We wonder if many of
our Cretan village neighbours actually know where New Zealand is on
the globe but when family make the enormous journey to spend time in
Crete, everything else is put on hold for the duration because the
time is so precious. We know it will be a year or two before we get
to catch up again, so many apologies for the lack of blog. Our
oldest daughter, husband and three children have been with us for 10
days and it has been fabulous spending time with them.
You will know that it
has been a very difficult time for Greece (and many other parts of
the world) with record temperatures and bad fires in many places.
The Monday when forest fires broke out in Attika, our little house, renowned for being cool in the heat of summer, came to the boil. The
floor boards were hot, the carpets were hot, the blinds were down, we
had trays of water on the window sills to try and create some coolth
and sleep was almost impossible. We hosed down the walls and paths
outside the house as well as the garden and stayed under cover as
much as possible. There were one or two fires in Crete also, but the
helicopters with buckets soon put them out. We can report that some
days have been like a blast furnace. We are devastated that so many
lives were lost over this period. The local council set up a
collection point to send emergency supplies over to the mainland and
I took a car load of food, water and basic needs to a little school
in Perama who were organising one of the collections. It would be
good to have a few civil defence contingency plans in place that we
could read up on in case of fire, flood, earthquake, tsunami and so
on! In the meantime, we are just doing our best job in keeping outer walls of the house well watered and the surrounding streets
dampened down.
Holidaying with the family
was a little restricted and they were happiest in the hotel swimming
pool or in the warm sea. We had a few issues with the hotel they had
booked, which seemed ridiculously expensive and had banked the entire
holiday cost four months in advance of their stay. But when we had first hand experience of the hotel we could see why. Our family would have left
before the end if they could have done and found somewhere different
but the hostelries are all fully booked. Panormo has been very
nearly impassable with so many cars and people staying there. They had to deal with conjunctivitis and ear infections from the swimming pool during their stay; an unidentified smell coming from the air conditioning vent which could not be halted, finished off by a horrid journey home with four out of the five of
them having sickness and diarrhoea on one or all of the legs home - Athens, Istanbul, Hong Kong and Auckland. The children were
wonderful though and trekked with their cases around Europe like real
troopers. The difference in temperature will hit them now in Auckland as it is a mere 7 C but I am sure they will be glad to sleep at night! We were so exhausted on Friday after the trek to the airport that we missed the lunar eclipse completely, but friends achieved really good photos of the red moon in the night sky. Early this morning here we
were woken by a heavy shower of rain and it was so welcome! We have
struggled to keep any of our garden pots going amongst so much
desiccation!
Over the years we have been here, it seems that the sleepy old village has gradually come back to life and many more people and new buildings are re-energising it. So we all had a Watermelon Festival a few weeks
back and it was an amazing evening organised by the youngsters of the village
with barbecue food, music, dancing and tables for 550 people, blocking
off the village square! A miracle of organisation which seemed to use boat loads of plastic in the form of bags, plates and cups but I did not actually see any water melon … we may have left too early. We will keep plugging away at the theme of saving the planet!
Summer Saturday nights
have continued to rob us of sleep due to the Cretan weddings which,
at full volume from one side of a hill megaphoning the lyra music from
midnight until six am on a regular basis. I have now learned which
shutters to close and which ear plugs and YouTube meditation music
works best to cancel out the hullabaloo! Cretan music is an acquired taste and lovely, so
long as you are in control of hearing it! All night drunken
celebrations which deprive you of sleep are the end!!
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| The largest fruit salad ever! |
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| Waiting for Ice-Cream |
I am travelling back to
the UK for a week or two, but I hope to have more interesting reports
once life is back to normal again! For the time being, I have spent
days looking for my pack-away rain jacket, which has completely
vanished, just as I will be needing to use it.
Happy Holidays!
