to see a lovely
corner open fire place with a microwave oven taking the centre of
the hearth! Old and new – it was great! The visit to the village
house which had many hiding places had to be cancelled as the old man
of the house was not at all well now and it would have been wrong to
disturb him.
After the village tour we trooped back
to the taverna and had an over-large Sunday lunch in front of the
open log fire. Chicken pilaffi, pork and two types of salad, local
red wine, sesame and honey fritters, apple slices and more raki to
end the meal. It was a happy company and we really enjoyed the
event. Their pride in producing a large commendation signed by King
George VI was touching but we were sad to learn from Joanna that not
one postcard or letter had ever arrived after the War was over and no
soldiers or veterans had ever returned to the village in the
subsequent years. This was an embarrassing fact to swallow, and I
wondered how this could have happened and tried to think of rational
explanations. Were the escaping soldiers completely in the dark
about their whereabouts, were the troops from Australia or New
Zealand with little chance of returning, did they think that writing
would put people at risk or not reach their temporary hosts? – did
the soldiers survive at all? Hard facts to swallow at such a high
cost to the villagers. As our organisation is truly international
and well integrated, discussion of allied and enemy forces was not
something that we really wanted to spend too much time on as 21st
century Europeans. War is horrible, whatever side you are on and we
had no wish to reopen old wounds, so there were some painful moments
in learning of Crete's history even though none of us had been born
then.
A lovely thing happened – almost by
accident – on Tuesday afternoon. K and I plus our friend Ian are
the delighted custodians of an olive grove. An elderly couple who
had inherited a plot of land had come to tidy up their olive trees
and the job was beginning to be too much for them as the husband was
not very well. It is opposite the Mill and has an enticing set of
steps through a double gate into the enclosed garden. They were only
too relieved to find some people who would take care of it for them
and save them such a journey and hassle. There are 15 olive trees,
2 orange trees, 1 pomegranate and space for a vegetable patch –
possibly even a small apothiki to keep tools. We found a water tap with hoses laid on and our friend Ian was delighted to see a neat
space where chickens might have a house and run. So we spent the
afternoon lopping dead wood from the olive trees and thinning them
out so that they would crop nicely and be easier to reach. It will
be a lot of work to tidy it up, but just what we all needed to grow
some wonderful fresh veg! I am not sure how much time we are going to
have for blogging in the next few months – but watch this space for
photos of giant vegetables and bottles of olive oil when the time
comes!
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