HALCYON DAYS AND GARLIC MELON

While we were out today, it was hard to believe that last weekend, we had the first of the October rains – heavy monsoon downpours – which tested the sea-worthiness of our ancient roof and found it lacking in one or two spots. We needed to contact our friendly builder who arrived a day or two later armed with all the materials and equipment to sort it out and with the word of advice that we needed to think about an annual inspection each September to keep out the harsh elements of Cretan winter. Fortunately, since Leo, our son arrived, we have had wonderful sparkling sunshine although it is getting quite cold in the evenings and early mornings.

Checking the roof

Our lovely dry woodpile, also got a drenching but we are planning to design a fitting crozier contraption to keep our winter fuel nice and dry because we are certain that a ready stock of firewood will be needed in the next few weeks. I never thought that I would need a year planner in retirement but I can see that the planting, harvesting and storing for the winter months will conform to a very fixed pattern and we need to be fast learners ! The sales van selling winter boots, shoes and slippers has just stopped to announce his wares outside the door and our neighbours have been queuing up to make sure that feet are well protected before winter starts. I have unearthed the hot water bottles already and they are doing a sterling job to keep our beds aired.

Leo was happy to chill out, swimming, fishing and sleeping off large meals – so the week so far has been very relaxed. We have been a bit limited as to travel as there has been a General Strike for two days and a tanker drivers strike for a length of time unspecified. Therefore we have been puttering about locally and conserving 'benzina' as far as possible. I should say that we have managed to buy a lovely “new-to-us” (but second hand) car – which is economical, LH drive and fits the bill as regards the small runabout we had in mind. Were it not for various kind friends in the Cretan International Community, we are fairly sure that all these car sales and purchases would not have been possible. People returning to the UK bought our English car, which we could not keep in Crete without paying exorbitant import duty and someone selling their house and car let us buy their Greek car. We hope that we can sort out the various bureaucratic needs required – especially with most government departments choosing to strike here and there without any warning. We are not expecting to get any post for 2 weeks either - so ignorance will have to be bliss for the time being.

As we had an in-house Golf expert, four of us closed in George's Crazy Golf in Rethymnon yesterday as Anna had been challenged to a tournament recently and, not having played at her best, wanted to pick up professional tips to up her game while Leo was around. This was a great fun although one or two of the holes were plainly impossible (golf ball through a miniature basket ball net with a plastic putter??) but we enjoyed the challenge and Kimon should have had to pay for drinks once we reached the 19^th hole as he scored the only hole in one! Anna feels more confident for her next golf outing and shamelessly admitted that it was better to drink the retsina after the match than before!!! It was my idea of sport which was inclusive, enjoyable without anyone taking it too seriously.

Bali is a favourite haunt for most of our visitors and we have spent two lovely days there under a clear blue sky reflected in silky flat water. Delicious for a few last swims of the year and clear, clear water in the harbour where shoals of tiddlers, small fish and enticingly larger ones can be seen in the water alongside the boats tied up. Today K and L fished all morning but caught only tiddlers while I did a water colour painting of the harbourside with cliffs and mountains in the background. On the way back and with strikes in the back of our minds, we prayed that that cash machines were still operational so that we could pay the builder who had been hard at work labouring on our roof while we had been lazily unwinding down by the waterside!

Tomorrow we visit Rethymnon by bus (to conserve petrol) and Leo will have the chance to explore his favourite haunts from yesteryear.    I can supply the recipe for garlic melon to anyone mad enough to wish to sample it!!!!!

FIVE ON THE SUNSHINE TRAIL

Coffee at Vinzi's

We had fun showing our friends all our favourite places and they were blessed with reasonably fine weather for October which is traditionally the month for heavy rains.

Vinzi's in Panormo is a lovely coffee place at the top of the cliff perched amongst old castle fortifications and overlooks the little harbour and a small, sheltered beach. Marina, the proprietor treated us to delicious HOT chocolates, and nice ice cold beers and we fought over the different variety of crisps and peanuts while enjoying her choice of music.

Having Lunch at Margaritas

Margaritas is a famous tourist destination being a village not far from us up in the mountains where 15-20 potters live and work. It is a very pretty village, with a number of very interesting churches, the remains of an old monastery and a new monastic building on the way out of town. The five of us wandered up and down the narrow streets looking at all the ceramics and enjoying all the new ideas. One French potter had made a range of interesting musical instruments and another traditional pottery showed a range of huge Ali Baba pots and ceramic basins and seemed to give pottery lessons.

Raki Making Time

We sat down at the least super smart of the tavernas for lunch and ate a really splendid meal from the small menu which the lady proprietor offered. Each of the dishes chosen was good and we ate under a shady vine while we watched 'Superwoman' at her work. The lady (Elina) supervised the Raki making which was taking place in the back garden, cooked and served the meal, looked after their grandchild and totted up our bill. We took photos of the Raki Still with the fire glowing underneath and discussed how the process worked, stopping to take pictures at various intervals during the meal. Eleni gave us all a bottle of her Raki from last year's vintage with the change from our bill. We noted on the way out that she ran the local Post Office as well … What a woman!

Simply Huge Minoan Pots at Knossos

Sir Arthur Evans controversial reconstructions at Knossos

The best day of the week was Sunday when we were booked for a tour with the Curator of the British School of Archaeology based next to the palace workings in Knossos near Iraklion. Don, our guide was immensely knowledgeable and even if we had been to Knossos previously, all of us agreed that the input from our Guide added a new dimension to the whole day. We learned so much more about the history of the place than we had read in the past or learned before. We were amazed that the settlement at Knossos went back many more centuries than the Minoan age, which we knew about, before the Bronze Age, and there was evidence of settlement there back to Neolithic man with so much more there still to uncover. It made me want to do a bit more homework.

Style of Minoan Wall Paintings with interesting details

The Throne Room

As the tour of the workings ended, we had a meal at a taverna nearby and it was at this point that the heavens opened and the rain began to fall in buckets. Fortunately, we all had umbrellas and concluded the tour by visiting the buildings of the School of Archeology, which has a wonderful library, accommodation for visiting archaeology students and an enormous place to study and store artefacts. I was amazed to find myself walking past the Villa Ariadne – a house built for Sir Arthur Evans at the turn of the 20^th century and a place with a rich history of its own as a school for archaeology, a field hospital, the headquarters for occupying forces during the war and a rather imposing house which has now become too costly to maintain by the Greek government! However, having read Ill-met By Moonlight, the opportunity to see the scene where that story took place was unmissable and I was hooked!

Entrance to the Villa Ariadne

The last of our party had to fly home from Iraklion Airport after the day out and we were glad that they had had the best of the weather because it hasn't really stopped raining since then! The torrential rain has gone on for three days and nights but we woke up to a lovely blue sky this morning to cheer us up. We are keeping our fingers crossed that there is some more sunshine up there stored up because our son arrives for a visit next week and we want him to get the chance to see some sun!

PRICKLY PEARS!

We were so pleased that our long delayed celebration of being 60 and retirement by inviting friends to stay happened this week and the party – most of whom we have known for 40ish years arrived at the beginning of the week after furious moppings and sweepings to get the house ready. It was a reprise of “Five go Mad in Dorset” from recent years when the round of 60^th birthday celebrations began. 

Jane and The Prickly Pear

 J (the food stylist) pronounced that she was going to spend her time food foraging and supplies of unripe olives and rock hard pomegranates are now on the front walls waiting for the sun to do its job along with a bright pink hat which was similarly foraged from a nearby beach and awaited a new owner. Fortunately we did have some marvellous tomatoes and a deliciously sweet melon given us by our kindly friend Niko to await their arrival. Our friends arrived from Blighty laden with gifts – just the sort we love – 2 x sachets of fresh ground coffee for a filter machine, a large hunk of cheese, biscuits and a brilliant tee shirt for Kimon, whose lotus-eater wardrobe was in dire need of a makeover.

There were lots of activities to herald their arrival like a Renaissance Festival in Rethymnon with all sorts of activities staged over a week – traditional Cretan dancing, classical music and jazz to name a few – so we set off for the bright lights of Rethymnon on Tuesday evening to see what was happening and made a return visit on Wednesday to take in Jazz and renaissance music.

They were delighted by the charming lanes and alley ways of the old Venetian quarter which have recently been repaved and combine the lovely antique street lights with eco-friendly light bulbs. We spent a little time at the Pottery Cafe which has a beautiful back garden and had a meal at one of our favourite ports of call. I chose a dish called Imam Baldi (which translated means the Imam fell down in delight over the beautiful flavour of the dish) and it had the same effect on me except I was ill for two days following. We wondered whether it was food poisoning until all the party began to drop like ninepins a day or two apart from each other. … So much food has been bought and/or foraged but little eaten since then!

Fortunately, the British crew have recovered fairly quickly and have taken off to Bali for a swim today while we catch up with sleeping and laundry. We hope to be more in the swing of things after the weekend – and we had been invited to take part in a Greeks v the Rest of the World Cricket Match which sadly none of us felt well enough to tackle. This would have been worth attending for all sorts of reasons but especially to find out where there was a large enough expanse of soft, flat ground for a cricket pitch – this is not Corfu after all! If there is an expanse big enough for a Cricket pitch hereabouts, we know of a very interested person who would like to bring a team out to Crete so it was the kind of information we needed to follow up. However, bugs stopped play.

We learned earlier in the blog that there is no such thing as a free lunch when our complimentary lunch courtesy of Minoan Lines meant (but was not stated) that a meal for two was free for everything on the menu except fish – when we had just chosen fish.    Soooo the foraging of prickly pears had a similar end result with much use of tweezers, magnifying glasses, savlon and the ruination of washing up sponges, gardening gloves and a shoulder bag (all of which were infiltrated by almost invisible spines) to produce a fruit salad which was not nearly as tasty as all this botheration warranted. No wonder the Cretans treat these monster cacti with the respect they deserve! Any suggestions for the removal of prickly pear spines from clothing gratefully received (patent pending - we did google it .. and ended up boiling affected articles in a preserving pan rather than transferring said problem to the washing machine and causing even more hassle .......)  However, at such an auspicious stage of our lives,  it seemed important to taste this delicacy once at least so we can tick it off our bucket list. EVIVA!

Five Go Mad in Bali (Crete) - Liz, Kimon, Jane, Steve 

They were all watching The Calypso!

AUTUMN LEAVES

You can tell that Autumn has arrived at our village. The tree outside the house which had been completely pollarded on our arrival in March and burst forth into masses of long green boughs in the Spring to shade the front porch is now beginning to drop brown, dried up leaves on the roadway outside. The vociferous lady in the house next door is complaining loudly if I am not out there each morning with my broom! It seems that sweeping the front of one's house is the epitome of greek housewifely requirements and you are a very slack person if you leave it for a day or two (or even a week, I am ashamed to say) before getting out there with a besom, scoupithia (dustpan) and a garden hose on a daily basis to be able to show your face in society.

It is at these moments when I do not totally embrace village ideals and plead ignorance! However, this morning I was out there before the sun was too hot and doing my housewifely duty like a goodun'.

We tried to get to the beach without a motor today by catching the bus and walking down to the beach at Panormo for a lovely swim at the harbour beach. The way there was all down hill and we had a marvellous swim in lovely warm water. Later, we picked up a few items of shopping and made the long, hot climb back up the hill and flights of steps through the oleanders and tamarisk trees to the national road to wait for the 5.00 p.m. bus. Check out this view from the bus stop!

We had a half hour wait for the bus in blistering heat and a long trudge back up the track from the bus stop to the village, I thought that I did not want to be doing this very often! At some stage, having had to sell our English car, we will have to find some form of transport and sadly we do not have enough grazing land to install a donkey although, the prospect is enticing. However common sense prevails and we know that a donkey wouldn't get us down the road to Perama to pay our household bills.

Talking of bills, we are still doing regular battle with OTE the phone company who gave us a contract price for phone and broadband at 95 euros every two months (which we thought was expensive enough) and now continue to send us bills every two months for over 200 euros. What a total waste of time and petrol/bus fares/temper this all is! Every time they send a bill it provokes four visits to different phone shops and offices with a file of papers and noisy phone call arguments between all the people involved. Then there is the water bill - we are not sure how we seem to have inherited the two years of unpaid water bill from the people who owned the house before us so one way and another, K and I believe that we are going a long way to paying off the national debt from our fast diminishing bank account. There is still an extra tax to be added to the electricity bill in a “house” tax which every home in Greece will have to pay – so austerity measures are beginning to kick in – in a big way. On top of this, a hire car and the cost of petrol to make all the airport runs for recent visitors cost us dearly and we are on super-frugal rations for the next two months to try to balance the books.

It is just as well we had already laid in some stores laid in for the ensuing siege –and  our kindly friend Niko brought us some goodies this morning – olive oil, tomatoes, two kinds of cheese and 4 eggs – what a nice gift!

Greek children returned to school on 15 September and it is good to see the village school full of children and playground noise back again. The roads and beaches are also beginning to empty of the big crowds of tourists and it is getting much quieter and cooler in the mornings and evenings. The mountains and foothills are a lovely shade of pink and grey light at both ends of the day so K and I have just had a quiet after-dinner coffee and Metaxa on the roof where it is starting to get deliciously cool, come sundown. Yes, Autumn is certainly well on its way.

ROUND THE WORLD IN 60 DAYS

Picture of Hot Air Balloon ascent from Kate's balcony the day I left Melbourne

Finally free to sit down and put some thoughts on paper following my solo jaunt – round the world in 60 days! It was a bit of a whirlwind trying to take in parents and most of the children in one go but I have been very well looked after and am trying to wrestle with the strings of household duties now that I am back which K is reluctant to hand back to me!

Changing perceptions dictated that I was in observant mode wherever I went and was almost agog with the luxury of how our children live down under compared with the simplicity I have grown used to in the back waters of Crete. However, it was great to reacquaint myself with grandson number one who is asking 20 questions per hour and has very strong views about his world, to get to know grandson number two who is beginning to talk, chuckle, sing and pull himself up and around all the furniture and seems to be interested in all sorts of haunts hitherto unvisited by his older brother! I foresee challenging times ahead but lots of fun and jokes also.

As for newest grandson number three, he was still at the eating, sleeping, feeding all night stage so other than being cuddly and gorgeous and wishing I was closer, we can only revisit the many photos and video film I took whilst with them. However, I saw a reasonable amount of Melbourne in my ten days there and could see that it was a very cosmopolitan place where Kate and Grant are very comfortable until it is time to go home to New Zealand.

Driving to Piha Beach, New Zealand

The UK was quite sunny when I landed at Heathrow and I was glad to throw off my winter woollies and get back into cotton tee shirts again. It was good to spend time with my parents who are quite remarkable in the way they manage to carry on regardless of the difficulties life brings. It is hard being away from them and I hope that we manage to get the idea of using the computer to communicate better firmly established. It would be such a boon.

Panormo Beach in Crete

Back in Crete, the landscape had dried out over the hot two months I had been away; our two tomato seedlings planted out in April had taken over the entire garden and produced bags and bags of fruit – all ready for making preserves as soon as I got back. Various plants like jasmine and some creeper for the terrace had started to weave their way through the trellis giving us much needed shade and privacy which was good to see. We also had a houseful of visitors and more about to arrive and it meant that I had to put jet lag on the back burner for a few days. It was very nice to spend several very hot days on the beach and catch up on my aqua-therapy after two months of winter down under. Lazy lunches and happy conversations with our friends at our favourite taverna on the beach took up most of our time. However, now that our house guests have left, K and I have the place to ourselves and we are enjoying having a lazy Sunday breakfast of fried tomatoes on toast and being able to unwind without having to double think our routes around the house and the whereabouts of “too-hot-to-wear-really” dressing gowns!

Our kindly neighbours welcomed me back and mysterious melons and tomatoes appeared from nowhere by way of a welcome. We hired a car for a week to do all the airport runs involved and we plan to make the most of it and get all sorts of jobs done while we have it which are impossible without transport - so interesting outings like paying the water bill, buying an umbrella base and locating cream house paint await us. To think that we are missing out on cut-price OAP day at B & Q!

ROCK-A-BYE-LOCHIE

Sorry that the blog has been a bit neglected in recent weeks whilst Grandma pursuits were going on.  In short, we now have three lovely grandsons – two in Auckland and one born in Melbourne on 25 July.  I flew from Auckland to Melbourne for 10 days or so to see if I could help with Mummy Kate and the new baby just as her husband Grant was due to return to work.

I forgot how much work new babies are ... and Kate was on the go with the mid-night feeds and trying to catch up on sleep and meals as best she could.  Baby Lochie (Lachlan) is absolutely gorgeous.  Current practices for babycare seem to have changed dramatically since my children were babies, so my experience was a bit out of date but we enjoyed the time together and caught up with all our news whilst doing all the household stuff which seems to be doubled and multiplied by having a newborn in the house.  We were only able to take shortish excursions around Melbourne and the weather was a bit cloudy and cold but we certainly made the best of it and took a walk in the Botanical Gardens which gives the best view of the city centre and looked over the banks of the Yarra River which has to be the most pleasant walk to work ever. 

  We also got involved in Blockmania which is a tv programme made in Melbourne about 4 teams of people renovating 4 houses on the same block.   I missed the final auction but enjoyed looking at the architecture of the traditional Melbourne houses which were very appealing and had all the Edwardian features which I like.    Kate and I had an evening meal out while the new Dad minded the baby and other days we had some lovely meals cooked by one or other of us.  Old fashioned trams ran past the window at regular intervals which was rather charming but I never did get my camera out quickly enough to catch a photo.

Back in Auckland, after a bit of a tearful goodbye, the sun came out – and although the temperatures are a bit frosty, the scenery and days were very enjoyable.  We visited the Fish Market where a tramcar (imported from Melbourne) travelled round a loop near the waterfront and had a wonderful fish n chips lunch near the market itself.  Tuna Steaks Italienne followed for our evening meal – a lovely dish which I must replicate once I get back to Crete as all the ingredients grow locally! 

 

On Sunday we squished into the car to visit Motat – a transport exhibition – Cameron’s choice of good boy treat and looked at old steam engines, fire engines, steam and diesel trains along with other  exhibits such as the Victorian village and hands-on stuff reminiscent of the gallery at the Science Museum in London.  The earthquake simulator was very scary and we were too late for the moon rocket simulator but did catch an interesting exhibit about Sir Edmund Hillary’s 1950s polar expedition.  Lots of information was available about the resourceful Massey Ferguson tractor which they adapted to take with them.

Cameron has a new toy dolphin;  In New Zealand, the householders have a weekend every so often where non-biodegradable rubbish/old furniture/large broken or unwanted items are left outside their homes on the grass verge for a day or two.  There follows a time of recycling the items – should anyone want or need them – and lots of vans and trucks come round sifting through the items until finally what remains is taken by the local authority and as little deposited in landfill as possible.  Sounds like a brilliant scheme to me – but you need the space to do it properly.  Anyway, a hot wash in the washing machine and a tumble dry ensured that “Sydney” the new toy dolphin was nice to own and Cam was delighted.

GOODAyy!

New Zealand was lovely, as always, and the time spent with Kiwi grandsons busy and enjoyable. 

The new house in  Greenhithe on the North Shore of Auckland was big enough to house us in comfort and I did get my chance to use the hot tub which provided great back massage with lovely hot bubbly water. 

Cameron the older of the two grandsons is interested in animals and natural history – so one of his “good boy treats” was to pay a visit to Auckland Zoo.  I always love walking around the zoo because the surroundings are so beautiful and we made the most of freezing cold weather by stopping for hot chocolates half way round with marshmallows on the top (Cam’s favourites).  We checked out the monkeys, the aviary, the elephants and the big cats before our ears were about to fall off in the cold. 

Cam made a wonderful picture of a peacock with feathers and big eyes a day or so later and was able to imitate monkeys, elephants and cockerels with alarming accuracy several days later. 

Lachlan Paul Anthony – our third grandchild turned up at the end of July and we set to checking the cheap flight internet sites to book a short period in Melbourne a few days after he was born.   With a few days to spare before setting off from Auckland, we all visited a wonderful Farmers Market and my son-in-law was in his element checking out all the lovely artisan foods on sale and taking ALL the samples!  Meanwhile Cam and Hayden were having a good time at the children’s playground nearby at Hobsonville Point. 

We had a bit of a panic when we heard that the Australian authorities have adopted a cocoon strategy to vaccinate all people coming into contact with new babies to prevent the spread of whooping cough.  Having had all my pre-school injections, I assumed that these gave me life long immunity to these diseases but it seems that opinion now has it that boosters are needed for people reaching their forties or all professionals/family who spend time with very young children.  We made lots of enquiries of the Kiwi GP practice to find out whether I could have a whooping cough booster but – apparently these were not available without the tetanus and diphtheria vaccines also.  With a severe allergy to tetanus in past times, I did not really want to risk being very ill abroad – so we took the alternative strategy of washing, tumbledrying and disinfecting every minute content of my baggage and person to avoid bringing any bugs to Australia and avoiding all contact with all the bugs that were doing the rounds of kindergarten by spending one week at home in purdah.

It was a surprise to me that Cam was a bit upset after I caught the plane from Auckland when he had spent most of my time til then  ’playing it cool’ but my other son in law Grant met me at the airport in Melbourne and gave me a mini tour of the city skyline as we drove from the airport to their flat in South Yarra. It was hard to believe that I was now in Australia and I had heard that the shops in Chapel Street were wonderful.  Grant and Kate’s apartment was right on the corner of Chapel Street with tramcars passing on a regular basis.

The new baby was sleepy when we arrived but his Mum and Dad had had very little sleep since they had been home with baby waking for feeds all day and all night – so it was important for them to get a meal and some rest before they both konked out.  Lochie’s cot has a terrifying monitor fixed to it which registers breathing and heartbeat as well as crying!  There are all sorts of alarming beeps and buzzes which come from it if you forget to turn the switch when you get the baby out of the cot!  However after a day or two, his routine seemed to have settled down a bit and Kate was grabbing a bit more sleep so that we were able to take little outings to the Chinese Tea House and today a little trip out in the car with a sleeping baby to do a bit sightseeing around the city. 

Greetings and thanks to you all from Lachlan!