BACKPACKS

Autumn and Winter weather have been delayed this year and the long, drawn out heavy rains which we usually expect in October have been little more than a couple of short, sharp showers. By and large the days have been sparkling, the olive harvest has been in full flood and the humming noise from the village olive mill has been heard running day and night.

This means that all the buzzing around for different things has been uninterrupted and we have been out and about quite a lot. Greek Class keeps us busy as our teachers – the two lovely ladies from the nearby village Kafeneon in Achlade – tag team us on alternate weeks so that they can administer the business at their Olive Mill or work on their agricultural business in the intervening times. We are learning a bit more grammar these days and trying to get our heads around genders, personal pronouns and different tenses of verbs. It will be a very long process but we are persevering.

Weekly walks have continued and I was reflecting the other day how the contents of our backpacks vary and evolve around the seasons of the year. In Spring, we needed to take waterproof coats, shoes and/or wellingtons to cope with muddy tracks, we added secateurs to snip odd cuttings of thyme and rosemary and bunches of parsley growing along the way with plastic bags to keep them damp. As the weather warmed up a bit, we needed sun hats and water bottles, paper bags for collecting seeds, and the odd carrier bag in case we spied some apples or oranges hanging over the path. Last week, we packed a couple of night lights and a lighter so that we could stop and have a quiet moment at any chapel we happened to pass by. There are so many small churches hereabouts, that I have decided to pack them every week for perfect prayer time. We were also glad to have some heftier carriers with us on our last walk because there were sackfuls of firewood available just lying about in the road and by the hedgerows. We also need to retrace our steps over this footpath because there are some wonderful oranges which will be lovely and ripe for Christmas! We never set off without bananas, to give us some energy for the steep slopes and scrambles. Next week, we plan to make our way along the promenade of Rethymno – to take advantage of the sea views but be able to take cover if the weather gets too showery. We are also finding out where the new Chinese restaurant is so that we can pay a visit in the near future. Today, we went back to the riverside walk that was in full flood last time we passed by finding the river bed all but dried up and one or two puddles and eddies for the terrapins who basked on large stones in the middle of the water and dropped into the limited stream as we passed by.

The dried up river bed

Kostas at the Kafeneon/Hairdressers nearly next door has been very busy. We have tasted our neighbours' wonderful raki and home made wine. Beautifully clear and with good flavours. Meanwhile, the younger villagers are setting off for work early every fine morning to gather the olives before the rains start. The mountains, which have been spectacularly beautiful for the past week disappeared for a day or two behind a white, misty curtain and we thought that this would be the last we would see of them for a few months, but they reappeared with a dusting of snow on the top. The full, bright Super Moon woke me this morning; I wondered why street lighting was angled right into my face when I had made curtains thick enough to block it all out .. but it was the beautiful moon appearing from behind wispy clouds and waking me with its brightness.

The strong sunshine has obscured the ripening oranges

The cooler days have given birth to all sorts of art and crafts. Our table has been buckling under all the activities, with card, paint and glue for a week or so while Christmas cards were printed, jam jars were gathered for decorations and we spent a day in the kitchen making Christmas bakes and we are starting to put together a few Christmas lists and work out where in town we can get the supplies we need for making stuff. Heartier stews and winter bakes are on the menu to ward out the winter chills inter-dispersed with the latest knitting project.

The Makers Group struggled to find a winter venue as our trusty Kimolia Cafe wished to close for the winter season, so we foraged about and found another close to the Post Office in the centre of town. We enjoyed the coffee, but it was heaving. We didn't calculate for the business of Thursday Market Day, and we will need to find somewhere not so noisy and full. Many of the bright, open cafes on the sea front have closed up for the winter season, so it has not been easy to make the change and trying to make contact with all these ladies is a bit like attempting to herd cats. We are either dotting backwards and forwards to our original countries in Europe or dealing with medical appointments or bureaucracy. 

 December is the month for renewing car tax and sending Christmas cards which keeps me busy for a few days at a time. The man at the first Post Office visibly goggled at the thought that anyone on earth would write one letter, let alone want to send forty! No, he did not have the stamps and the main post office was full of people queuing.  Then there was the long wait at the bank to buy road tax behind a very large queue of busy farmers.  Having sorted this, I had to literally untangle the lady at the third Post Office to buy stamps, because the building was being gutted and she was inside working behind heavy duty nets hanging from the scaffolding.  I couldn't believe she was still working but she was very good-natured and having attracted her attention, I explained that I needed a large number of stamps.  We scrabbled about on the pavement with stamps, money and a hand held calculator backwards and forwards underneath the netting and I took 40 stamps home.  It was high finance for a village post office!  After sticking them to our Christmas cards, I returned to the village with the stamped post, unraveled the lady again and scrabbled about in the gap of netting to hand back the batch of cards.  Only in Crete!

How brilliant have got to early December with very few breaks in the weather and the prospect of bright, hot sunny days every time we put our heads out of doors. It can't last and other parts of Greece have had some terrible flash floods and destructive storms, but, so far, the storms have passed us by. So, we are in good heart and looking forward to Christmas, Cretan style with warmth and good cheer without all the hype of Black Fridays, Cyber Mondays or anything else! Enjoy Advent!

THE TREES ARE DANCING!

Jolly holidays being over for this year, we seemed to be ever so busy catching up with friends who had been otherwise engaged over the Summer season with lots of house guests. We know how much Greece needs this valuable revenue, but it is lovely when the crowds thin out a bit and we can enjoy the outside space and amenities with a bit more peace and quiet again.  We have conveniently forgotten that we were just such tourists, not so long ago and twice as annoying!

A chum from K's school days and his wife - Geoff and Karen arrived in Panormo having spent a few interesting days close to the Venetian harbour in Chania and were keen to enjoy all that Panormo had to offer. Great enthusiasts of seafood, we were a bit disappointed that many of the fishing boats had been lifted out of the harbour and the dish of the day will now come via the freezer! We had a terrific rainstorm which cooled the temperatures right down and washed lots of dust and earth down the gorges into the sea. Geoff and Karen being keen walkers had found their way to the local Klados Winery and brought back some lovely bottles which ended up as a gift to us as they couldn't get them into their suitcases. How lovely! We will save them for a special occasion.

Feeling the need for some walking and exercise, a few friends decided to walk the Milli Gorge, which is quite close by on the way to Rethymno, and not too demanding (usually!). There were three of us in the expedition, all wearing outdoor trainers and carrying backpacks as we parked one car at the bottom and were given a lift to the top by a helpful friend. Off we set in high spirits enjoying the shady trees, waterfalls and the lovely sound of running water down in the stream in the bottom of the gorge, but something was wrong. The track seemed very demanding and it didn't look anything like the path I had taken a year or two back. Somehow, we had taken a wrong turn and ended up on the wrong side of the stream scrambling over felled trees, blocked in by fallen rocks, being scratched by ghastly brambles and creepers and after a goodly while we realised that we were not going to meet the proper track any time soon and we had to scramble back up all the muddy slopes, climb back through all the brambles, tip toe across stepping stones in the water and find out where we had blundered. There is a small taverna at each end of the gorge and so we decamped back to the beginning, ordered a coffee, sussed out the conveniences and having “limbered up”, looked at the map! We started all over again an hour later! The new path was fenced all the way, had three bridges, lots of deserted churches, buildings, caves and a mill and made a lovely morning walk in the hot sunshine counterbalanced by the cool shady trees and stony donkey tracks down the stream. It was a great morning, but I was so stiff the next day! My shoulder still hasn't recovered from my Tarzan swing from an overhanging branch to try and scramble over a huge rock and down a very muddy slope.

The cooler nights mean that one sheet on the bed is no longer enough and we have been experimenting with add ons delaying the big decision of hauling out all the winter clothes and bedding from their hidey holes and doing the big swap over. What with lots of gatherings, meals out, coffees at Vinzi's overlooking the harbour in Panormo, the house has become extremely neglected and in need of a thorough clean, sort out and tidy. The exterior has had its waterproof coat of paint and the log pile is back in the porch. It must soon be Winter again.  Boo!

The electric power has been off for most of today after bouts of heavy rain and thunderstorms. K and I were amused to hear from  the locals in the cafeneon turning up soaked to the skin having braved torrents of water up to the ankles and hoping for a nice, hot cafedaki* - maybe even a raki*.  On being greeted with exclamations of “What Weather!”, one man said “Its horrible for us … but the trees are dancing!”. A picture to capture anyone's imagination and a cursory glance at the groves all around tells me that it is going to be a great year for olives and other fruits.

We were agog this morning to hear the most appalling, scary din coming from nearby. It sounded like the War of the Worlds had begun with a loud bleeping, metallic clanking, shouting, screeching and a cacophony which would have frightened the boldest of soldiers. Worried that a battle had begun, quite without our knowing, we gingerly peeped out of the corner of the front door to see whatever was being destroyed in the road outside. Not our car, please? Down in the little square a Bobcat bulldozery thing was pulling a telegraph pole chained to the back of it and was trying to manoeuvre it round a corner towards an even bigger bulldozery crane thing further down the road. My grandsons would have LOVED it! What a noise! This explained the lack of power all day (just as there was a slot of fine weather to get some washing dry … but no electrics!). The local authority were replacing telegraph poles and once we had taken a look at the old ones, we could see why. They were completely rotted through at the bottom. This was definitely a job which needed doing before the winter storms. Just think of the damage one of those huge tree trunks could do in a small village!

It is Oxi Day tomorrow, so we will see whether it will stay dry for the schoolchildren on parade out side the school in the big square.

Keep warm and dry, wherever you are! 

Just in case you didn't know:
*Cafedaki - a small Greek coffee
*Raki - the local hooch distilled from all the residue of the grape vines after winemaking

JOLLY HOLIDAYS

People at home think that we are on holiday all the time and though the weather is hot and the scenery spectacular, we have quite a lot to occupy us day by day.  Today on our return home, our post included an electricity bill which used to be easily settled at the local post office.  Sadly this is closed until someone else takes up the responsibility, so we have been teaching ourselves to pay things on line.  This is not easy on a Greek Website but it worked last time!  This morning the light bulb had fused overhead and I was squinting over the laptop to do the transaction.  The  website refused our payment and said that I should report back to my bank.  Sighing and fearing the worst that Bank bureaucracy could throw at me and preparing for a row, I packed the Electricity File, all my ID, tax documents, marriage certificate (with translation) in a large bag and set off seven miles or so across country to the bank to work out what could be wrong, since I knew there were sufficient funds in the bank to cover it.  Preparing myself for explaining the problem in Greek, I spoke to a nice lady who looked at my bank book and my card and then phoned somebody at the Electricity Board.  Stupidly, I had put in a faulty code from the back of the card, so apologising profusely set off home again, stopping at the Electrical Shop to buy a few new light bulbs!  Grrrr.  Got home, found a torch, did the transaction again, ... worked perfectly, ... printed off a receipt and wondered where the day had gone as I filed all the documentation away again.  Anyway, less about silly mistakes and more about jolly holidays ...

K had been for horrid scans and tests and there was lots of noise and irritations nearer home in the village, so we were glad to have booked some time off for a significant wedding anniversary as the summer began to tail off.

We drove at a leisurely pace to Sissi, just beyond Malia and stayed at one of those all inclusive places that K and I have always been so disparaging about.  We always think that the people who stay there never eat locally, never interact with the locals and could be anywhere in the world.  Never having taken a package holiday before, we were learning anew how to survive cafeteria dining and holiday camp style beds.  We ended up taking a teapot, our own butter, Marmite and fresh fruit with us because (amazingly in Crete) there was only tinned fruit salad available, only margarine (no butter or olive oil) and the worst coffee I have ever had.  I have also never stayed in a hotel in Greece where the management keep both passports for the whole duration of your stay until the bill is paid.  We are used to more 'Philotimo' in our neck of the woods.  The aspect of the place was lovely surrounded by fabulous palm trees and blue sky, but the regime did not appeal too much.  K had lots of trouble with accessibility as none of the many flights of steps on the campus had any handrails and the pool was not accessible unless he accidentally fell and waited for onlookers to fish him out.  He passed on that one! Water hoses for the shady gardens crisscrossed the footpaths all day every day, so it was not disabled friendly. We both had a good time though and I explored Sissi from every direction on foot!

Sissi is a very short distance from the grand Minoan Palace of Malia and I got myself breakfasted and out in the car one morning to find the archaeological site as early as possible and before it got too hot.  Getting lost and turning round three times on a busy road, I eventually found the turning and took the first place in the car park.  Since no Minoan Palace is complete with its "lustral basin" ... nobody is quite certain what they were used for and as they form a sort of right angled staircase down to a lower level with possibly water at the bottom and always seem to be placed near to large open gathering areas, it is anyone's guess what their purpose was.  Bathing and so on in such a spot seems to have been discounted.  It was difficult to obey the signs not to climb over the stones because I was hard put to distinguish which stones made up the walkway and which were not included - it was a bit of a maze in places.  Anyway, I turned my map this way and that, tramped around the very large area admiring enormous storage pots, walls and stairs and persuading myself that I knew all about archaeology by identifying a lustral basin all by myself.  Annoyingly, one of the few signs on the site said "lustral basin", so I could not take any credit for finding it.  I took a photo and looked for a nice, cool drink.  There is also this large round stone with a circle of dipped indentations in it.  Hypotheses and guesses are that it was a sort of dish to place offerings to a deity.  Pondering over it and feeling hot and thirsty, I looked for a little stall or cafeteria for a lemonade or glass of water.  No refreshments were available on the site, so retraced my steps back to the entrance gate.  Just as I pulled out of the car park about six coaches arrived and I was glad to escape!  Honour was satisfied.

This is it!  Lustral Basin !!!

We reserved the final part of the trip for our wedding anniversary and booked into a wonderfully relaxing and luxurious place which had been recommended by friends.  These were not hotel rooms or studios;  these were "luxury suites".  Quite a contrast from the previous place, with marvellously comfortable beds and Masterchef breakfasts!  We are on a diet now, but had a wonderful time away.  On the big night, we searched for lobster with no success but did find a first class seafood restaurant right on the pier which was the best in town.

We had hoped to cross over to Spinalonga but had a bit of a awkward time in Plaka where we tried to sit down and have a coffee overlooking the island and gongoozle the boats going back and forth but kept being shunted from pillar to post by busy tavern keepers who were preparing for the arrival of huge coach parties and getting scores of tables ready.  I got the hump and decided to drive back to Elounda, but even there, one coach after another drove past and struggled to find anywhere to stop once the coach park was full up.  Choking on diesel fumes and drinking up, we went back to our "luxury suite" and ordered a club sandwich to get a bit of peace.

Stopping briefly in Bali, we took a slow drive back and noticed straight away that everywhere seems different without lots of children around because schools went back a week or two ago

The weather is on the change now with much more cloud and mist around the mountain tops in the early mornings and a little more of a chill when the sun goes down.  The house was in good shape, our garden had been watered nicely and our neighbours welcomed home in their kindly way.  It is nice to get away but great to be home again.

August Fire Flies

Making the best of the weather is a little tricky and we have been taking precautions not to get de-hydrated and sunstroke by limiting our exits to early morning or late afternoon. We look carefully at the cooker or oven before contemplating cooking anything hot and all too often decide to forgo cordon bleu and make a sandwich. Panormo is absolutely heaving with people … all good news … and the business owners are working flat out, but we are finding it a bit much and keeping at home for much of the time, which means we miss out on our swims. As we are feeding neighbours cats, we have a bonus of using their pool whilst keeping an eye on the house and watering their tomatoes!

Huge watermelons have started appearing in the porch when we are not looking because as they all ripen at once and are generally too enormous for even a large family.  Eventually, nobody knows quite how to get rid of them all.  I seem to be taking ours into the town centre for people without gardens to share. They are really heavy, but cool, sweet and delicious.

However this week, my travelling companion (who enjoys a good, long walk) suggested a new area to explore and we set off on Monday to a small bay about 8 miles away. We set off early and arrived in time to park easily and explore a small fishing hamlet and some back tracks through the olive and citrus groves. It was a fabulous morning. When we arrived back to the waterside, we found a way to swim in the small sandy harbour – the nicest and most welcome swim – and once dry, sat down at a little Kantina where Poppy, the Proprietor waited, cooked and served home made food. A souvlaki, salad and bread slipped down easily with some local white wine and lots of glasses of water and we arrived home just in good time for an afternoon siesta. What an idyllic jolly holiday!

Later in the week, I retraced my steps with K in tow to the same place. The wind was stronger but it was a wonderful, quiet place to spend some time cooling off, doing some painting, swimming and enjoying watching the different moods of the sea. K looked enviously as it is a favourite spot for local fishermen and he did not have his gear with him.

Saturday was the highlight of the week when the Russian Ballet came to Crete and performed at the Fortezza in Rethymnon under a very nearly full moon. The setting was very special with an ancient Greek style amphitheatre on the mount which overlooks Rethymnon from a considerable height with the dome of the Fortezza lit up in the background. What an evening and quite an experience for seasoned ballet goers to see how it pans out in Greece. First of all, we had a lovely muddle over our seat allocation as the lady officiating did not realise that our party was altogether and that we would be happy to work out the allocation amongst ourselves (bearing in mind dodgy hips, bad legs and so on!) After a hilarious interval of musical chairs and when at one point my neighbour was holding three tickets in her hand and looking completely confused, we managed to shuffle about and sit down quietly. Then we took bets as to when the performance (advertised to start at 9.00 pm) would actually start. Eventually, when all the Greek ladies, small girls, teenage girls and various people dawdled in, chatted to old acquaintances and had long conversations on mobile phones - which stayed in their hands lit up for most of the evening - the performance began at 9.35 pm. Etiquette has obviously not quite got here yet!

The dancers were superb and how they managed to perform with layers of costume, tights and point shoes in such heat just went to show their professionalism. It was BOILING! The Ballet, Sleeping Beauty, was a treat and the audience appreciated it all. An appearance by the Witch/Bad Fairy had us intrigued as he was incredibly tall, played the part amazingly well and I kept looking at his legs and feet wondering if he was wearing stilts underneath layers of dark fabric! There were appearances by pupils from local dance schools to add to the experience. We were especially mystified by small elves filing up along the back of the audience hand in hand in the semi darkness during the first act. What a delight when they appeared later in the performance as little mice doing their number in a kitchen scene. They had to negotiate the rocky surface at the back of the amphitheatre in virtually no light by holding on to one another's tails!  With the twinkling lights of the city in the background, it was one of those magical images which will stay in my mind long afterwards.

Meanwhile in the moonlit sky, fire flies were circling above the heads of the audience underneath enormous pine trees. It really was an evening to remember.

After the weekend, on the night of full moon and the promise of a lunar eclipse, we drove up to Thronos in the Amari Valley for a Cretan Evening by moonlight. We had visited the mountain retreat Aravenes before and arrived just as the musicians and dancers set up and rehearsed their dance steps. We fell into the company of a couple from Norway who, having sampled the home made wine, home made raki and home made ouzo were up for having a go at all the Greek dance steps (which are much more complicated than they look with odd, unsymmetrical rhythms and balance changes which leave the unwary tripping over themselves to keep up!) They did amazingly well!  The party and panorama were worth the drive and the temperature up in the mountains just a bit cooler to refresh us.

We await the celebration of Panagyri on 15 August with a little trepidation because of the heat and crowds for the busiest bank holiday of the summer. We will be relieved when the cooler nights of September get here!

CHURCH CRAWL

View to the sea from the first Chapel

The summer heat is here, the tourists are here, cars are cramming into small roadways designed for donkeys and we are trying to stay off grid for the hottest part of the summer season when everything is geared up for holiday makers enjoying their well earned summer break.

On Sundays, all the beaches are really crowded and, avoiding resorts, we tried a newly opened restaurant near the village and had a simple lunch cooked on the outside grill with salad and french fries cooked in olive oil … wonderful. Followed by the sweetest water melon ever – just like eating ice lolly. Very nice and nothing too fancy.

View to the East

On Monday morning two lots of builders arrived to work on houses in the immediate vicinity causing maximum chaos. A large lorry promptly parked on the bad corner spot and delivery vans were slowed in their tracks with megaphones blaring. Then our friend Rik arrived early to mend a side wall to our house which has remained untouched since we bought the house and was looking very dilapidated. Rik dropped off a scaffolding tower, bags of cement and all his tools and decided to park the car elsewhere! Since then he has been sweating in the hot sun as he painstakingly puts the wall back to rights.

A place for healing prayers/memories?  Clothes tied to the tree

By Tuesday, I was ready to escape for a spell, so my pal Caron and I jumped in the car and set off to take a look at one or two little chapels in the vicinity, to walk a bit and get some exercise. The first stop was the little chapel of Agios Phanourios is on the top of a hill overlooking Perama in one direction and a little way outside the village of Achlade. With my heart in my mouth and praying that we didn't meet a big 4x4 truck coming down the hill, we put the car in first gear and climbed up to the top of the track, parking under a large shady tree. The church gate was stiff, but opened and so did the door of the church, which was lovely. There were icons to look at, and all along the front of the carved and painted screen hung small silver metal medallions in the shape of arms, legs, eyes, babies and so on. We think that people may visit this place to pray for healing. Outside in the bright sunshine, we looked round from our vantage point and could see a long way in all directions. Perama in its river valley with the mountains beyond in one direction and the sea between steep headlands in the other. Along the path, in the little walled yard, it looked is if clothes and other fabric items had been tied around an old tree which seemed to be growing amongst even older remains of habitation. To one side, a fenced off area contained huge piles of stones. We wondered whether a previous town or village had been here in ancient times.

Fred Flintstone's picnic table

Today, it was a beautiful deserted spot with only the buzz of insects and the song of birds and may be the hope for a miracle or two. We photographed a stone age picnic table and chairs at the foot of the tree and set off for the next little chapel.

This was O Drapanos. This seemed to be a much more modern building and the door was locked with wrought iron grills over all the windows. However, the gardens were lovely and we admired daisies still blooming (when all their cousins had long since dried and withered out in the open) because of the shady trees of the churchyard. A few hibiscus bushes bloomed prolifically and my foraging companion gathered a handful of past flowers to take home for her tea!

We took a little side road up and around passing a lovely old house and garden, admiring the old well, whilst the road it was on curved around and led us back to where the car was parked. All these morning walks give a great opportunity to talk, to admire the wild life, to forage and to sometimes just stand in awe. We earmarked a lovely plot of fig trees - to return to when the fruit have ripened - as they do not seem to be in anybody's garden. A brief discussion ensued about a recipe for fig rolls, K's favourite biscuit.

Budleia Avenue

The third chapel was Agios Paraskevi, which we have visited before in our perambulations but we approached it by car this time and parked under another lovely shady tree. Churches seem to be well provided for in terms of shade! From here we explored a new track which led us through a dreamlike avenue of budleia bushes and we were processing along accompanied by a brilliant array of butterflies. Small blue ones, magical swallowtails and the air was humming with insect life. We had a beautiful morning; it was glorious!

Post foraging, we unpacked the car: One big bouquet of rosemary, two scrumped pears (not quite ripe yet), a handful of hibiscus flowers, one discarded clothes dryer (for recycling … gate material for straying kittens) and two pairs of very hot, sore feet. It was well worth it!

OFFICE WARFARE

 How did we ever find time to go to work? People imagine that the life of ex pats is one long idyll where we lounge around on sunny beaches and shady bars all day, every day. Sadly, this is not the case. House maintenance and cleaning duties take up a great deal of our time but bureaucracy is the biggest timewaster.

We spent several weeks jogging backwards and forwards to the IKA office in Rethymno to get Kimon's IKA Health Insurance book renewed and changed. Previously it had been issued resting on the premise that his wife was a pensioner and pensioners' husbands or wives can also get medical health insurance equivalent to pensioners' entitlements in Greece. This is until and unless the dreaded Brexit changes everything … but enough of Brexit. The madness is out of our hands now and anyway, we have enough comic daftness of our own to contend with. Each visit to the IKA office is initiated by a depressingly long queue in a boiling hot office. Kimon had duly presented all his ID documents to the lady in the office who said that he needed a form from the Accountant to say that he had paid all his taxes and a form from the UK. K phoned up the UK and they sent him the appropriate form in duplicate. K made another journey to Rethymnon to present the forms as well as everything else but they said this was the wrong form and he needed an E108. K returned home and telephoned England again. Form 108 does not exist any more and form S1 replaces it. They refused to accept it a second time of asking. Time was running out and the book was becoming invalid and the man in England did not dare to send whatever other form it was, for reasons best known to the mysteries of all these agencies even though there was no doubt that K was entitled to medical care either in the UK or in Crete but the two bureaucracies were in complete deadlock . We were flummoxed.

At this point I contacted the British Embassy to ask for help. I tried to work out the different processes required by the British office and the Greek office. Typed them all out, google translated it all and Emailed it to DWP in England asking them to fax it to the office in Rethymno. Then we collapsed in a heap for a week or two trying not to worry about cancer care without health cover - scary stuff! After a couple of weeks we had a gentle voiced telephone call from the lady who had kept sending us away saying that if we came to the office again at 8 o'clock in the morning, she would sort out the book and we wouldn't have to queue. K and I couldn't believe we were dealing with the same lady, but we smiled, spoke Greek and K charmed her as much as possible while I chased up and down the stairs with pieces of paper from one office with a man inscribing a huge record book and another office where another man with a biro and a rubber stamp squiggled something.  I finally chased downstairs with my prize sheet for the completion process. DONE! It had taken about five weeks of travelling, queuing and worrying but such a relief even if you have to do everybody else's work for them.  Everyone celebrates with such a feeling of achievement.

Then we needed to make sure that our tax return had been completed by the Accountant. We paid a visit and handed over some money. Several days later, we had a phone call requiring our marriage certificate. K dropped it in. Then the Accountant wanted a translation of the marriage certificate – so google translate came to the rescue again. Then they decided that the marriage certificate was not sufficient and that I should have had another document from the Church with a signature and a rubber stamp on it. K and I were beginning to lose the plot at this point and wondered why on earth they needed our marriage certificate? The Accountant thought she would reassure us by saying that she would send it somewhere to some other office so that they could put a rubber stamp on it and the technical language was a bit beyond our powers of translation..

They were surprised at my strong negative reaction to putting any marks on our document!

The accountant wondered could we get a certified copy from the Central Register every year? Of course not, there is only one, we got married once and this is it! I jokingly asked whether we should get married again in Crete, so that the documentation lined up? The argument continues and I have made contact with my parish church in Farnham and the Surrey Records Office because life just isn't busy enough.

It has given me lots of time to meditate upon the intrinsic value of a rubber stamp! What is it about a print impression made out of rubber that gives a document such power and authenticity? Suddenly, I realised that seals and stamps have been used in Cretan prehistory since Minoan times and obviously have much greater significance within the Greek official hierarchies than we are used to. A maker's mark or stamp must lurk within the psyche of all our Greek and Cretan officer folk as a symbol of supreme authority and reverence!

Anyway, enough of all this stuff. Crete is in the middle of a heatwave. Scorching days and nights with the air conditioning keeping us from sizzling up. The plants need lots of tender loving care, a nest of swallows have hatched and flown the nest in the porch leaving a great deal of unwanted guano behind and we are keeping under cover as much as we can during peak holiday season with loads of tourist traffic. The car is baking hot and we need oven mitts to use the steering wheel. It seems much nicer and cooler at home than venturing out too much.

Wish us luck with officialdom, it is keeping us very busy indeed!

TRAVELSCAPES

Ma Crozier has been on a brief trip to the homeland to catch up with Master Crozier and his other half before they set off on an eight month adventure to Canada and New Zealand. There was a lot of catching up to do, notes to write, keys to deliver and teabags to pack before waving them off to Gatwick early on Wednesday morning and trying to finish off at home before my flight from Manchester on Thursday. All went well; the weather in England had been reasonably fair without a lot of rain and I had managed to catch the first performance of a Tribute to Dinner Ladies by the Stone Revellers which was a treat. What an amazing amount of work goes into their productions … the scenery was so realistic that one of the audience wondered when we would be leaving the canteen and sitting down in the theatre! I, for one, will really miss Victoria Wood's comic genius and observation but full marks for the set builders and performers on the night!  

Back to Crete! I landed at sunset on Thursday and was delivered by wonderful Grigoris – the best taxi driver - who is almost like a member of the family these days! The journey from Heraklion went smoothly into the night, round the dark mountain bends along the national road so that we arrived in our village shortly after 11 pm. A few souls were waiting at the little kafeneon and the lovely Angeliki stirred herself to fetch welcoming drinks for everyone. We observed that the swallow families were still guarding their nests and that the weather was about 10 degrees warmer than when I had left a week before.

Today is 16 June and I deduce from the sound of Greek music coming from the big square of the village that it is the last day of school term and they will be having a party to celebrate! Sadly, K and I are too pooped to attend, but we know that they will have fun with Greek dancing,  popcorn sellers, balloons and a few tasty treats cooked on the barbecue.

We had a splendid week with visitors just before the journey to England when our friends Sally and Paul made their first visit to Crete. Paul had done a bit of swotting with his guide book and definitely wanted to go to Knossos – so we spent a lovely day looking at the archaeological remains and decided that paying for the guide was a good investment.

A few days later, we jumped in the car and made a trip to the Amari Valley. I was so pleased to have done this as I seem to have missed this treat and only skirted through it quickly on various journeys from North to South Crete and not taken any time in the lovely villages. We visited a magical mountain retreat in the village of Thronos with panoramic views. Paul had been reading a great book by Christopher Somerville called 'The Golden Step' about his three month journey on foot from the Eastern to the Western edges of Crete about 15 years ago and we were all enthralled to find some vistas we had never seen before. We deduced that the tucked-away inn must have been the place where the exhausted rambler from this book had stayed.

After a refreshing cup of mountain tea and/or fortifying frappe, we progressed on our journey to Amari village, where we trekked up to the peak where a Venetian bell tower lauded it over the surrounding countryside. Feeling in need of sustenance, we stopped at Fourfouras for a meal and had an interesting time searching for somewhere to eat and fastened upon the nearest thing to a Taverna that we could find. It was deserted (never a good sign) but the man of the house jumped on the phone to his wife who turned up (noticeably puffed) a few minutes later and we had a very nice meal made even better by dividing up our plates and having a taste of everything! The daughter of the house spoke very good English, the bill was modest and we went on our way to find the best road home.

The coasts of Crete are wonderful, but so our the mountains and the inland spaces, if you can get to them.  It was a wonderful peaceful day whilst all the tourists stampeded for the beaches.  I have earmarked the leaflets and cards for a trip during August, when the weather gets too hot to deal with!

Enjoy your Summer (or Winter) wherever you are!

ROLL ON SUMMER!

Spring has blossomed and unfurled just in time to show the best possible face for our visitors around the local villages for the last couple of weeks or so. Two weeks ago, the mountain peaks still had snow cover but steady warm sunshine has shown more and more areas of bare rock on the peaks of Mount Psiloritis and the wild flowers at the road edges have nodded their heads in glorious clouds of yellows, white and green while red poppies and wild irises are dotted here and there to delight the eye. There is a custom on May Day for families to take a picnic in the countryside, to gather armfuls of beautiful marguerite, daisies, chamomile and other colourful blooms and to make a posy or wreath to hang on the outside of the house by way of celebration. Sometimes, the posies dry as they hang there making a lovely dried flower display which can last for many months longer!

Meanwhile, K and I have been out and about and taking on the heavy house cleaning to sweep away the soots and sands of winter, roll up the dusty rugs after a good beating, and take off the heavy covers needed for the winter to make room for summer sheets and warmer nights. All the winter knits and warm clothes have been put away with moth papers in suitcases under the beds and summer shirts and shorts retrieved for the ironing pile. In an island of extremes, these annual changeovers become the weft and weave of our seasonal life.

A poor wee cat, no more than a kitten turned out NOT to be a male as thought and deposited two tiny and rather sickly kittens under the wood pile. Sadly, we do not think they could have survived, despite trying to look after the little mother who began to look very downtrodden and frail. She and the kittens moved up the road but we did not hold out much hope for this little family. However, the villages are not short of alley cats and there will be many other litters of kittens who will survive better.

K and I had a lovely interlude in Panormo the other morning when a new fishing boat arrived by lorry and we spent a good hour gongoozling as the crew unhitched a crane and manoeuvred the boat off the lorry and alongside the jetty into the harbour. Then K listened with appreciation as they started up its diesel engine, flipped out the plastic fend-offs and puffed off out to sea on its maiden voyage with its proud little Greek flag streaming in the wind. I checked later in the week along the harbour wall and read that its name was Agiou Nicoloau … Saint Nicholas. It looks bright with new paint and well set up for some serious fishing excursions.

Outings with brother Chris and his better half Linda took us to the usual suspects of local haunts, Vinzi's delightful cafe overlooking Panormo harbour (our local), the Cafe Posto in Bali, Margarites for ceramics and for a real treat we drove up to the Wood Museum in Axos to see the sacred and dedicated work of the self-taught sculptor, George Koutantos who had the most magnificent wooden sculptures to admire. https://woodenmuseum.gr/en/the-sculptor/   After absorbing all the work involved from all angles and taking lots of photographs, we carried on further up the mountain road to eat a Sunday lunch in Anogia where the tavernas selling lamb cooked over the charcoal in their special way made an extra treat. We narrowly escaped forced purchase of Cretan andartes hairnets despite the strongest entreaties of the determined little old lady selling these and other home made lace items … but it was touch and go!  Chris and Linda visited Rethymnon and did a little shopping and eating and, I think enjoyed their week in Crete. It was the ideal time to visit. We tried to hold firm against large helpings, too much wine and sugary treats but again, it was touch and go!

On Saturday of the same week, John and Val, wonderful friends from Gravesend in Kent arrived at Heraklion airport and, as they have visited Crete a few times already, we could let them loose in Panormo after settling them into the lovely Philoxenia Apartments. Although not strictly open for a few days, the owners made an exception for them and gave them a beautiful premium apartment which was lovely and cool and overlooked the sea and the pool at the back. They were delighted and found the beds really comfortable after their long journey which started at silly o'clock from England. A first swim at the harbour beach lived up to its promise, and a lovely meal at the fish restaurant was a real treat. We would have hatched many more plans if K had not injured his foot somehow and might need a trip to the First Aid Health Centre in Perama first thing on Monday morning.

Tourists and hire cars are out in their hundreds and the season is well under way! As there are wedding anniversaries this year for our daughters … TEN YEARS … we can only say this month ... May the Fourth be with you. Kalomina!