HARVEST HOME

 We have had all our plates spinning on sticks for a few weeks now and I have had to keep running to catch up most of the time, so apologies for lack of blog jottings.

Innovations: We installed nice looking rustic bamboo over our porch when we first moved to the little stone house because we needed some covering to keep the sun off the front of the house and, having only visited Crete in holiday months had erroneously thought that this would be the right answer. Several winters in Crete (and last winter in particular) had changed my mind completely because although the bamboo looked pleasingly rustic, stood up to the Cretan winds and kept the porch in shade all summer, the impact of tropical rainstorms plus so much dust and dirt were a different matter altogether and foraging for damp logs in the cold and wet, then sweeping and mopping the tiles every day during the wet winter months was a miserable business when I had more important things to do. Rik our friendly builder came to give us some ideas. I just managed to get the water proofing on the main house roof before the heavens opened for the usual October rains. After dodging rain storms and horrendous weather for a couple of weeks, Rik rolled up with some insulated porch roofing which is doing a wonderful job of keeping the porch dry, the woodpile protected and there is even room to get laundry under cover - just! Worth every euro and we are pleased with it. We hope it won't be too hot and airless next summer, but time will tell.

While all this was happening, great friends from the UK came over for a week at the start of November. I was worried because the weather had been awful and all the tavernas, tourist shops and cafes had shut for the season and I wondered whether there would be enough to keep everyone busy and happy. Fortunately, they did not want to do anything too taxing, we took a walk round the headland, paid a visit to the Makers Craft session, cooked, shopped and strolled around Rethymno in really quite bright warm days and even shocked the locals by swimming a few times! The Scrabble Board came out with disastrous results! (I lost by a mile). It was lovely to see them and the car behaved itself very well on its way to and from the airport despite being a bit elderly.

Then we were getting all sorts of odd questions about the house sale in the UK and we were grateful for Leo's input about doorlock enquiries and double glazing attributes. K and I looked completely clueless and slightly derailed by the intensity of such questions. We hope we are close to exchange and completion now. Wherever will we store all our bits and pieces while we look for somewhere in Staffordshire?

My Greek is beginning to improve. I managed to slowly translate a phrase made by one of our neighbours when I commented on the heavy rain. “Creasoumay vrechy sto yelyes” … after a minute or two racking my brains I realised that the locals were pleased to have lots of water on their fields because “they needed water for the olive trees” and to swell the olives before harvesting. All the cafeneons are alive with the discussions of the olive crop this year. There is a cacophony of vans and trucks firing up and disappearing by 8,00 a.m. every morning with a selection of sacks, nets, generators and twirly sticks which they use for the olive harvesting. At night, a large buzzing noise from the top of the village means that the Olive Mill (curiously painted vivid green which can be seen for miles) is working long hours to give the cold pressed oil. It is so good for everyone. We have new neighbours in the run-down building across the road who spent a few weeks restoring the house, replacing and treating the windows and they eventually moved in. It is nice to see washing hanging up, lights at the windows and a plant pot outside the front door. A nasty dark storage cellar, home to cats, birds and other creepy crawlies has now had wooden doors constructed and painted. It looks much more welcoming now than in the time of the former tenants - roosting pigeons on all the window sills who made so much mess. In fact, many of the empty village houses are beginning to be reoccupied by newcomers. Nice.

We have also discovered and sampled our village doctor who calls every Friday morning in an office just off the village square. You queue for ages but she takes all the prescriptions to the Pharmacy in Panormo and Niko the Pharmacist drives back with the medicines and delivers them to the door later in the day! How great is that? Kimon doesn't need a car or lift at all.

I have been saving the best news until last: K had the lowest (=good) PSA result of all today from the lab – it had gone down to 0.089 – an improvement on three weeks ago which means that something (we hope the radiotherapy or hormone treatment) has made a difference. We are just thanking our lucky stars and good friends who have cheered us on. Harvest Thanksgiving has a real intensity for us this year. Yesterday and today I have been making jars of chutney, marmalade, home made fudge for a table top sale over the weekend, so life has been hectic and there doesn't seem to be any let up. I'm looking forward to relaxing in front of the log burner and a few sleepy, winter evenings but I don't see it happening for yet a while!

LUSTRAL BASINS AND OTHER LUXURIES

K and I are back after five days away from home in South Eastern Crete. The weather has been wonderful with bright fine weather – not too hot by day and cool at night. Perfect for travelling, walking and swimming. We were booked for an archaeological weekend at Kato Zachros and, as it is quite a longwinded journey with a few mountains to cross, we had booked a stopover night at Sitia in the East of Crete.

The road to Sitia was a bit gruelling and impatient Cretan drivers kept overtaking us on roads with hairpin bends. For one moment I found myself three abreast on a narrow road and with another car coming the other way and had to take evasive action very fast. I am always shocked that drivers think it OK to overtake cars which are already overtaking, but there is little or no fear, or indeed discipline at all among Cretan drivers. We were doubly glad to travel in one piece and for the rather old underpowered car to have made the journey safely.

We stopped for a meal break at the Panorama Taverna in both directions because the view was splendid, the parking was just off the road and the people were nice. On the island out at sea were more archaeological remains, but we had to read about them and move on this time round.

Sitia was wonderful for us. It didn't look so special to others, but K was able to come down in the hotel lift and walk straight out along a beautifully paved promenade to cafes, shops and kiosks as well as the harbour. There was disabled parking right by the beach. I could nip straight out in my swimming togs for a swim, just as the sun came up over the mountains and return back for a hot shower just in time for breakfast. Definitely our sort of place these days. The sea water is really warm at this time of year and the beaches nearly empty. With a number of prayers on my mind, I took a long walk up lots of steps to the church in the centre of town, but nobody was home.

We pressed on across more high plains, mountainous passes and small remote villages to Zachros and Kato Zachros. There is a small Minoan palace there which has been uncovered in the 1960s – late enough not to have been spoiled or desecrated. We could trace the outer walls of the palace, various wings, workshop areas and the remains of houses in a small town at a higher level. The port road was a raised paved roadway which continued to the sea (where a large taverna now sits at the water's edge). It was here we had a talk and our Archaeologist friend Don Eveley explained all about the remains, their significance and brought the town back to life for us. What to us looked like four straight channels of mud were the conserved remains of a potters kiln, a narrow dog-leg staircase down to a square hole below ground level a lustral basin*, and a few crumbs dropped in a number of the water filled pools and cisterns in one part of the site brought forth a whole colony of terrapins who poked their heads out of the water or basked on nearby rocks. He had obviously been there before! As a few of us sat for a rest on large stones under the trees, he explained that it was probably just at this spot where the craftsmen from the workshops on the outer skirts of the palace would have stopped to take a break too. Beautiful ceramics and artefacts had been discovered on the site which were now in museums locally and in Heraklion. K and I continued to be amazed by the beauty and sophistication of fine arts and crafts from 4,000 years ago.

We stayed at a place called Yiannis Retreat. It was a bit away from the sea front via a long, rough track but so worth the journey when we arrived with small rustic stone built cottages fitted out in the most imaginative way. We had everything we needed for a nice stay and much, much more. It was so quiet there that K and I fear that we were the noisiest creatures there.

On the way home, we spent two nights at Sissi which was also pleasant. K began to walk further afield with his crutches to get as much exercise as possible. I did some sketching but we did not manage to find a swimming or fishing spot; the weather stayed fine every day. We arrived home long before mid-day on Wednesday feeling as if we had been away for a year and much refreshed. The mini break was just what the Doctor ordered!

* Lustral Basin is the name given to a small oblong underground closet reached by stairs shaped in a dog leg. They are found in most of the Minoan Palace workings in Crete, near the centre of the building and not on the outer limits. Nobody is sure, but the name was given to these areas by Sir Arthur Evans who initiated work at Knossos at the turn of the 20^th century and believed them to be used for some kind of religious rite of cleansing. There are ledges all around the stairs and base for articles and remains of large bowls excavated in some. After so many thousands of years, we can only make mystified guesses about their use.  

HELTER SKELTER

 After a very busy ten days in England, Mrs Crozier is back in Crete and her feet still haven't touched the ground. Pa Crozier nursed his sore tummy and stayed behind, and we hope it will be over the worst very soon.

I wanted to catch up with my Dad. He has been well placed in a nice nursing home after all his falls and mishaps last winter, and is very looked after beautifully by the staff and family. It would not be his first choice, but he is beginning to get used to it and seems happier now that he has Sky Sport available in his own space. Waited on hand and foot with wall-to-wall golf – what could be better? Predictably, he would not agree.

wet wipes from the surface of the washing machine

If anyone wants to persuade a friend of relative to give up smoking, they could have paid a visit to our little house in England that had been rented out to a rogue tenant and had only been re-possessed in June. I could not sleep a wink the first night there because the smell in the house was so horrible. Every piece of fabric needed to be laundered, blankets, sheets, curtains and carpets. Every hard surface was stained yellow and had to be washed down with sugar soap or redecorated. And even after this mammoth effort and windows and doors open for 10 days, there was still the odd sniff of nicotine which we couldn't eradicate. It was a truly horrible job and heaven knows what the rogue tenant's lungs look like. Our son, who gained possession a few weeks ago did not waste any time and just threw away most of our household items at the tip because of the smell and grime. Even though the house was not directly trashed, it was ruined slowly and surely by indirect means and we left a warm and comfortable home but would never want to return to it after all this. We were not surprised that the Open Day arranged by the Estate Agents did not attract any buyers until after it had been completely cleaned up.

On the plus side, my brilliant friends turned up in good heart and got to work with industrial carpet cleaners for a second go at the carpets, sorted boxes, took things to the charity shop and the tip and invited me for lovely meals during the week, which put on some spectacular weather while I was there. We left the house clean and tidy, with an empty loft, a tidier shed and a garden which dear Liz had forked over, weeded and cut back in a startlingly short space of time. My brother and his wife worked tirelessly to clear and chuck things away and gave me lifts all over the place. As friends and family go, I think I have the best ever.

Art Class - Tuesday

Once back in Crete, the pressure was still on. First we needed to get the tyres fixed on the car because their service over bumpy tracks was taking its toll - they seemed to be going down each week and needed pumping up. Our Greek MOT was also due, so we needed the car to be shipshape in preparation for that. We steeled ourselves to cope with Wednesday which was exceptionally busy paying the water bill, visiting the bank, getting the tyres fixed and meeting friends at Vinzi's all by 11.00 a.m. Impressed? We were. We also were under pressure to get our house tax paid, because the Greek Electricity Board which used to collect it, did not wish to any more, and we needed to collect a form from our Accountant. Botheration, it was much simpler with the Lekky Bill! Our Jobs to do list has had “Find an Accountant” at the top of it for the last year or so, but other matters have got in the way, so on Wednesday evening, we were introduced to a lady accountant in Perama and her son, who translated into English for us, while we puzzled out how to make up for our tardiness. We have to go back on Monday with lots of papers and 150 euros. It seems as if we have been giving away sheaves of money all week. She also insisted that we keep a large sum of money in a Greek bank, which we have avoided for quite a while.

The next day, we took the car to IKTEO for its MOT and it passed with flying colours. So tick another job done. I have never imagined such a luxurious vehicle testing station. Leather armchairs, spotlessly clean floors and loos, colour TV, coffee machine and a sweetie bowl on the coffee table. Lovely and cool, it makes having your car MOT'd quite an experience. K and I read the paper, looked at the Aloe Vera plants growing outside for BioHerb products and had quite a nice morning until we had to hand over the next 50 euros!

Aloe Vera cultivation for beauty products

We stopped in Panormo on the way home, because it was a spectacularly lovely day, with sparkling sunshine, not too hot and a calm sea. I jumped in the harbour for a quiet swim – once round the buoys and back to the shore feeling much better for the exercise.

We have to go to Heraklion tomorrow for K's next injection. He has not really recovered from the radiotherapy and his tummy is still not working normally which means he is stuck at home feeling helpless still and a bit sorry for himself. I will keep on with the horrible low residue diet for a while longer and hope he gets over the worst of it soon. So an hour trip to Heraklion for an injection is not top of his “want to do” list. I really hope the Doctors can suggest something to help him over the tummy upset stage.

The weather is on the change and rains will soon be here

So, its back on the road again tomorrow! Kalo dromo!

Post script. Car behaving better with new tyres. Drove all the way to Heraklion and queued to see the Doctor while loud alarms were going off and I wondered why. We needed to get a prescription for the injection and then have the injection. The noise was due to a cut in the power and put paid to the computers printing a prescription, so we had to get the Doctor to call our Pharmacist in Panormo and on a promise (for very expensive medicines) the Pharmacist agreed to get the supplies so long as we drove back to Heraklion on Monday with the packs from him to have the injection and to return to the Pharmacy with the prescription paper, once it could be printed out at the Hospital. Exhausted, stressed out, broke through petrol wastage, queues and bad temper? Ggrrrr!

AUTUMN BLESSINGS

September is here at last! A few clouds have appeared in the mountains and foothills and the nights are cooler. All of us who have endured a very hot summer are beginning to come alive again after keeping out of the baking sun for many weeks. K and I are so glad to be back home and resting after the hospital regime and he really is looking very well now. A normal diet will resume as soon as possible! I am also reading up on reflexology, because quite by accident, I realised how much it helped us both over the past few months to wallow in herbal footbaths and give massage for the bad leg but even more for the good leg which now does twice as much work.  It seemed to promote a sense of well-being and relaxation;  I think I will study a bit further.

We are beginning to get back into the swing of things and although I had three trips to the Dentist this week, the car developed an electrical fault and needed to go into the garage and my polarised driving prescription glasses had been lost over the period of hospital journeys. All these costs on top of everything else were very unwelcome, but all is done and dusted now. Costa Costa our musical optician made up my specs from my English prescription in 24 hours, the garage obtained the teeny tiny switchy thing required by the diagnostic computer and plugged it back in to make the car run more smoothly and stop cutting out when hot, and the dentist completed his excavations on Friday. I even managed to get to the CIC coffee morning and Art Class this week, so I have done quite well really and K will venture further when his tum settles down a bit. If you would like to see some of the art work we are doing in Kastellos, there is a website entitled Cretan Visual Arts where our teachers post up our work from time to time.

I will be back in the UK for a short spell to catch up with family there, so it may be a while before I can post the blog which is almost impossible by Kindle! However, K thought that it was about time that he said a few words or two … so ….

OK – lighten up guys. This me talking.

I have rarely been short of words, as many may tell you. They are indeed food to the soul and the stuff of dreams. I can understand M's deep fears that our new life in Crete could be cut short, and that she may have had to face a “volte face” (poor grammatical construction) and miss out on the freedom and peace that we came here to find four years ago. By now you have probably gathered that there is no such thing as a quiet village life in Crete. The talk is constantly of grapes, melons, lemons and goats. The volume is up to “police” (11) level in the Kafeneon down the lane. Everybody has their own opinion of how much water, when to harvest /prune and “how much per kilo will “YOU” get for your produce?

I was surprised to be engaged in conversation in the village square cafe regarding the Scottish threat to disembark from the English ship. The Elgin Marbles are also a perennial topic, as well as, of course, the EU and their treatment of the Greeks – Angela Merkel is regarded locally as akin to Mrs. Borgia. A village of farmers? Certainly; but every Cretan is a politician and substantially better educated and well read than the majority of folk encountered in England. (They are just more talkative than Brits ../m)

Meanwhile, the weather grows kinder. The temperature has dropped by 10 degrees Celsius today – so it is now around 28 degrees with a touch of cloud cover. Good fishing weather is closer. To make the most of this period - for three months - the canoe will be going in the water. Maybe I cannot drive, but I can paddle since my arms and shoulders are strong after a year on crutches. The downside is, I can probably only swim in circles and I will need help getting the canoe on top of the car. I have not been blessed to get my body wet yet ( … song coming on). It is a year since I immersed myself in the blessed ocean and closed my mind to the dry unforgiving light. Swimming in a dark and moonless sea is perhaps the most healing of all sleeps.

The weddings and Baptisms continue across the valley. Last night it continued until 6.00 a.m. and although the music was soft, the gunfire was LOUD! This spooked next door's dog again and the poor creature barked until sun up.

We had earthquake a few mornings ago. It was weird. The house grumbled as if with indigestion (or it could have been mine or M's). It shifted fore and aft for some 7/8 seconds only and M thought something was moving about in the wardrobe! What I remember from another earth tremor years ago is that before the ground, my bed and my gin and tonic moved, the birds and cicada stopped and there was a eerie silence. There was no word from them until the earth stood still again. These things make you feel rather small and insignificant. I think that this is important for us to remember.

I was told a story a few days ago by a lady in the village. An uncle of hers was always complaining about the fact that he could not afford shoes and that he had none. In the churchyard one day he met a squatting man who had lost his legs in the war and thus had no need of shoes. The uncle was never heard to complain again and walked happily barefoot thereafter.

So – Look, Smell and Feel the Warmth around You.

Life is Good.

X \ K.

DUVET DAYS

Sign made for the door, which seems to keep people at bay!

Short rations this week. We are having a few duvet days on return from the hospital on Friday. The Doctor gave K the day off on Monday and decided that 35/36 treatments was probably sufficient. K who had been having a rough time was relieved at this, as the bottom had dropped out of his world for ten days or so … or more accurately, the world had dropped out from his …... least said. Thank heavens for Imodium. Each day that passes makes things a little better though but he still needs to adhere to the horrible diet for a couple more weeks.

So, dozens of books, DVDs on the laptop, umpteen cups of tea, two knitted jumpers and three woolly donkeys later, we are very glad to be home for good. HOORAY!

Kind friends have kept us plied with good food and company over the weekend, but we feel in need of a period of P and Q to catch up with ourselves. We will write a fuller blog when we are back in the swing of things.

ON THE HOME STRAIGHT ...

Greek dancing hasn't changed much since Minoan times!

It has been Panegyri this weekend and all the Greeks are holidaying big time. I tried to align it with one of our UK Church Festivals like Pentecost or All Saints, but it is not comparable. The festival is to celebrate the Dormition of the Virgin Mary and rates second in importance to Easter here. The internet stopped working too – a sure sign that lots of people are on line greeting one another by Skype. The weather has been really hot and steamy, sleeping is not easy and mosquitoes are being pursued with the full force of my armoury of plug ins, spray cans and swatters. We are also trying a new product from the UK called “Incognito” which is working very effectively and is a totally natural and organic product. We are impressed so far (and I am not on commission).

While all the rest of the village was celebrating with family, I attacked housework with gusto and got all the road, terrace and floor sweeping done, followed by mops to deal with a few weeks gathering of sand and dust around the house. It looks much better but again, all our terrace flowers have expired without constant attention and we are wondering whether we have got the right sort of compost or earth to keep our garden happy. Fortunately the geraniums seem to be indestructible but the vine was blighted from early on, either by hot winds or rain at the wrong time for the fruit to develop properly; such is life.

The moon rising over the mountains

On Saturday morning, Panormo was heaving with tourists and locals. As all the streets and alley ways are narrow and rustic, the big lorries delivering water and fresh foods after the holiday Friday when everyone comes home to spend time with their families had formed a giant Chinese puzzle of drivers forwarding and reversing into minute gaps available while others shouted “Ella, Ella” and folded and unfolded wing mirrors as required. I nipped out early in the morning for some fresh supplies and got completely boxed in by cars and lorries, so zig-zagged my way to the quayside car park and walked back up to the village, stopping at the little church on the way to light a candle. My brief glimpse of the sea as it glinted in the morning sun was tempting, but I did not have long to stop and I am hoping to catch up with diet and exercise after all the hospital incarceration is behind us. I keep my trainers with me to walk wherever I can around the hospital grounds, but the circuit of the campus or a trip down to the nearest pharmacy is enough on hot, busy roads with ambulances, buses and trucks thundering back and forwards all the time.

Pacific Dreams on the Laptop at the Hostel

As far as the poor patient is concerned, well, we were warned. We have reached the trickiest part of the radiotherapy treatment and poor old K is spending lots of the time rushing to the loo since nothing he eats or drinks – even with the beastly low residue diet seems to make much difference. A prescription of Imodium did little to help and it is now getting hard to judge the right time to make the hour's journey in the car from the hospital to home because there is no place to stop on the way. 6 more sessions and counting ….. thank the Lord for Tena pants and all the home nursing tips I learned last year!

All this means that we have been closeted away a lot and doubly glad to have our TV set with us, because even if the internet is down, we are running through all our DVDs and watching all the Directors' Cut versions and deleted scenes, so that we don't get too weary of the same old films all the time. Effectively, we have missed out on two summers running and I am longing to return to some sort of normality and a chance to celebrate. The five days at the hospital hostel drag slowly and the two days at home intensively washing, ironing, cooking and cleaning form an oddly disorientating routine. I had been up since 5.00 a.m. this Sunday morning making bread, a cottage pie, some pork patties (akin to sausage rolls, but without the resource of sausage meat and without onions which aren't allowed), doing a mammoth pile of washing and ironing before the temperatures became too hot at 40C. Sleep had been impossible so I thought I would start on all the chores early. Having finished the cooking and looking forward to my morning coffee, I started to attack the resulting mound of crocks in the sink.  Meanwhile, the village neighbours were calling to me through the window ... “Where are you today? There are still leaves that need sweeping up on your doorstep!” Ggggrrrr! Kimon explained that I was cooking for the next seven days but I had to show my face with a dustpan and brush, if only for a minute. Being a Greek housewife isn't for sissies.

MOVERS AND SHAKERS

Not from Art School - this is displayed at the Archaeological Museum

The Art School has opened again. Tim and Janice, our teachers have returned to Crete after an exciting year or two off teaching in Peru.

So it was wonderful to take the day off from radiotherapy minding to get home for 36 hours midweek and pootle up to Kastellos to catch up with the Art Class crowd. Some had been in the process of having homes built, others had been having a few health problems too, but it was GREAT to see everyone again while we tackled “dry art contour drawing” with gusto and shared news along the way. The morning ended with large drawings in charcoal and chalk and very dirty hands! Since I have been living, breathing and sleeping homecare, nursing, hospitals, doctors and medical miscellanea for such an age, I was trying to keep a lot of updates low key and avoid boring everybody and straying into the realms to “too much information”. No matter how hard I tried to steer away from hospital traumas, it was nearly impossible, but I did my valiant best.

The weekend was raging hot, but it was lovely to catch up with friends on Saturday for a belated birthday and “hooray-I'm-back-home-in-Crete” meal with our pals Stuart and Kathy.  We also spent an energetic hour trying to release a sparrow that had fallen down the chimney and was flapping about inside the log burner every time I walked past.  This is the moment when you realise that having mosquito netting over all the windows and doors is a bit of a disadvantage.  Our idea was to catch the sparrow in K's fishing net and deposit him outside.  In the event, the bird flew straight through the holes in the net and round the house for a few minutes while we grappled with mosquito screens but quite quickly exited through the "scream door" in the front porch, none the worse for his ordeal.  

We telephoned the UK estate agents about the sale of the house in the UK. It seems that they have loads of viewings but not much real interest. I suppose I will need to get there and make some decisions about making the house more attractive. I thought the last house sale was the one to end all house sales, but it seems not. As I want to return to the UK as soon as the current treatment is done, it is probably as well that things are not proceeding too rapidly and there is somewhere to stay. We are not sure whether K will make the trip or not, but I hope so.

Gregory's coffee shop is a haven of near normality ...

We found a small harbour and cafeneon, not far from Heraklion.  An ideal place for K to
dream about having a fishing boat and to spend a morning.

I got back to Heraklion on Wednesday to the hospital with freshly made bread and a few supplies. Thursday, we queued for aeons to get the definitive low-down on what is happening next as regards radiotherapy. What with the language difficulty and everyone in a rush, K was not quite clear what was happening and we have been given so many versions, we wanted to dig our heels in and get the facts straight. Firstly we were told by the Urology Department that 4 weeks radiotherapy would proceed with hormone treatment, then when we arrived at the radiotherapy department we were told that there would be no hormone treatment but there would be 7 weeks of radiotherapy plus a little chemo. Then the idea of chemo was dropped. Then there was some mention of this session of radiotherapy stopping at the end of the week but differently focused treatment would start at some later date and so on. Confused by all this? Yes, we were too. The Doctor and Radiographer were very defensive about our questions, so we explained that we did need to know exactly what was happening, about the hostel booking and that no one had explained the process to us clearly at the outset. We thought it best not to mention that we never did receive a diet plan either and have been relying on one published by Nottingham Hospital for patients having radiotherapy to the pelvic area. Thank God for the internet and the advice of UK friends; we would have been completely in the dark otherwise.  

Anyway, all the Greek patients wait around for entire days to get seen while English patients are regarded as being a bit of a pain. How dare we have the presumption to waste important people's time by expecting answers to questions? It does not help to see British TV adverts for, say, Macmillan Nurses or Cancer Care where medical professionals seem to have unlimited time for social niceties, one-to-one explanations, help and support “at a time like this” … the milk of human kindness uppermost ... and we ponder whether there is any truth to this representation of care back home or whether we are imagining la-la land. One poor lady we know from the hostel had received chemo treatment in the morning and had been waiting since 7.00 a.m. to see the Doctor. It was now 5.00 p.m. The thoughtfully provided water cooler had run out of cups days ago, so she had had nothing to eat or drink all day waiting for the Doctor to see her. She did not dare leave the queue to miss her turn although she had tried to scoop up water from the wash basin tap in the loo. (I wouldn't fancy it, even when well and healthy). I left K in the queue and toddled off the the shop to get bottles of water all round and bought a few packs of cups on my next trip to the supermarket. This is so normal in a place which is understaffed at the best of times whilst the holiday season can wipe out any of the rudimentary systems in place. From my vantage point, it is very hard to find out what the systems are unless there are kindly other patients to tell you because nobody else has the time. The absence of ONE member of staff is really telling and the poor lone doctor left working this week must be at breaking point.  We have to keep reminding ourselves that the economic crisis in Greece is not his fault and he is at the sharp end of it, like everyone else here.

How all these artifacts in the Museum survived centuries of earth movements is a bit of a mystery!  Hot bath anyone?

Hey ho! All these grumbles were interrupted by my bed shaking like a jelly on Friday morning and after New Zealand and another last year, I knew instantly what it was …. EARTH TREMOR! 34 km deep and 4.7 magnitude. Kimon did not feel it in the basement but the hospital is the only place I have felt them in Crete.

We will be so glad when this is over and we can have a rest from white coats for a good, long time. 12 sessions to go and we are praying that the machinery holds together, since every day of delay costs extra.  

Kalo tiki!