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