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!