WHAT NEXT?

 

Life has been completely chaotic in recent weeks when the best laid plans had persisted in going completely awry. The weather perked up for a week or so and Spring sprung in all directions. The swifts and swallows arrived back dipping and skimming over streams and rivers. In Perama, the river looked horribly polluted but the swifts were happy enough fast flying and dipping their wings in the muddy waters. As I watched them, a much larger than average turtle swam between the big stones upstream. Sadly, there was lots of piles of rubbish to negotiate.

I was congratulating myself on finding a delightful farm track which led from our village to the next through the olive groves and had nearly got to the next village for a take away coffee, when I realised my car keys weren't in my bag or my pockets and I had to trot at fastest pace back the way I had come to track them down again. I had dropped them just by the back door of the car. It really spoiled what would have been such a lovely day out but it was great to have found the path at last.

The electricity has been very dodgy during high winds and storms and was misbehaving to such an extent that a back up battery combined with surge protection was needed. It did not save the life of the TV though and a new one was ordered by telephone and arrived the next day. However with a lot of jiggling and routing of wires, the two new boxes are up and running. An expensive month. New plants bought to celebrate Spring have to be stowed in safe corners to protect them from the very strong gusts of wind doing so much damage and covering everything in a thick red dusty blanket.

We had not received a phone bill since January which was unusual since they normally arrive every two months. I had checked each time I passed to see if they had arrived in the post but nothing. On Thursday, the phone and internet were cut off. Why the idiots say that you can contact them at a particular web link when they have cut off your internet beats me. This required a road trip to Perama and parting with even more money. The bill had to be settled the day after it had been sent and I did not get it until a week until the cut off date. Sharp practice abounds at the moment and I paid two bills at once to get back on top. I will see if someone can help me with the App to pay on line to prevent it happening again.

We have had to provide so many copy documents to sort out our identity crisis following Brexit. Our residence permits and driving licences were changed in 2018. All the effort in getting a Residence Permit meant nothing after 1^st January when every single one issued expired. We had to gather our wits, paperwork and best telephone greek to acquire a new biometric permit for dealing with any Greek public office even though they hadn't started printing them yet. It left us chasing our tails around Police Stations, banks, accountants, citizens advice bureaus, lawyers and on line guidance in a Catch 22 situation where no office would deal with you without a biometric permit when this is what you were trying to obtain. No sooner had we had our finger prints taken and tried to get a Greek passport photo that didnt make us look like hardened criminals collapsing with the stress of it all. From our lockdown homes we next were chasing our tails again to get the special code from the tax authorities in order to register for a Covid vaccination. My photocopy function on the home printer soon ran out of ink with all the copies of ID required and new ink cartridges were not readily available. So then we had to chase around copy shops and ink refill outlets to try and keep going. In the middle of a 5 month lockdown, running the Covid gauntlet to accomplish all this meant taking unnecessary risks. We are downhearted that German tourists are arriving for holidays when all of us are still in lock down and can't go out anywhere to have a cup of coffee. In spite of all these months of restricted life and social interaction, the infection rates are increasing all the time. Mainly because the indiginous population are meeting with families and friends on a regular basis, don't bother with masks (or half wear them leaving their noses hanging out) and seem oblivious to the consequences. It is so hard not to feel annoyed.

I jumped in the shower on Thursday to shampoo my hair. The water pressure seemed a bit low and as I progressed, it got thinner and thinner so I struggled to rinse foam away under a dribble of water. No sooner did I leap out of the shower than a phone call alerted me to a parcel awaiting me from Perama at the Couriers. The water supply was completely cut off by this point in time. My life is up one minute and down the next. Print cartridges (incompatible ones) had arrived and the Courier was waiting for me to collect them from the village square.

Yesterday a local lad dropped by unexpectedly with a huge bag of oranges, another bag of lemons and a bag of eggs. Lovely! The oranges are fabulous this year; so sweet and juicy but far too many for me to use. Abandoning my original plan to start painting the front porch, I got my preserving pan out of the cupboard and sighed over the prospect of the sticky job of marmalade making with nobody to pass a jar to. Inspiration came by a Facebook post featuring Lemon Curd Crumble slices, and marmalade was postponed while I made lemon curd instead. Google the recipe ... Yummy!

Thursday was the best day. An idle moment dusting the bookcase revealed an old school magazine from Kimon's sixth form days when we had first met. Finding the enclosed poem stopped me in my tracks and I haven't quite got over the loveliness of that moment in time - backwards and forwards.

It is good to get out of the house to escape from frustrating life admin, I have kept myself sane by taking some pretty walks amongst herbs and wild flowers every day the weather is good and the day is free from bureaucracy. I can't believe that I mostly have the entire track to myself, although yesterday my parking spot was outmanoeuvred by two horses tethered right next to the lay by! Walking the tracks seems the best ruse to escape from other people and get much needed exercise but we have to keep changing our plans at the last minute!   I have a nice collection of thyme, sage, dill and chamomile!  Keep well and sane!

CHAMOMILE WAY

 

The sun came out yesterday. That may seem like a bald statement, but Crete being a land of extremes, the winter weather had forced us to hunker down like little animals in hibernation and toast ourselves in front of olive wood fires while icy blasts from the North found gaps in the well ventilated - due to Covid - window panes. The winter has been particularly hard with all that Brexit has done to us and negotiating Accountant's offices, lawyer's offices, doctor's, chemist's and police stations for new third country identity cards and fingerprints has been horribly stressful, just at the time we would all rather be working from home. However, I have the card, I collected the tax number needed for the Covid vaccination process and I have managed to replace the tv which gave up the ghost and get a surge protector/back up battery box to protect my router and laptop each time the power goes off ... sometimes only for half a seond ... but the constant interruptions and thunderstorms are a real threat to all our electrics!

Niko the Wood was kind to me as I had run the woodpile down in the vague idea that winter was nearly over and after translating the sentence “how many barrows of wood can I get for 20 euros”, he dropped by on Sunday morning with a nice little woodpile ... enough for at least a week. So I may have some extra as the warm weather comes which will need to be bagged up and stowed away for a rainy day or next winter. Assuming that I am still here. My life is at a bit of a crossroads but I haven't come to any conclusions yet.

Greece has not come out of lockdown since the beginning of November last year – at least the obedient haven't but it seems that the rules have been flouted because the infection rate has gone up and up and for yours truly living alone since Mr Crozier passed on, it has been difficult. The Government have relented so that this weekend people can move a little further from home to go for a walk and there will be a provision for click and collect shopping from Monday. I think you can telephone and pay for something by card and just collect it at the doorway of the shop or something. There is nothing I need and it would be beyond me to work that one out, so I will stick to food shopping as per usual. And as all the seaside places and promenades will be heaving over the weekend, I will avoid those also. I have other outside places to go where I don't meet anyone at all and I am avoiding people for now until things get safer.

At 8.30 am on Monday morning the appointment for my Covid jab will happen at Perama Health Centre. I will be double masked and gloved and taking full precautions until a few weeks after my second jab on 26 April. I think it will be the Pfizer vaccine. What a relief that will be!

So life has been extremely lonely, but I have surprised myself by being as resourceful as possible and keeping busy. I can't wait for the time I can get to the garden centre and the weather is reliable enough to do some outside painting of the porch and garden walls, which are showing signs of wear and tear.

Everything was rejoicing yesterday with the arrival of lovely warm sunshine and clear blue skies. The garden sparrows were chirruping and building nests, the butterflies enjoying the heat and the spring flowers and patrols of snails were after all my new plants. The snails were all given flying lessons! At mid-day, as is my habit, I sent off my text message to request permission for a short walk near home, put my garbage bags in the car to dispose of on route and made for the Roumeli Highway .. our shorthand way to describe the new road which links our village with Roumeli. Just a short way along was a parking space, just near the track I wanted so I parked up and made my way down this lovely farm track towards Achlade. It was fabulous to be out. I dodged little streams and huge muddy puddles and noted patches of sage, dill and chamomile for a bit of a gathering on the way home. Hens were clucking, birds singing, bees humming amongst the yellowy clovery carpets of flowers under the olive trees. The views of the mountains which sported its fresh crop of glistening white snow were wonderful. After negotiating the length of the lovely track, I christened it “Chamomile Way”. There is another nearby called “Butterfly Valley” but in truth, these tracks are all so similar that it is very easy to get lost! The wild flowers along the verges were a feast for the eyes. Even more beautiful after so long incarcerated!

At the end of the track was the church in the trees. Always peaceful and completely deserted but someone had thoughtfully left a lone candle in the stand and a small lighter on the side table, so I lit the candle and said a few prayers before returning home. Twice, I took the wrong track and had to retrace my steps, but eventually found a familiar pile of rocks and memorable puddle. Once home, I found a vase for my bunch of herbs and wild flowers feeling that I had been released from prison at last! Yes, there is light at the end of the tunnel!

WHAT I'VE FOUND OUT SO FAR

 

Croziers blog has been a bit quiet. Well there has been quite a lot of processing going on.

Greece's second lockdown began about 10 days after Mr Pa Crozier passed away and life got much more than a bit solitary. The first thing Mrs Ma Crozier did on returning to the little stone house was to blitz the cleaning and haul the furniture around to make it seem like it wasn't the same place. A vain ambition but cupboards were turned out, things changed around, shelves cleaned, floors mopped and lots of energy expended on housework that had been neglected in the last weeks when palliative care had taken over our lives.

The little Anglican church barely had time to hold a few normal services before it was locked back down to Zoom services, but it was great that a weekly time with others in our solitary fox holes could link up and think about the bigger picture. In the corner of the workbench of the kitchen, a lovely framed photo taken by a friend in the village has found a permanent spot, together with a tall prayer candle (replaced every few days) and a little list of friends and family which got a bit longer as the time progressed. One of our British in Greece ladies sounded the alarm that her husband had got the virus and was in hospital, sedated, ventilated, she was terrified and, for a while unable to be with him for weeks. We grouped together to surround her with our love and support, I even had some background advice to message her with about recovery from induced comas and life in ICU. We have just heard that they are now through the worst, out of rehabilitation and allowed home. Such great news. Then Maria, the other half of Nigel who helped us so gallantly in K's last weeks, had an episode which meant she was in hospital with a brain haemorrhage and Nigel was not able to be with her. Many weeks later, after a flight to Athens and two operations there, she too is back home going through rehabilitation to move and get around again also. An English friend from our village has gone through the loss of his dog after a good long while. These bereavements seem harder in solitary. Messages from the UK and locally have made the little prayer list into quite a sizeable one, so quiet time for prayer has been a kind of healing in its way too. Even alone, we are not alone but I have a way to go yet.

I have spent a small fortune on candles and think I have cleared the stock from all the local supermarket shelves of tealights and large red prayer candles. When the Christmas tree came down, some of the twinkly lights were reorganised in other places to keep some light shining through the dark winter nights. My neighbours must think I am a bit deranged. Our virtual coffee morning on Messenger continues every Thursday, but it is getting more and more difficult to remember when Thursday is and many of us forget!

So. What to do, when your 'reason for being' over the previous seven years is no longer there to care for? Care for oneself, I suppose.

Mrs Ma Crozier is taking her multivits, making sure to cook one good, hot meal every day. Get the nastiest household chores done as early as possible. If the sun is out in the middle of the day, a lovely long walk, preferable within sight of the sea and a pocket sized sketch book on hand to try and splodge a nice vista or pretty landscape. Painting, jigsaws, and making memory bears has also been therapeutic whilst tv non-stop for background company. The entire series 1 – 9 of Cold Feet DVDs was great therapy. There was also a couple of on line art classes, but the choir on line was too hard to do as it was reminiscent of K hearing all the practices from bed every evening and the recordings being released too late for him to hear the finished product. I sent off for the EP but I can't bear to listen to it.

My one permitted daily outing for food shopping is a brief affair, but as supplies of lovely fresh fruit and veg are available everywhere, the outing is very speedy and washing of the goodies on return home in soapy, bleachy water is still going on. It would be sad to be like a fighter pilot shot down on the last day of the War. We will still need to be on our guard for a few months yet – even if we are lucky enough to get a vaccine jab. Without the option of a nice cafe or taverna for a rest stop, outings are a bit bleak on your own. 'Always winter and never Christmas' comes to mind, but fair's fair. The Greek government have gone all out to keep us safe. This is so reassuring. The chaotic manoeuvring in the UK less so.

Mr Crozier once said that I didn't realise all the little jobs he did around the house, but I do now! Even in his last winter he tried his best to keep the log burner going and I do have to do a tour of the house to ensure that everything is working OK or switched off. It was good to learn for sure that it is the immersion heater that plays up and knocks out all the electrics if there is too much on at once, so I have devised a morning routine to use it for an hour or two in the early morning while I make morning tea on the camping gas stove and wrap up in rugs or energetically sweep out the fireplace. So far, no blips. I now have to negotiate the novel situation of choosing four new tyres for the car and filling up the windscreen wiper bottle unaided. Thank heavens for Youtube. All the information is there!

We are assured of light at the end of the tunnel so stay safe and well. I look forward to huge hugs and a big family party at the end of all this. And a hair cut!