LEARNING OUR VOCABULARY

	Singular			Plural
	Masc.	Fem.	Neuter	Masc.	Fem.	Neuter
Nom	o	n	to	oi	oi	ta
Gen	tou	tns	tou	twn	twn	twn
Acc	to(v)	tn(v)	to	tous	tis	ta

Greek School got a whole lot harder this week. Having put our best efforts into learning the Greek alphabet and mastering a few short paragraphs about “What is your name?” and “Where do you come from?” and “who is that sitting next to Monika at the nice party?” ... “I don't know his name but he comes from Holland etc”. Next we had been lulled into a false sense of security by learning about different rooms of the house and what belongs where. So I now know what a toilet cistern is (useful) the names for sheets, blankets, quilts and the difference between a frying pan and a casserole. But we left our class with the instructions to copy out and learn the list of words above without knowing quite what they were. In part, they seemed to be something to do with things belonging to something or someone or lots of people – and whether the things were male, female or neuter (nothing much to help us decide except perhaps the ending of the word, if you know it), whether they were singular, plural, subjects, objects, indirect objects and the endings having to agree. Knowing we couldn't do this in our own mother tongues, let alone in Greek, we all cudgelled our brains a bit and slunk home with a bit of a headache hoping to find some instructions somewhere. Or as one person put it – how can you easily learn a language which has three completely different words for a table lamp? Its not much use if you really need to be able to call for the fire brigade! However, we will learn them by rote and hope that the penny drops sooner or later. I picked up an amusing book by Brian Church called 'Learn Greek in 25 Years' and began to realise what he was on about.

To give me some credit, I showed all the lesson papers to Kostas and Angelliki at the unofficial bar/taverna/barbers/meeting point near the Mulberry Tree and they seemed as confused as I was. However they were delighted with the diagrams of the rooms of the house and immediately conducted their own vocabulary test by way of solidarity with lots of miming and laughing as we puzzled out various objects. Trying this whilst spearing small items of meze on cocktail sticks (home grown cucumber, olives, small rusks and feta cheese) added to the pantomime performamce.

K's blood test results came back from the Lab with a very high reading for the prostate test. We had hoped that this would normalise after the infection had passed, but it had not decreased much. This is disappointing and means travelling to Heraklion for a biopsy which is scary enough in English but doubly difficult in a foreign hospital. Fortunately we have friends around who know the ropes, so we will get a few instructions and encouragement from them before setting off. Hopefully, the Health Centre in Perama will phone for us to make an appointment which may help, but experience tells us not to count on it. Wish us luck .. oh, I learned this … Kali tiki!

Our broadband has improved enough to follow most of the big matches from Wimbledon in recent days and this has been good while the weather is hot and the beaches are crowded. All these families on holiday in the hotels and restaurants means good news for businesses in the local resorts and they seem to be working very hard and keeping busy. K & I are not sure how they sustain such long hours each day – it must be gruelling and we understand why so many simply shut every winter while the proprietors go into hibernation. Everyone with a tourist business in Crete must long for October when the days are cooler and the first of the Autumn rains start.