CHRISTMAS AT CROZIERS

We are always delighted that Crete seems to pass by the hectic lead up to Christmas that happens elsewhere in the world and we enjoy the peaceful laid back shopping and instinct to keep things simple. I wish I had remembered this in my preparations for Christmas Day.  There are a few disadvantages, though, and being so far from family and friends is just one of them.

In the village, it was lovely to hear the children who came round the village carol singing on their last day of school wearing Santa hats and bashing triangles. Greek carols seem a bit odd to me without much of a melody except when I managed to identify jingle bells, but the children's excitement was lovely!

So, far from home and resisting the feeling of it being 'always winter and never Christmas', we tried to keep our spirits up by planning a traditional lunch and listening to lots of carols and the sort of Christmas songs which drive everyone mad when Christmas shopping in the UK. One drawback here is that Greek postal workers don't have the same urgency to deliver Christmas parcels by Christmas as the good old UK Post Office. Christmas is just another Church festival to them so all our Christmas packages were still “somewhere else” until well after Christmas and some have still not made it. Primed by the family in the UK and NZ who had made a special effort to post things in good time, I toured all the courier and post offices locally to see if any were lurking behind desks somewhere, but no joy. On the 30^th December, this lovely garland turned up from New Zealand in cut out and glue together form, which we set about immediately. It did our hearts good.

After a couple of years of flunking off (or being otherwise occupied), it was our turn to host Christmas lunch. This is quite an enterprise for 10 in the UK, but serving up Turkey and all the trimmings in Crete is anything but simple and needs organisation. Things like stuffing, gravy mix, sausage meat, custard powder, mincemeat, shortcrust pastry and ground ginger, parsnips and brussels sprouts, for instance are not readily available and have to be ordered from a UK shop (fairly distant) or brought back from the UK in bulging suitcases along with the teabags and marmite. As for crackers … a lovely friend arranged for the delivery of these via a UK to Crete van delivery. Therefore the build up to the festive meal was a bit frenetic in the making of mincemeat, Christmas puddings and pies all done from scratch without the option of Tescos, if all the culinary arrangements went astray. The vegetables came back in my suitcase and were blanched and frozen late at night on my return. My pastry has always been suspect, so I tried three dry runs with different recipes and in the end not many people touched the mincepies anyway and they would have been a feast for the birds unless Rik the Builder hadn't taken a few away for the family. We waited until Christmas eve when the Christmas lights eventually made it via Amazon and everything was a bit stressed getting the house ready and large scale veg prep.

On Christmas morning, three of us ex-pats from Skepasti danced round each other stirring sauces, making starters and heating gravy a good while before the other guests arrived. In the end, the feast itself cooked well in spite of the power going on and off all morning and no means of keeping 10 plates warm simultaneously or everything in the oven at once. However, the Crozier Christmas pudding which had been steaming in the slow cooker upstairs turned out beautifully without a trace of suet available – thanks to the NZ Emunds-Sure-to-Rise-Cookbook recipe!

K and I had a duvet day on Boxing Day to recover. We will think about a completely different menu if we do it again – more buffet style and less of the roast dinner - as we were on our knees.

Since Christmas day, the village has been very quiet. I crept out on Christmas eve with a small gift for each of the little children in the immediate neighbourhood and left an enormous tray of Thornton Chocolates for our lovely friend Angeliki and Kostas at the little kafeneon as “English chocolates are her favourite”! True to form, Kostas appeared half an hour later with dozens of eggs and an enormous bag of oranges from his garden and we are struggling to think how to use them all up as Ma Crozier can't face marmalade making yet awhile … after all the kiwi fruit from before and still being on the one egg per week diet.

Clearing up after the party, we seem to have been left with a large supply of home made chutneys and marmalade brought as gifts which will need to be redistributed when we next get together along with 4 leftover crackers and a lost earring!

We were all a bit blurry by this time ...

We approach New Year simply longing for peace in the world and a time where lots of good things happen so that folk can learn to trust each other again. It would be good if all the rain would stop for a bit as well as we hear about the flooding of homes in various places and look forward to things drying out and better defences for the future.    We send our love and best wishes to you and your families for a happy, healthy and joyful New Year wherever you are.

Kalli chronia! Have a good year!

FESTIVE FORAYS

Festive greetings from the Croziers. The long intermission is because life has been hectic for the last few weeks and each day has given us a new challenge. Ma Crozier also had a lovely time in the UK to start some Christmas shopping and check on progress to the new house.

Back in Skepasti, the Mayor of the village turned up with a truck load of kiwi fruit and one crate per househould was distributed (whether you really wanted them or not). The fruit, which otherwise would have gone to landfill was on the small size, very hard and I had two or three marmalising sessions and still have to nip out each morning to see if any more of the bullets have softened a little in the porch. I managed to contrive some orange, cranberry and kiwi sauce which MIGHT be OK for Christmas lunch … I will let you know the verdict. Meanwhile, kiwi jam (looking dispiritingly like frogspawn) is now residing in the store cupboard for when we feel brave enough. The following week, a large consignment of oranges by the crate and more, larger kiwis by the crate arrived. I had a total of 3 crates of kiwis on the front porch and everyone we knew was trying to give away kiwis. Eventually I found a seasoned jam maker from a distant village to take one crate for her kitchen. I suspect that a lot of the smaller, less palatable fruit may well end up in the ground but more widely dispersed! I wonder what Archaeologists of the future would make of that!

Kiwis Galore!

Christmas Lunch will be at our house this year and local expats from UK and France have been invited. I'm feeling a little nervous about cooking a Cretan turkey on Cretan power for that number of people, but hopefully all the light and power will hang together long enough to put a meal together … Watch this space. I was slightly peeved that my ready-to-roll icing was allowed by security at Manchester airport but confiscated at Athens (where to be honest it had softened a lot) and I wished that it had been taken from me at first so I didn't carry it around all day until 40 minutes away from my destination! Such is life and the plus side is that I have found a store on the outskirts of Rethymnon which stocks everything needed to ice cakes and decorate them.

We have been to quite a number of Christmas parties already and have a few more in the diary. Last weekend was the Christmas do for “the Friends of Animals” - mostly ex-pats who have to raise money to veterinary care for all the lost and stray animals hereabouts. There is also lots happening to feed and clothe refugees and many organisations are collecting warm woollies and winter clothing so that those coming out of the sea by raft have some dry clothing available. Who would embark on such a journey unless they were absolutely desperate? I can hardly bear to contemplate why many, many small children do not make it alive - so many parents are totally traumatised on their arrival on many counts.

We have been reading about horrendous flooding in the North of the UK and hoping that things are better and warm homes have been found for all the flood victims before Christmas. I can't imagine anything worse inside your home than flood water, especially if this is not the first time it has happened. By some reverse trick of weather patterns, Kriti has been wallowing in sunshine and warmish day temperatures for longer than usual. Then after a week of overcast skies, the dark brooding clouds over Mount Psiloritis parted at last and revealed the gleaming white snowy slopes glistening in the sunshine. The nights are cold though and I need pyjamas, dressing gown, hat, gloves and socks to keep warm. Somebody please tell David Cameron that it gets very cold in Mediterranean countries too and our log pile is diminishing fast. We paid National Insurance for as long as everyone else and are every bit in need of cold weather fuel allowance!

Cute donkeys knitted at Makers to raise funds for the Donkey Sanctuary

Tomorrow is the last Makers gathering, apart from a Christmas meal, before the holidays. We are all taking bags of warm things to contribute to a school collection in Rethymnon. I have also to find some wrapping paper because this is the most difficult item to track down in Greece. Much of the contents of our turkey dinner will have been brought over from England or bought in the UK store which is a bit of a distance away. Our local village shop (jokingly referred to as Sainsburys) is looking a bit short of rations these days and Kostas, the proprietor, has stopped stocking cigarettes and many other items since times are so hard for the villagers and the shop is suffering. All these good souls are trying to exist on what they can grow on their veggie patches, bread and eggs. They all look cheerful, though and keep busy.

Panormo - outside the Post Office

I hear sounds of step ladders and struggling outside while K contemplates putting Christmas lights in the tree outside. Fare thee well for now – I think I am needed!

HANGING ROCK

 You can tell we are becoming as introspective as our Greek village neighbours when all the talk revolves around a huge lump of rock left suspended high up over the main national road following the torrential downpours of recent weeks. Our village was on the telly! Life was exciting for a day with heavy lifting equipment, large cranes, TV crews and lots of usual local suspects turning up in front of the TV cameras hoping that someone would take action before the monstrous thing obeyed the laws of gravity and killed off a few passing motorists underneath.

Picking up our lovely Lena from Panormo, we spent a couple of days doing quite a long diversion – just to avoid that small section of road. However, hanging rock is there no more. The police arrived on Wednesday and closed the road, all the heavy equipment got into action with lorries, chains, a tanker lorry full of water which was pumped to the top of the escarpment and flushed down under the base of the monster to give some leverage. After some hours, broken chains, workmen shouting and bulldozers reversing for their lives, the huge thing broke in two and did a majestic slide, breaking into smaller pieces on the way to the road side. Then the bulldozer set to and started to clear up the debris which is now gathered and piled up at several spots along the side of the road (and has blocked off the access to and from the bus stop). However, honour is satisfied and no one has been injured in the process. Bravo to all those good souls!

Lena the Cleaner, a very sweet young lady, brought a small plastic bag of fruit from her garden on Wednesday. Beautiful mandarins freshly picked (what a glorious smell) and some PRICKLY PEARS! I tried to arrange my face as Lena proceeded to peel them - trying not to look horrified since the last adventure with prickly pears left their microscopic splinters all round the kitchen sink and we couldn't escape without throwing all the washing up brushes, sponges, gloves and stuff away. This time it was WORSE! Lena had peeled one of the pears and left it on a plate to taste saying how good it was for you. After this and oblivious to the spines herself, she took all the brushes and dusters round the house and left the little splinters EVERYWHERE. So for the next few days, having found and got rid of one, I almost immediately picked up another from somewhere else. They were on the sofa cushions and in my knitting. I have been squinting with my specs, magnifying glass, tweezers, selotape and nailclippers to try and get rid of them. Then I had to don two pairs of rubber gloves and clean all the surfaces of the house again! The flavour of the fruit is … OK … but nothing makes it worth tackling the tiny hairlike spines that are impossible to see and equally impossible to get rid of! Of course, it is the thought that counts, but my experience compels me to advise curious people to avoid prickly pears like the plague as there are much tastier fruits … and they are just not worth it! And they are full of hard pips!

After a week or so of dark, cloudy wintry weather, the sun came out this week and it was almost like a second Spring. All the plants started to bud and bloom and the garden is coming to life again. Kimon took himself off to Panormo at the crack of dawn to try some fishing. He has been planning this for more than a year, so his increased mobility on the 'mobility scooter with attitude' is giving him a real new lease of life and independence. It is very good to see.

I spoke too soon. The telephone has just rung and it was the would-be fisherman on the other end. The quad bike is stuck in some sand on the beach and K needs rescuing. I have just gone to the car and realised that the roadway outside the kafeneon has been dug up by the Water Board and is now impassable leaving our car stranded on the wrong side of it so that I am also marooned! Fortunately, Stuart answered his phone and has gone to the rescue. We have settled for interdependence!

Afternote: A Friday evening out at a lovely traditional kafeneon in Achlade, a nearby village, gave us the opportunity to see all the youngsters of the village hard at work. Demetra, one of the three daughters of the family, took me to a small hall next door where lots of long tables were covered in fir cones, almonds, acorns, glass holders and candles. They were assembling table centres incorporating a calendar to sell at Christmas and raise funds for their village youth centre. Having bought one for 5 euros, congratulated all the people at work, the older sister stopped mid-flight for a brief chat. Victoria was rushing off to meet with the Hellenic Red Cross volunteers who are off to Mytilini in Lesvos, where hundreds of refugees are arriving by rubber rafts. She said that many more small children than reported were drowned on these desperate voyages and it was very difficult work for them. I said that we sent our prayers with them and she said “Oh yes we are going with lots of prayers from old people” (this made me gulp a bit). She wondered why I was wincing at a pain in the pad of my thumb, I mentioned that I had still a few splinters from prickly pears … “Ah, this is easy”, she said. “You need to cover your hands with oil and a spoonful of sugar to give them a sugar scrub”. I tried it. It works.

BACK TRACKING ...

Waiting for the ferry at Rafina

Well, winter proper is here. Mount Psiloritis is covered in a thick grey blanket and the closer foothills have disappeared from view as well. We arrived back in the village on Friday from our travels in Evia and were relieved to get back from the airport in dry, if overcast weather because it was after dark by the time we arrived home. Ma CrozIer had driven round half of Evia from the Southern tip to the half-way point at Chalkis and back again. She is very relieved to be back without incident. Summer to Winter is a full commitment here in Crete because all the lightweight summer clothes have to be put away and the heavy woollens retrieved. There is no space for two seasons clothes to live side by side as the difference is so extreme. We had delayed thinking about shifting heavy cases before we left and set about hauling out our big storage trunks in a joint effort as soon as we got back.

Evia was interesting after thirty-two years. We remembered a dry dusty landscape with a few desultory bars and cafes by the roadside, but what a difference now. Far in the south where the main road crosses the mountains, the roads were in poor shape with lots of hairpin bends. Evia has adopted wind farms in the blustery south and there are miles of them. K was also amazed to see two or three fish farms in the little bays close to the road. The weather was bright for late October and there were a few people still swimming in the resorts we passed.

Marmari - Hotel Thea

As we progressed further North, the roads improved and we noticed that places that had been fishing villages years before were now fair size towns with suburbs. The roadsides had large outlet stores, petrol stations, garden centres and large supermarkets from Carrefour and Lidl. Chalkis was enormous with a confusing one-way system where we promptly got lost and opted for the nearest paying car park we found. It was only 100 yards from the hotel booked, but it was difficult getting our luggage there and we rashly got a taxi to drop us all off with our bags.

Chalkida

Chalkis was nice and I had planned a day of shopping and getting my hair done (which is never easy travelling without the proper equipment). We hadn't accounted for the fact that Wednesday was Oxi Day – a national holiday – and absolutely everything was shut except for restaurants. After enjoying the parade from our balcony, we ate out at a popular taverna on the front called Delphinia where the staff were working flat out to get the crowds of customers served.

On Thursday, we started the journey back. As we emerged from the big city with masses of cars, traffic lights and confusion, we got to the point in the journey where the sign post said Eyboia N and Eyboia B. We had to make a decision between turning left (B) or going straight on (N). I knew that we should be travelling South and couldn't decide which road to take. After a few minutes “dialogue” about whether the signs were in Greek or not and whether N meant North or not. They were in Greek and N stood for South! We stopped at a filling station to check and carried straight on heading South (N)!!! All very confusing. Sadly, we had not left enough time to get to the archaeological sites, but that will have to await a further visit.

The front path to the old house.  

On the other hand, we were delighted to find K's parents old beach villa which had been sold about 30 years ago and was hidden by vegetation, but still there. We feared that a large hotel complex may have swallowed it up. The trees, just saplings in our time were now mature tamarisks and pines. They shaded the road which was lined with lovely shrubs and seemed like woodland. Stopping delightedly to take photos of the house and causing all the neighbourhood dogs to bark and yelp, a next door neighbour emerged to ask who we were and after a few moments, we all recognised one another! The Chronos's had been friends of K's parents and working colleagues, so catching up with their son Hector and family was a good moment.

The souvlaki joint had changed a bit!

After pressing on to Eretria, where we used to catch the ferry to Athens and eat souvlakis bought from an old wooden shack on the water front years back, we were overawed to find a largish town, schools, sports pitches and apart from the Dreams Island out at sea, couldn't recognise much else. In spite of this we stopped for a coffee before continuing our journey.

Karystos

We had time to spare, so we continued further than our destination of Marmari to the southernmost town of Karystos where we stopped for lunch. The whole trip had featured fish on the menu to an overwhelming extent – so we enjoyed it for the last time before getting back to our lovely hotel in Marmari for the night. We needed an early night to get to the ferry to Rafina in the morning, then to the airport and our flight back to Heraklion.

Crete is very cloudy and rainy still, so with some fair weather under our belts, we are tackling the log burner and the wardrobe change round with renewed energy.

Kalomina! x

NOW IS THE WINTER OF OUR DIS – CON – STENT

 This week has been overwhelmingly silly, but we are relieved to be near the end of it. The weather closed in on Thursday and we have days and nights of heavy rain and flooding in the area. A trip to Panormo to visit the Pharmacy was a bit like white water rafting and I am still trying to dry my trainers out after trying to wade across the road (temporarily a fast flowing river). In five seconds, the downpours were so heavy that my raincoat and all my other clothes were completely soaked.  There have been lots of torrents, landslips, rocks in the road and waterfalls but the forecast for Monday is much better.

Ma Crozier is feeling a little more comfortable every day but, due to the torrential downpours, we are having problems getting out and about and the washing dry. Yianni did a sterling job on the exterior painting of the house – so now the roof is complete and the walls are an interesting creamy yellow shade. We look much smarter. Lena the Cleaner is wonderful and we were surprised to miss our bedside rugs after her visit last weekend. They had all been shampooed and were out on the terrace to dry! Such energy. Rik fitted the new window a couple of weeks back, and we now have a modern one with built in fly screen, roller blind and a ventilation pane which tilts nicely. We opted for the traditional local windows a few years back but the new ones are much better than the old wooden shutters which crashed about in the wind unless wired together or locked shut, darkening the room completely.

On Monday, I visited the gastroenterologist to ask about management of the stent which I had been told had been inserted back in August and what needed to be done next. She looked at my hospital notes, all in medical Greek, and said that no stent had been used and not to worry about it. I was too dumbfounded to be joyful about this because I was sure that the Specialist HAD told me about it as I came round from the anaesthesia along with other pertinent instructions.

The next day I visited a GP type doctor and said that it was a bit crazy but could I just double check that there was or was not a stent? He understood my empuzzlement, shrugged his shoulders a bit and said "Well this is Greece and anything can happen" whilst handing me a note to take for a belt-and-braces Xray.

On Thursday, we set off early in very strong winds to Rethymnon for the Xray and after the photographic session, I was carrying a huge film envelope which kept being swept round like a sail as I carried it back from the Diagnostics Clinic to the car. K and I couldn't resist taking a peep. I thought I could see a rectangular blob in the right sort of place, so assumed that this was the pesky thing. The GP doctor put the film up on his lamp screen and said “No you DON'T have a stent. There are metal clips here (oh?) and what is this dark blob over here, I ventured? Oh that. He looked at me and grinned. That's just wind!

Embarrassing or what? Something lost in translation? Wrong information to the patient on the wrong trolley? Does anaesthetic make you imagine things you had never heard of before? Whatever the cause, it is all good news. Miraculously, I am stent free (and trying to ignore the reference to metal clips) !!!

My mood was euphoric on the drive back home, because at last K and I can plan for a few days away. What with one hospital and another, we haven't been free to do so for three years!  The weather looks dodgy, but never mind, it will be wonderful to escape for a day or two. It has been over thirty years since we visited Evia where K's parents had a villa in the 60s-70s and we wanted to take the opportunity to make one trip back there to see how much it has all changed. There is plenty of interesting archaeology on the island, especially at Eretria,  and I hope to take lots of photos.  Wish us luck! x

'ERE THE WINTER STORMS BEGIN ...

Greetings from your foreign correspondent. Back from the confines of hospital and creeping round the house a little gingerly since the wearing of loose pyjamas seems the best choice right now. All went well. My pesky gall bladder is on its way to Athens for Histology and whomsoever the recipient is can be confident that they are very welcome to it. I have three minor incisions, some prickly stitches and an allergy to the wound dressings used by the hospital, but we smartly changed these and I am trying various combinations of alcohol (topical!) and anaesthetic creams to cool down the itch until I can consult Niko at the Pharmacy on Monday.

I had an interesting time in hospital, sharing a room with another lady who had had her spleen removed (horrid op) but was making a good recovery. As she had a constant stream of visitors – young and old – bringing flowers, cakes, home made goodies and so on all day long, it was lovely to see how the extended family worked, Cretan style. She was looked after fabulously by her sister (I recognised her complete exhaustion) during the night and a changing pattern of friends by day. The two sisters both had a trio of gorgeous looking young sons with curly black hair, bushy beards and flashing eyes. (Coor!) When one of them explained in perfect English that my giddiness was due to low blood pressure, I asked him where he had acquired perfect English. He said that he had been at University in Birmingham for four years.

They were a wonderful family but the best thing to observe was hair wash day. If anyone remembers the dressing of the bride scene from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, this evening had all the lovely moments of communal fiesta! First of all, sister arrived with two large bin bags and a washing up bowl with another four people. I watched intrigued to see what would happen, since my night carer had used large bin bags to wrap round my middle and got me to lean forward over the shower, but this variation was much more fun. One bin bag was placed inside another and their bases rested in a bowl on the floor. The patient was helped to lie down on her bed top to toe with her head hanging from underneath the bed rail and her hair into the open bag. A young lady (think she was a proper hairdresser) armed herself with shampoo and the room began to smell of nice perfume as they worked. About three older ladies trouped backwards and forwards from the bathroom with large water bottles of hot water from the bathroom while they washed, massaged and rinsed while the water gathered into the ballooning bin bags. It worked well. After the shampoo, the hairdresser got out her hairdryer and brushes to start styling for the lady now seated. The older ladies in the group dug about in shopping bags and produced freshly washed and ironed sheets and set about stripping and remaking the bed. I can't think of anything nicer or more healing than all these acts of kindness and teamwork. The whole experience certainly beat day-time telly into a cocked hat as they danced and joked around each other. It was clear that this lady was a very special person with a benign army of friends and family - she had visitors young and old who all greeted me and wished me perastika too.  I hope she gets well very soon.

My plan for finding someone to help clean the house fell flat a bit because we were given the details of a nice young lady called Lena, but sadly her mother-in-law died the Saturday morning we were supposed to meet and greet her, so it all had to wait another week and I was limping about the kitchen looking for mops, sponges and bottles of bleach with much less energy than the week before. Anyway, Lena seems lovely and has agreed to come twice per week and we will see whether she likes us and we get on with her to make things permanent.  We are hopeful.

Then Rik the Builder, who had been consulted about replacing one of the upstairs windows way back in the summer managed to get the manufacturers to put it together, also to arrive at the weekend and I could see that my recovery period was going to be anything but peaceful. As luck would have it, one of the sheets of glass got dropped and a corner broke, so it has delayed the installation another few days, for which we are rather grateful. We had also discussed finishing the painting the roof and outside of the house – since I was out of action – with a friend in the village and after three reminders, he eventually turned up to start this morning! This will be good and we can be reassured that we are ship-shape for winter without me having to shimmy up the ladder and skate about on the roof with rollers on poles this time around!

The skies are very grey this morning with a hot wind from the south. Most of our chums are away in Matala at an archaeological weekend to explore new sites down south. I am sorry to miss so many treats but seem to be living under a long period of force majeur these days! Then other friends from England phoned to say they were on holiday near Rethymnon this week and I am turning over in my mind whether I feel strong enough to drive all the way there only a few days after surgery. The wound site is OK, but my eye-sight is still whirring a bit after the anaesthetic and the strength of the winds is increasing all the time.  Not a good time to be out and about, sadly.

I still have one procedure to go as they remove the stent from the common bile duct (hopefully) by gastroendoscopy and after this I hope that things will be back to normal, whatever that means! In the meantime, the winds are beginning to howl and I think the roof paint has gone on, just in the nick of time.

Adieu x

WINTER IS HERE!

We have all been taken by surprise that the weather has taken a change for the Autumn - wet, cloudy, windy and difficult to gauge each morning whether it is a full wash day or whether not to risk it!  The upstairs windows which stay open with net coverings all the summer were closed up during the night this week when the winds started to blow the windows back and forth, so we are gearing ourselves up for the winter without really feeling that we got to grips with summer.  There are definitely some summer clothes that did not see the light of day this year!

The kitchen has been dominated by an unexpected windfall of beautiful ripe peaches, two crates of which, were distributed to every house in the village.  Apostoli, the mayor was summoned to the Dimos (local town hall) with a truck to pick up crates and crates of them to be distributed!  We have guessed at why they are going for nothing, but not really sure.  Peaches do not keep, so we were busy thinking how we could use them or preserve them.  This tested the grey matter and I distributed a few further to friends before they were passed their best.  With the rest,  I managed to bottle some, make lots of jellies, do a batch of peach and red pepper chutney, and stew some for breakfasts.  There was no room in the freezer to freeze any, but despite the ripeness on the outside, the peaches were quite hard on the inside, so stewing them was by far the best option.  I rounded off this mammoth session by looking up Christmas pudding and mincemeat recipes to make with other ingredients, so that I won't have to worry about it when I get home from hospital. Our fridge and freezer are HEAVING!

Kimon has been having a few difficulties with the quad bike which seems to have been supplied with a dodgy battery, so we have spent quite a few mornings jump starting it from the car battery.  Today he has taken it back to the shop and we hope that they will replace the battery under the warranty. Shops these days do not necessarily carry much stock, so we hope it will be easy to do.  The bike shop is right next door to a busy new cafe, so he will have a comfortable wait.

Boy Racers!

While K was there, I had been invited to a Saints day festival at the village church in Exantas, which is a village fairly close to us and where have a number of good friends.  Stalwart parishioners get there at 7.00 a.m. and stay until 10.00 a.m. while lots of 'Papas' and higher orders of clerics gather to chant the liturgy and celebrate St Cyprian's day.  We all arrived (later than 7) and lit candles, then discovered that it was virtually standing room only but squeezed into a corner at the back.  The faithful went on from lighting candles to kissing icons and moving through the church.  Some men lit candles, kissed the icon and gravitated from the front door and out of the side door in about 45 seconds.  I guess you could call it a nodding acquaintance with God, but in fact, the church was so full and the candles giving off such a heat, that it was a relief to get that movement of people and after 45 minutes or so of concentrating hard on the liturgy and the sermon, standing up and sitting down in time with others, we did the same.  Out of the corner of my eye, I was amused to see that the candles procured for a few euros and lit on the ornate trays of sand were swiftly grabbed out of the sand, extinguished and put in an ornate used candle bin so that there was room for plenty more!  I felt a bit cheated that my prayer candle had only had a minute or so to send its signal heavenwards!  However, the numbers of people involved were beginning to cause a fire hazard, so by the end of the service I could see why this was a sensible precaution.  It was a relief to escape the claustrophobia inside and exit to the churchyard, thoughtfully provided with a perimeter wall built with seats in it all round.  A trestle table had been laid with a snowy white cloth, and here loaves and loaves of Holy Bread were cut and distributed to all who gathered outside with water and soft drinks.  A book of raffle tickets circulated - and as the prize was a poor unfortunate sheep tethered in the corner of the churchyard - we were all mightily relieved not to win this.  We had a hilarious 5 minutes imagining what Aegean Airlines or Easyjet would say to an attempt to get a sheep into an overhead locker and made a mental note that the best outcome for the winner was to offer it to the local village priest (and hope that he invited you to the barbecue!)

The week has been dominated by packing bags for the hospital and trying to think of phrases which I might need whilst there which, after consulting Google Translate, have been put in a small notebook. On Saturday, we are being introduced to a young lady who may be helping with housework for a few weeks while I am in hospital and afterwards, if it all works well.  Let's hope so.

The weather is a bit miserable here, so by the law of opposites, we are hoping that the skies are clear and dry for the replacement of roof and new loft which is starting next week at our new home in the UK.  Leo has been hard at work project managing!

The blog may be quiet for a spell, unless I have lots to write after next week and I am well enough to get stuck in.

Kalomina (Have a good month) of October!

TEMPUS FUGIT AND OTHER BOTHERATIONS

Humble apologies for the long gap in posting anything on my blog;  this was due to a spell in hospital,  grappling with a draconian diet imposed by Greek doctors until I have an operation at the beginning of October.  As this date was later than I had hoped, I realised that my Easyjet flights would have been completely unusable and I made a quick trip to the UK to catch up with our new home in Staffordshire.  Whilst there, it was almost impossible to do a blog on my Kindle, so now I have reclaimed the laptop from matches of the Rugby World Cup to do a blog.   I have had to grapple with constant Internet interruptions, power cuts and a new Google Chrome format which seemed to have lost all our settings and bookmarks.  It has taken a whole evening to reclaim my Blogger account, change passwords and shout at help pages which insist on coming up in Greek.  No help at all!!

Enough moaning, but while we are on the subject, Blogger also wants me to cooperate with European law and publish something about using cookies on my blog page.  I have never knowingly introduced even the smallest biscuit crumb to my jottings, but there are obviously secret things happening in all our computers.  Other than raisin and oatmeal 'cookies', I have absolutely no idea what these are - but you have to be warned that somehow the computer will be using them and it will count against me and make me an illegal, bad person if I don't tell you about this - what ever it is!  I do not advertise anything from my blog, or sell anything, or earn anything, but anyway, please beware of storing COOKIES.  Here is the official warning from the blog site:

When using Google products that incorporate this policy, certain disclosures must be given to and consents obtained from end users in the European Union where EU data protection law requires such disclosures and consents.

For end users in the European Union:

• You must use commercially reasonable efforts to disclose clearly, and obtain consent to, any data collection, sharing and usage that takes place on any site, app, email publication or other property as a consequence of your use of Google products; and
• You must use commercially reasonable efforts to ensure that an end user is provided with clear and comprehensive information about, and consents to, the storing and accessing of cookies or other information on the end user’s device where such activity occurs in connection with a product to which this policy applies.

So there!         I trust now that we are all clear about this ... No, me neither!  

Swiftly moving on, I will try to get to grips with the news.

Crazy Croziers were in evidence recently.  Darling daughter Kate booked flights, abandoned her husband and two small boys to jump on a plane from New Zealand and come to stay with us for a week.  She wanted to come and help look after me, but we tried to say this was a long way to come for 7 days!  Anyway, she was a star;  cooked up a storm and filled the freezer with small pots of food which will be ideal when I am in hospital, so we had a wonderful week showing her all the sights of hereabouts and she realised why we like Crete so much.  We swam and sunbathed in Panormo and Bali.  Browsed round all the potteries in Margaritas, shopped in Rethymnon and paddled at Camping Elizabeth.  We realise that we have to put a plan in place to get all the grandchildren here at some stage in the future!!!  Anyway we had a fabulous week with Kate and she would have enjoyed it more if her 4 year old hadn't kept asking on Skype "why she have leaved him for 20 years!"

Just before I left for the new home in the UK, Kimon got himself a small quad bike.  This was the best option for getting about the village and giving him a little bit of freedom because he was getting lots of exercise each day walking with crutches, but needed to spread his wings a bit every so often.  Now he can pay a bill at the Post Office or, even one day, he ventured into Perama to keep an appointment and got there and back safely.  A mobility scooter would be no good whatsoever on these roads and tracks, so I live in trepidation that he keeps his helmet on and his speed down. Pictures to follow in a later blog.

The weather in the UK was mixed.  I got to Stone and Stafford to shop and sort out banking.  The house is very nice and solid but needs a bit more storage because there are still bags and boxes that can't be accommodated until the loft is boarded and the shed is replaced.  So Leo and I set about looking around and getting things started.  I was there for the production of A Midsummer Night's Dream (fantastic) by the Stone Revellers and met up with a lot of his friends from the group - a number of whom had visited us in Crete earlier in the summer.  Staffordshire looked at its best with long vistas of farmland and woods - very green compared with here and with the Autumn colours just beginning to make themselves known.  It was lovely to be able to do so much walking and I really enjoyed my time on a new home patch.  It was a great opportunity to get lots of things sorted and I was glad to get back to some coolth after baking in the sun here with temps in the high 30s-40s at the beginning of September.  

After a long delay at Manchester Airport, we arrived here near to midnight on Monday night - just in time to celebrate our wedding anniversary on Tuesday.  The weather had been stormy and the terraces were full of debris from strong winds and rain, but the temperatures were blessedly cooler and sleeping was comfortable again.  Our lovely friends Roy and Jan met me from Heraklion and had baked us a brilliant cake -Jan is so talented- so we are debating whether to wrap it carefully and keep until Christmas, when I can eat normally again and lots of people can enjoy it.

There were more elections on Sunday for a government mandate and the existing leader won.  This will help cement the difficult deal which the EU forced on Greece.  Our pensioner friends seem to get a few euros less every month and they must feel vulnerable.  We hope that all the EEC commissioners realise that these good souls did not borrow any money, but are having to suffer as a consequence of previous governments.  Young people here these days seem to be very aware that things had been dishonest in the past and they push for much more transparency and integrity in high office.

Panormo was lovely today.  The crowds of the high summer have gone home and there are plenty of older tourists but it seems quieter and more peaceful.  It won't be long before we can park outside the supermarket again!  Tomorrow, we have to get the roof paint for the annual Autumn waterproofing and outside paint which can be started now the weather has cooled down.  Fortunately, we have found a youngish man in the village who is willing to do the job for us.  I am still looking for some cleaning help after I come out of hospital as the lady we hoped might be interested cannot since she is working 7 days a week - poor thing!  We'll keep looking.

The blog may be a little interrupted over the next few weeks, but I will be back to normal (whatever that is) as soon as possible.  

EITHER A VERY BAD TANNING SALON ... OR I'VE BEEN TANGO-D!

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.  Ma Crozier has just spent twelve days in two Greek hospitals.  Surely sufficient subject for a whole blog page, but speed is of the essence at the moment because I have a load to do before completing the process and having an operation.  A gallstone blocking the bile duct turned me an interesting shade of orange and instead of the operation I was expecting to remove gall bladder, I ended up being transferred to Heraklion for gastroscopy treatment where they removed the culprit and inserted a stent.  The gall bladder awaits treatment, hence a short time to do lots.  I will jot down my passing thoughts, mainly of hunger and starvation later!  I was kept alive with water and/or water and rice for all but one of the 12 days;  it was agony.  I was bold enough to drink a carton of fruit juice one day (bliss) and got shouted at!

K is OK, the Doctors and Nurses were all much nicer this time around, so it was only the cuisine issue this time around which was a problem.  They expended two Xrays, two ultrasound scans, a MRI scan plus the camera/fishing equipment/stent insertion on me.  All very quick and efficient - since we know from before that the diagnostics here is first class.

I have now translated the Greek Draconian Diet sheet, which is just as well because it differs from the UK version recommended in several key areas, but I am working on another appointment as soon as possible to get the process complete.

Our Kate has madly offered to fly from NZ for one week to see us.  We think she is crazy, but it will be brilliant to see her.

MORE TO FOLLOW ... Wish me luck x

HEATWAVE

As is often the case, when the rain comes down and the weather is horrible in the UK, by some law of meteorology, the weather is the complete opposite in Greece. We are in the midst of a heatwave and trying to muddle along from day to day by doing anything energetic or necessary as early in the day as we can. In such a simple design of house, I am often reminded of advice from the Bible about how to do things. K twice dropped a screw from his specs on the stone floor and declared it 'lost for ever'. (The second time it jumped out of his hands as he tried to fix his glasses). Remembering a story about a woman who loses a coin, I promptly swept the whole area, moved everything, and cleaned every corner and found the microscopic article in the dustpan each time. Great advice, read, learned and inwardly digested! I could write an entire article about the difficulty of finding an efficient, matching dustpan and brush in Crete, but I digress .. the books of scripture did not specify what sort of broom the woman used. Kimon will tell you what a temper tantrum I threw when I saw what I thought was a nice matching shiny blue dustpan and brush in the local store – all neatly encased in cardboard to keep them together – only to unwrap them and find a dustpan and a broom head which was wider than the mouth of the dustpan. I was furious! There are many and diverse brooms and dustpans in the shops but none of them match or work as well as those we take for standard in the UK.

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By 2.00 p.m., we have done as much work around the house as we can and it is time to put up the Siesta sign and have a rest while the sun is at its hottest. At one point I took the silvered window shades out of the car and fixed them over the living room windows with clothes pegs to keep out the mid day sun as far as possible and took them down again at sunset to try and keep the temperature down. We cheer ourselves by reminding each other that this time last year we were restricted to life inside four walls at the University Hospital and are glad to be free this year to spend the day as we choose to without queuing in hot, dusty waiting rooms.

As for the Greek financial crisis, we have seen little evidence of it first hand in Crete. The beaches seem to be very packed locally and people have braved all the untruths printed in the media about having to walk about with masses of cash and none of the services working properly. From our point of view, everything is working much as ever and we hope that things will continue so that the tourist season is a good one. The tavernas are all still serving delicious food and local wines. We have talked to lots of the tourists and asked they if they are having good holidays and they all have replied that it has been no different than previous years. We do wish the foreign press would get their facts right before turning a bad situation even worse. Tourism is one of the few industries that Greece is geared up for at the moment and vital to keep families afloat and people in work. The only change we have seen is the increase in VAT, but this did not seem to be burdensome, especially to tourists from abroad.

Kostas and Angeliki and other neighbours were discussing things in the nearby Kafeneon. They all have gardens and land to keep goats and chickens. All the gardens have masses of extra produce right now and they so wish they could get all this great stuff to their compatriots in the cities on the main land who are feeling the pinch. I puzzled about the logistics of making masses and masses of jars of pasta sauce with some of the overload and how to find ways that it could be shared. Food in jars, packets and tins is very much more expensive here and also, the raw materials of glass jars and other containers. Getting all the stuff together, processed and transported needs a bit of expertise. It must be possible, but time is marching on and all the produce will be long past its best by the end of the week if this heatwave continues. None of my neighbours would dream of buying packaged or tinned food – it is all fresh from their plots and they plant to have food the year round with two or three growing seasons. Our neighbour, Niko the Wood has been setting off early each morning to his roadside booth where water melons, honey dew melons, tomatoes, potatoes and other garden produce are set out for cars to stop and buy. We hope he makes enough money to help get through the lean winter time. There must be good scriptural advice also somewhere about storing foodstuffs during years with good harvests for years of famine. I must check.

K and I had a great swim in the sea today. Granted, it takes a good deal more planning than it did before, but he loved the freedom of walking without sticks and being suspended by the lovely salt water. We realise that we will need to think about a car that can cope with rough tracks though because access to handy swimming places is never easy. Then after a wonderful swim, adjusting to being held up by the water and emerging at the edge of the waves to normal gravity again is a crunch point. We were touched that lots of people stopped and offered us help because my shoulder alone wasn't enough. He felt so good afterwards – and encouraged, we will keep trying.

If you are suffering with moody blues and grey skies in Northern Europe, help your European neighbours and book a holiday to Greece! You will help shore up the economy, have a great time and the local businesses will welcome you with even more enthusiasm and hospitality than ever!

OXI and its Aftermath

Democracy, n. A system of government under which a country's future is decided by the EU and the IMF.

Austerity, n. A technique for siphoning money from the poor to the well-off, the banks etc. Used to make the vulnerable pay for the mistakes of others.

Referendeum, n. 1. A popular vote which is only valid if it goes your way.

2. An evil crime against your true rulers which must be punished by even more austerity.

Debt relief, n. A total impossibility even though it would allow Greece to recover but it ain't going to happen as it means admitting austerity is wrong and the 1% do very nicely out of austerity thank you and how dare you even mention the fact that a large part of Germany's debt was cancelled in 1953 allowing them to become the great nation they are today.

Agreement, n. A chance to completely humiliate a country so as to cause even more misery for ordinary people and, hopefully, bring about regime change so no-one will ever question your right to make money again.

(published via Facebook as EU Dictionary)

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Saturday night was one for ear plugs. No, not because of the uncertainty about Greece's economy, local unrest, the closure of the banks, the media frenzy and horrifying speculations, but because there was a Baptism at the Kentro on the hillside and loud music and celebrations were taking place all night. At 03.15, a loud noise sounding like a lorry falling off a bridge turned out only to be a drunken reveller blowing into the microphone before tuning into a long, loud lament. So after I had woken up with a jump and scouted round the house for a bit, I adjusted my earplugs and tried to get back to sleep. It is very hot at the moment but the tourists are enjoying the beach.

So we checked at intervals during the day via on line newspapers, TV and Facebook, to find out what had been decided. Facebook and Twitter started to get full of invective about selling off the country's assets. The electricity, the water, the Acropolis and so on … the family silver …. Hang on, I thought, the UK did all this decades ago. The UK's had French electricity companies and foreign interests in fuel and food for a while, so how did all this happen to the UK without such a furore? Perhaps we Brits have been beaten into submission from an early age and realise that it will be a fortunate person who emerges from debt during their working lives and gets to live without feeling obligated to some powerful organisation to which megabucks is owed. However, much damage has been done to the unity of Europe and this is to be regretted. I hope that it will not create a backlash for German ex pats and companies in Greece, because there are old, festering wounds that were beginning to be just beyond living memory and all this has stirred things up in a horrible way. That the unelected Committee of the EU can convene on the quiet in order to plot and interfere with the democratic mandate of a member nation and manipulate and threaten its Prime Minister into accepting worse terms than the population were opposed to in the first place, is scary. Other European nations need to take note of this pantomime and make contingency plans!

Another comment from Facebook: "The monetization of assets will be a source that made scheduled repayments of the new loan and the ESM to be created during the term of the new loan total of 50 bn. Euros, of which 25 bn. Euros will be used to repay the recapitalization of banks and other financial assets and 50% of every dollar that remains (ie 50% of the 25 billion. euros) will be used to reduce the debt to GDP ratio and the remaining 50% will be used for investment. This fund will be established in Greece and the Greek managing authorities under the supervision of the competent European Institutions."

So let me get this straight. Greece borrows 50 billion from the banks, gives back 37.5 billion to the banks and invests 12.5 billion, presumably into the banking system.

Am I missing something here?

We are all missing something. It's a system that cannot possibly work for anyone other than Bankers. Have we heard any update on this year's bonuses?

I had a Dental appointment in Rethymnon on Monday morning. I heard two elderly ladies talking and saying that they could not get their 60 euros today because there was nothing in any of the Banks and to be honest the banks never had 10 euro notes, so 50 was the limit. In practical terms, the bother with the banks is the major problem right now and it is the locals who are taking the brunt, since tourists are not affected. On a local level, we know that the shop keepers would not bat an eyelid if people could not pay for groceries until next week. Most people do remember and settle up when they can. K and I went to Perama to get lab tests done and visit the Health Centre. We are back to this because the doctor who held a weekly surgery in our village for the old folk had to stop. The shortage of doctors and lack of pay meant that she had to move elsewhere. We managed to get money from the ATM in Perama, but there were queues of confused elderly people who had never used an ATM before and had no idea what to do. They are used to queueing up in the Bank and talking to people. It is all very hard for them, but they are hardy types and will survive. It is the elderlies' pension money that is keeping entire families afloat at the moment since there are no welfare payments for the unemployed, sick or disabled and never have been. The shops were all well stocked though, and the fruit and vegetables are at their peak at the moment. Tourists need have no fear that their holidays will not be as good as ever since all the Greeks know that this is their only bread and butter and will bend over backwards to welcome them.

Rik the Builder turned up while I was at the Dentist this morning bearing gifts from his kitchen garden. The soil is so fertile in sunny Crete that we will never starve! His harvest meant that he had more veggies than he knew what to do with. Wonderful stuff which means I will be cooking and preserving tomorrow. Thank goodness for the larger freezer. With only a Greek bank account Rik is completely walloped at the moment since lots of ex pats had building work done and they are unable to transfer money from outside Greece into Greece to pay for it. In the short term, he is owed thousands. On the plus side, his lovely wife has unexpectedly found some new part time work, so they are OK for now.

We are not sure how this will all pan out, but the idea of Europe being chummy allies has been badly damaged and we realise now that we are ruled by large conglomerate organisations and banks. Shylock will be taking his pound of flesh for many years to come.