Snap Happy

I've been going a bit mad lately taking photos, but since I believe (you'll tell me if I'm off the mark here, won't you) that readers generally like to see what this island's like during the winter months, I hereby present yet another clutch of photos taken during the last week or so.

Off we go then...

I've no idea what this is called, but it hold endless fascination for local children. Each year it puts on all these pods, every one bursting with seeds. Bursting is the operative word. Our friend's young son Konstantinos caught me with this a few years back. "Just tap a pod with your foot uncle John", he says, butter wouldn't melt and all. So, of course, I obeyed and was immediately showered with wet seeds and water. The merest touch and the pods explode with such vigour you'd think they were manufactured in a grenade factory. They explode so vigorously, in fact, that the seed can end up in your hair - and I'm six foot one!! Definitely a successful way of self-propagation though.

Just a nice shot from a few days ago at Kabanari Beach. It's about 20 minutes walk from our place. This view looks northward, so you can just about see across to Pefkos Bay on a clear day. You might see a little better if you click on the photo, then do the "right click" thing to see it even bigger, but to the left of the trees, on the beach there's a couple in their swimming cozzies!! Right through the trees themselves, only metres from the sunbathing couple, is a bloke in his jacket fishing!

We had occasion to drive along Psaltos [Navarone] Bay on Saturday. The big storm had just moved on and the day passed with a gradually clearing sky. By mid-afternoon it was really quite hot. It read 22ºC when we got home. So here are a few shots taken at Psaltos, then at what 's known as "Pefkos Top"...

Just in case you didn't know (and I can't really believe you don't!!), the cliffs over there are the ones that feature in the movie "The Guns of Navarone".

I thought the baby lamb under the tree was cute, but didn't take a very good photo I'm afraid.

Through a few trees from the road at "Pefkos Top" is this abandoned water cistern. It's very photogenic and has exceptional views across to Lardos Beach and Kiotari. Incidentally, it's not very clear, but the bird perched on the old ventilation "chimney" is a Black Redstart.

Looking across the old cistern's roof. Lothiarika is just along the coast.

...And looking down across Pefkos itself, of course.

This is Vlicha Bay, just over the "pass" from Lindos. Usually in summer the waters are crystal clear and deep aquamarine blue. But as this was taken the day after a humdinger of a storm, there are some quite interesting colours in the water where mud has been washed into the bay and weed all stirred up.

Finally [almost], this is my vegetable patch right now. If you scroll right down to the bottom of this post, you'll see what it looked like on Nov 5th. From the back to the front: Onions, spinach, beetroot, carrots and lettuce. The garden's enjoying the weather, it's official.

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A few have wondered how we fared with the big storm that hit us a few days ago. It was Friday night when we had the worst of it here in Kiotari. On and off it turned a bit torrential, but only for short periods. The worst inconvenience we had here was that the power went off at 7.50pm and didn't come on again until almost 1.00am, which meant that we had to dust off a few candles and the old oil lamps...

Other parts of the island further north however, as is quite usual here, fared much worse and there were floods in several villages, cars piled up one on top of the other here and there and even a couple of deaths. We've been told that several people from the Maritsa area are missing too, so we really must be grateful at how little the whole shooting match affected us here down south.

Tomorrow I'm off to the hospital at literally the crack of dawn and the forecast is stormy again, so we'll have to see what conditions we encounter. All being well folks, I'll be back in the saddle a little later in the week.