BUGS AND BEETLES

 On Friday, about thirty of us gathered in a central meeting hall in Rethymnon to discuss free Greek lessons. Hoorah! After making enquiries and asking about for the last couple of years, we have stumbled upon Operation Odysseus. A joint initiative between the Greek Government and the EU to provide free language tuition for 'immigrants'. (That word stopped us in our tracks a bit, I can tell you) but we had heard that this had been available several years ago, and had assumed that lack of funding had stopped all these niceties! The teaching involves a high level of commitment – meeting twice per week for 3 hours for a few months and taking a little exam at the end of it. All, we retired folk from the CIC looked sober as we decided whether we would be able to last the course. The most important question to get right was the “Where” - so that as many as possible were able to get to the school appointed by car or bus, as necessary. However, this is progress of a sort and I am hoping to have reasonable conversations with our inquisitive neighbours in the village soon instead of the current games of charades!

K has been unwell for a few days. We are not sure whether he has caught a bug, (lurking perhaps in the hot, dusty winds from Africa, which has been known) so I am minded to take him to the Health Centre with his IKA book for an MOT. In fact, we could both do with a good check up, so this will be our next Herculean task to accomplish.

Ian with his spray bottle and mask

Or, it could be the effects of the wood preservative that we have been using to treat the huge tree trunk like beams of our upstairs loft and floorboards. Our mate Ian, arrived brandishing gloves, masks, spray bottle together with vim and vigour to get all the beams and ceiling done. I rollered one third of the floor and although the finish was not as transparent as I had hoped, it did the wide boards quickly and easily. We have all but used up one large can and need another to complete the job, but it will be a relief when the task is complete and we can get everything sorted out again. The down side is that the smell is so strong that we think we will have to finish treating the wood – go away for a day or two – and come back to do the final sorting out of furniture, rugs and disposal of rubbish. An assorted collection of “old boys” from K's school are arriving in June for a reunion, so time is definitely not on our side and we both hope to be feeling much better before then. We will need to be de-bugged, one way or another.

Time for a coffee break - check out the size of these oranges!

Cheerful sounds are reaching us from the street as neighbours shout “Chronia Polla” (many years) which means that it is somebody's name day today. Name Days after the saints of the Orthodox Church are a greater celebration than birthdays here. I have put together a brief list out of interest because it is always good to have an excuse to celebrate something:

Jan 7 – Janna (Jane, Janet?)

April 15 – Leonidas

April 24 – Elizabeth

May 9 – Chris

June 29 – Peter

August 30 – Alexandros

Sept 17 – Sophia

Oct 18 – Luke

Nov 25 – Katerina

Dec 2 – Merope

Dec 6 – Nicholas

Dec 9 – Anna

Dec 26 – Emmanuel, Emma

Dec 27 - Stephanos

30 June 2013 is the commemoration of All Saints Day here when all other names are celebrated! Lets hope that we are feeling much better before then.

BEAM ME UP SCOTTIE ..... and save me from my carbon footprint ....

 PA CROZIER SPEAKS … BACK AGAIN …..

A turbulent four months. New Zealand, UK, sickness and no green footprint. Mother's funeral, and an elderly father's difficulties to deal with and nothing really resolved. But peace and solitude in the village again. Time out with many friends and also time to catch up with one another. Seems interminable – a terrifying start to 2013 – does the 13 have a point here? We shall start over and hope to celebrate the new year that we missed by crossing the date line on the 30th December 2012. Complications and distance make life more difficult than can be imagined. These things are sent to try us ! The peace and respect of the villagers here in Skepasti is refreshing (so was the storm last week – not peaceful but good for the veg). A weekend down south in Matala was up-lifting. Good air and company, although an interesting drive! Help! Sun shone brightly and shorts & T-shirt weather made the going good.

MA CROZIER .. is still searching for things ….

We hung around in the UK for another 4-5 weeks after Mum's Funeral to help Father, now wearing our thick winter clothes just as the weather started to get really warm and did our best to help out – there was so much that we couldn't easily solve but it wasn't for the want of trying. A magic wand would have been good! Parting from the people you care about is not easy and we are dealing with such a muddle of feelings at the moment. K and I often wish we could emulate Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise and beam ourselves to different places without so much heartache.

It was lovely to get home to Crete mid week, and were promptly greeted by a resounding thunder storm and lots of heavy rain – which has been great for our window boxes and garden but left a lot of mopping and sweeping to do. The house is full of cases and boxes to unpack. Everything is upside down because we decided months ago that this year was the year that wood preserving of all the beams and woodwork would HAVE TO BE DONE! The furniture had been shifted and covered, mats taken up and things shrouded in sheets, but 'operation beetle bug' did not get any further. Consequently, we are both so disorientated that we can't find anything, or really think straight at all. We hope that we can snap out of it soon.

In the Olive Garden, the brushwood and clippings have all been taken away (Hooray!) but the woodpile has also disappeared (Boo!) and I was simmering a bit about that, but it was largely outside our control and we are now wondering how to assert ourselves and claim back our garden after it has been invaded by a flock of goats and half the village in our absence! Also, there had been some very extreme heat, winds and torrential rain which did for the veggie plants we had put in, so we have our work cut out trying to start all over. Fortunately, our good friend Ian has been helping and planting a plot of veggies too.

I had been looking forward to our archaeological trip to Phaestos since last Autumn, and we stayed overnight at Matala – a pretty resort on the South Coast bathed in warm sunshine – well known by many hippies in the 1960s – and set off, after a talk with slides about the different eras of palace buildings on the large site at Phaestos excavated by Italian archaeologists. After this learned stuff, we ended up at a fish restaurant and made a merry throng looking out over the caves (former habitations of aforesaid hippies) and sunset over the sea.

Today we toiled around the steps, stones and ramps at Phaestos – trying to imagine how all the buildings would have looked in ancient times and thinking what a wonderful vista the ancients had from their hill top site whilst I mused why it was impossible to get a decent teapot in Crete these days when the Ancient Minoans/Myceneans had no trouble making very beautiful ones. Clarisse Cliffe had nothing on their designs. 

Our journey there and back took longer than usual because of horrendous roadworks between our village and Rethymnon (which have been on-going for at least four years and seem not to have progressed very far – perhaps funds have run out) but which have this week caused maximum chaos for people travelling West. Consequently, we drove back via Heraklion in the East which added miles to our journey but we did at least keep moving. We stopped at a garage for a much needed break and .. what a view!

Hoping to spend a few days unwinding, unravelling, and giving our brains a rest ...

IN THE GARDEN

Front porch deserted as we set off for the Olive Garden!

K and I woke up with stiff backs this morning. The trees in the olive garden needed severely cutting back and our friend Rick and his son Ryan turned up on Saturday morning early with all the equipment needed to get started on creating a proper garden.

So, Easter Saturday saw us in a quiet olive garden, and I had more than a few moments reflecting on the Easter story as I staggered about sorting leafy branches from larger pieces of wood as Rick started up his chain saw and cut the trees right back to manageable proportions. As the morning wore on, we began to feel the sun's heat as all the shade from the trees began to disappear and the garden became lighter and brighter. In the background, among the bleating of sheep and goats, there were happy children's voices coming from the church next door as the village kids were racing about with large sheets of orange paper and seemed to be doing a treasure hunt round the village. It won't be Orthodox Easter in Greece for another few weeks, so our thoughts have not really emerged from Lent here yet and the weather, though warmer than the UK is not reliably into summer.

Soon there were piles of clippings everywhere we looked

Half way through the morning, I went back to the house for supplies of cold drinks and returned with a basket of freshly picked oranges, tiny Cretan bananas, slices of bread and cheese from the local shop and we sat down on the yellow clovery carpet for a breather. Yiannis, drove up in his large 4 x 4 truck to park outside noticed all our olive branch clippings and asked if he could have some for his sheep – so we started loading the leafiest ones we could find over the wire fence to the next garden where he said that he would graze his flock. By the end of the morning, we had so many enormous piles of clippings stacked around the garden that K decided to advertise free animal food at the cafeneon and to ask people if they needed branches for their “zoa”. It would be great if lots could be eaten and none goes to waste!

The orange blossom smells wonderful!

Rick set off for another job at 2.30 p.m. but K & I collapsed in a heap of aching limbs and sore backs, thanking God that Ryan still had all his fingers and toes after a morning with Dad's sharp tree saw lopping at twigs and branches. Just before loading the truck, Rick had taken his rotivator and cleared a proper patch for growing things, so we had to make a list of plants and supplies needed next time we venture into town.

Back garden of the Old Olive Mill

Prising our aching joints into some kind of hideous movement on Monday, we drove to Rethymnon for the CIC coffee morning followed by frenzied shopping at the Purple Palace – the nearest our area of Crete has to B & Q for gardening supplies. All we needed was a garden fork and a wheelbarrow, but other than pitchforks and broomsticks with poor quality tops, we couldn't really find anything we needed in the vegetable patch department and in the middle of all this, our mobile phone rang with the news that our fence had blown down in England and would take a few hundred pounds to put right. Big bother!

The postman delivered two letters on Tuesday from the French Government. My pleas to my European MP and the British Pension Agency had obviously borne fruit because one contained a “complimentary” summary of the payments owed.  The second envelope contained – wait for it – another blank Attestation d'Existence form for completion at my local town hall or the British Consulate. I did not have time for another bus trip to Heraklion, so we dropped in at the local authority building in Perama and wondered why we had never ventured there before. All the ladies were so kind and helpful and told us that these forms had to be signed by all the Greek pensioners each year also. I showed them my passport, waited 5 minutes – lots of signing followed by energetic stamping - no problem! The Post Office photocopied the form for me, free of charge, and it was posted back to France by recorded delivery the same day with a covering letter via Google Translate (while I kept my fingers crossed and hoped that it wasn't nonsense!).

View from the village

So I can set off back to the UK on Thursday, having completed lots of paperwork, bought plants for the veggie garden, unearthed thermal underwear and packed some cans of Cretan Olive Oil for treats. Sadly, the blog will be on hold for another natural break, but I will be spending some precious last moments with my dear Mum, for whom this blog was originally started, so it may be a little while before I can get blogging and photographing again and my heart is heavy at the thought of a difficult journey back to England.

K & I feel for many of our friends are going through sad times this year and the long, long UK winter has not helped. I want to take this moment to send love, joy and peace to you from Crete along with get well again - get whole again - greetings. Rest assured that you are all in our prayers.

MIGRATIONS

Eh, but its great to be back home – even though it is still much warmer outside the house than inside. Fortunately, the weather is dry and so it is good to get outside for as much of the day as we can.

Our migrations took us a little off course this winter, and after a shorter than planned stay in New Zealand and a lengthy stay in the UK, I arrived back in the village three weeks after K, just in time to join him in the clear up and painting operation which begins every Spring in Crete. All the outside areas were liberally covered with a thick layer of sand and dust, the house needed some air through it the temperature was much too warm for the layers of winter woollies I had worn for the journey from England. K had bravely painted a few walls to keep himself warm and busy and we unleashed and disposed of the remains of a small tarpaulin which had been keeping the wood pile dry but had completely disintegrated after the winter winds and rain.

What we left behind .....

... what we found here 

The friendly Cretan village folk were glad to see us back, although our vociferous elderly neighbour was bewailing the lack of swallows this year and began to think that it would be an unlucky year if they did not return before long. What with one thing and another, we had wondered about having a “let's start this year all over again event” brought about because we lost out on New Year's Eve and seeing in the New Year entirely on our Air New Zealand flight to Auckland. In spite of happy times with family and grandchildren, the year seemed to get off to a poor start for us, and many people we know.

A welcome home present!

Having left the French Government and my fruitless efforts to get anywhere with my pension application behind me in the UK, our first bureaucratic port of call, once home, was the IKA office in Perama to renew our IKA books (although we hear they are called something else now). The books are issued to people reaching old age pension age and entitle the holder to free medical care. It took a lot of effort to get them in October and they expired at the end of February! So we set off for the office feeling slightly disorientated after the passage of time, driving on the other side of the road again and wondering exactly where to park the car. Opting for one car park and enjoying the warmth of taking a little walk, asking for directions and arriving at the porch of the office took a little while, but it was obvious that although there was the sound of voices from inside the building, the metal grill was down and the door closed sporting a handwritten notice saying “Σε απεργία” On strike! Oh well, we'll have to come back another day. A quick trip to the Post Office for stamps took a long time and I wrote an entire letter to my Dad to let him know of our safe arrival while K stood in the queue. After this we needed a cool drink at “Bucket Chair Alley” (there are so many cafeneons in the town that we have to distinguish them somehow) and by this time the sun was out with a vengeance and my warm winter cardy needed inside the house, was definitely not needed outside the house. Should I devise a new garment called a DISCARDY and invent a pattern for such a thing which is only needed indoors?

Miss/Mrs Next Door, was still having a voluble moan to nobody in particular about the lack of swallows when we got back, but we sat up on the terrace for a spell in the afternoon until the sun had passed over, watching a band of mist/fog/dusty cloud approaching from the south. All of a sudden, there was a hoop from our neighbour as one or two swallows appeared, chattering noisily and swooping with joy around the roof tops and under the wires. Looking up into a clear patch of sky, we saw another half dozen on their way to another destination and are relieved that in Crete at least, another summer is on its way.

As the evening drew on we were puzzled by the view over the horizon. Little by little, visibility got worse and worse until the mountain disappeared, the nearer hills disappeared, the end of the street disappeared and we decided to close up the house before it was filled with the dust from the strong winds approaching – and being inside the house, needed to light the fire!

Topsy-turvy it may be, but it's great to be back home!

APOLOGIES

View from Riverhead Inn, New Zealand

Normal blogs will be resumed as soon as possible and as I have access to my own laptop for one evening only, I have posted a few photos from our short time in NZ and more lately.  Sorry if they do not really relate to any of the happenings.

Emmy, Hayden, Cameron - Jan 2013 NZ

Lachlan - Jan 2013

 
Life has been a bit too complicated to keep up the normal service back here in the UK with a computer which will not talk to my Ipod, so the pickings are very thin here in Blighty.

Weather Report:  Absolutely freezing (particularly in summer holiday clothing)

Nice old posters photographed from the Station Noticeboard UK

Activities:  Cooking, food shopping, and watching daytime 'telly' - mostly football or golf, driving backwards and forwards through the New Forest, handling all the incoming and outgoing phone calls, checking Emails, filling in yet more forms for the French Authorities who now think that I live in New Milton.  I have therefore varied their input of Attestion d'Existence paper collection by getting yet another form verified and signed at the nearest Town Hall.  They won't like it - No change there then but it should give them some indication after 18 months that I am alive still.  I have also busied myself writing letters of bitter complaint to my European Members of Parliament because of this contrived delay and annoyance.  Our local MP had to resign after pleading guilty to perverting the course of justice and there will be a By-Election in Eastleigh tomorrow.  We are slightly agog at all the interest Eastleigh is attracting on the national news.  However, we have seen Sainsburys, Domino Pizza and the statue of the Railwayman dozens of times in the background to all the throngs of TV reporters sampling the delights of the town centre.  Next week after the media circus have packed up and gone home, it will be a ghost town with tumbleweed blowing down all the roadways again!

Agapanthus growing wild NZ - hope this isn't a repeat!

K has travelled back from NZ via the UK and stayed for a week, which has cheered things up a bit.

Dad is doing remarkably well and keeping very busy.  I spend a lot of time trying not to step on his toes.  Once K arrived, there were three of us all helpfully trying to do the same thing  in swift succession, which was hilarious, but only if you weren't there.

Mum has improved but not dramatically so and is still stuck in hospital.   We have lots of concerns about the continuity of care in the hospital and whether Mum was actually getting anything to eat or drink in there, and in response to this, my sister-in-law Jan, a trained nurse, has taken to spending a few hours with Mum in the hospital each day to check things out a bit and give hands-on care.  This has at least made Mum much more comfortable and gives her some assurance that there is somebody around who knows what's what!

 

BEST LAID PLANS

Apologies for a bit of a non-blog period.  My husband has my laptop at the moment and this older variety no longer allows me to insert my photos. 

It rather epitomises how grey and miserable the weather is at the moment.  I have lovely photos to post, but the powers that be have fixed it so that old computers are prevented from working as effectively as they once did. The blogger page no longer has a tool bar to insert photos and my even older computer did not accept the text from this computer, but would have inserted my photos!  Why does life has to be such a confounded bother?

Our longed for trip to New Zealand was interrupted by family troubles and this was after we had only just about recovered from the Norovirus and deep cleaned one daughter’s house before meeting up with our new granddaughter in the other house.  Lots of effort and time spent doing boring things and checking whether disinfectants which claim to kill bugs and nasties actually do the job.   On researching this, we discovered that good old fashioned bleach was easily the best agent even if the house did smell like a swimming pool for a day or two.

Anyway, no sooner had we recovered ourselves after this than my dear Mum – who had been in hospital in the UK – took a turn for the worse and I was so upset to have to leave again before I had really arrived properly.  Anyway, I think I have already explained about the minor delay, my short trip into Auckland’s equivalent of A & E and my eventual flight booked and taken back to the UK leaving hubby and everyone else in NZ and my son just about to land for the longed for family reunion.  The first time we had been together for several years except that we weren't.

Arrival in the UK was a little softened by some bright sunshine on the journey from Heathrow and my brother was there early in the morning to meet me, looking a little worn round the edges from a lot of motoring and having looked after my Dad for a few days! 

I have taken up the depressing daily round in cold, dismal wintry weather – trying to get to the shops through flooded roads, driving 30 miles or so to get to Southampton Hospital in nasty aggressive traffic through the New Forest, cooking, washing up and watching TV.  If I grab some time to myself, it is a bit like being a teenager again with my Dad hanging around on the front porch waiting for me to get home if I am a minute later that 5.00 pm!!

But, in spite of no blogs, I have not been idle.  I have researched Cdiff on the computer and tried to make tempting soups and lemon barley for Mum incorporating NZ Manuka Honey, cooked some warming stews and casseroles for Dad, putting the residue in individual containers to enjoy later, and steeled myself to drive Dad’s precious car, praying against all the odds that I don’t so much as make a scratch on it!!!  Every day is taken up with writing notes for my Dad about telephone calls, and trying to communicate about things in general.    We have visited a couple of nursing homes, but this step is in the future and Mum is not well enough to leave hospital yet awhile.  Nothing about the tasks are terribly difficult except coping with the absence of my Mum’s lovely presence and the feelings of sadness this brings up and  I am aware that I am conforming to Dad’s rigid routine to make things as simple as possible.  Meanwhile hubby is wondering when I can come home!

My Mum is in a small room on her own in hospital and I am so glad that she has family to back her up otherwise I would be extremely worried about the haphazard nature of her daily care and getting any sort of agreed communication between caring staff, nursing staff and Doctors who never seem to be very specific about what the current problem is and how they are proposing to tackle it.  We are truly fortunate to have a well qualified nurse in the family who has been doing a little tactful checking of her own and speaking to the nurse in charge as a result. 

A typical visit to the hospital involves the long car journey, a longish walk from the disabled car park along to the lifts then along to the end of another very long corridor to the ward right at the far end.  As you arrive, two care assistants/nurses don aprons and gloves just as you are putting your bag down and go into Mum’s room, close the door and shut the curtains.  So you look for somewhere to sit down.  There is nowhere.  Manageable for me fit and healthy but for my Dad, aged  92, this is a problem.  After an indefinite wait, the door opens and you have to put on yellow plastic aprons and rubber gloves.  Sounds easy but it is not.  There is nowhere to put your coat, scarf, bag or belongings while you are doing this.  Once in this garb, you cannot come out to ask for assistance or speak to anyone because you have to dispose of it all inside the room before emerging.  I have taken to buying disposable cups, straws and anything else I am likely to need whilst I am there to prevent wasting time and resources going in and out of Mum’s room to fetch things and change apron and gloves every time.   Mum was cold, so I bought and took a duvet in for her – but it will probably have to be thrown away when she gets out of hospital.   What a nasty bug Cdiff is!

So, times are a bit difficult right now, but we are hoping for an improvement before too long.  All your thoughts and prayers have been so appreciated by me and the rest of the family. x

BLEACH & GRIPE WATER ...

Lots of beach walks ....

It has been a bit of a chequered experience in NZ this time around – not because the country or the weather have not lived up to our expectations, but a few life experiences have cropped up in the course of our journeying.

Firstly in our flights from Heraklion to Athens, Athens to London, London to Hong Kong and Hong Kong to Auckland, K first picked up a nasty bug which wiped him out for 3 days in Athens and I went down with it on arrival in Auckland (we think it was the Norovirus) which then spread through the entire home like wild fire – and with a new baby arrival at the other household just at the same time, we were in purdah for seven days until certified bug free. Not the best start to a family catch up or the way to make friends and influence people! The kitchens and bathrooms sport every possible bottle, surface wipe or spray to combat 99.9 % of household germs, but it must have been the 0.1% which got us! Even liberal use of hand gel throughout the journey did not save our grief.

Emelyn Grace Beatrice - "Emmy"

We became grand-parents for the fourth time on 5^th January when a precious grand-daughter, Emelyn Grace Beatrice Rowe arrived in the world and we waited with baited breath until we were symptom free enough to make her acquaintance.

To help blow the cobwebs away, we had a few bracing walks along nice beaches and K got his fishing rod out and nudged shoulders with lots of Chinese gentlemen who all had the same idea on the pier at Murrays Bay. He actually caught a few titchy Snappers - nothing big enough for the “barby”, but it was more fruitful fishing than Crete has been of late. Talking of “barbies”, look at this!

Rowie's Monster Barbecue

Sophie, Hayden and Cameron -
Balloon modelling minus the sound effects!

We had bought various sorts of kites for the little boys for Christmas, so we made sure of one morning's kite flying so that they could get some fresh air and enjoy the sunshine. Sadly, a serious illness at home in the UK meant that I had to rearrange my flights to return six weeks earlier than planned, but the night before take off, I ended up going to Accident and Emergency with a gall stone blockage and severe pain which made me so ill that it meant stopping to rearrange the flights again. Fortunately Air New Zealand have been so helpful in sorting things out and I am still waiting to find the right date, once things have calmed down a bit and the weather in the UK has settled. It would be good to ensure that the plane does not get delayed or diverted along the way and I can travel on from Heathrow without any further dramas. Meanwhile our son, Leo is just about to arrive in Auckland, so our minds are spinning out of control and unable to plan anything with certainty.

Pocket Kite at Hobsonville Point

Lachlan helping Dad

Because of all these happenings, we have not been travelling far afield, but it has been an ideal catch up time and an opportunity to re-acquaint ourselves with three sprouting grand sons and their life on the North Shore. I am amazed to find so many wonderful beaches, open space and play areas for families, runners, cyclists and dog walkers which are all well utilised. A visit to Long Beach on a bank holiday found us in the middle of a Maori and Island people Jamboree with large awnings and gazebo like tents everywhere where people had picnics and barbecues while the children had marvellous assortment of equipment and a zip-wire to play on, as well as music, cricket, footballs and kites. We found the shade of a tree to sit down and enjoy ice creams. Another short morning at Auckland Zoo when the baby was only a few days old was scorching hot and so many other families had the same idea, that it was not easy to find a bench to sit down in the shade. All the children were well slathered in sun block and sported colourful sun hats, which are more or less compulsory.

Cameron at the Seal Tank

All the suburbs hereabout have wonderful Kiwi vegetation – completely unique to NZ and they give a rich background to all the gardens and drives. Palm trees, gum trees, pahutakowa and tree ferns along with massive clumps of agapanthas, give a rhapsody of greenery and colour wherever we go while the fluting birdsong at dawn is mesmerising and quite different from anywhere else in the world. As travelogues go, this is a bit on the thin side because our outings are short in length to accommodate small children, infants and seem to include lots of buckets, spades, footballs, doctors surgeries, laundry and ice-creams, but hopefully more newsworthy happenings will occur in future posts.

View over Rangitoto from Kate's house