Well a few swallows are
back! The weather here has been cold and miserable for a lot of the
time and we heard that many migrating swallows came to grief in one
big storm and very strong winds which have beset us. A large
proportion of the poor little things did not get back to Crete to
build their nests and raise a new family. There are a few pairs, but
not many. However, Spring is sprunging with the hibiscus flowering,
geraniums looking healthy, my little olive tree in a pot looking well
and few little pots of seeds hopefully being watered every day “to
see what will happen”.
We have been under
lockdown for five weeks now, just venturing out for shopping,
pharmacy or doctors visits. We are faring well, eating a bit too
much but Mrs C has been experimenting with new recipes in the kitchen
to tempt Mr C's small appetite. Meanwhile, on line all sorts of
things have been happening and we are grateful for a good internet
connection which has kept us informed, amused, en-rapt and infuriated
in equal measures.
As there are a number
of singles among our local friends, we set up a virtual friends group
and try to catch up with each other weekly and make sure everyone was
getting on OK. The idea for a virtual weekly coffee morning is good,
but communication is a bit tricky with 6-8 people and it takes a
proper MC to keep control of the airwaves and focus on one person
talking at a time. The audio is also quite muffley. But we see each
other, check that people are OK and send each other silly jokes,
quizzes and must try recipes, just to keep our brains ticking over.
Greece locked down fast
and contact--traced all arrivals in Greece with the dreaded virus, so
have managed to flatten the curve and keep the hospitals from getting
totally overwhelmed. It is certainly reassuring to have a decisive
government, intelligent medical experts and a community who takes
their good health seriously. Most young Greek people are close to
their parents and grandparents and were totally motivated to protect
them by keeping out of the way of the silent beastie. Easter was
kept completely locked down and the roads blocked by police patrols
to stop the movement of people on long journeys to celebrate in large
groups wherever in Greece ancestral homes were. The tolling bell of
Good Friday did not happen, the processions were missing, but there
was a joyful bell on Easter morning and loud gun fire with fireworks
at midnight, but this was in response to TV services rather than
anything happening in the many churches around the country. For the
biggest festival of the year, our Greek hosts were motivated to keep
to the rules and stay safe at home for Easter this year. I guess
one or two barbecues were lit quietly in back yards, but no
significant holiday traffic happened at all. For Cretans, this is
all the more remarkable because they are known to think that laws
were made to be broken, but this has been something different. By
the end of the Easter holidays, Crete had had no new reported cases
for seven days, and the people began to sigh with relief. K had to
go for a blood test at the lab in Perama on Friday and the shops,
streets and supermarkets looked almost as usual with loads of people
about. I am still carrying latex gloves, hand gel and home made
masks, just in case, but for another week or two, we are feeling
reasonably optimistic. Children are out in the village again and can
be forgiven for being loud and noisy when they have been cooped up in
little houses for so long.
Our family also set a
few challenges to keep us on the ball with a first week idea to
recreate famous works of art, famous album covers etc. This was fun.
Recreating Monet's waterlilies with sheets, plants, flowers and
saucers kept me busy. The Kiwi families recreated album covers by
Queen and the one for Trainspotting. I managed Dark Side of the Moon
with a triangle (prism) of cheese graters, white handled paint
brushes and a rainbow selection of coloured crayons. Then Leo and
Harri in England recreated the Friends poster by taking an armchair
and standard lamp into the garden and fashioning some arrangement
with a garden hose to look like a fountain. Whew!
The second week wasn't
nearly so easy: we had to present a TV Cook type item (which if you
are recording and cooking is much more difficult than it looks and
impossible without a good cameraperson!) My Kiwi grandsons took to
it like ducks to water and made great looking Anzac biscuits and
Gingerbread. Amazing TV cooks in the making! Leo made sourdough
bread with a drawn on moustache, a chef's hat and a fake Italian
accent, which turned out really well. I made Creamy Lemon Chicken
with my Ipad precariously balanced on a metal stand (Vrassi's Olympic
torch holder) and had to keep turning the camera round to focus on
the food prep. Note for the future … focus the camera on the food
not the cook!
Gareth Malone's Great
British Chorus has kept me exercised (5.30 pm each afternoon on
YouTube) and what with that and a free on line Greek Class (half an
hour every day) and trying to squeeze in some sort of exercise in the
form of yoga, keep fit or Tai Chi, I am a bit too busy at the moment
and want to retire again! A heart warming Facebook page called “The
View from my Window” has been the most surprising success where
people from literally all round the world post the view from their
house whilst in lockdown. Some are from our first line workers and
they always get a resounding vote of thanks in the comments. Others
are from people with fabulous gardens or landscapes and still more
from blocks of flats or high rise city views. So while we are
confined, we can vicariously take a little trip round the world with
a few blessings, prayers and good wishes. A simple idea which has
been a run away success.
Nobody quite knows how
the future will pan out this year. I imagine things will not be the
same again for yet awhile, travel may be much more limited and
expensive, and we may have to agree to much more testing and controls
before this is over. I just hope that the good will, the offers of
help, the response to the emergency by strangers and those overseas
will be remembered with gratitude for a long time to come. In many
ways, I hope that things do not go back to just the way they were
before because it would mean that we had all learned absolutely
nothing about how our planet with its inter-dependency of people,
plants, animals, solids, liquids and gases needs much more care and
attention. The skies have been bluer and the air so much clearer
since everything stopped.
Take care and every
Easter blessing to you and your family!
