BUSY BEES

Anogia - looking towards the snowy mountains

 K and I are recovering from a very busy week when there has been something happening away from home every day. You will gather from this that the patient is very much better after a nasty three weeks at the beginning of the year. Now that things are healing up and his medication has been changed, he has been up and about inside the house and in the car for one or two outings. This, together with some unexpectedly warm sunshine for February has cheered us up a lot.

Katerina, one of our Greek friends from the “Makers” sessions, organised a trip up to see the snow at Anogia last Sunday. Once-weekly into Rethymnon for “Making Bees” with kindred spirits has brought me some very welcome respite from sick-nursing and floor mopping! Kimon was going to come on the trip, but then remembered how steep and precarious all the roads and steps were there, so stayed behind. We had a fabulous morning up in the snowy sunshine and ate lamb cooked in a special way at one of the tavernas with a spectacular view of both mountains and the distant sea. It really helped to lift the winter blues. We all brought back tubs of galactabourika – a wonderful egg custardy dessert which K enjoyed whole-heartedly for his tea.

View from Roumeli

On Monday we went to kind friends for a very British lunch (including steamed treacle pudding!) On Tuesday I joined some pals for some retail therapy to a shop called Praktika near Heraklion. We found a cross between B & Q and John Lewis, with a small coffee bar at the entrance – so we started the day out with a cappuccino in the too hot sunshine. The next day, I had to get up at the crack of dawn to make the annual trip to the IKA office to renew our books. These are equivalent to Social Security books which grant equivalent medical treatment to patients as people of the same age in Greece. As all pensioners get free medical treatment, the books are very valuable to have and need to be renewed every February. Therefore, the entire elderly population of Greece queue up every February to get their books stamped. We were musing over how we would change this system while we waited with scores of other people. I was able to do Kimon's for him and it was the usual bureaucratic bun fight with Cretan ladies masterminding ways to jump the queue. There were four of us ex pat ladies in a huddle with a pile of books for selves and hubbies and Margaret had kept a copy of her completed form from previous years which showed all the workings in Greek. Your name, your father's name, your mother's name. Date of birth and residence. My passport had been renewed so I needed to give the lady a copy of my new passport. Margaret also had a new one and had to go off to get it photocopied and I just managed to stop the lady behind the desk fastening Margaret's copy to the back of Kimon's form!!! We staggered out of the office and sunk down thankfully for a cup of coffee and a biscuit glad that “IKA Books at Dawn” operation was over for another year.

When I got back and started getting logs from the log pile, I was set upon by a very ferocious and dirty looking cat hiding under the tarpaulin. I realised the poor thing was dreadfully sick and in agony. Sadly- or mercifully- the cat was dead by morning and I set about with double rubber gloves, a large disposable bed pad sheet (left over from hospital) and a woven sacking bag from which our logs had been delivered to wrap up and dispose of the deceased. Everyone knows that I am not a cat person, but the poor thing had been in a terrible state and a neighbour said that he had lost his cat as well. Poison had been put down somewhere to “kill mice”. We don't think so. I would have chosen a much more merciful way to control the cat population and there are organisations which organise the neutering of village cats. I think I need to find out more about this.

Thursday and Friday were taken up with our 'Makers' Session followed by haircuts by one of the ladies who is a retired hairdresser whilst our energetic Zacharoula turned up on Friday morning to help in the house. Zacharoula is training to be a nurse and is working for the organisation Voithia sto Spiti (Help in the House). She energetically tackles some work to keep the house clean and tidy and it saves my back a bit. Eventually, I think we will need to find a proper cleaning lady to do the heavier tasks as looking after K and myself is harder than it was.

On Saturday, a bag of lemons which had been looking at me reproachfully for several days went into the preserving pan. The fruit was so young and the pips so small that the batch did not gel very well, but K and I are really enjoying our toast and marmalade in the mornings. Then, Kostas our neighbour, turned up with 10 lovely fresh eggs. These delicious offerings – all different colours and sizes - were very welcome for breakfasts and home made cakes.

Although the house is quite warm in the mornings, we are not counting our chickens about the future weather, February and March can still get very cold and wet – so we will not put away our winter coverings for yet awhile. My portion of the roof painting has leaked a lot through the bathroom ceiling during the heavy rains while the main section of the roof tackled by our fantastic friends from England back in September has stayed dry all winter. Meanwhile, news reports about flooding from the UK are horrendous – so we hope that you are keeping warm and dry, wherever you are today.