RED CROSS AND RASHES

We were terribly impressed on Friday to have received a call back at home from the Doctor that Kimon had consulted at the Health Centre on Wednesday. Our visit there had been the usual scrum to begin with whilst we stood in an orderly queue and everyone slammed their papers through the window in front of us, as though we were invisible. Kimon was too ill to fight back but I did wonder how we would cope if it was an emergency. He has been very unwell for a couple of weeks and we thought he had caught a mystery virus which had made him horribly ill. A full check up and bank of blood tests, taken and analysed at the same building, did not seem to come up with anything, but the Doctor gave him one tablet from her desk drawer and said that it might help with the pain. It did - as K had the first full nights sleep for a good, long while, but we couldn't help wondering what it was that she had given him. When she called us at home, she asked how he was and whether the medication had helped. K said that it was very good and she replied “Come back on Monday and we will give you a prescription for more”. So we set off again today and deliberately waited until the early morning rush was over. We are not sure why everyone goes to the Health Centre so early in the morning, but it is always nearly empty by 11.15 am. So we turned up at 12.45 pm and more or less walked straight in. The nice doctor gave K two more tablets but said that she needed him to go the hospital in Rethymnon to have more tests, because she was fogged. The pain sounds like shingles, there is a rash, of sorts, but nothing like any rash I have ever seen before and K cannot bear going anywhere in the car because all the jolting around hurts so much. We'll get the bus into town tomorrow and hope that Rethymnon Hospital has a brilliant diagnostician at work.

Our new neighbours in the village from France arrived here on Saturday afternoon after an exhausting move out of Marseilles and an equally exhausting unloading here at the other end. They were celebrating being here for good and although we did make up beds for them in the outer guest room at the Mill, they realised that for a few months they would need much more space and found a very reasonable two bedroom flat nearby which will be somewhere they can house their furniture and settle down until their new build is complete, it is signed off by the powers-that-be and the electricity and water connections can be made.

Sunday was the annual Red Cross coffee morning celebration fund raiser. Accordingly, lots of us were up early making or icing cakes to take with us. I thought I had followed the instructions very closely from the Edmonds Sure to Rise Cookbook for my savoury muffins, but they were the usual lacklustre effort which greets all my efforts in Crete with the local flour, absence of cheddar cheese and then the discovery that (still stuck on imperial measures which mean something to me) I had put 25 g of butter in the mix instead of 50 g. The only thing I could claim about the finished articles was that they were slightly healthier than I had anticipated but nothing like the delicious cakes and morning tea offerings that we get in New Zealand. I have also heard that the power fluctuates so much here that the oven temperature is never as high as it indicates on the dial. Fortunately other guests had been much more successful with their efforts, so it was an enjoyable outing and the weather was fabulous. K was not well enough to go, but I bought a ticket for him and took back a paketo (=doggie bag). Sadly, we did not win a raffle prize, but as such things as live goats had been offered as prizes in the past, so this might be regarded as something of a bonus.

With K poorly, we have spent much more time in the house than usual, so there is nothing scintillating to report except that we eventually found out who had been helping themselves to Ian's pumpkin plants after suspecting one or two people of the heinous crime. It turned out to be some very large lizards who were living in the old stone wall around the outside of the garden. We have some seedlings to put into the keepo (garden), and a few fruitful tomato plants (which we are hoping will come up trumps soon) so we are hoping that the lizards are not minded to walk too far away from their wall to the veggie cafeteria! It is Spring Watch with a difference here!

BUGS AND BEETLES

 On Friday, about thirty of us gathered in a central meeting hall in Rethymnon to discuss free Greek lessons. Hoorah! After making enquiries and asking about for the last couple of years, we have stumbled upon Operation Odysseus. A joint initiative between the Greek Government and the EU to provide free language tuition for 'immigrants'. (That word stopped us in our tracks a bit, I can tell you) but we had heard that this had been available several years ago, and had assumed that lack of funding had stopped all these niceties! The teaching involves a high level of commitment – meeting twice per week for 3 hours for a few months and taking a little exam at the end of it. All, we retired folk from the CIC looked sober as we decided whether we would be able to last the course. The most important question to get right was the “Where” - so that as many as possible were able to get to the school appointed by car or bus, as necessary. However, this is progress of a sort and I am hoping to have reasonable conversations with our inquisitive neighbours in the village soon instead of the current games of charades!

K has been unwell for a few days. We are not sure whether he has caught a bug, (lurking perhaps in the hot, dusty winds from Africa, which has been known) so I am minded to take him to the Health Centre with his IKA book for an MOT. In fact, we could both do with a good check up, so this will be our next Herculean task to accomplish.

Ian with his spray bottle and mask

Or, it could be the effects of the wood preservative that we have been using to treat the huge tree trunk like beams of our upstairs loft and floorboards. Our mate Ian, arrived brandishing gloves, masks, spray bottle together with vim and vigour to get all the beams and ceiling done. I rollered one third of the floor and although the finish was not as transparent as I had hoped, it did the wide boards quickly and easily. We have all but used up one large can and need another to complete the job, but it will be a relief when the task is complete and we can get everything sorted out again. The down side is that the smell is so strong that we think we will have to finish treating the wood – go away for a day or two – and come back to do the final sorting out of furniture, rugs and disposal of rubbish. An assorted collection of “old boys” from K's school are arriving in June for a reunion, so time is definitely not on our side and we both hope to be feeling much better before then. We will need to be de-bugged, one way or another.

Time for a coffee break - check out the size of these oranges!

Cheerful sounds are reaching us from the street as neighbours shout “Chronia Polla” (many years) which means that it is somebody's name day today. Name Days after the saints of the Orthodox Church are a greater celebration than birthdays here. I have put together a brief list out of interest because it is always good to have an excuse to celebrate something:

Jan 7 – Janna (Jane, Janet?)

April 15 – Leonidas

April 24 – Elizabeth

May 9 – Chris

June 29 – Peter

August 30 – Alexandros

Sept 17 – Sophia

Oct 18 – Luke

Nov 25 – Katerina

Dec 2 – Merope

Dec 6 – Nicholas

Dec 9 – Anna

Dec 26 – Emmanuel, Emma

Dec 27 - Stephanos

30 June 2013 is the commemoration of All Saints Day here when all other names are celebrated! Lets hope that we are feeling much better before then.

BEAM ME UP SCOTTIE ..... and save me from my carbon footprint ....

 PA CROZIER SPEAKS … BACK AGAIN …..

A turbulent four months. New Zealand, UK, sickness and no green footprint. Mother's funeral, and an elderly father's difficulties to deal with and nothing really resolved. But peace and solitude in the village again. Time out with many friends and also time to catch up with one another. Seems interminable – a terrifying start to 2013 – does the 13 have a point here? We shall start over and hope to celebrate the new year that we missed by crossing the date line on the 30th December 2012. Complications and distance make life more difficult than can be imagined. These things are sent to try us ! The peace and respect of the villagers here in Skepasti is refreshing (so was the storm last week – not peaceful but good for the veg). A weekend down south in Matala was up-lifting. Good air and company, although an interesting drive! Help! Sun shone brightly and shorts & T-shirt weather made the going good.

MA CROZIER .. is still searching for things ….

We hung around in the UK for another 4-5 weeks after Mum's Funeral to help Father, now wearing our thick winter clothes just as the weather started to get really warm and did our best to help out – there was so much that we couldn't easily solve but it wasn't for the want of trying. A magic wand would have been good! Parting from the people you care about is not easy and we are dealing with such a muddle of feelings at the moment. K and I often wish we could emulate Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise and beam ourselves to different places without so much heartache.

It was lovely to get home to Crete mid week, and were promptly greeted by a resounding thunder storm and lots of heavy rain – which has been great for our window boxes and garden but left a lot of mopping and sweeping to do. The house is full of cases and boxes to unpack. Everything is upside down because we decided months ago that this year was the year that wood preserving of all the beams and woodwork would HAVE TO BE DONE! The furniture had been shifted and covered, mats taken up and things shrouded in sheets, but 'operation beetle bug' did not get any further. Consequently, we are both so disorientated that we can't find anything, or really think straight at all. We hope that we can snap out of it soon.

In the Olive Garden, the brushwood and clippings have all been taken away (Hooray!) but the woodpile has also disappeared (Boo!) and I was simmering a bit about that, but it was largely outside our control and we are now wondering how to assert ourselves and claim back our garden after it has been invaded by a flock of goats and half the village in our absence! Also, there had been some very extreme heat, winds and torrential rain which did for the veggie plants we had put in, so we have our work cut out trying to start all over. Fortunately, our good friend Ian has been helping and planting a plot of veggies too.

I had been looking forward to our archaeological trip to Phaestos since last Autumn, and we stayed overnight at Matala – a pretty resort on the South Coast bathed in warm sunshine – well known by many hippies in the 1960s – and set off, after a talk with slides about the different eras of palace buildings on the large site at Phaestos excavated by Italian archaeologists. After this learned stuff, we ended up at a fish restaurant and made a merry throng looking out over the caves (former habitations of aforesaid hippies) and sunset over the sea.

Today we toiled around the steps, stones and ramps at Phaestos – trying to imagine how all the buildings would have looked in ancient times and thinking what a wonderful vista the ancients had from their hill top site whilst I mused why it was impossible to get a decent teapot in Crete these days when the Ancient Minoans/Myceneans had no trouble making very beautiful ones. Clarisse Cliffe had nothing on their designs. 

Our journey there and back took longer than usual because of horrendous roadworks between our village and Rethymnon (which have been on-going for at least four years and seem not to have progressed very far – perhaps funds have run out) but which have this week caused maximum chaos for people travelling West. Consequently, we drove back via Heraklion in the East which added miles to our journey but we did at least keep moving. We stopped at a garage for a much needed break and .. what a view!

Hoping to spend a few days unwinding, unravelling, and giving our brains a rest ...