BANANA WARS

Hello from Crete. Kali Kronia. Happy New Year! Luckily, we had a wonderful Autumn with warm, bright sunshine most days until close to Christmas when we had at least three huge storms blow themselves overhead for days at a time, without much respite until today. Remembering the severity of last year, we closed the shutters, I searched for my wellies, kept checking the ceilings and floors for leaks and spent many a happy hour switching the router on and off, whenever thunder and lightening were in evidence … which was very frequent. We don't know why our phone line is directed through the router, but of course no one can reach us by phone or internet at these times. Fortunately our woodpile lasted until today and we could keep ourselves reasonably warm even when the electricity went off and the water went off .. often .. and this began to get on my nerves. The most unnerving thing is that I noticed that when the weather was horrible I was very tempted to drive on the wrong side of the road! I can obviously cope with left hand drive in the sunshine but bad weather reminds me of the UK so much! I kept coaching myself with 'right is right' while out and about. The seas have been very rough and pounding over the harbours and car parks in Chania and Rethymnon and the winds have been tossing tables and chairs around so that there are oddly misplaced belongings on other people's roofs and gardens!

We had a lovely Christmas Day with our pal, Mary who cooked a lovely Christmas lunch.  Since then we  have sustained ourselves with a good supply of mince pies, home made Christmas cake, some amazing home made sweets made by a friend, crystallised ginger and hot cups of tea, interlaced with something a bit stronger when available. Life certainly isn't dull, but demands constant vigilance! I have used up dozens and dozens of candles over this holiday season and my candle powered bathroom radiator is doing very well!!

Our Christmas post arrived on 2 January and we were mighty glad to know that everyone hadn't forgotten about us. Mrs C also had a panic before Christmas that K's medication – a horribly expensive but very effective box of horse pills did not materialise at the EOPPYY office in time to last him over the Christmas period. We were told on 23 Dec on our second visit to the office that all the boats had stopped due to poor weather. So for 12 days, K had no pills to take and actually felt much better for it! However, today is brilliant sunshine again, the boats have started operating and I picked up the long awaited package this morning. It's a bit like balancing on a knife edge, but Mr C says, “Stop panicking!!” I don't know why things seem so overpowering when the weather overhead resembles a thick, grey, damp horse blanket! Venturing out today, the sunshine was so blinding and the mountain tops shimmering in sparkling blue and white.. It just lifted the heart.

Thinking that gifts would be a bit thin on the ground this year, Mrs C spied a jigsaw puzzle whilst touring Lidl's and thought that it would make a nice gift to leave around at Christmas for Mr C who is really good at geography. Unpacked, Mr C declared it impossible! In truth, it was a demon which took a full three days to find edge pieces and then a bit of strategy to work out how to proceed. The print was miniscule for place names so we sought out various grades of magnifying glasses, the example on the box had been defaced by advertising matter over the whole of one corner, the light was not very good, the side table was not nearly big enough and the pesky thing has taken up the majority of the dining table for three weeks! Now it has been completed, we have the added worry about what to do with it? Mrs C is very tempted to put it all back in the box and pass it on to some other unsuspecting person but Mr C wants to mount it on the wall!

All suggestions gratefully accepted.

Mrs C has also been worrying about the possibility of having an operation on her arthritic hand and went to visit a couple of very reputable surgeons hereabouts. Crete is not populous for there to be dedicated hand surgeons closer than Athens and it would have been taking a bit of a chance. Having found a recommended man and almost at the point of having the operation, Ma Crozier backed out ... the recovery time required was FOUR MONTHS. It would have been much too difficult to sort things out for such a long time without transport and both of us incapacitated. So Mrs C is relieved at having made the decision, is taking collagen syrup and Omega 3 capsules for the time being and looking forward to nice weather when trying to grip things and get by every day with arthritic hands is not such a problem.

So, what are banana wars all about? Each Friday, Zacharias the Fruit and Veg man arrives close to our front door with his van and all the ladies of the block bound up in warm, black clothes burst out of their houses and swarm around with plastic bags to buy their stocks for the week. It is one of Mr C's tasks to buy some goodies and normally some kind villager brings the bags up the road for him and hangs them on our door handle. But Bananas are always the first things to go and you have to get in fast! Very often Mr C gets sidelined in the crush and misses out so we end up getting them at the supermarket! And then there are the Fridays when Pa Crozier waits for an hour or two and Zacharias doesn't arrive at all!

Now we have a couple of days of dry weather, we can get the washing done and clean the house a bit. Otherwise it's hibernation! We hope you all have a very happy, healthy and plentiful New Year without having to fight for bananas!