CROZIERS IN THE KOUZINA

Disorientation reigns and there is DUST everywhere in the house, in spite of sheets and precautions. This is because Rik the Builder arrived this week to start preparation works for the new kitchen. The project has been a long time in the planning because some components needed to get here by ferry and the ferries stop during really bad weather.  Drilling of channels in the walls and the ear-splitting noise did nothing to enamour us to our neighbours and we have been sweeping up old tiles and ankle deep dust from the kitchen floor. K is doing his best with a broom and long handled dustpan, but finds it hard to balance and carry heavy stuff. I was amazed at how much was stowed away in the kitchen cupboards in the way of crockery and foodstuffs since it seems to be evenly spread throughout the rest of the house at the moment while the kitchen is gutted. The sink unit has gone. We have now discovered why it was so low and hard on the back as it was semi buried in a small quarry all of its own and the stone floor had been laid around it. The wall cupboards and worktop will go today and we will have an interesting weekend – camping in the living room and washing up in the bathroom. Takeaways would be an answer, except this is closed season and there are not many places round about to cater for us during the Winter. We will definitely look for a meal out on Sunday because for even something as simple as a coffee, we are twirling round in circles looking for mugs and teaspoons in the enveloping chaos.

Meanwhile, the sun reappeared on Wednesday after a long absence and white-out on all the hills and mountains hereabout. We donned several layers each day and even more by night, burned our way through our third delivery of logs and have asked Nikos-the-Wood for another consignment. This is always a tricky time of year;  we don't really want to be left with an enormous log pile during the summer because it takes up the most part of the front porch. Guestimating needs versus weather forecasts is a fine art.

Our time has been spent keeping dry and warm – not easy in Cretan houses. Our French neighbours (to be) arrived after a prolonged absence complaining bitterly about the flat they are renting (I think this is their third attempt to find somewhere dry and warm) - which has water running down the walls and which a humidifier does not seem to help. They are so longing for next winter when they finally move into their own house after a 2-3 year finishing off process. We hope there are no leaks in that one! We are just working out where the leaks are coming from in our roof and working on them one by one. We think the outside stone staircase may be the cause of our problems but we can't really deal with it until Summer when things have dried out a bit. The top roof has been brilliant all winter but the bathroom roof has sprung a few leaks after heavy storms. Fortunately, the drips are all onto stone or tile floors, so the damage is minimal.

New Lighting

Inside with the fire lit in the evening and with arts and crafts to make the most of the winter blues, we have managed to track down programmes from the UK to link to the TV via the computer. This way we can keep up with the news from home and pit our wits against the EggHeads with predictable results. No, we can't beat them either … how do they know all this stuff? Do you think it would be interesting to be sat next to any of them at a dinner party? I digress. Outings to meet up with friends for lunch have been welcome diversions and we enjoyed a meal out at a favourite haunt for Anna's birthday – our table blithely ordering chops and lamb, when all the other Greek diners had started their Lenten fast and were eating seafood, fish and vegetables. I noticed that most tables were ordering big platters of fish and chips, so the Lenten fast did not seem to be too onerous. Kimon and I had prawn saganaki – prawns in a spicy tomato sauce with rice, which didn't seem too severe either. We got his PSA results from the lab at the end of last week and the results were even lower than last time. This and some good scan results when he goes to the hospital next week would really be good news. We are keeping optimistic.

LIGHT!  At last

The new Greek Prime Minister seems to have won a reprieve from the big guns of the EU who are demanding loan repayments. Nobody really knows what on earth is going on, but he seems to have started a shift in thinking about the dynamics of economy even if none of the sums add up … we will see what happens. The exchange rate from the UK is very good at the moment and petrol prices have gone down considerably which is great. People we know here are relieved to be in a position to afford central heating oil, after a few years without, but I notice that my retraite payment from France has gone down! This must be because it is paid in euros! You win some, you lose some!

The pension from France is well earned each year in all the bureaucracy involved. I made my annual trip to the town hall in Perama to get the Attestation d'Existence form signed. It says “I certify that the lady standing before me named .. birth date … nationality ... is alive.” (Hmm .. Just about) The form is translated by the French Government to every language in the EU (including Turkish) except Greek. To be helpful, I translated the paragraphs and sent it back to them two years ago, but they haven't changed the form. It seems a bit much for people to sign something they don't understand, but the kind folk at the Town Hall seemed to accept my Google Translate version! We find the application so useful for official documents and instruction books.

As blogs go, this is a bit of a dull one but I have “before” photographs of the Croziers Kitchen and will post “after” pictures when the work is done. Yassus/yassou!

STOP PRESS

A quick note that our friends Tony Green and Gianna were flown to England on Friday.  The last message we heard was that Tony was taken to Basingstoke Hospital Intensive Care and was getting good care.  We hope and pray that Basingstoke (also known as Amazingstoke) will be able to work a few miracles.  They are in our thoughts and prayers x

DUST STORMS AND DAWN RAIDS

With a week of fine, dry weather, K and I have been preoccupied with things we CAN do outside, as opposed to the times of torrential downpour when we can't. We have also had a trip away, which by most people would seem a little unexciting, but which we enjoyed immensely.

GI-normous Cactus in the Courtyard!

As it was my birthday last weekend, we had planned an excursion and opted to take the bus. We wanted to stay in the harbour at Chania and finding places to park there is not easy at the best of times, so we parked up at Panormo and left the car there on Friday morning to catch the 10.30 bus. We were lucky really, because despite the weather forecast, it was bright and sunny and the bus made only a very short stop at Rethymno, but we did not need to unload our case because it filled up with new passengers and set off for Chania quite briskly. I had forgotten how restful it is to let someone else do the driving and had the chance to enjoy the scenery. We stopped just by the turnoff to Georgopolis, meandered around Vrysses bowling up at the Bus Station in Chania getting near to lunch time. A quick taxi ride dropped us off just a short walk from the Hotel.

This was a treat; one of the new boutique hotels ranged around a central courtyard which had been lovingly converted from a large Venetian merchants house and it had lots of quirky palisades, sheltered balconies and a spa on the ground floor. Our room was sumptuous, and had it been anyone but us, we would have been over the moon with the lovely suite just off the central courtyard on the ground floor, but we soon discovered that the en suite bathroom (although absolutely gorgeous) was down a full flight of marble stairs from the bedroom making it really awkward for K. Such is life. I made the most of the Jakuzi bath, lotions and potions and gleaming shower. K made the most of the ironwork table and chairs outside to sit and watch the people passing by and enjoy the fresh air. The bed with a tempura mattress was to die for (or are we the most boring people on earth?) We stumbled down to the harbour – only a few steps away – and encountered the American navy out and about from wherever they were stationed. They were obviously and noisily enjoying a few hours off.

Help!  Stairs and no bannisters!

Chania is wonderful for walking and I immediately set off several times a day to get my bearings, quickly finding the old minaret, the old customs building which is currently being completely renovated, a second hand shop (these are rare in Crete), the ancient synagogue and the arts and crafts centre, tucked away in the back streets. I found the hotel round the corner from the large church with clanging bells that we stayed in before. It was magic to be out and about; so lovely and warm with the sun lighting up the waves and not too many people about. Most of the harbour-side cafés were closed and drills, hammering and scaffolding everywhere showed that this was the time of year for refurbishment. On Sunday morning, I set off for a long walk only to find that the air was full of dust and decided to return because experience tells us that the dust storms from Africa can often bring unwelcome microbes with them. We learned later that all the flights had been cancelled and lots of tourists were enjoying a very welcome extra night away at someone else's expense!

Unexpected music on Saturday night!

A long weekend away had been great, and after a busy week making up for lost time, we embarked on our annual 'IKA books at Dawn Raid'. The IKA book (it has been called three different things since we have been here) is the health insurance cover for retired people and needs to be renewed every year at the IKA Office. Why they have put the office in a place which is so hard to access is beyond me, but the intrepid ladies in our circle synchronised watches and met on the main road to Rethymnon at 7.30 on Friday morning. We jumped in Margaret's car, found a rare place to park and queued outside the door with many others who were there early too. At 8.00 a.m., the door was opened and, like rats out of a trap, all the people surged through the door and up the stairs to a room with three lines of chairs, three windows with grills and a ticket machine. After years of practice, we took tickets for us and others who were due to arrive soon and then took the forms in Greek to try and fill in with our names, our parents names, our address, our ID information (which meant juggling bags, passports, paper, and notebooks to look things up and copying a phrase in our best Greek at the bottom to say that we did not get a pension in Greece but we did get a pension from England. Then do the whole thing all over again for our spouses. Lots of loud English voices, swapping of information and giggling went on until our numbers came up. “And we have only been here an hour, aren't we doing well phrases peppered our chit-chat”. I feel sure the Cretans are glad when this noisy gang take their leave each year! Anyway, we are legal and can go to the Doctor if we need to. Desperate for a shot of caffeine, after dealing with bureaucracy and a very early start, we chorused our sighs of relief by finding a nice Bakers Shop which served lovely coffees and stopped for some catch up time. The town was dotted with all the large brightly coloured clowns, statues and works of art from previous years because Carnivali is imminent.

Our friends Anthony and Gianna have been flown back to the UK. We are not certain how it all worked, but a flight was organised and a bed was found for him in Intensive Care in Southampton Hospital; Gianna could not go on the same flight because of space, but we are just relieved that they can at least get treatment and understand what is going on. The aftercare in the UK will be so much more sympathetic, as we know. So we are continuing to hope and pray for better news after such a harrowing time.

THIS AND THAT ....

We've had lots of trivial things going on recently and it has been hard to stay in one place long enough to put anything down for the blog diary. After a couple of weeks of freezing cold weather, snow and horrible torrents of rain, we were relieved last weekend that the sun made an appearance again and the temperatures changed dramatically within a few hours. We kept emerging from the house in thick layers of woollies only to find that the temperature in the car was boiling and we had to go back inside and rethink our layers again. K and I spent last Sunday down on the harbour wall with a thermos of coffee in Panormo while he fished and I did some painting. It was a glorious morning.

One of the things that has now become tricky is getting huge lumps of wood chopped into small enough pieces to burn more easily on the wood stove. With half a leg out of commission for balancing purposes, it is just a bit too risky to let K on the loose with an axe or chain saw. We made an agreement with Nikos-the-Wood to purchase a new chain saw for him in exchange for two loads of logs and he seemed to think this was a good deal. Monday morning was spent at the Store being given a detailed demo by the man at the agricultural counter while farmers came in and out with tools which needed fixing, oil cans for filling and driving away again with trucks full of equipment for the olive picking, which is very busy this year. We think that world forces have meant that Cretan olive oil is in high demand in 2015. Every truck in the village is off at 7.30 a.m. and not back until 4.00 p.m. We have been given two large water bottles of local oil as Christmas presents. It tastes wonderful – if only all this beautiful oil would help with the country's balance of payments!

Then we made the decision to have a proper Crozier kitchen fitted after an elongated delay and I unearthed some squared paper and started measuring and drawing. After marking the fixed points for the windows, doors and immovable objects, I progressed around the four walls of the old house in diagrammatic form. Inevitably, the old walls were so aged that when I got to the final corner of the room to complete the scale drawings, the edges did not seem to meet properly! Nothing is square, nothing is straight. I am so glad that I am not a joiner, but presumably they are used to it by now. Just as we had totted up the expense for this and needed to think about moving funds about, our son called from the UK to tell us that the offer for the house in the UK had been accepted and we needed to get on line fast to tie up loose ends. Almost synchronised to the second, the laptop developed a peculiar fault and told me my user profile had changed … (HOW AND BY WHOM?) ...so I could not use it. We needed to take the laptop to a knowledgeable guy who could twiddle about with it in Safe Mode and make the necessary alterations. It seems to be cured now. There is also a General Election in Greece tomorrow and although all the UK news agencies are “terrified”that Greece will leave the EU, no one hereabouts thinks that it will happen. We will see.

Minoan cup designs - Aren't they beautiful?

We heard from our friend Gianna on Monday, that her husband is out of Intensive Care but still quite poorly. I dropped off a ripple mattress the following morning so that the dreaded bed sores could be prevented and looked up the vitamins and food supplements which I had used for K to build him up and replace all the body weight lost while in hospital. Things are still quite tense, but Tony has three good nurses looking after him round the clock and Gianna (who is a marvellous cook) making wonderful soups and drinks at home and bringing them into the hospital to feed to him and get him stronger. Tony may soon be taken to a clinic in Chania for rehabilitation which we heard about last year. We are still hoping and praying for his complete recovery.

On Friday we paid a second, much more enlightened visit to the amazing Archaeology Museum in Heraklion. Explanation and signage had been much improved since my last trip in the summer and we had the input from Don Eveley, our friend from the British School of Athens, Archaeologist and former curator of the school at Knossos. My take on all the myriad of objects, so beautifully displayed was as irreverent as ever … would you use that portable clay stove for egg poaching .. how on earth did you get stored materials from the bottom of that enormous man size pithoi (terracotta ali baba style pots) .. did you have to suspend a small child by one leg over the edge with a jug or ladle … how did they fire such huge pots and what size of kiln would they use? Fortunately, as a group we had evolved and moved on from using limited brain power worrying about Minoan toilets and sanitation! As we progressed around the museum, the statuary section of the later eras gave us a long pause for thought and I stopped to take a photo of the bust of Caesar Augustus, simply because I had heard of him. The bust of Caligula was next to him and in spite of his reputation, he didn't look so very different from anyone who might be travelling on the same bus to work. Scary! The facilities at the museum were excellent and all the guides and people so welcoming and friendly but after two or three hours our feet were suffering, so we went for lunch in the busy tourist centre of the city. I had spent an inordinate amount of time snapping away at the ceramic designs to see whether I could get some inspiration in the colour choice for kitchen tiles – What a flibbertigibbet I am!

If anyone has seen the online version of a small heater made with two inverted clay flower pots, one candle and lots of metal nuts and bolts to hitch them together, and been assured that it gives off an impressive level of heat at minimal cost … look no further. I was intrigued to take a look at all the clay artefacts displayed so well at the museum and there is one design that looks as if it would do the same job. It made me want to have a go at creating one of my own, but there is far too much happening at the moment for potting 'Minoan' radiators. January is Marmalade Season. I had forgotten to mention that three people had dropped off loads of oranges for me to make marmalade and quite a lot of time has been spent spooning pips out of bubbling marmalade confections and sterilising jam jars. It is a great way to keep warm!

HAPPY NEW WELLINGTONS

Xronia Polla or Happy New Year from Crete. The festive period has been a little affected by strong winds, heavy rains, the usual leaks in various parts of various houses, and most of us stay at home indoors unless we HAVE to go out. The clouds parted for two days over the weekend so that we could take stunning photos of the mountains covered in snow and note that the white stuff was travelling down hill and coming towards us across the lower slopes! K and I were lucky that our neighbour Niko The Wood, or to quote one of our grandsons ...”Just in the Nick of Time” delivered a truck load of wood to replenish the wood pile. This was a big relief as the temperatures are forecast to plummet in the next few days. We cannot believe we have got through the log supply so quickly, even waiting until 5.00 pm every evening to light the stove, but it has gone in a short number of weeks and we are determined not to catch cold.

It is wonderful to be tucked away at home in a warm house. We skimmed through flooded roads to the CIC coffee morning today and it was truly soggy and filthy weatherwise, the torrential rain not giving up for a minute the entire day.  Thunder and lightning have been crashing about overhead all night long and knocking out the electricity and internet at regular intervals. Nobody can quite believe the winter rainfall in Crete unless they have been through it for themselves. I have a large torch to hand in case of a total break down of power. K couldn't get his gum boots on without help, so got completely soaked going down to the shop for potatoes. Damp cold is a bit miserable and I plan to bank up the log burner before bed so that it keeps the house warm for as long as possible. The fireplace is full of a very unbecoming collection of hats, socks and boots drying out.

Tomorrow is Epiphany. Apparently, the Bishop of Rethymnon will say prayers to bless the waters at the harbour tomorrow and throw a large cross into the sea for young men to retrieve. I hope that there are lots of hot blankets ready for those taking part. It sounds interesting, but unless the weather improves, I think we will have to give it a miss. There are also rumours that they will celebrate the festival up at the new reservoir near Amari; having no fear of the crocodile "Sifis" which seems have been abandoned there back in the summer and caused quite a stir in the news. There have been a number of unsuccessful attempts to catch it and lots of video footage which looks similar to the blurred images of the Loch Ness monster.  Anyone diving for crosses in cold water with even a suggestion of a crocodile deserves a medal!

We had good news of our friends Tony and Gianna. Tony is still in hospital but off the ventilator and recovering slowly. His experiences were so similar to K, that we know just how things are panning out, but he is in Rethymnon Hospital, not Heraklion, which seems much smaller and friendlier. Tony is getting good medical and nursing care, so there are less issues to cope with. We saw Gianna at the coffee morning and she looked very much happier.  We were all glad to hear that Tony had turned a corner. It will be a long road to recovery after such a long time in ICU and we are just praying that he will be protected from hospital bugs and gets home soon.  Christmas and New Year have been and gone without their noticing, so 2015 must get better for them.

It is now the morning of the 6^th and we woke up to find water all over the kitchen floor; we wanted to discover if it came from above or below the house, but the lighting was so dim, we could not see anything. Electricity seems to be on half power and nothing works properly except, miraculously, the internet. The microwave was almost comical in its pathetic attempt to get started and sounded like an exhausted gnat. Out with the camping gaz, extra duvets and thermals and on with the log burner! Hibernation seems the best option.

COOL YULE

Happy Christmas to all our friends. The Croziers have been a little preoccupied in recent weeks with various medical appointments and preparations for the Christmas holidays. Since we try to make as many home-made or locally produced gifts as possible, it takes up a lot of time in the kitchen or devising packaging. I had already decided to get small gifts from local makers or craftspeople rather than large stores with only partial success. We have been to a couple of craft fairs in the local villages, which are always good fun and where all the ex pats and local traders get together to sell their wares.

On top of this the weather has been stunningly good. Not warm exactly, but with deep blue skies, sparkling sunshine and gleaming snow on the mountain tops; lungs full of the fresh air each morning gives everyone a glad-to-be-alive feeling. It was too good an opportunity to miss getting heavy items washed, dried and aired and the house swept and mopped before earning some quiet time for contemplation or a “cup of coffee moment” on the terrace where it is warmer in the sunshine than inside the house.

Art School closed unexpectedly for a few weeks over Christmas, but the Makers Group organised a Christmas Meal in Rethymno for a staggeringly low cost and we had a chance to exchange cards, swap news and enjoy a large procession of meze dishes with a glass of wine and still be home at a respectable hour!

Building on last year's experience, I prepared a large dish of cakes and Father Christmas chocolates to have handy in case carol singers turned up as they did last year with lots of children, adults and tinkling triangles in the street outside the door. Predictably, this did not happen this year, so we have a large dish of cakes and chocs which I have covered up and will try not to eat in case they come at New Year instead!

We fitted in medical appointments all on one day in Rethymnon and K saw the Ophthalmologist and Urologist for eye examination and three-monthly injection. We are trying to get the process set in motion for his cataracts to be dealt with but it will be a while before he is ready. After several weeks of enquiries to Amazon, a box containing an aid to help with socks and stockings arrived, which helps with the putting on of things, but is no help at all in getting them off! The effort for both procedures is like an hour in the gym! We need a concerted Crozier effort in the innovations department as K wants to get as independent as he can.

Meanwhile, the fine weather has meant that the olive picking has continued and all the farm buggies and trucks set off early each morning and return when the sun is going down and the Olive Mill is humming until late in the night. A few small presents to our villager neighbours promoted many bags of eggs and litre bottles of the most beautiful olive oil, all fresh from this years crop (along with other offerings of home made wine and raki … help). Our friends Kostas and Angelliki seem to like English chocolates and a visit by the English Grocer to one of the Christmas Fairs, meant that I could get them a big tin of Celebrations – utter luxury for them! So the commonplace for us is in stark comparison again. All our friends enjoy Christmas here. There are no crowds, traffic jams or heaving shopping centres. We have been given gifts of chutneys, pickled onions, home made biscuits, hand made knits and beautiful cards. No one has much money, but all the creative efforts were lovely and very thoughtful. Our hosts for Christmas Lunch put on a most beautiful meal and laboured over home made gifts too! Other guests had made up Red Cross parcels, wrapped in brown paper and string and which contained an assortment of small items, similar to a Christmas stocking! It was lots of fun!

We have had some heartfelt prayer moments too. Not only to see and hear Christmas celebrations from round the world via on line programmes, but some CIC friends have the husband (Tony) in the intensive care unit in the local hospital due to pneumonia and they have induced a coma, done a tracheostomy and all the same procedures that K went through a year before. What a Christmas for his wife (Gianna) and how I sympathise with her! So we have made our way to the local church to light candles and pray for a swift recovery. I know that coming out of ICU to a normal ward in the hospital will be even more difficult for his wife and hope she will keep in touch with us. At least they are nearer to their friends in Rethymnon.

The sound of running water has stopped me in my tracks; it is now pouring with rain, so Boxing Day will be different from Christmas! We send you love and greetings for a joyful time and a very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.

HOME AND AWAY

 After a short second stint in the UK, Mrs Crozier is back in Crete unwinding.

The first few UK days were quite dry and fine which helped a lot and made things easier but later on, the clouds gathered and the weather started to get much colder. UK friends who helped give lifts, cooked wonderful meals and offered storage space were so appreciated. I even braved South Quay in Southampton on Black Friday weekend, which was a bit of a mistake as the crowds were so overwhelming and I didn't need any shopping. However the light lunch at John Lewis's Place to Eat in bright sunshine made it slightly easier and we escaped in one piece. Everywhere we went, the pressure of people and traffic seemed worse than ever and I was glad not to be driving.

House clearing was hard going, but the help offered was marvellous and the whole contents of the house in Hampshire were divided and taken away by vans and car to various new locations or for storage for a short while. The stress of getting repossession of our home and dealing with the aftermath made it very unappealing, so K and I were glad to cut our losses, sell up and prepare to look for somewhere away from the crowded South East. After a frantic week of packing and cleaning, I dropped off the keys at the Estate Agents to await completion the following day and set off for a stayover at Gatwick on Thursday night. Just as I was turning off my mobile to board the plane on Friday morning, the Solicitors called to say the transaction had completed. Brilliant. It had all worked out surprisingly well. I slept all the way on the flight to Athens and then after a short break at Athens airport was wide awake to Heraklion.

I was boiling on the plane in my winter woollies. The flight was stuffed to capacity with every seat taken for Friday night and so squashed that even if the Greek travellers had the self discipline to take one piece of carry-on luggage each, there still would not have been enough bin space for all the bags, bundles and boxes that people, air hostesses and strong men were trying to wrestle into the space above their heads. Since Aegean Airlines have started to charge for even one piece of checked luggage, it has caused mayhem on the planes and they are always requesting for people to check their hand baggage into the hold and pick it up at the carousel. I did not mind doing it, but would not always want to surrender my bag due to my odd assortment of ex-pat stuff which is sometimes quite fragile. On this occasion, it actually made life a bit easier.

I can't help thinking that the ground staff who operate the luggage scanning machines at the security department must see some odd sights. I memorised the peculiar assortment I had packed: coat hooks, a door knob, shaving oil, a new pan for the bread maker, new filters for the water filter jug, Christmas wrapping paper (found in the loft), various treasured bits which I thought had been disposed of, a hair dryer from the UK house to replace the one that had broken here in Crete and a small oven pan. You can buy oven pans here, but they only sell ENORMOUS ones, and K and I have no need to cook so much food at one go these days. Similarly cake tins and dishes all seem to be made for huge family meals rather than sedate suppers for two. There may be a lesson in that somewhere. Anyway, it was time now to think about Christmas Fare Cretan style and to make some homemade mincemeat (which I didn't have room for!)

The house was warm and welcoming on our arrival, K had lit the log burner which was warming the whole of the ground floor, my lovely friends who had met me from the airport brought a bag of the most beautiful mandarin oranges freshly picked from their tree as a gift and K had some food ready to cook if needs be – but the hour was too late to tackle a meal after all the journey food.

A stormy weekend was perfect for looking out the Christmas decorations

Cretan weather had been really hot in my absence and lots of people had been out in their gardens or on the beaches enjoying some warm December sun. I stopped off on the way back from the supermarket on Saturday and took a short walk down the sea wall just to sit on a bench in the sun for a few minutes, look at the harbour and count my blessings. It was so great to be back on this beautiful island to enjoy a lead up to Christmas completely emptied of the usual hassle. On Sunday the winter rain storms started up like an orchestra – loud thunder, dips in the electric power and heavy rain all night. We have been appreciating the new porch roof sevenfold! Enough for now; it is time to sweep up after the deluge!