ON THE HOME STRAIGHT ...

Greek dancing hasn't changed much since Minoan times!

It has been Panegyri this weekend and all the Greeks are holidaying big time. I tried to align it with one of our UK Church Festivals like Pentecost or All Saints, but it is not comparable. The festival is to celebrate the Dormition of the Virgin Mary and rates second in importance to Easter here. The internet stopped working too – a sure sign that lots of people are on line greeting one another by Skype. The weather has been really hot and steamy, sleeping is not easy and mosquitoes are being pursued with the full force of my armoury of plug ins, spray cans and swatters. We are also trying a new product from the UK called “Incognito” which is working very effectively and is a totally natural and organic product. We are impressed so far (and I am not on commission).

While all the rest of the village was celebrating with family, I attacked housework with gusto and got all the road, terrace and floor sweeping done, followed by mops to deal with a few weeks gathering of sand and dust around the house. It looks much better but again, all our terrace flowers have expired without constant attention and we are wondering whether we have got the right sort of compost or earth to keep our garden happy. Fortunately the geraniums seem to be indestructible but the vine was blighted from early on, either by hot winds or rain at the wrong time for the fruit to develop properly; such is life.

The moon rising over the mountains

On Saturday morning, Panormo was heaving with tourists and locals. As all the streets and alley ways are narrow and rustic, the big lorries delivering water and fresh foods after the holiday Friday when everyone comes home to spend time with their families had formed a giant Chinese puzzle of drivers forwarding and reversing into minute gaps available while others shouted “Ella, Ella” and folded and unfolded wing mirrors as required. I nipped out early in the morning for some fresh supplies and got completely boxed in by cars and lorries, so zig-zagged my way to the quayside car park and walked back up to the village, stopping at the little church on the way to light a candle. My brief glimpse of the sea as it glinted in the morning sun was tempting, but I did not have long to stop and I am hoping to catch up with diet and exercise after all the hospital incarceration is behind us. I keep my trainers with me to walk wherever I can around the hospital grounds, but the circuit of the campus or a trip down to the nearest pharmacy is enough on hot, busy roads with ambulances, buses and trucks thundering back and forwards all the time.

Pacific Dreams on the Laptop at the Hostel

As far as the poor patient is concerned, well, we were warned. We have reached the trickiest part of the radiotherapy treatment and poor old K is spending lots of the time rushing to the loo since nothing he eats or drinks – even with the beastly low residue diet seems to make much difference. A prescription of Imodium did little to help and it is now getting hard to judge the right time to make the hour's journey in the car from the hospital to home because there is no place to stop on the way. 6 more sessions and counting ….. thank the Lord for Tena pants and all the home nursing tips I learned last year!

All this means that we have been closeted away a lot and doubly glad to have our TV set with us, because even if the internet is down, we are running through all our DVDs and watching all the Directors' Cut versions and deleted scenes, so that we don't get too weary of the same old films all the time. Effectively, we have missed out on two summers running and I am longing to return to some sort of normality and a chance to celebrate. The five days at the hospital hostel drag slowly and the two days at home intensively washing, ironing, cooking and cleaning form an oddly disorientating routine. I had been up since 5.00 a.m. this Sunday morning making bread, a cottage pie, some pork patties (akin to sausage rolls, but without the resource of sausage meat and without onions which aren't allowed), doing a mammoth pile of washing and ironing before the temperatures became too hot at 40C. Sleep had been impossible so I thought I would start on all the chores early. Having finished the cooking and looking forward to my morning coffee, I started to attack the resulting mound of crocks in the sink.  Meanwhile, the village neighbours were calling to me through the window ... “Where are you today? There are still leaves that need sweeping up on your doorstep!” Ggggrrrr! Kimon explained that I was cooking for the next seven days but I had to show my face with a dustpan and brush, if only for a minute. Being a Greek housewife isn't for sissies.