CHICKEN RUN

We have escaped from the UK summer of lots of rain to blistering heat in Crete and then to NZ winter with ...lots of rain plus hail and even some snow forecast for some parts of Auckland.

I was woken quite early on Monday morning by a loud humming noise as if someone was taking a spa bath as the sound was so loud.  On checking out of the window I saw a large delivery truck dropping off a huge stack of wood for the winter.  NZ like Crete uses log burners to heat houses rather than central heating.  As the weather had been wet and stormy with only intervals of sunshine during the week, Soph managed to fix a temporary rainproof cover over the wood (which was very damp before it got here despite being promised as dry stock!  The same thing happened to us in Crete a couple of months back .)   The family spent the main part of today (Saturday) moving an enormous pile of logs which had been dumped in the driveway to the house.  Darren  needed to retrieve the wheelbarrow and expend lots of muscle power to get the load shifted.

Greenhithe (yes, commuters from Kent it IS another Greenhithe) turns out to be a quiet suburb on the North Shore of Auckland – very green and pleasant.   I have seen Cameron’s new kindergarten, visited the local shops and met up with lots of Sophie’s friends at children’ parties and a baby shower – so it has been all go for a week or so.  I have also walked past the local Anglican/Methodist Church which I hope to go to tomorrow morning if I can rouse myself for a 9 a.m. start.   I have been amused to see the very British  names of some of the other suburbs – Sandringham, Balmoral, Newmarket, Epsom and so on ...

Lots of NZ homes (which are spacious and luxurious by my standards) have a hot tub Jacuzzi in the back garden and I am waiting for my turn when the sun comes out!!  We were all primed and swim suited a day or two ago, but a power switch had tripped out which meant that the water was cold and in need of cleaning and filtering so I am still hoping that my turn comes around soon.

I wish that I had brought my paints with me because this is a corner in Sophie’s garden which is quiet and peaceful. 

Still no news from Melbourne about grandchild number three!  We are watching our mobile phones for the all systems go text but know that Kate will be taken into hospital on Monday if nothing happens over the weekend. All the family in the UK, Crete and NZ are anxious for news; meanwhile Cameron and Hayden are waiting for their new cousin!  

JOIN THE CHIPMUNKS DOWN UNDER

Air New Zealand has changed the design of its aircraft so that travelling Premium Economy introduced me to a new form of seating which had been arranged so that the seats were on the slant.  In theory, this should have provided more leg room but I found myself feeling  twisted out of shape and struggling to find anywhere to fit a full sized pillow and thus had no way of supporting my head for the whole flight.  Consequently, the 2-3 hours sleep I usually managed in the 24 hour flight in a normal seat was reduced to no sleep at all and a very bad back. 

 Arrival at Auckland Airport on Thursday morning was a bit of an early start.  It was still dark – even  after the 30 minute car journey from the airport to our daughter and son-in-law’s new house in Greenhithe Village on the North Shore.  We arrived to a quiet house which began to come to life as the children woke up and came downstairs for their breakfast.  Several  Weetabix later, we were all ready to start the day and after a luxury spa bath and a change of clothes,  we went out into the garden to see to the chickens and feed the fish.  After this, we were ready to get Cameron to his kindergarten and then do some shopping in the afternoon.  It was great to hit the shops and good to be able to read all the labels easily and stock up on Branston Pickle and Cheddar Cheese – which I had not seen for a few months.  I was adjusting to the rapid alteration in outside temperature – heat, heat, heat in Crete, warm summer sunshine in Britain to heavy rain, dark clouds  and coolth in Auckland.  By 8.30 p.m., I was struggling to keep my eyes open any longer so I took off to stretch out flat and get some well needed sleep. 

  

Sophie apologised that the next day, they had booked for Cameron to go to the Chipmunks Centre for his birthday party which turned out to be a great time of playing inside (very useful as there was driving rain outside) and Cameron and his chums went climbing, bouncing and sliding down cool slides in what was basically a large warehouse painted and fitted out as a children’s indoor play centre.  After an hour or so, we were led into Party Room 1 where a feast was laid out and Cameron had a place of honour.  As kid’s parties go – it was a great idea and we had plenty of time to catch up with the other parents while the children took off and let off lots of steam.  It was the first children’s party that I had ever actually enjoyed and Cameron was having a spectacular day.  Still no news from Melbourne about the imminent arrival of grandchild no. 3.

                                                                                                                                                                  

I had been given an I-pod for Christmas and it had been wonderful for photos and playing Scrabble across the globe with other members of the Croziers Clan.  It took Sophie to show me how to access my hotmails on the I-pod which had eluded me since I had it.  This was a revolution and I rapidly managed to delete the spam which had built up over the previous few days

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The new house is a wonderful space with lovely kitchen, bathrooms and garden with space for children, a hen house and a fishpond which is causing a bit of consternation to ensure that this area of the garden is closed off.  On Sunday morning,  we spent an hour or two blitzing the house and sorting out the toy box before heading off to the local pub in bright sunshine with family friends for Sunday lunch.

Darren had spent quite a lot of time on the internet browsing sites such as "Backyard Chickens" and "Urban Poultry" to learn how to care for the hens which came along with the new house.  Today, we had a hilarious half hour at supper and bath time because we had forgotten to gather up the chickens from the chicken run and put them in the henhouse before dark;  consequently Sophie and Cameron armed themselves with a torch  while supper was getting cold trying to get already roosting hens from one part of the garden to another.  They showed their displeasure by pecking their protectors a bit viciously ... I don't think we will forget them another time!

AROUND THE WORLD IN 59 DAYS

KIMON FILLING THE GAP.  Tuesday 12 July 2011.



OK, so Merope has gone off to U.K./ NZ / OZ / UK. (then hopefully back to Kriti). The poisoned chalice falls to me to keep you posted on progress with this blog - at least until M can get her hands on a downunder computer.  After many years of work and a deal of separation (me at sea and in London & M in Kent & London) it has been a steep learning curve to spend all our time together now for the last five months.  The good thing is that the kitchen here, unlike in the UK, is large. We can navigate around each other with fewer accidents with pots and kettles.
Also, here, we don't close doors or windows. So even at 110 deg f (44'ish celsius) we have a breeze of olive, tomato, lavender and jasmine air blowing through (beats diesel !)

Our pal Nikos - the olive and orange baron, as we call him (a dear man) brought me a plate of fish and lemon potatoes yesterday. YUM.
The people here think that, because M is away, I shall starve - BUT I COOK !! Very nice fish though I have to say.
I am therefore spending my time tending/watering our patch and other people’s.

It is the season for very small and very fast flies. The swallows and swifts doing their best to keep the, and the mozzies, at bay before they head back to Africa in a few months. i shall miss them - the swallows, not the flies.

There are times when we chat about what would life be like if we had not decided to move here to Kriti.  Certainly, life here is more simple, honest and healthy. But, of course there shall be pitfalls - are there not always !?

The village seems to have adopted us openly. Especially as M is making great progress with her spoken and written Greek language skills.When she returns I shall insist that only Greek   shall be spoken at home. Normally I can be 60/70% fluent within 2-3 weeks. It has taken me longer this time because we speaka da eengleesh all day. I am dreaming in Greek now - good sign but all greek to me.

I wish we could have afforded to both go to see the children and grandchildren - but might as well have barbecued the bank.  The up-side is that i can go fishing when i want. but M has left a list of "jobs to do" on the fridge. First job - paint the fridge ! HOHO   I must go and get the car now. It is in a body shop being repaired. M hit a wall that was not there. I hit one that was\1  Annoyingly, this all happened after we agreed to sell it to pals returning to the UK. Our car was taking on the beaten up look of a real Kriti motor. Now it will look English again. HiHo, right thing to do (at a cost).

Oh, Nikos the oil just delivered lamb chops and spuds. Plus another 1.5 ltrs of the best olive oil in the world.   Will i ever lose weight ?

Scent from the jasmine is over-powering and the shower scalding hot from the power of the sun.  We have tiny frogs and gekkos out front, so no no slugs/snails etc - great !

Finally, some thoughts of mine following the poetry workshop held recently by Roger McGough:

"SHORES"

Time has no measure

Time has no laws

When lying on your back

On far distant shores.

"CRETE"

Nothing is square

Nothing is straight

Were you too early?

or, was I too late?

HIGH SUMMER AT THE KENTRO

You can tell that the really hot weather has now arrived here in Crete as there is a loud chorus of cicadas at 8 o’clock in the morning and we have been running the air conditioning for a good part of the night. While the thermometer has been creeping up to the nineties and hundreds (in old values) I have been preparing for my flights home and then on to catch up with our daughters down under. So, I will try to keep up the blog from borrowed computers for the next few weeks. It has exercised my packing skills to prepare for summer in the UK plus winter in New Zealand – but hopefully I will have enough summer shirts and winter woollies to cope with both!
In a previous blog we mentioned that Kimon had completed the first hurdle in getting Greek number plates for our British car and then went to find out from the harbour police how much it would cost because despite the fact that we have paid British tax on the car, the authorities in Greece demand that importers of foreign cars pay a swingeing import tax which is on a sliding scale. The older the car – the more tax they demand. The sum was 5,000 euros – a ridiculous amount for our beloved, well maintained but rather old car. [And what is the European Union all about?} Hence, we have had to sell it to people returning to the UK before our insurance runs out. So, Kimon will be on the look out for a second hand run-about, which is very cheap to run, if we think we can afford it. Using the bus looks like an attractive alternative for the time being and will be planet friendly.

We received our first bill from OTE which seemed to be charging us for all the time we spent waiting for our line to be installed! There were all sorts of discrepancies on the bill lined up each with the additional charge of 23.5% VAT – cost enormous. Then we went to the town hall to sort out the water bill, which had not been paid by the previous owners of the house, and we had not received a bill since 2009. Again, cost enormous - but the people there were actually quite kind to us and said that we could pay it in 10 instalments before they put the water bill into our name. It is just as well that all the lovely people in our village are so caring and sharing with their produce because we have been overwhelmed by their generosity.
It started with a bag of courgettes and cucumbers left for us by Nikos. OK, I would make a lovely big flan and take a piece to Nikos and a piece to Costas and Angeliki to say thank you. C and A said thankyou for the flan, brought the plate back FILLED with MORE courgettes and a whole pot of myzithres cheese (a cross between cream cheese and cottage cheese – ideal for cheesecakes!) Nikos was out but anyway brought us a plate of buckwheat stew garnished with the Cretan delicacy of snails. This was a bit more awkward and we are struggling to work out the best response to this as neither of us like snails but it was so kind and generous of him to prepare it for us! Nikos learned to cook when he was a young man in the Army so he is very good at growing stuff and looking after himself. We carefully transferred the contents to a plastic container, washed up his plate to return and now the buckwheat and snails are staring reproachfully at us every time we open the ‘fridge.

Angeliki offered to give me lessons in Greek. I had bought the books at vast expense in a Rethymnon bookshop for lessons with a young Dutch lady but these have stopped for the summer til September. So every evening at 6.30 outside the cafeneon while all the aged males are yarning away we wade through pages of Greek questions, answers and text. I am reading it phonetically but only understand 20% of everything! However, I can now go to Costa’s village shop and say ‘Thelos ena Psomi, parakalo’ – meaning I would like one loaf of bread please etc. instead of the mime and charades I had been employing up until now. Slow progress indeed but every little helps!

We had an interesting experience last Saturday when K and I walked around the village with the movie camera to take a video so that the family can see what the house and village is like. As we emerged from the church and the mill, we noticed that the fortress like building on the opposite hill was completely lit up. We reckoned that there would be a wedding party that evening and we were in for a noisy night. When we reached the Village Square, all the cars and people were walking in the same direction and we ended up being the only people left in the village who had not been invited to the Baptism Party up the hill. By the end of the evening, with the very loud music, celebratory gun fire at various intervals during the night until early morning and the ashen faces of all the villagers the next day, we realised that the only thing worse than not being invited to the party – was to have been invited!! I was really glad to have a quiet sun downer on the roof terrace and watch the proceedings from a safe distance – and we went inside before the guns went off because those bullets have got to land somewhere!

SATURDAY MORNING … in which the Fish Van arrives and all hell breaks loose!

We woke up to a great Cretan morning with high temperatures and a deep blue sky and resisted the daily banter to one another … “Oh no, not blue sky again …..!” After a clutch of visitors to the house and various outings to meet up over the previous week or two, we had time to sort out the housework of brushing dust from various corners and getting the floors mopped and dry while the temperatures were only hot rather than stifling!

While our friend Mike was staying last Sunday, we had been invited to a barbecue at a house which was a bit off the beaten track. We had had a few problems making contact with these kind people who had issued the invitation and at least knew how to get to Exantas which is a friendly little village literally five minutes away. However, there are a few mini mountains and foothills to negotiate in the meantime. The three of us took our family saloon (as per instructions) down from the motorway on a steep track that ended in someone's olive grove. Turned round and tried the next track down from the motorway and stopped at a house with a swimming pool to discover if whether this was where the party was. Nothing in response other than the barking of a large dog. Down into the village to get more instructions. Take the road for 200 m and turn right at the track and take the right fork. After several more fruitless attempts to find the right track and opportunities to hug olive trees, we returned back to the bottom road and tried to find another track – only to turn into the second one we had taken from the main road. All this time, we could see our friends house enticingly up the mountain but had no idea how to reach it. Eventually we spied some tiny figures on the balcony and shouted across the valley and gave signals in semaphore - LEFT …. or RIGHT? They waved back cheerily and our petrol light came on! We carried on along this track which curved backwards and forwards several times (so left or right would have been right either way) and we arrived hot, thirsty and exhausted after a bit of a safari. It took an hour and all our petrol! It seems that many of their visitors arrive in a similar state of disarray. However once we had recovered ourselves and had drunk several glasses of water we had a lovely time and met a lovely Greek family who had travelled a long way to the bbq and had no trouble finding the place at all!

Spilli was our destination midweek to show Mike a few of the sites and we set off for the mountains where the mountain streams fall down the rocky outcrops right into the centre of the town. Stopping at the cafe next to the Lions Head fountains for a refresher was wonderful and we washed our hands and faces in the wonderfully cool jets of water. 

 Checking the time and realising it was getting late we stopped at Panormo beach for a sardine supper. The need for peace and quiet with lots of shade had us heading for Camping Elizabeth on Thursday only to find that our normal retreat was invaded first of all by a van out of which two smartly dressed young ladies emerged carrying a D.I.Y. Bower and several bunches of flowers and yards of white tulle. Then a very tall Scandinavian vicar arrived and we realised that a wedding was about to take place on the beach.

With Mike's help we managed to put up trellis panels around the upstairs balcony which gives our growing creeper plants a bit of well needed shade and us a little privacy when we want to have a meal overlooking our mountain and nice view. Said mountain has now lost all but a few wisps of snow from the peak and the countryside is taking on the variations of ochre and burnt sienna that we are familiar with.

Our morning peace is very often shattered by the raucous noise emerging from various travelling sales vans selling fruit and vegetables, kitchen ware, clothes and shoes, meat and fish. It is the fish van that seems to have the loudest megaphone and has the villagers rushing past (especially soon after pension day) with shopping bags of tasty fish. Life in the middle of a village is not quiet or peaceful and there are plenty of loud conversations which double in volume as it bounces off the stone walls! There are no riots here, however, thank goodness only lots of conversations about politics.  We are setting off for the CIC Barbecue at Camping Elizabeth tonight and will stay overnight in one of their air conditioned cabins. We have the guitar packed and lots of mosquito nets/repellent. Wish us luck!   

ROOTS AND SHOOTS

Events have certainly been a little hum drum of late interspersed with trips to the Dentist and visits to the beach on very hot days.

We took a photo of our first jasmine flower last week. This was one of the first of the pots we planted and we have been searching for new growth each morning anticipating the green cover it will give us at the front of the house and also the lovely scent as the sun goes down.

A short drive brought us to the beach at Georgeopolis last weekend and the weather was stunning enough for me to sit on the beach in the shade of the palm leaf coverings and do a water colour of the landscape. I was trying to get down on paper the lovely promontory into the sea with a small white chapel nearly at the end of it. Sadly the photo does not do it justice.

A large lump on the side of my gum which I checked with my own UK dentist before I left and which was airily dismissed as a minor low-grade infection had not gone away and was beginning to worry me so I booked up an appointment with Anna's dentist in Rethymnon. Check out the lovely view from the Dentist's balcony!

I had been trying to deal with an abscess all this time and now needed root canal surgery which thankfully was not a painful process except for my wallet. Since the work began to drain the infection two more fillings have dropped out and I am confined to mashed banana and baby food for a few days before we can get all the work done to fix me up! My suspicion that the UK NHS dentist was just taking regular money for doing next to nothing for the past four years was rather confirmed. The Greek dentist was horrified to see all the ugly amalgum used over the years and is doing a good job in patching me up!

We had been looking for trellis to put on the upstairs terrace for some time and now that some of the plants are establishing themselves, the quest had become more urgent. We eventually found a DIY store not too far away and managed to buy three trellises and some wood preservative which was so strong smelling we had to paint them outside the house and drove off all the neighbours in the process who had been sitting on their doorsteps in the evening shadows. Thank goodness the wood treatment had gone off by the morning and we were nice to know again the next day!

On Wednesday, as the evening drew on and it got cooler, K and I decided to go for a short stroll and headed towards the village square. As we turned the corner we were surprised to see fair ground lights and lots of activity outside the primary school. There were balloons on sale, bags of popcorn, a barbecue and loads of parents and children milling about and enjoying themselves. We were ushered into the playground and told that it was the last day of term and there was always a big party and concert to celebrate. It looked so much more fun than any of our school events and I wandered into a classroom to have a look at the children's work realising that I could benefit from some of the infant school writing practice exercises! Sadly, we had missed the concert but we were told that term ends on 15 June every year – so next year there was no excuse to miss the fun!

After lots of questions, I am beginning Greek lessons in a small way with a friend called Kathy who, with her husband, are having a new house built on the edge of the village. She knew of a young Dutch lady with a Greek husband who had lessons herself 3 years ago and still remembers all the pitfalls of learning a new language. So we are having a couple of one-off lessons in the meantime and starting properly in September with a text book, exercise books and a very patient teacher! Kathy and I are currently puzzling through the Greek alphabet and learning to form our letters all over again!

TOURIST TRACKS

Peter, a friend who used to work with Kimon many moons ago came to stay with us for a week and has used his hired car for most of the week which has saved a great deal of petrol costs. He managed to land at Heraklion airport at about 3.00 p.m. and arrive at the party just before 4.00 pm which says a great deal about his driving speed. However the party went well, the weather was lovely and we had a meze for 20 of us at a little taverna on the beach at Panormo. 

The taverna keepers grilled us some sardines, made salads and bread and we had lots of home grown wine as well. One of our friends had made the most amazing cake and there was lots left over to take some back to the village later in the evening. Peter has been a great hit and all the village folk enjoy having a chat with him as he (with a gift for languages) wrestles with the new vocabulary.

With a new tourist in tow and the start of baking hot days at last, we have spent time on the beach at Bali – which during the week is absolutely lovely for swimming but very busy at weekends. K and I watched anxiously from a few beaches while Peter did long distance swims. Then we drove down to the south of the island on Saturday to explore the southern coast and found a hideaway beach at Shinari. We consulted loads of books and maps because Peter had been told about the Samaria gorge and wanted to test his mettle by doing the walk while he was in Crete. We were also convulsed to hear about a friend's experience of doing this walk some years ago when he found himself walking side by side with a young lad who decided to take a bike, diving weights and a rubber dinghy 16 k down the gorge and the kind hearted friend found himself carrying the backpack containing lead weights … as if walking the gorge wasn't hard enough to begin with!

Meanwhile, Kimon has now picked up his European ID Residence Permit from the Police Station which is the first part of trying to get greek number plates for our UK car. We expect that the second part of this quest will be much more difficult and very expensive but there is only one way to find out.

Today, Sunday, we revisited Bali again Peter was enchanted by this little place (about 4 miles East of our village) and wonders if he can find somewhere to rent for a spell. He is going to investigate.