tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87543792825836507222024-03-19T12:29:30.054+02:00Ramblings from RhodesA sort of diary of everyday living on the Greek island of Rhodes.John P. Manuelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07426089334296469215noreply@blogger.comBlogger588125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8754379282583650722.post-58004258180445354632019-11-24T18:20:00.004+02:002020-09-17T18:01:35.122+03:00From Rhodes to Crete<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">Seems one or two folk who've been reading this, my Rhodean blog, haven't been able to find the new Cretan one, no doubt owing to my previously poor choice of words in this post. </span><br />
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<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">So, I've edited this post to make it absolutely clear. <b>My Cretan blog, is called...</b></span><br />
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<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"><i><a href="https://honorarygreek.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Accretions.</a></i> </span></b><br />
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<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">...and if you click on that word (above), it'll take you directly to the new blog. There you can sift through earlier posts, right back to the beginning of our Cretan adventure by scrolling down the left-hand column to the box entitled: ARCHIVES. There you can select the earlier posts to your heart's delight!!</span><br />
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<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">Hope to see you there, thanks everyone.</span><br />
<span face="trebuchet ms, sans-serif">JM</span></div>
John P. Manuelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07426089334296469215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8754379282583650722.post-61983049670953323892019-09-23T22:41:00.000+03:002019-09-28T11:17:30.308+03:00Moving Over<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Yes, folks I've now moved over to the new blog, which is called <i>"Accretions," </i>a name which is explained in the post "<a href="https://honorarygreek.wordpress.com/2019/09/27/early-morning-musings/" target="_blank">Early Morning Musings</a>."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Hopefully you'll come along with me. If not, thanks for sharing our Rhodean adventure. I'm using Wordpress for the new blog, and it's not as easy to use as Blogger, so bear with me while I get up to speed on how to use it to best effect.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Once again, RFR will remain on line, because it carries so much information about Rhodes which I hope will still be of use to many who go there for a holiday.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Right, I'm off to bed folks, I'm tired! <i>Kali nichta</i>.</span></div>
John P. Manuelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07426089334296469215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8754379282583650722.post-41853936559071982022019-09-17T11:00:00.002+03:002021-01-28T02:07:46.893+02:00On The Move<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">It's been a strange couple of months. Entirely unexpectedly, the house we're living in has been put on the market. The reasons don't matter. Our friends the owners have their own crises to face in their lives right now, so it's the way things have to be. After the initial moments of shock and disbelief, we decided to think along the lines of a '<i>glass half full'</i> and set about making plans for the next phase of our lives.</span><br />
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<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">We've had 14 eventful years here on Rhodes. It's rather disconcerting to look back and see that friends who had toddlers when we first got to know them, now have kids in their late teens, even early twenties, and that seems to really underline how quickly the years have flashed past. I know, I know, everyone says it, because it's true I suppose.</span><br />
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<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">Anyway, looking forward, we're now truly excited about our new life in the south of the island of Crete. We went over there (as you'll know from such posts as <i><a href="https://ramblingsfromrhodes.blogspot.com/2019/08/up-up-and-away.html" target="_blank">'Up, Up and Away'</a></i> and '<i><a href="https://ramblingsfromrhodes.blogspot.com/2019/08/falling-in-love-again.html" target="_blank">Falling in Love Again?'</a></i>) in August and, after becoming rather disillusioned at first with the properties we were shown, eventually found something that could not have been more perfect for us. So, for the first time in over 14 years, we shall once again be living in our very own home. </span><br />
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<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">Right now, though, it's like being a couple of squatters, students even perhaps. We're reduced to sleeping on a mattress on the floor in a bedroom devoid of furniture. Today, as I type this we're waiting for the truck to arrive to take our 'stuff', hopefully in order for us to be reunited with it early next week at the new house. Yesterday a couple of really good friends, and I use the word '<i>really</i>' advisedly, came over to help us pack the pallets.</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGD5JS1nwHx9E3e7YR4gga18msHxMe-Tdg_NbLN33phJoJsoyZsKZZcrCe1TGtWlnNjGMi9tz6c1I_sWCg8vvSzwc8Y-r1ALyPFYtMGzJ8ptrMAA5dKQ_PtDNJkqx-7AATned316mt-vQ/s1600/IMG_1095.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="587" data-original-width="1280" height="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGD5JS1nwHx9E3e7YR4gga18msHxMe-Tdg_NbLN33phJoJsoyZsKZZcrCe1TGtWlnNjGMi9tz6c1I_sWCg8vvSzwc8Y-r1ALyPFYtMGzJ8ptrMAA5dKQ_PtDNJkqx-7AATned316mt-vQ/s400/IMG_1095.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Do those two pallets <i>really</i> represent all that we are in this life?</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD7pPdbVnNNYOKOdQArVw1xgcegsw4u2Nu3gI7L-xLNialZH-39chRaLGlXChkbJZcoT4oYjqQlRlVnvv-1ci18ahsw0QRzcc1LJ-qKDhUcIIS44kZeykShU2xn3d7LuihVWR28QdYOtM/s1600/IMG_1096.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="587" data-original-width="1280" height="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD7pPdbVnNNYOKOdQArVw1xgcegsw4u2Nu3gI7L-xLNialZH-39chRaLGlXChkbJZcoT4oYjqQlRlVnvv-1ci18ahsw0QRzcc1LJ-qKDhUcIIS44kZeykShU2xn3d7LuihVWR28QdYOtM/s400/IMG_1096.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That's Vagelli on the right. Our 'salvation' in human form.</td></tr>
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<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">Back in the UK we were no strangers to moving house. In fact, we were musing on the fact this past day or so that we'd never lived in one home in the UK for as many years as we've now lived in this house in Rhodes. In Blighty, I'd hire a 'Luton' van more often as not (what the Americans would more likely visualise as a U-Haul, I'd guess), a few mates would turn up, and we'd run in and out carrying boxes, lampshades and coffee tables and all the paraphernalia that we humans feel the need to gather around us to make us feel comfortable, to feel at home in our nest, as it were.</span><br />
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<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">Here it's nothing like as simple. For us there are two reasons. The first is we're moving islands, so that makes it more complicated. The second is that you just can't go hire a box van here like you can in the UK. We found out when we first moved here that you're not even at liberty in a 'free country' here in Greece to buy a van or a pick-up without having the paperwork to prove that you have a trade that requires such a vehicle. It's true I tell you. To make the move from the UK to Greece, I bought a Mitsubishi L300 van from a roadside used vehicle dealer not far down the A38 from Bristol, we kitted it out and drove all the way. Well, OK, we let the ferries do some of the work. All the gen on that is to be found in my first published work, <i>'<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Feta-Compli-Ramblings-Rhodes-ebook/dp/B005FNQIR6/ref=sr_1_4?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1312359817&sr=1-4" target="_blank">Feta Compli!'</a></i> - as if you didn't know that already.</span><br />
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<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">Here, even if one could hire a van (which one can't), it would still be a non-starter, because the ferry timetables would mean I'd have to keep the thing for a week before I could bring it back to Rhodes. Oh, there will be some out there who live over here (or who wear anoraks and study the Greek ferry system) who'll point out that one could get back to Rhodes by going from Crete to Piraeus, then from Pireaus back to Rhodes, but that would not only be a helluva grueller, it would also cost the flippin' earth!</span><br />
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<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">So, no, the only choice is to hire a moving company. That was where our good friends Vagelli and Ioanna came in. Unlike a lot of Greeks, they've moved quite a few times and know all the tricks. Thus it was that, after I'd turned up a price of over a thousand Euros to move our stuff from Kiotari to Athens, then from Athens to Crete and on to the new home, Vagelli said he'd do a little research for us. With a few phone calls he brought the cost down by hundreds! Plus the company who are taking the stuff to Crete from here are a Cretan company and they scoffed when we asked if they'd be taking our stuff through Piraeus. No, no, they go straight to Heraklion. A result.</span><br />
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<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">Not only did he sort that out, but they also spent a long day helping us pack stuff and, whilst doing so, revealed the most important secret one has to learn when moving house in Greece. Don't ask the company to pack everything for you, get yourself some sturdy wooden pallets (which grow on trees around these parts!) pick up a roll of heavy-duty pvc membrane (cling-film) from the local DIY store (€8.50, and worth every penny) and stack and seal the pallets yourselves. Thus it was that yesterday they came over once again and Vagelli took charge of stacking the pallets, which he called <i>"playing '3-D Tetris'."</i></span><br />
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<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">Were it not for them we'd never be ready. But we are. The house here is almost empty, save for a mattress that the local Dimos will (I hope) take away for us when we leave, and the stuff that's coming with us in the car.</span><br />
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<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">A new era is approaching. We're living like squatters for a few more days yet, but it's a busy week this week responding to the many invitations we've received to have '<i>parea</i>' with old friends, so it will pass quickly. Just like the last 14 years, in fact.</span><br />
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<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">The new blog is here: <a href="https://honorarygreek.wordpress.com" target="_blank">"<i>Accretions</i>."</a> I do hope you'll come along with us. I'll try and make the posts fun and informative. So, if you have a little time to waste, you can keep us company on our new adventure. There is only one introductory post over there at the moment, but that will soon change once we've got the internet sorted out in the new house.</span><br />
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<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"><i>"What about Brexit?!"</i> I hear some of you cry. I'm sure I'm not alone in responding, as would thousands of other ex-pats who've made their home here in Greece, "<i>This is our home. We've chosen to adopt this country. We'll still be alive and breathing on November 1st."</i> Y'know, to me the whole thing's liable to be a <i>damp squib</i> for those such as us anyway. I well remember the soothsayers telling us how the world's computer networks were all going to shut down on January 1st 2000, owing to the fact that the Windows operating system had some essential flaws in it that would cock-things up royally. What happened?</span><br />
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<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif">Nothing that's what. What will happen here though, is we shall go on living in this wonderful climate, making new friends and enjoying the life we've chosen, warts and all.</span><br />
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<span face=""trebuchet ms" , sans-serif"><b><i>PS. RFR will stay 'live' for the indefinite future, because of all the info it carries for fans of Rhodes.</i></b></span></div>
John P. Manuelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07426089334296469215noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8754379282583650722.post-63533164323813278842019-09-11T13:03:00.002+03:002019-09-11T13:03:47.026+03:00What's in a Name?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I said goodbye today to Despoina, who runs one of the local DIY stores that we've frequented for the past 14 years. She and her hubby Nikos have been good to us during our time here. There was the occasion once when we were without electricity when a trip rod blew on one of the poles down the valley (to the sound of a huge BANG!), only affecting the three houses up here and consequently probably not getting noticed by the electricity company.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Back then I had no idea who to call and my Greek would not have been good enough to carry on a telephone conversation about such an issue. I couldn't use the phone anyway, because it's a cordless and there was no electricity. Plus, my mobile phone was on charge. So I called in on Despoina in her store and she said, <i>"Leave it to me. I'll get the technicians up there."</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The whole story of that day is related in chapter 26 of <b><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tzatziki-You-Ramblings-Rhodes-ebook/dp/B005FNQJ3O/ref=sr_1_5?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1312359659&sr=1-5" target="_blank">Tzatziki For You to Say</a></b>, but the long and the short of it was that, a couple of hours later a pickup bearing the ΑΔΜΗΕ </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">logo screeched to a halt outside our front gate and two fellas jumped out screaming <i>"Where's the FIRE?!</i>" They fixed the problem, that's the main thing. And all thanks to Despoina.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Another time the pump which sends water to our holding tank at the top of the hill above the house burnt out and we only became aware of the fact when the water stopped coming out of our taps a couple of days later. Once more Despoina and Nikos stepped into the breach while we tried to source a new pump. Nikos filled a big square tank which he put on the flatbed of his substantially sized pickup and drove it up to the holding tank and syphoned it in, giving us enough water to get us through until the new pump was fitted and working.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The only thing about Despoina is that she will insist on calling my wife Irini, although her name is Maria (but known to our British friends and family as Yvonne. It's complicated. Don't ask). I've lost count of the number of times this has happened. My wife rarely accompanies me when I drop in for a few fittings or something, but, every time I leave, Despoina will politely ask me to give her best wishes to Irini. Not that long ago we did both drop by together. I introduced my wife and politely made light of the fact that she's actually Maria and not Irini. Despoina was all profuse apologies, and we assured her that it wasn't a problem but, since we were both there together, we thought we may as well set her straight.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">So, I decided to let it go when yesterday, after we'd exchanged all the usual <i>"Good health, long life, all the best" </i>and the rest, Despoina added, as a parting shot, "<i>And do give my best to Irini, won't you."</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">And so to the reason why I was saying farewell to our local DIY proprietor. If you haven't gathered already, we're upping sticks and moving house after 14 years on this most peaceful, green and secluded Rhodean hillside. The house we've been living in is on the market and we decided that it was time to put the capital we'd put aside when we sold our house in the UK to use. We're going to Crete, to a quiet, peaceful, secluded hillside there, with a view of the sea. Sound familiar?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The only problem is, I still have to find a name for my new Cretan blog. I shall, of course, keep RFR live on line for the foreseeable future, because there are people who consult it for all the info it carries about Rhodes and things to do here. But I'll leave </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">a link to the new blog </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">in the last post here, and I hope that if you've enjoyed all my drivel this past decade or so, you may want to carry on reading about what will befall us in our new home.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">TTFN, talk soon!</span></div>
John P. Manuelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07426089334296469215noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8754379282583650722.post-23517737508847873612019-09-08T02:25:00.001+03:002019-09-08T09:44:08.095+03:00The Fury<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I'm furious.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The other evening we went down for a swim on our regular beach. Aa we swam along, our attention was drawn to a couple, both of whom were rather on the large side (no offense!), who were paddling around just a few feet into the water. They had a pair of those plastic li-los laying on the beach with the rest of their 'stuff.' It was quite a windy evening, with the wind coming off of the land.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I must admit to being one of those who sees red whenever I see inflatable plastic li-los and the like, especially as the flippin' things weigh next to nothing and can so easily be picked up by the wind when left unattended.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">No one could have failed to notice that plastic pollution, especially in the oceans, is a very hot potato right now. Who hasn't seen news reports of whales being found dead, having choked on plastic bags, turtles being strangled by those collars that six packs of beer often come in, fishing line cutting into a dolphin's flesh? The list is endless. There's even a floating plastic mass, reputedly as big as Wales, floating around in the Pacific Ocean.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So am I alone in wondering why these disgusting rubbishy li-los are still allowed? Maybe I'm simply an old grouch, but I sincerely believe that they should be banned, made illegal, at least from beaches. I can illustrate my point with what happened next.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As we swam past this couple, one of their li-los was picked up by the wind from the beach behind them, it then flew past them and out on to the surface of the sea. Within seconds it was a hundred metres out and moving swiftly away from the shore. What did these two caring and environmentally aware people do? The watched it and laughed. The two of them laughed, as 'hubby' pointed with one index finger while shading his eye with the other hand. Hilarious, eh? Another choking whale before long I shouldn't wonder.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As we watched in horror (and I should point out that if I'd been twenty years younger I may have had a go at this myself), but as we watched the offending couple chortling as they single-handedly added a few metres of plastic waste to the ocean, a socially responsible man who'd been splashing about in the shallows nearby, set off at as quick a pace as he could master, swimming the crawl, to try and catch the offending item. I well remember some years ago when I'd done something similar when someone's ridiculously lightweight beach ball had gone bounding off across the surface of the water on Skiathos. I'd swum for all my might, but had to give up when I could see that the ball was travelling much quicker than I. As I turned dejectedly around to head back to shore, I was shocked at how far out I'd gone. I made it back, but not without becoming very exhausted.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Now, this chap who'd gone after the li-lo did appear to be gaining on it for a while, that is until a gust of wind lifted the li-lo from the water and started it cartwheeling out to sea much faster still. In the end, like me some years ago, he had to give it up as a bad job, but we could see from a distance that he'd truly spent himself, as his strokes had slowed and eventually ceased as he began to tread water to get his strength back for the return swim to shore. I'm not exaggerating when I say that we both became concerned that he'd not be able to make it back from sheer exhaustion. The man could have drowned, all because of a couple of irresponsible idiots who couldn't bear to go to the beach without carting this plastic disaster along with them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As the li-lo continued to cartwheel on out to sea, a speed boat came along towing a few screaming holidaymakers in one of those rubber ring-type things.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>"Ah ha!"</i> we both said, <i>"Maybe he'll stop for a second and retrieve it."</i> Huh. As they say in Yorkshire, <i>"Did 'e 'eck as like?"</i> The driver of the speed boat just kept roaring past, when he could very easily have positioned himself downwind of the offending object and intercepted it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Never mind, now a jet-ski came charging along the surface of the sea, travelling in the direction of the li-lo. Maybe this bloke would try and retrieve the thing. He did appear for a second or two to consider it, as his speed lessened and that huge jet of water that often spouts out from behind a jet-ski lessened to a limp gurgle. But no, he too was apparently not concerned enough to make the effort.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I have to admit to being so dismayed by such sights that I can't tear my eyes off of them until the errant object is lost to view. All the while feeling desperately upset at yet more plastic crap being allowed to pollute the already suffering seas. I only have to walk past a tourist shop in a resort, and I become thoroughly depressed at the huge amounts of plastic on display for holidaymakers to buy. Sometimes you can hardly see the front of the store for li-los of all shapes and sizes (the latest craze is those big pink swans), not to mention inflatable beach balls, cheap umbrellas and all the rest.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The couple who had owned the flyaway li-lo simply carried on splashing around once their lost li-lo was too far out to be seen by the naked eye. I almost considered making a citizen's arrest. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Seriously, though, am I the only person (well, I should say "<i>are we the only two</i>" since my wife agrees 100% on this) who thinks that it's about time legislation was introduced to prevent thick people from parading down to the world's beaches with objects that are far too likely to add to the world's pollution problem than they are to be carried back home again after a session on the shoreline?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">What truly depresses me is the thought that, for every li-lo or beach ball that I personally see flying off to add to the oceans' woes, how many times is the scenario being repeated the world over? Would it really detract so much from people's enjoyment of a day on the beach to not be able to bring such pollutive 'accidents waiting to happen' with them?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As I said, I'm furious. Simply can't help it.</span></div>
John P. Manuelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07426089334296469215noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8754379282583650722.post-48737201465861337342019-08-26T23:56:00.001+03:002019-08-27T06:04:15.850+03:00Up, up and away<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Heading for the hills has a meaning all of its own in Crete. While staying with our friends in Ierapetra, we were invited as a foursome to go up to the village where the parents of our friends' friends have their ancestral home, their <i>καταγωγή</i>, roots or origin. Only one of the parents in question now remains, and she is so old that she cannot any more make the ascent back to her home village, but must live with family way down in the town, about an hour away by road. So the house is kept for weekend retreats, where the family can relax up in the cooler mountain air during the oppressive summer months as and when they can get away.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We've been up some twisty-turny mountain roads in our time, and we've been to villages perched at some pretty high altitudes, but I'd hazard the guess that this one is up there with the highest we've been to. One such 'climb' was the road to the village of Manolates on Samos. In chapter 11 of "<b><i><a href="https://johnphilipmanuel.wixsite.com/works/moussaka-to-my-ears" target="_blank">Moussaka to My Ears</a></i></b>" I talked about this village and the night we danced with a group of Turkish tourists in the tiny taverna that's perched outside of the village at its highest point above sea level.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">About half an hour along the coast road, heading east from Ierapetra town, one takes a small left turn and immediately the narrow road begins to climb. Then it climbs some more. And more. And then some. Along with the ascent, you also have to negotiate the regulation hairpins, plus sections of road where, were you to run your tyres over the edge, you'd very soon become a passenger as your vehicle plummeted several hundred feet through steeply-sloped wooded hillsides. Meeting something coming the other way is always 'fun.' And it happened a couple of times. I was so glad our host had smeared vaseline all along the side of his car (I'm lying about that bit).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The views as we ascended were beautiful. It was late in the day and sunset was not far off...</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3ewuf2WLbVDLTb21LoKLTuTRIJecnbAMEsN5zv_ganoOdPdSC5yoG1oge-FZ2FyRddQMjGBN90qH4Nd9x23bPGTccDnEL0CuxAlCSEUFLGGxxu-sy_46Nr3ZF5B8kvIel0O-g3wJPSAk/s1600/fullsizeoutput_19b3.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3ewuf2WLbVDLTb21LoKLTuTRIJecnbAMEsN5zv_ganoOdPdSC5yoG1oge-FZ2FyRddQMjGBN90qH4Nd9x23bPGTccDnEL0CuxAlCSEUFLGGxxu-sy_46Nr3ZF5B8kvIel0O-g3wJPSAk/s400/fullsizeoutput_19b3.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is looking back the way we'd come, during a brief stretch of road that had almost levelled out, merely to lull us into a false sense of security. Somewhere down that gorge at the beach would be Makrygialos.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEbdVGlNhnicwURzKNuS11q8uRXpMW2WeG1Kw5lSW4vCOJX3yKXDLYIvUZ3nuchGnoQoIiraiJBOyLG7W9xEpUH_liCcJmeVvf8riYVX5jV48Ml2HE-m-ZP94mEsKr_lGsHbs6ZAOF3fo/s1600/fullsizeoutput_19b2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEbdVGlNhnicwURzKNuS11q8uRXpMW2WeG1Kw5lSW4vCOJX3yKXDLYIvUZ3nuchGnoQoIiraiJBOyLG7W9xEpUH_liCcJmeVvf8riYVX5jV48Ml2HE-m-ZP94mEsKr_lGsHbs6ZAOF3fo/s400/fullsizeoutput_19b2.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Our destination sits in that 'saddle' way beyond the two rock faces. By the way, the armco wasn't there for every occasion when there was a fairly alarming drop to one side of the road.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It took us probably 40 minutes, from leaving the main road far below, to enter the village, a small strung-out selection of old houses clinging to an impressively high mountainside.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As we drove into the village, the sun having now gone down, dusk was settling as children played in the road and <i>ya yas</i> sat on steps, fanning themselves with little bunches of herbs. Everyone greeted us, at the very least with a wave or a nod, but quite often with a word that meant our friend who was driving had to stop the car to show respect and decorum. It was that all-too-short half an hour between the sun going behind the mountain to one's west and that time when darkness descends completely.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The outside temperature was reading 28ºC in the car, whereas it had been reading 34 when we'd turned into the lane way, way below. Small wonder that, even though the number of residents left in the village is now very low, and the percentage of houses that have permanent residents is only about 30 or so, the place is vibrant on a weekend evening when all the scattered offspring of the village's original inhabitants make their way up here to experience relief from the summer temperatures that prevail more than half an hour below.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We pulled up at the bottom of some stone steps, which led up through fulsome jasmine, basil and lemon geraniums to a terrace, from where the smoke of a charcoal barbecue could not only be seen emanating, but the delicious smell of fishes being cooked over the coals drifted to tantalise my nostrils. Following our hosts up to the terrace, we were warmly greeted by the residents, a couple of similar age to our friends, together with their eight-year-old son, who was vigorously pushing a toy car with big fat wheels along a stretch of wall that was just the right height for the purpose.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">All the cheek-kissing and warm hugging dispensed with, the food very soon began to appear as the women placed huge bowls on the tables that had been laid end-to end to accommodate six adults and a little one. It was simple fare, but perfect. A ginormous potato salad took centre stage, together with plates of home-made hummus. There were freshly cut chunks of lemon, village bread and also a green salad with red onions. A bottle of wine, some cans of beer and the ubiquitous bottle of water were shoehorned into position among the plates of meze that also peppered the table top. Sliced (lengthwise) Cretan cucumber were also presented, to be eaten by hand. If you've never seen a Cretan cucumber, it rather resembles a cross between a courgette and a traditional cucumber, and it's delicious.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When Akis, our host for the evening, had finished cooking the fish over the charcoal, he climbed the few steps from the lower terrace where he'd been tending the barbecue and passed around a huge plate laden with <i>Tsipoura (</i>Sea bream), all complete with their heads and tails and smelling divine. Each fish was about 20 - 25 cm in length. We were bade take a whole one each and we all set about the serious business of demolishing the spread that lay before us. At the far end of the terrace where we were sitting, was a grape vine trained over a tubular frame, the grapes on which looked almost ready. I felt green with envy at just how laden that vine was...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Eventually, as the darkness beyond the lamps which burned on the terrace and in the street below became complete, the table beginning to look like a war zone, we all pushed our chairs back, stretched our legs further beneath the table and tucked into huge chunks of water melon, while putting the world to rights. Shame that political negotiations can't be carried out in such circumstances, the world's problems would be sorted out in no time. Bouzouki music drifted over the rooftops as we talked.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As midnight approached it was time for us to bid goodnight to our hosts, who wouldn't hear of us washing up. They only allowed us to clear the table and take the empty plates and glasses into the kitchen because we all threatened to fall out with them in a big way if they didn't. By the time we'd turned the car around and begun to head back down through the village and onwards down the massive gorge and valley which the road negotiates on its way back to civilisation, it was past midnight and the street was still full of children playing games and knots of people sitting on small terraces or talking on doorsteps. Our friends had to stop the car every few metres to greet yet another friend or acquaintance, and at one point we all got out while the car was shoehorned into an impossibly small side driveway and we paraded into the house of another friend's aged mother, right to her bedside, in fact, where the dear old lady was sitting watching some fifty-year-old Greek movie on an ancient TV which sat on a doily on the top of a cupboard at the foot of the bed. It simply isn't done to pass the house of an acquaintance or friend without going inside to pay one's respects. If she was irritated at being made to miss part of the movie, she didn't show it. Mind you, I'd be surprised if she hadn't already seen that movie a dozen times before.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">By the time we got back to our friends' apartment in Ierapetra town it must have been about 2.00am. Even then, Soula, our hostess, insisted on making us a cup of herbal sleep tea each with a generous spoonful of Cretan honey in it to help ensure us a good night's rest.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We awoke at around 10.00am to a silent apartment, our two hardworking hosts having got up at the crack of dawn to go off to their job of work. They run their own cleaning business as a husband and wife team. Respect, eh?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">All in all another superlative memory to add to our sack of reminiscences, one of the best, in fact.</span></div>
John P. Manuelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07426089334296469215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8754379282583650722.post-23136890593855351482019-08-21T02:31:00.001+03:002019-08-21T09:23:30.103+03:00Falling in Love Again?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNK2LFG6BfL27TUUDKo6Pu8MN8PfnFKPdYaBBBg4wdq_wVu3Gnc-Gv_FMlBK4RbdAKkrJS7Qii_LcE5o1-wIrXAmRMWshvBXsg58VPSnsXl-_tKpm_MVlgrP92FXNSMNGRPUMWukzeT0s/s1600/fullsizeoutput_19ba.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNK2LFG6BfL27TUUDKo6Pu8MN8PfnFKPdYaBBBg4wdq_wVu3Gnc-Gv_FMlBK4RbdAKkrJS7Qii_LcE5o1-wIrXAmRMWshvBXsg58VPSnsXl-_tKpm_MVlgrP92FXNSMNGRPUMWukzeT0s/s400/fullsizeoutput_19ba.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I've had a relationship with the country of Greece since I first went out with the girl that eventually became my wife. Anyone who's read my lighthearted <i><a href="https://johnphilipmanuel.wixsite.com/works/non-fiction-work" target="_blank">"Ramblings From Rhodes"</a></i> series of books will know a little about how I first met my wife and discovered that her mother was Greek, resulting in my first ever visit in the summer of 1977. In <i><a href="https://johnphilipmanuel.wixsite.com/works/feta-compli" target="_blank">"Feta Compli!"</a></i> I mentioned how I first fell in love with Greece when the airplane doors opened on the tarmac at Athens Glyfada airport back then, and this visit that we're currently enjoying with close friends in the south of the island of Crete is kind of taking me back to the excitement that I very first felt back in those very early days.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">For a very young not-very-well-travelled English lad to suddenly experience the joys of eating out with one's feet just inches from the crystal waters of a sea that never goes away and comes back again, as it does in the British Isles, owing to our tides there, chucking pieces of bread to the fishes and almost going into a rapture over the aroma of charcoal sizzling fresh fish just a few feet away, while also tasting for the very first time such delights as <i>Tzatziki, Skordalia, Revithokeftedes, Retsina, Metaxa, Ouzo, Feta, kalamari</i> and <i>bougatsa (not all at the same time, granted!)</i>, it was almost a given that I'd very soon fall in love with the country that was my wife's heritage.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This visit to Ierapetra has rekindled my excitement, making me fall in love with Greece all over again. Two nights ago, as we strolled the delightful 'promenade' that graces the seafront at Ierapetra, before sitting in a waterside bar full of Greeks and very few tourists and enjoying <i>'parea'</i> with truly close friends over a couple of beers, accompanied by some savoury nibbles, I again experienced the goose bumps that my very first visit had given me. As we all talked (and you know when you're with <i>really</i> good friends when the conversation simply never lapses and you all laugh a lot) and dipped savoury crackers into a delicious guacamole (OK, not very Greek, but nowhere's completely perfect - and anyway, I love guacamole!) before crunching them enthusiastically between our teeth, I found myself gazing around and thinking,<i> "You just can't do this in the UK. For starters it's maybe once in a whole summer when the temperature will be 28ºC at 11.00pm, and for another thing, the sea doesn't stay where it is for long enough. Plus, the simple joie de vie that the local Greeks display isn't to be found among the sulky, moody Brits."</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">OK, so I'll probably have upset some UK readers with that last remark but, be honest, national characteristics do exist and when you're out and about in Britain, maybe it's the climate, I don't know, but people just aren't as relaxed, as civil, as content with the simple pleasures, as they seem to be in the south of Europe. They're just not as happy. Everywhere here friends and neighbours '<i>volta</i>' during the late evening, stopping frequently to bear-hug a neighbour, back-slap and double cheek-kiss a relative or work colleague, all the while talking excitedly and enthusiastically with no hint of aggression or swagger. The other night was made particularly special by the still almost full moon creeping above the far headland in a blaze of crimson, throwing shimmering red fluid flashes all across the surface of a flat sea while we all turned to gaze in humble appreciation for the show that Creation puts on.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Yup, got to admit it, I'm smitten. Here are a few more shots from the past few days. See whether you don't get infected by what I'm 'suffering' from...</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga-_FyLSL5gMD5czLvOAJG0rb7ilTjEyXnT_v1CJkvPZYV0tV0y79QkVFTFV7iQgtuSd64lcifo6MrjqliP3uFNjwpEkmLcoVafWI5RwweWoInczUrBbx9qFq8bzdsMxlUr9qhHsqujVk/s1600/fullsizeoutput_19af.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga-_FyLSL5gMD5czLvOAJG0rb7ilTjEyXnT_v1CJkvPZYV0tV0y79QkVFTFV7iQgtuSd64lcifo6MrjqliP3uFNjwpEkmLcoVafWI5RwweWoInczUrBbx9qFq8bzdsMxlUr9qhHsqujVk/s400/fullsizeoutput_19af.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This was taken in a village up in the hills on Sunday morning. I couldn't now tell you the name of the village, but this old <i>ya ya</i> struggling up the steep 'street' - although living her pretty hard life - nevertheless presented me with a scene that's been played out in this part of the world for millenia, no doubt.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRAjPWiTauHcNCZB6IDwADlYyiIlm87nM_dkiFuRoQMu3B89eWoexvV5qaVCpzynvbfUk6p1is4cLOBVPlg9i_fpk69xIqDvRsOOq-muIHEqLJWD2wOBeesWzwzIDpDzeWiiATQF-kxOc/s1600/fullsizeoutput_19b6.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRAjPWiTauHcNCZB6IDwADlYyiIlm87nM_dkiFuRoQMu3B89eWoexvV5qaVCpzynvbfUk6p1is4cLOBVPlg9i_fpk69xIqDvRsOOq-muIHEqLJWD2wOBeesWzwzIDpDzeWiiATQF-kxOc/s400/fullsizeoutput_19b6.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sorry Frappé, but I've deserted you in favour of the much more healthy, not to say tasty, Freddo espresso these days.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieC93ai5tQkuUIe84dQOUDbUGkAls_ruya4jWJI17u-TPPpCHwrPYpuQvOYQWV4-sO4-POqVY9GSJqfkKOud4gIoxrKivef3-e7B0_s2eO3LmNtz3LPLaU9HBfN9lLgRmB6JamNjlXLIk/s1600/fullsizeoutput_19bc.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieC93ai5tQkuUIe84dQOUDbUGkAls_ruya4jWJI17u-TPPpCHwrPYpuQvOYQWV4-sO4-POqVY9GSJqfkKOud4gIoxrKivef3-e7B0_s2eO3LmNtz3LPLaU9HBfN9lLgRmB6JamNjlXLIk/s400/fullsizeoutput_19bc.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This and the last few below are actually taken at Makry Yialos, a tiny resort about half an hour to the east of Ierapetra. We holidayed here twice back around 2002-2004 and wanted to just come back and see how much it had changed. Happily, not much, certainly development has not taken place at anything like the pace that it has on Rhodes over the past decade and a half.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Amazingly they actually do have railings here, but they're still quite rare on water-side walkways it seems to me. As far as I'm concerned, it's a good thing in general. As far as we hear, someone falling off the 'quay' is a very rare occurrence indeed.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Next post will be about a visit to the tiny village of Oreino, way, way up in the mountains above Makry Gialos, where we spent an Elysian evening with some friends of our friends the other day.</span></div>
John P. Manuelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07426089334296469215noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8754379282583650722.post-56319119245208432472019-08-19T01:52:00.001+03:002019-08-21T01:42:53.632+03:00Girl From Kritsa<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">For members of the Facebook group "<b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/866776986702535/?ref=bookmarks" target="_blank">A Good Greek Read</a></b>" that I'm quite proud to have started a few years ago, I'd hazard a well-educated guess that the name Yvonne Payne is not going to be new. Yvonne is, of course, one of the four 'Admins" currently ensuring the smooth running of the page. Yvonne wrote her first novel, the epic and true tale of <b><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kritsotopoula-Girl-Kritsa-Yvonne-Payne-ebook/dp/B07L9GQGGY/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Kritsotopoula&qid=1566165926&s=digital-text&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Kritsotopoula</a></b>, a young girl whose heroics resulted in her going down in history as a heroine of the island of Crete, back in 2018, and its reception among readers has been very warm indeed, with 96% of its reviewers giving it four or five stars on its Amazon UK page.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Yvonne has since gone on to write a second novel, <b><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07JVG4YM1/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2" target="_blank">Rodanthe's Gift</a></b>, plus a very good guide to Kritsa, her adopted home village on the island of Crete, which includes much more than simply information on what to find where. As its Amazon page says, "<b><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1077190409/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0" target="_blank">Explore Kritsa</a></b>" is a book in which, "<i>in an informal and lively style, Yvonne shares her month by month insights into Kritsa life and the local customs, food, history and culture. Yvonne also shares 15 of her favourite walks around the area, ranging from a gentle stroll to steep, uphill hikes.Whether your stay is a brief visit to the village, a holiday in the area, or you plan on making a home in Kritsa.</i>" ...this book will delight.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Thus, Yvonne well is qualified to be the next 'victim' in my occasional series of interviews with fellow writers on a Greek Theme. And so, I'm proud to produce what follows, an interview with fellow author and Grecophile, Yvonne Payne:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><i>Where do you live?</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Along with my husband, I spend my life between two small homes. One is an apartment in Swindon, Wiltshire in the UK, where we have easy access to family and walks in rolling green countryside. The other, our favourite, is a house in the traditional hillside village of Kritsa on the island of Crete. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Here we appreciate being part of the community and our walks are in rugged mountains and countryside, often with views of the sea. People say we’re lucky, but it took a lot of planning and compromise to achieve our preferred balance. Where we are lucky is to have the health to enjoy our chosen way of splitting the year. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><i>What do you write about?</i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixxQ-WuYwpqwV9VhbrJYdWC5BOZpeNr4v_Fe1ggxt0u32b3EApRnDvChmmTSHyWgi99Fk9vpOV9MOSi_Ve1uNQrDKcnqbgpUZYqdqrKV1ktdJhtpSec2YT9WTWTemf53f0etQtXcZfRxg/s1600/Kritsotopoula+screen+version+-+Copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="614" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixxQ-WuYwpqwV9VhbrJYdWC5BOZpeNr4v_Fe1ggxt0u32b3EApRnDvChmmTSHyWgi99Fk9vpOV9MOSi_Ve1uNQrDKcnqbgpUZYqdqrKV1ktdJhtpSec2YT9WTWTemf53f0etQtXcZfRxg/s200/Kritsotopoula+screen+version+-+Copy.jpg" width="130" /></a></i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I write historical fiction based around my village of Kritsa. Bear with me and I’ll explain how this came about… Kritsa has a famous heroine called Rodanthe. Back in the time of Ottoman oppression a local Turk ruler had her abducted from her home in cruel circumstances. Somehow Rodanthe killed the man and escaped to the mountains wearing his clothes where she joined a group of rebels led by Captain Kazanis. She maintained her disguise as a young man and fought alongside her fellow rebels in a huge 1823 battle just outside of Kritsa. Severe battle wounds led to the discovery of Rodanthe’s true identity. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJwUxg4ACXEy7P_mkpoOCKhEGa3q0u3f2RQ1GRIIALJ3j43otvSeqvz1cGsPxc9Fr7xM3p28Ymu-MDFem9YfWz4atSFg08lAaevtyrCRK6dsFmDjYR9So68qkEglmWh_UmxhKn9JOzyXQ/s1600/Screen+version+Rodanthe%2527s+Gift+-+Copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="629" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJwUxg4ACXEy7P_mkpoOCKhEGa3q0u3f2RQ1GRIIALJ3j43otvSeqvz1cGsPxc9Fr7xM3p28Ymu-MDFem9YfWz4atSFg08lAaevtyrCRK6dsFmDjYR9So68qkEglmWh_UmxhKn9JOzyXQ/s200/Screen+version+Rodanthe%2527s+Gift+-+Copy.jpg" width="130" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Rodanthe’s family home in Kritsa is close to my house and as local villagers still hold an annual memorial for their ‘Kritsotopoula’, meaning Girl of Kritsa, I soon learnt her story. As with many folktales, local people share the legend of Kritsotopoula via an epic poem. I set about researching the life and times of Rodanthe to write a leaflet for village tourists. Then two questions kept turning over in my mind: 1. How did she maintain her disguise? 2. What equipped the daughter of a local priest to fight so bravely? When my research failed to find answers, my leaflet turned into a novel, <i>"Kritsotopoula, Girl of Kritsa." </i></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwmptpN9q42l6XkFCH2iaRI1lxw4YzvnL-SvyMFRFM1adJMf51eP6Y4hx-vKwciyUK1P7FPB3ZVK_d92A9gF7q6c0aIe9qevClArM475yOEc8xeJ4Nt0xv38_8kiRLzjX2sGaQJbGiFGc/s1600/Explore-Kritsa_screen+version+-+Copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="621" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwmptpN9q42l6XkFCH2iaRI1lxw4YzvnL-SvyMFRFM1adJMf51eP6Y4hx-vKwciyUK1P7FPB3ZVK_d92A9gF7q6c0aIe9qevClArM475yOEc8xeJ4Nt0xv38_8kiRLzjX2sGaQJbGiFGc/s200/Explore-Kritsa_screen+version+-+Copy.jpg" width="128" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This period in Cretan/Greek history was very turbulent and when I found out that Captain Kazanis, a key figure in my first book, had fought in the siege of Missolonghi on mainland Greece the result was my second novel, <i>"Rodanthe’s Gift."</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Now I’m hooked! My future novels will continue to have a basis of historical fact with the key action centred in Kritsa – I’ve discovered a wealth of information that will keep me busy for years. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Oh, and I should mention that I’ve recently published a non-fiction book, <i>"Explore Kritsa</i>," featuring 15 local walks.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><i>How long does it take you to write a book?</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>"Kritsotopoula, Girl of Kritsa"</i> evolved over several years as it grew into a novel needing several rewrites as I learnt more. By the time I wrote "<i>Rodanthe’s Gift</i>" I had a much clearer idea of what I wanted to achieve so it only took two years. I completed <i>"Explore Kritsa"</i> in less than a year using accumulated knowledge and walking routes that we’ve been enjoying for over eighteen years. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><i>What do you enjoy most about writing?</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As I write historical novels, the research is both essential and enjoyable. I strive to gain a good grasp of facts before weaving them into a story. This takes conversations, visiting sites, reading books and internet searches. I try to corroborate facts from at least two sources–then the inconsistencies and unanswered questions leave room for my imagination to take over. This phase can be fun for my husband too as it involves visits to new places, museums, walks to check feasible routes and, for <i>"Rodanthe’s Gift,"</i> a holiday in Missolonghi, Greece. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I also relish the second rewrite as this phase brings characters to life and I also add in details like smells and taste. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><i>How do you go about writing, that is to say, are you organised, do your research, disciplined, are you a messy sort who gets it done one way or another?</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I guess you’d say messy as I flit about collecting a wide range of information as I never know what will be useful. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Look at this photo of a painting that I took during a visit to the museum in Missolonghi as an example. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Wikipedia informed me of a battle on a nearby island but this painting gave me a whole chapter for <i>"Rodanthe’s Gift"</i> and that couldn’t have happened without going to Missolonghi. My description of clothes worn by Lord Byron and a general are all taken from paintings in the museum. If I make it as real as possible for me then I think it adds to the reader’s experience too.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Where I am organised is in my use of a tool called <i><a href="https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview" target="_blank">Scrivener</a></i> as it means I don’t have several notebooks on the go making it difficult to find information when required. It is as easy to use as Word but a quick click and drag alters the order or even which manuscript a piece is in. Once the draft is complete, it takes seconds to produce a Word document for editing. This allows me to have complete flexibility over how I store the information i.e. a screenshot of a webpage, photos, or a written scene between evolving characters that may or may not prove to be useful. At present I’ve got three story outlines on my Scrivener. No matter how much research I do before I start I always need to look up specific pieces of information while writing. For example, when writing <i>"Rodanthe’s Gift"</i> I had to look up limb amputation techniques in the 1820s – very gory!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">By the time I’m ready to get on with the writing I know the characters and plot so well that I can write at any opportunity, I don’t work office hours or need to sit at a desk. However, that’s not as mechanical as it sounds, as characters, who are of course real to me, can take me in unexpected directions. I remember my husband being bemused to find me in tears when a much-loved character in <i>Kritsotopoula</i> died unexpectedly in horrible circumstances.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><i>Which other authors do you read?</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I have always chosen action and adventure stories where the setting is a key part of the inspiration behind them – Wilbur Smith and Ken Follett are two that spring to mind. I’ve read several of the books by Nikos Kazantzakis and my favourites are <i>Christ Recrucified</i> (the setting for much of the 1957 film was in Kritsa) and <i>Captain Michalis</i> (known as Freedom or Death in the UK). A book that seems to have less notice than it deserves is <i>Birds Without Wings</i> by Louis de Bernières set in a small community in south-west Anatolia at the end of the Ottoman Empire. <i>The Carpet Weaver of Uşak</i> by Kathryn Gauci is another great read in the same era.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I read many of the books featured in your Facebook group, <i>A Good Greek Read</i>. I knew I’d like your recent wartime book, <i><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Panayiota-John-Manuel-ebook/dp/B07MY5YJBD/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1547982916&sr=1-1&keywords=Panayiota" target="_blank">Panayiota</a></i> as you based it on fact and took me to an era I knew less about. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><i>Apart from research, what do you enjoy most about the internet?</i></b> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I love how it makes the world a smaller place. As a child I had pen friends in Australia, France and Canada. A grown-up version of this is blogging and social media sites like Facebook. It is possible to develop friendships and gain insights to life all around the world from the comfort of your armchair. Some people spend time reading magazines and flick through until they find an article that interests them and I do the same with blogs about travel, cooking, writing, and lifestyles. I’ve been fortunate to meet up with several bloggers and, as we’ve already something in common, it makes the basis of a good friendship.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6BoyIBqfwMwVwWQFXgVjBFLYkNSB35yQwVdUxFX4SaS9PinWbhNLRTRqOME0jF3TEGBGA6sSFUJJVuCrj-KLLL0KILWwKcRDTM7Za2f68zhrtFxjznzxbwYdmZeODzLbOQdcpdUhR77U/s1600/Briam.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6BoyIBqfwMwVwWQFXgVjBFLYkNSB35yQwVdUxFX4SaS9PinWbhNLRTRqOME0jF3TEGBGA6sSFUJJVuCrj-KLLL0KILWwKcRDTM7Za2f68zhrtFxjznzxbwYdmZeODzLbOQdcpdUhR77U/s200/Briam.jpg" width="150" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><i>Favourite Greek dish?</i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Traditional cooking methods turn a few humble vegetables into a feast. This is great for me as I chose not to eat meat and I’ve yet to find vegetable dish I dislike. If pushed to choose a favourite, I’d say vegetarian moussaka made with green lentils and aubergines. As well as eating out, I enjoy shopping for seasonal produce in the weekly Agios Nikolaos farmer’s market to recreate tasty dishes myself.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqrHIt1HAwGvC71STnaamIQf7j9rLRHE0mcWyBXcRx0M7CAGrW_a9gWcY9pnpWMJjoLKPC4-biUemMPW63xmYnhJIPbojgjCSdlvOX71-JDO8srn8zn98Putu-8TJCPS10eDaXXfpawWE/s1600/Kritsotopoula+memorial.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1440" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqrHIt1HAwGvC71STnaamIQf7j9rLRHE0mcWyBXcRx0M7CAGrW_a9gWcY9pnpWMJjoLKPC4-biUemMPW63xmYnhJIPbojgjCSdlvOX71-JDO8srn8zn98Putu-8TJCPS10eDaXXfpawWE/s400/Kritsotopoula+memorial.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The memorial to Rodanthe, which stands in the village of Kritsa today.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So, there you have it, Yvonne Payne's answers to my questions, giving quite an insight to the background behind the two interconnected novels that she's written so far, and a definite hint that there will be more where they came from. If you want to explore Yvonne's writings further, here are a few live links:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Website </b>- <a href="https://kritsayvonne.com/" target="_blank">https://kritsayvonne.com/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Amazon</b> - <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Yvonne-Payne/e/B00TSBPYSK" target="_blank">https://www.amazon.co.uk/Yvonne-Payne/e/B00TSBPYSK</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Facebook</b> - <a href="https://www.facebook.com/kritsayvonne/" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/kritsayvonne/</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">For the next post I shall be returning to a photo-heavy travelogue about our continuing stay in Ierapetra, in Southern Crete, not much more than a stone's throw, in fact, from Kritsa.</span><br />
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John P. Manuelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07426089334296469215noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8754379282583650722.post-43253237619943873152019-08-18T03:31:00.000+03:002019-08-18T09:20:56.350+03:00Southern Cretan Scenes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Here are a few shots from around the Ierapetra district taken this past few days. Hope you like them...</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDeAl3Lzdna6IK60S4Jwvdi8yVzxDWVCt4VYpCM4o2e57guQDHTAUkJjdBYysAUNgOuOVNNGj3uvl1Dq5Lx2vxkaSXxp7LU9EzZSNL7vjcTkkeK1HhYHRNKAO9dtvg2erN-jQpQPOG9rw/s1600/fullsizeoutput_197c.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDeAl3Lzdna6IK60S4Jwvdi8yVzxDWVCt4VYpCM4o2e57guQDHTAUkJjdBYysAUNgOuOVNNGj3uvl1Dq5Lx2vxkaSXxp7LU9EzZSNL7vjcTkkeK1HhYHRNKAO9dtvg2erN-jQpQPOG9rw/s400/fullsizeoutput_197c.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This and the next four are taken in the tiny village of Kavousi (I keep calling it Karpouzi!). It's a village that's half-lived in and half deserted, but boasts what they claim is the <a href="https://www.cretetravel.com/activity/walking-tour-visiting-the-ancient-olive-tree-in-kavousi/" target="_blank">oldest living olive tree in Crete</a>, reputed to be over 3,200 years old. This photo is taken at the point where the inhabited part of the village has a stand-off with the old ruined part.</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIDdeQAMIB4bmko1cUaNZ8CsKhPqseThR168Awgx4eNgaQqYwwsUUQhmxlBSUKidZsUk5Ra6czbBINuBJ25GyzLLjhhu2cxjX7LH8WcPXj8SHtT-33_l2pIaApnbuxd-oK9wpowbCsJS0/s1600/fullsizeoutput_197f.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIDdeQAMIB4bmko1cUaNZ8CsKhPqseThR168Awgx4eNgaQqYwwsUUQhmxlBSUKidZsUk5Ra6czbBINuBJ25GyzLLjhhu2cxjX7LH8WcPXj8SHtT-33_l2pIaApnbuxd-oK9wpowbCsJS0/s400/fullsizeoutput_197f.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnwYYlxbVZeBQTN0vFqF-SxY5JWFOlijpaeg7fmBLEzfZBUJPn8unu7hYAVw5irO53NCeYILvcbmv1u3BSHi3SqTTDrM7VAe0sbk3x9aLKo0ZRgUhhc2XXr3TFDo2m31xHk2eYO1z0lCs/s1600/fullsizeoutput_1980.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnwYYlxbVZeBQTN0vFqF-SxY5JWFOlijpaeg7fmBLEzfZBUJPn8unu7hYAVw5irO53NCeYILvcbmv1u3BSHi3SqTTDrM7VAe0sbk3x9aLKo0ZRgUhhc2XXr3TFDo2m31xHk2eYO1z0lCs/s400/fullsizeoutput_1980.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">If walls could talk, eh?</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We're staying with good friends in Ierapetra, which is one of our favourite towns in all of Greece. It has tourism, but on a small scale, quite different from Rhodes. It's in a largely agricultural area, so that tends to hold back too much development.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Here are some photos from in and around Ierapetra...</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5KdNhWmCnG5Igx1_hC-C4e2tgyuk8BceplwkvaJJEKuqHNhOBGk5oTrfUfTl55ux_M1pVKqZeZa0sfNiJ3zRn1zLf5vcIvph4rd3MkH-tPX2OTqJy8KGBTJ-dCLJQoXH7dSX8Q-pjmWs/s1600/fullsizeoutput_198c.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5KdNhWmCnG5Igx1_hC-C4e2tgyuk8BceplwkvaJJEKuqHNhOBGk5oTrfUfTl55ux_M1pVKqZeZa0sfNiJ3zRn1zLf5vcIvph4rd3MkH-tPX2OTqJy8KGBTJ-dCLJQoXH7dSX8Q-pjmWs/s400/fullsizeoutput_198c.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivnVspBawiKWeS-dFXjjK01rj9AyJiGwr13ROLA3BgsTea5eA8hUubUEXWG-0Y4s8FEpP9hoLNDvP_1VuYTZyseWAlp9M_Yf64TKKksVbH0oF6HAJ5oYSwe9Bb733_VZkiveE-E7pZq2w/s1600/fullsizeoutput_198f.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivnVspBawiKWeS-dFXjjK01rj9AyJiGwr13ROLA3BgsTea5eA8hUubUEXWG-0Y4s8FEpP9hoLNDvP_1VuYTZyseWAlp9M_Yf64TKKksVbH0oF6HAJ5oYSwe9Bb733_VZkiveE-E7pZq2w/s400/fullsizeoutput_198f.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the beach at Gra Lygia, about seven km west of the town. The village is rather drab, and the road is lined mainly with businesses and agricultural traders' premises, but the beach is lovely and, as you can see, not particularly busy for August.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfhThhs7SzHxo835zYdqJ5dnQFlz9zVUwpC5sXjaYcFe1K59qxb5MsrpwhHmy69nGmDZkfhZxiWIi0D_fvGoZVRHYmF6BKJaXPlcb3BVr4JCMX3xdNpxrCMtlDdCIAKAAr87G8XzybQlk/s1600/fullsizeoutput_199d.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfhThhs7SzHxo835zYdqJ5dnQFlz9zVUwpC5sXjaYcFe1K59qxb5MsrpwhHmy69nGmDZkfhZxiWIi0D_fvGoZVRHYmF6BKJaXPlcb3BVr4JCMX3xdNpxrCMtlDdCIAKAAr87G8XzybQlk/s400/fullsizeoutput_199d.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our favourite stop for coffee in the town is the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/veteranobakery/" target="_blank">Veterano Bakery </a>café. They do a homemade <i>bougatsa</i> that easily rivals the delicious one we usually succumb to at the Aktaion in Mandraki. Their Freddo espresso is brilliant too.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The 'promenade' in downtown Ierapetra is a delight to stroll along, lined as it is with cafés and restaurants, sandwiched in amongst which are a few tourists shops selling the usual stuff like plastic sandals, sunglasses and souvenirs. They're nowhere near packed with 'lobtser' bodies though.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">The <i>plateia</i> in the tiny village of Episkopi.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX45JUGEdFXZuIrjnf9PXhfePet5s1PZQuutN-MOENsYld3eW3cAnfloX-gIhzg9-9hozpkmFVmCW169xPSpr9wy77-YmCtz6WGT-hglebniJYZvmwxe_OKFxXVV-LZK-dUT1JE6QjZ38/s1600/fullsizeoutput_1996.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX45JUGEdFXZuIrjnf9PXhfePet5s1PZQuutN-MOENsYld3eW3cAnfloX-gIhzg9-9hozpkmFVmCW169xPSpr9wy77-YmCtz6WGT-hglebniJYZvmwxe_OKFxXVV-LZK-dUT1JE6QjZ38/s400/fullsizeoutput_1996.jpeg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This building is recently restored and stands beside an old mosque in a quiet square to the west end of town. Once again, it reminds one of parts of the Old Town in Rhodes, and, of course, of the many centuries of Ottoman occupation.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In amongst the low-key action along the town's sea front. You can't get much closer to the sea than this for a meal or a drink, can you?</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There's this rather odd and weirdly unused harbour for small craft at the western limit of the town. It's been finished for quite a few years, yet has never yet been put to use. Except, that is, for this lonely chap. </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I'll post lots more yet, so I hope you'll come back for more.</span></div>
John P. Manuelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07426089334296469215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8754379282583650722.post-31349558269318376192019-08-13T04:07:00.000+03:002019-08-13T10:40:39.045+03:00I'll Just Sitia and Wait then...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Took the ferry boat from Rhodes to Crete on Sunday. At rather the last minute we changed our plans to visit our very close friends in the delightful town of Ierapatra. Just out of interest, Ierapetra holds the distinct position of being the most far south town in the whole of Europe.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Last time we went, we took the plane, and yes, OK, it is much quicker, but if you have the time to go by boat (and we do these days) you get to see scenes like these en route from Rhodes Commercial Harbour to Sitia, eastern Crete...</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">1st Stop out of Rhodes is Halki, the 2nd is Diafani (above), toward the north of the island of Karpathos.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Diafani again.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">After Diafani, next stop is Karpathos, the main town, which put me a little in mind of Kalymnos.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Karpathos detail.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">After Karpathos, you stop in at Kasos, which, despite being a great deal smaller than its northern neighbour, nevertheless boasts a much grander quay for the ferries to tie up at. Karpathos has a population of just over six and a half thousand, whereas Kasos has a mere thousand or so.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The rest of the photos, below, aren't in any particular order...</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The old <i>ya ya</i> centre shot, was waiting beside the pickup with what appeared to be her husband, here in conversation with someone else. When we'd tied up and dropped the ramp, the <i>ya ya</i> heaved a huge sack on to her shoulders from the pickup's flatbed and walked aboard to drop it on the ship's vehicle deck for delivery somewhere else.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The ya ya referred to above-plus-one can be seen half-way aboard, sack across her shoulder, negotiating her way among the vehicles that were disembarking. All the while her hubby remained manfully in conversation with his friend.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There's something deeply relaxing about standing on the rear deck as the ferry arrives at a quayside, swings itself around and drops the ramp for vehicles and foot-passengers to disembark or come aboard. To me, it's one of the earliest experiences of Greece I ever had, back in the 1970's, and I suppose that's why it makes me feel not only truly privileged to live here, but grateful to have the time to enjoy such experiences. Going from island to island is something one must do at some time, to truly enjoy what the Greek islands are all about.</span></div>
John P. Manuelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07426089334296469215noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8754379282583650722.post-75718307436642864882019-08-09T01:19:00.001+03:002019-08-09T01:19:38.188+03:00Cheeky?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I know I've probably mentioned this before, but the news reports on Greek TV are rubbish. It doesn't really matter which channel you watch, all the terrestrial channels have hour-long bulletins. You could start watching the "News" at around 3.00pm and still be watching it at 11.00pm the same evening simply by flicking channels.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">That's not what amazes me though. What I find myself remarking to my better half most times when we tune in, whether it be to Alpha, Ant1, Open Beyond, Skai, Star or the three ERT channels, is that the actual content of the news during the high summer is verging on the pornographic.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In the UK, despite morals being at an all-time low, all female TV presenters most obviously are told to 'dress-down' (There's no way most of them would even consider wearing some of the weird dresses, jackets and tops that they sit behind the desk or stand beside the Video screen wearing when on camera). Each TV station simply must have a 'wardrobe' dept. where the news readers and presenters probably have to go to change out of what they came to work wearing, into the awful, frumpy, disgusting-coloured stuff that they appear before the Great British Public wearing, and that's my immovable position on the subject.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Yet, here in Greece, even the newsreaders (the female ones) have no qualms about wearing figure-hugging garments that often display ample evidence of their cleavage, as they tell the nation about the events of the day. That's the thing, though, they actually don't tell us all that much about the events of the day. What they do is focus on the latest 'major' event here in Greece; like, for example, <i>"There's a ferry strike planned for next Thursday",</i> or <i>"Forest fires rage in some-such place".</i> If there's been a murder, or someone's disappeared while hiking on an island somewhere, or (more often) some corrupt politician's up before the beak - OK so that will be the main headline, which they'll talk about for fifteen minutes (at least), various pundits yelling at each other while they show a loop of fifteen seconds of video over, and over, and over, and over again.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Once they've exhausted the main story, and I use the word 'exhausted' advisedly, they'll move on to the fact that - wait for it - it's summer (<i><b>NO!!!</b></i>) and the weather here in Greece is rather hot (it<i> <b>IS?</b></i><b>)</b>. Cue lots of video footage taken on beaches around the country, with the camera well and truly concentrating on thong-adorned bums and hankie-sized bikini tops. If you didn't know that it was a news bulletin, and you just switched the TV on, you'd dive for your toddlers to cover their eyes, or fumble with the remote in a desperate attempt to change the channel, only to arrive at another, whose news bulletin overlaps the one you stumbled across, and find that they also have only just discovered that there is a lot of flesh on display on the beaches all over the country. Well, knock me over with a wet fish.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The reporter, trying hard to make it sound of vital importance to the nation, will then be shoving his or her microphone up the noses of girls who look like they're taking a break from shooting the next front page of "Vogue" or "Cosmopolitan", while they lie prone on their sun loungers, and they'll ask things like, "<i>So, how do you cope with the summer heat, then?"</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Their answers will usually be highly intellectual replies like, "<i>We come here to the beach. It's a good place for some cooler air, it's a great hang-out. We can go for a swim, it's nice." </i>Queue more video of thongs in bum-cracks as some unwitting girls wade into the sea to cool off.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I'm not kidding folks, really. Now and again one or two of the channels, notably Ant1, will squeeze a kind of 'round-up' of world news in towards the end of the bulletin, usually a bunch of clips cadged from other TV channels from other countries showing a series of almost newsworthy events from places as diverse as Italy, Australia, the UK, the USA etc. This 'round-up' will last all of five minutes. Wow.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Looking around the world there's a lot of pretty vital stuff going on. Putin and Trump seem hell-bent on re-starting the arms race, China's about to get heavy in Hong Kong, climate change is bringing hellish conditions to de-stabilise the weather in country after country, North Korea's firing missiles like there's no tomorrow (there may well not be), mass shootings are almost a daily occurrence in the good old USA, but here in Greece? Well, it's summer, so wonder of wonders, there are lots of babes on the beach that can be surreptitiously filmed to titivate the male viewing public and bemuse the old <i>ya yas</i> of the country, whilst handily filling up the allotted sixty minutes of yet another overly-long news bulletin.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I'm really not kidding, if I had a Euro for every naked bum cheek that I've been subjected to on a Greek beach during a so-called TV 'news' bulletin during a typical Greek summer, then I'd truly be very wealthy indeed. It all kind of reminds me of the old Chris Rea song <i>"Tennis."</i> That song was much misunderstood, but, having heard Rea himself explain it, I can say with confidence that it's making the same kind of point that I'm trying to stress here. As Rea sang in the second verse:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">"</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">There are people in boats in the middle of the sea</span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Crying and dying like Jews</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Do you like tennis?</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Freedom is the man with the red grenade</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">She ran out of gas, got beat and raped</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Do you like tennis?"</span></i></span><div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">He says "<i>Do you like tennis</i>" to stress the point that (and, oddly enough I actually remember this incident) a rather attractive female tennis player, during her debut appearance at Wimbledon way back when, suddenly found that she had an itch in a region of her body that one would normally not want to draw attention to in public. Without thinking, she shoved her hand down her knickers and had a good scratch. That was all there was to it. Afterwards, she served and started the next rally. The result though, was that even though there was some pretty bad stuff going down in the world at the time, including Vietnamese 'boat-people' dying while trying to escape to another land by sea (<i>plus ça change</i>, eh?), the newspapers the following morning all chose to lead with stills of the unfortunate girl player with her hand down her pants on a show court at Wimbledon. Stuff the really tragic news, as he sang in the first verse...</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">"</span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But the headline's on tennis</span></i></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>So it seems, everything's all right</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>There's a girl from the Midwest, with a pretty face</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Scratched where it itched, they said it was a disgrace</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"I don't wanna go to work today</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Wanna stay at home and watch that girl play"</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Do you like tennis?</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Yes I do."</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">See, I get it to a degree. The Greek terrestrial TV channels are largely run on very low budgets. In fact one or two have recently gone to the wall, notably the channel "Mega." So they can't finance trips to all the various far-flung corners of the world for their reporters to send VT back from various world hotspots. They simply don't have the budget. So, my argument would be, why not shorten the flippin' news bulletins, instead of titivating the public with all this banal stuff about "people flocking to the beaches and islands because it's summer." I mean - <b><i>hello</i></b>!?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What do they fill the news bulletins with in winter I hear you asking? I'll tell you, almost every night there will be some earnest reporter or other talking 'live' from a fish market, or a fruit and veg market in downtown Athens, and they'll be making the price of onions sound like a global issue that's liable to bring down governments.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Of course, they don't actually have to fill the entire sixty minutes with 'news.' When it gets to around a quarter-to the hour they'll break for a full seven or eight minutes of ads, sometimes more, including quite often the same ads repeating three times during the same commercial break. Once you've put the kettle on, had a shower, done some gardening and solved third world debt, you can flop back down on to the sofa again to watch as the commercial break finally comes to an end, just in time for the presenter, who's evidently been waiting at his or her desk for all that time (probably reading War and Peace), to say "<i>Goodnight, and thanks for watching</i>."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Now, where's the sense in that, eh? Why don't they simply let the presenter sign off and <b><i>then</i></b> show the ads, when the programme's over? That would be far too logical. Instead the hapless anchor person has to sit there for what must seem like half a lifetime, simply to be able to say goodnight when the ads come to an end. In fact, I reckon a little advice from yours truly would improve the effectiveness of the ad breaks here in Greece anyway. I'm sure you know where I'm coming from on this. I mean, doesn't it stand to reason that if a commercial break is only two minutes long, then more viewers will sit through it (and thus see the ads), knowing that if they get up and go off then they're going to miss something (frequently quite a lot of human flesh in the case of the news) and thus they'll stay put. On the other hand, if a commercial break is known by the viewer to go on for upwards of eight to ten minutes, you can bet your sweet bottom dollar that no one's going to be watching, thus rendering all that advertising expenditure on the part of the advertisers a poor investment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I've often watched a football match in a local café/bar here in Greece. Once half-time is reached, you won't see a couple of pundits talking about how the match has been so far for fifteen minutes, oh no. What you'll get is a full quarter of an hour of commercials, and so the barman will grab the remote and change channels. Everyone would rather see fifteen minutes of a truly awful soap, or maybe water polo, while they're waiting for the second half of the match to begin, than sit through ad after ad.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Maybe if they reduced sections of the news bulletins to fifteen minutes; you know, those extended reports from flesh-packed Greek beaches, and inserted them into the half-time break, at least people wouldn't want to switch channels.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I reckon some of these thong-clad beach-girls are missing a trick. If they got various logos tattooed onto their cheeks (the ones below the back and above the legs, not the ones each side of the nose, you understand), they could get paid handsomely for strutting down to the water's edge and taking a dip, all the while telling the viewing public (without words) which air-conditioning units to buy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I should be in advertising.</span></div>
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John P. Manuelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07426089334296469215noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8754379282583650722.post-82572026846142272592019-08-06T17:31:00.002+03:002019-08-06T17:31:40.839+03:00Man About Town<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Had to go to Rhodes this morning, so, as is our custom these days, we had to have a coffee with bougatsa at the Aktaion. Then a few errands. So, I just snapped these as we wandered about the place...</span><br />
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John P. Manuelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07426089334296469215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8754379282583650722.post-46689057036737803332019-08-04T09:55:00.000+03:002019-08-04T09:55:07.296+03:00Zzzzzzzzzzzz...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Hello Peeps. I am still alive, just hiding indoors with the shutters tightly closed against the 38 degree heat we're having at the moment.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Meanwhile, here are a couple of mediocre shots from last night, when we did at least venture out after dark...</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sorry, uncharacteristically I moved my hand.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Anyone familiar with our part of Rhodes will know where these were taken. The first one approximately 20km from the 2nd two.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Talk soon, I'm going back to sleep!</span></div>
John P. Manuelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07426089334296469215noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8754379282583650722.post-40286269122153790612019-07-26T23:53:00.003+03:002019-07-26T23:53:55.062+03:00Hidden Gems<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Just a few more photos taken in Arhangelos recently. I've posted a few on the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/johnmanuelbooks/?tn-str=k*F" target="_blank">"Published Works" Facebook page</a> back in June too. I think it's such a joy to wander away from the main thoroughfares. You end up seeing streets like these...</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This was a clever illusion. The far wall is actually simply a boundary wall to the yard, but it creates the impression that it's a cottage. If you zoom in on the doorway, you can see light from the weed patch beyond coming through the crack between the doors.</td></tr>
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John P. Manuelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07426089334296469215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8754379282583650722.post-39774734647379688522019-07-26T07:02:00.003+03:002019-07-26T07:02:47.967+03:00Vicious Circle<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Driving the other day, we were talking about some of the really bad habits that the locals have that can take some getting used to. For instance, when I was learning to drive, ooh about a hundred years ago [I <i>am</i> using hyperbole!!], I always remember the public service announcements that we used to get on UK TV, designed to make us all better members of society. Something that was drummed into me was the need to allow approximately one car-length for every ten miles per hour that one was travelling, assuming that there is a line of vehicles on the road, of course.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So, to spell it out, if the traffic is moving at fifty miles per hour, then you ought to allow five car lengths between you and the car in front. 'Simples.' This is, of course, to allow some kind of safe braking zone if the vehicle or vehicles in front have to brake suddenly. That way you stand a chance of stopping before you 'prang' the guy in front, or even worse, become part of a pile-up, in which you and several others get shunted both front and rear. The insurance company's nightmare.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Now, if you look in your rear view mirror whilst driving in a line of vehicles, and I'm sure many will identify with this, you can get quite alarmed if the vehicle behind you is so close that you can't even see its headlamps. It freaks me out even more if I can't even see any of its bonnet (OK, OK, <i>'hood'</i> dudes), but what I can see of it begins with the wipers and goes upwards from there. If in such circumstances I were to slam on the brakes, even at a mere 25 mph, the driver behind would 100% smash into me, no contest.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And so I come to one of the not only most annoying, but downright dangerous, habits that most of the locals here have. Tailgating. Now, at this time of the year on Rhodes (and it gets worse every year with all the new hotels that are being thrown up along the east coast of the island) you can guarantee that, unless you're driving the <i>'Rodo-Lindou'</i> main road at 3.00am, you're virtually certain to be in a line of traffic, often twenty cars long, usually behind a flippin' quad bike (Grrrr). Even at that speed the safe distance is a couple or three car lengths between each vehicle. Instead, you find that most Greeks are trying to kiss the rear bumper of the car in front with their front one. I know, they don't call them bumpers any more, but old habits. To me it often looks like a row of cars all towing each other along, they're driving that close to the vehicle in front.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">See, there's little old socially responsible, not to say accident-paranoid, me, trying to keep a safe distance, and what does someone from behind do? They see that gap as a case of me needlessly keeping them from racing to their destination and so they'll slipstream me, like they do in Formula One, then, as soon as they get the minutest of gaps in the oncoming traffic, they'll duck out from behind, missing my offside tail light by a gnat's whisker, before slotting back in right in front of me, thus forcing me to drop back further to allow a safe distance behind this interloper. Net result, I slip further and further back down the 'queue' simply through trying to drive safely.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I can say, hand on heart, that nine times out of ten, if I'm in a queue of cars, and we can even be doing 90kph, which is around 56mph, I'll not be able to see the headlamps of the car behind me in my rearview mirror.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Small wonder that there are so many newly installed mini-shrines along the roadside verges here in Rhodes (and no doubt the rest of Greece I'd imagine). Fatal accidents are almost a hobby over here.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I happened to remark on a few of the newer of those shrines just this week. I said to her indoors as we crawled along, <i>"At the rate we're going there will be a shrine every fifty metres for the entire length of this road before long. It seems that Greeks are able to create a serious accident just about anywhere, even on what we in the UK would consider safe sections of the highway."</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The better half, evidently experiencing one of her more witty moments, replied, "<i>Yea, and when they're so hidebound by the religious 'requirement' that they cross themselves each time they pass anything remotely religious within sight of the road, it's not surprising that there are so many accidents. Someone dies, they erect a shrine. Someone else passes, spots the shrine, crosses themselves while trying to talk on their mobile phone with the other hand and, bingo, another accident and hence another shrine. It's a vicious circle."</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">If it weren't almost funny, it would be tragic. I'm sure that people reading this will also have seen shrines right beside each other, we certainly have. Her quip makes some sense when you think about it, doesn't it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Now, there will be some reading this who'll shout: <i>"Stop knocking the Greeks!"</i> Come off it, if you love someone it doesn't mean you can't see their faults, now, does it? We all have them, both individually and collectively (when it comes to national traits and habits). Sadly, the ones I refer to here are taking lives - and that's a fact.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Were I a younger man in the throws of deciding what kind of business to open in order to have a full order book, maybe I'd start a business supplying marble...</span></div>
John P. Manuelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07426089334296469215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8754379282583650722.post-88733399499796782522019-07-20T19:14:00.001+03:002019-07-20T19:14:52.632+03:00Slumming it.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Two days ago, one could have been forgiven for thinking it was one day last January. For a few hours, starting around 9.00am, and lasting until around 2.00pm, here in Kiotari it rained like it has never rained in July in living memory. The video below shows our view from the lounge-diner at home. Had it been shot in January, one would have not raised an eyebrow, but for it to be July 17th, well, that's got all the locals here talking about how no one's ever seen the like of it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To be honest, for a fella with the worst comb-over in history to be running a country, plus claiming that global warming is 'fake news', is a bit rich. Anyone with hair like that automatically disqualifies himself from being taken seriously in my book, I'm afraid. I remember twenty and more years ago reading articles in the Sunday papers, and watching programmes like "Horizon" on BBC 2, and being told that, owing to the melting of the polar ice caps, the sea level around the world would rise by a metre within our lifetime.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">That has yet to happen, but the reason is simple. All that water may not yet have made the oceans rise, but it is instead floating around in the atmosphere, thus increasing humidity and producing more extreme weather conditions, including unseasonal deluges. On the plus side, I turned off the watering system because the garden received a welcome soaking. Every cloud... eh?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Anyway, enough of my layman's science and meteorology, why did I call this post <i>"Slumming it"</i>? I'll tell you. Are you sitting comfortably, then I'll begin (just can't resist using <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkM12arO-_4" target="_blank">that little phrase</a> at every opportunity I'm afraid).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">See, this is our first season with neither of us working since 2007, but I believe I've already mentioned that a few times. We had all sorts of plans about how we were going to go to this beach and that beach and eat out more often, but still we seem to be slipping the stick into first gear where all that is concerned. But, this morning we did finally do something we also hadn't done for 12 years, we took the regular bus service into Rhodes Town. During the summer season we have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to choice as to what time to catch a bus. They're all over the place like an orange rash at this time of the year and so we plumped for the 9.50am bus from Kiotari, which got us into town, right in the thick of the action behind the New Market in Mandraki, at a respectable 11.15am or so.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Of course, by the time the bus is trundling through Pefkos or Lindos, it's standing room only, but boarding at Kiotari one has a great choice of where to sit. We were able to sit right behind the driver, with a nice view ahead over the top of his head. I have to say that the whole experience was really great fun. Plus one can't help but be well impressed by these drivers, who get spoken to in Italian, Russian, Polish, French and a few other languages as well, apart from English, and yet they cope admirably. Plus, they're in regular communication with each other all the time, enabling them to adjust their routes subtly, depending on how full each bus is.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">For example, we were only ten minutes into the journey when our driver (bus no. 5) was talking to a colleague (No. 39) about a little clutch of people waiting at a certain bus stop who wanted to go to Lindos. They'd make decisions on the run about who'd stop for whom. As we drove through Lothiarika they passed and re-passed each other depending on which people wanted which destination. It was all accomplished with great fluidity and good humour. As we pulled up at each stop, the driver would open the front door and call out:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>"Where you going?"</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Depending on the answer he received he'd either cock a thumb and shake it backward, at the same time saying <i>"Bus behind, two minutes!"</i> or he'd say, <i>"Yes, please, come, come!"</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When we got to Faliraki, it was the first and only time we turned off the main road and took a convoluted route through the maze of hotel and apartment-lined small roads on the outskirts of the resort. At one point we pulled up right behind another bus that was currently interacting with ours and watched as some people boarded it, while some came walking back to ours and jumped aboard. Two </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">rather fetching</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> young ladies they were, and our driver asked them: <i>"You want Rodos?"</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To which they replied, <i>"No, Tsambika Beach."</i> Which, as it happened, was already behind us. Seems that the other bus (a different one from earlier on) at this juncture was heading south once it got out of the village. Our driver quickly closed the door, told the girls to hang on and put their money away for a moment, and instantly hailed the other driver with his radio and said, <i>"Hey Manoli! These two dolls want Tsambika! Hold on and I'll catch you up, then you can have them, OK? - No, I haven't printed tickets yet, you can do that once they're with you. Although I'd rather they stayed with me!"</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We rounded a bend or two, came to a halt behind the other bus and the girls were able to jump off of ours and run to get aboard the other one.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">What also amused us was the fact that each time our bus passed another coming the other way, the drivers would hail each other over their radios with a <i>"Hey No. 7!! How you doing today? Good health and </i>kalo dromo [literally: "<i>Good road</i>"]. <i>We''ll sup a frappé together this evening!" </i>and other expressions of matieness.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">All in all, it was a nice trip, further enhanced by the fact that I didn't have to concentrate on driving among the hordes of quad bikes, scooters and snail-creeping hire cars that, it has to be said, make driving for locals on Rhodes during high season both frustrating and hazardous (no offence!). I could sit back and let the bus driver take the strain. Plus, no worries about parking once we got into town.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">OK, so financially it doesn't make a lot of sense for two people to go to town by bus. It would cost about half as much in petrol if we'd taken the car. But the sheer pleasure of simply looking at the view all the way there more than made up for that.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Once we arrived in town w</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">e were able to hop off the bus and go straight to the Aktaion Café, where we could use the loos and order a couple of freddo Espressos and a delicious slice of <i>bougatsa</i>. Then it was time for an intense interlude of people-watching. Bliss. After that we ticked off a few things on our 'to do' list and finally headed to the Top Three to see my old mates from my excursion days, where we could wait out the final half an hour or so before taking the bus home again. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Of course, it was a genuinely warm and double-cheek kissing reunion with Spiro and Dimitri, accompanied by bear hugs. I was rather sad to hear that the excursions aren't going well this year, with most of the "Rhodes By Day" trips being done by minibus, something that was unheard of for June thru September (even into mid October) when I was doing it. Looks like I got out just in time, although I'm sad for the person who took over from me, because they seem to have lost out. As we arose to leave and my better half attempted to pay for our drinks, Spiro physically stuffed the money back into her purse and told her in no uncertain terms that he'd be offended if she didn't put it away forthwith. I assured him that we hadn't come simply to get a free drink and that sooner or later I'd want to pay him. His reply? <i>"OK, Gianni, this one's on me, and you can buy me a beer another time!"</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">On the way back I was amused to see just how much like a home-from-home the driver on this bus had made his working environment. Check out the photo...</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAsVD2Vo3p25Jm4QdhyNb2tPBj4iXm22RN7h-ZrYP51Ou7kopKTEOkATdLzcy_WzbXIyIvA_cj0DGNcTwaJoveVyjGs6AwZ9lt8WcClJlMMFaPBYLRFfdt88Wb4DnLJIOleJzb-_UrVIY/s1600/fullsizeoutput_1922.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAsVD2Vo3p25Jm4QdhyNb2tPBj4iXm22RN7h-ZrYP51Ou7kopKTEOkATdLzcy_WzbXIyIvA_cj0DGNcTwaJoveVyjGs6AwZ9lt8WcClJlMMFaPBYLRFfdt88Wb4DnLJIOleJzb-_UrVIY/s400/fullsizeoutput_1922.jpeg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Don't you just love it? Note the frappé (now empty) and the Basil plant in its vase!! Just one or two air-fresheners hanging from the mirror too.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Apart from the basil plant and ubiquitous frappé, there was also a small pack of tissues, a nice lace doily around the jar that contained the basil, some wet-wipes, a few bus timetables for anyone asking for one, and other stuff besides. Something that also demonstrates how crime rates here are still lower than many other parts of Europe, is the fact that all the drivers have clips holding bank notes and coin holders all within full sight and easy reach of the general public. In other countries drivers nowadays are behind a toughened glass screen and you have to use a little steel tray to exchange your cash for your ticket.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">All in all, a relaxing and fun day out.</span></div>
John P. Manuelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07426089334296469215noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8754379282583650722.post-28391277989907990672019-07-11T14:24:00.000+03:002019-07-12T01:33:33.673+03:00Looking on the Bright Side - Part the Second<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0HEVt7zld97-3k4rHx6TE2B2ncI0OeVPMLqbCUwnSlWGvpybqQvf2_y7ca5daq6V314J13QCMXAUWODOvPc_viTrvuth68TKO09GAQGC70kmBRlXGQCh50Vw8Kc92_dlJicFId0J34Ww/s1600/fullsizeoutput_18c1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0HEVt7zld97-3k4rHx6TE2B2ncI0OeVPMLqbCUwnSlWGvpybqQvf2_y7ca5daq6V314J13QCMXAUWODOvPc_viTrvuth68TKO09GAQGC70kmBRlXGQCh50Vw8Kc92_dlJicFId0J34Ww/s400/fullsizeoutput_18c1.jpeg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Don't you just love it? the sign says: "PLEASE! Don't park motorcycles on the pavement [sidewalk]"!</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Where was I? Oh yes, in Piraeus. The first feeling I got as we walked about the place was, <i>"It's just like New York."</i> We don't watch many movies or TV series, yet my abiding impression of the side-streets of the big apple as seen in movies was very much what I saw as we walked around downtown Piraeus. The only difference was that the buildings weren't as tall. And the signs are all, obviously, in Greek.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Even the taxi cabs there are now yellow. It seems that the whole world wants to be like America sometimes. All the Greek schoolbuses too, for instance, are now yellow, carbon copies of the school buses all over the USA. A few decades past, this would not have been the case. So, when you're walking city streets, all set at 90º angles to one-another, dumpsters on most corners, graffiti everywhere, vehicles dancing to the traffic light rhythm and horns sounding every second or two, fast-food joints and roller-shuttered shops everywhere, well, you have to resist the urge to start humming the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hQldclTLwM" target="_blank">theme music to Kojak</a>. And <b><i>that</i></b> shows you how long it is since I watched such stuff, doesn't it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">On our first evening at the hotel, we headed straight for a fast food joint that my wife had discovered on (the very dubious...) TripAdvisor. It's called <a href="https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g189403-d10042662-Reviews-To_Kalamaki_tis_Troumpas-Piraeus_Piraeus_Region_Attica.html" target="_blank">To Kalamaki tis Troumpas</a>, and it seemed to have good reports re value and atmosphere. We weren't overly impressed, sadly. It was OK, but the location and the feel of the place felt very downbeat, slightly shabby. The salad was humungus, but swimming in water, and the pittas, well, they were OK. There was hardly any outdoor dining and we had to settle for an inside table beside a wide-open glass patio door. Nevertheless, this was July and we were sweltering. There didn't seem to be any air-con and the cooking area of the kitchen was just the other side of a counter from our table. The staff though, yeah, they were friendly, I'll give them that.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The thing is, the pavements in the area where we were staying were dirty, with quite a bit of detritus laying around. Couple that with all the graffiti (it truly is everywhere, and I mean <b><i>everywhere</i></b>) and small wonder that I imagined I was in back-street New York. the big difference though, thankfully, was the fact that, even though some of the pedestrians looked decidedly like they may have been living slightly shady lives, we didn't feel unsafe after dark. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The next night we opted to walk the ten minutes or so over the hill (yet more New York street scenes) to the Marina that I'd seen on the street map. The marina is quite a pleasant place, if you can handle the fact that the traffic is manic most of the time. But at least on the marina-side of the road there is a wide walkway, with a low wall on which locals sit to take in the view, or simply pass the time. Even though the wall is only knee-height, it still has graffiti covering most of it. We strolled the pavement on the opposite side of the road and ended up at <b><a href="https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g189403-d2588308-Reviews-Kali_Pita-Piraeus_Piraeus_Region_Attica.html" target="_blank">Kali Pita</a></b>, which is situated about here:</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPmyZkJqksGCaGqxv9B2RC77vHcVbLFTgVELp8YmsgDBylM9r-3dMW1w8Kb1OM4zmuuIivQ9HKp5A2clp8gaC7esurqgRw4WMb8Xu3DhyphenhyphenERpBO2GTrDaUs8dUiBvWtAeMFJbGgRCEUqFw/s1600/Screenshot+2019-07-11+at+13.20.14.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="701" data-original-width="828" height="337" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPmyZkJqksGCaGqxv9B2RC77vHcVbLFTgVELp8YmsgDBylM9r-3dMW1w8Kb1OM4zmuuIivQ9HKp5A2clp8gaC7esurqgRw4WMb8Xu3DhyphenhyphenERpBO2GTrDaUs8dUiBvWtAeMFJbGgRCEUqFw/s400/Screenshot+2019-07-11+at+13.20.14.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The 'pin' in the map is the location of Kali Pita. Photo courtesy of Google Earth Pro.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">They had a rather nice setup of check-table clothed tables with traditional chairs across the pavement from the front of store, with a nice view of the yacht masts over the way. The only drawback is the constant traffic that's zipping past you as you eat. That said, we had a good meal there, with my beloved having falafel wraps and me a veggie pitta wrap, plus they do some delicious desserts. I opted for one <i>portokalopita</i> (orange sponge-cake pie) and the beloved for a walnut cake pie, both of which came in good-sized portions that had us wishing we'd only ordered one of them and cut it in two.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">You can eat well and cheaply on any street in downtown Piraeus, there's no doubt about that. We did, however, find ourselves saying over and over, we simply couldn't live in such an environment. We're spoilt now, having lived far away from the city for so long, both in the UK and out here in Greece.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">By the time our third and last evening before returning to the airport had arrived, we'd kind of written off the place as too noisy, too dirty, too frenetic for us. Just around the corner from our admittedly comfy, if modest hotel (it's called the <a href="http://www.filonhotel.gr/" target="_blank">Filon</a>, BTW. Although that link isn't very helpful, unless you want to book a room at a hotel you've never seen any photos of, so try <a href="https://filon-piraeus.booked.net/" target="_blank">this one</a> too), we'd walked past a strip joint as well. Across the street from that was a <i>μεζεδοπωλείο</i> (virtually a taverna, the difference is so slight) which could have done with a facelift, but just inside the permanently open frontage (at this time of the year) was a live bouzouki band, evidently the source of the music we'd heard from our hotel room all night long.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We decided to make one last attempt at finding a positive view of Piraeus. And we succeeded. On our last whole day I finally noticed an A3 tear-off street map of the whole area on the hotel reception desk. Taking it up to the room, I pored over it for a while, and spotted what looked like a clutch of eateries and bars along the sea front near the entrance to the marina. That would be where we aimed for that evening. A fifteen minute walk from the hotel found us strolling down a curved access road, lined with cooling trees and greenery, which emptied out on to a two-hundred-metre-long strip that was a sheer delight.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We made our way down while there was still some daylight...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Once we arrived at the bottom, this quayside welcomed us...</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe9uqopZ2iccOEfTNxNORKvwzorjlNaSHsxJUNL97yIZyhazcvkCoTUlfVx8Q-UCvPvjbfyDS8FAsbHCbmIqYdo1SRnC0BOAEypfgJUNwfbi_AxH8XvVhp67U7UMGxdW4xjDxk0msl0_Q/s1600/Screenshot+2019-07-11+at+13.48.38.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="531" data-original-width="915" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe9uqopZ2iccOEfTNxNORKvwzorjlNaSHsxJUNL97yIZyhazcvkCoTUlfVx8Q-UCvPvjbfyDS8FAsbHCbmIqYdo1SRnC0BOAEypfgJUNwfbi_AxH8XvVhp67U7UMGxdW4xjDxk0msl0_Q/s400/Screenshot+2019-07-11+at+13.48.38.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the Google Earth shot to show you where it is. The road leading down to the front is clearly visible, emptying out on to the boulevard about one third of the way along from the marina entrance.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Now, finally, we'd come up trumps. This strip, lined along one side with some pretty impressive super-yachts, and on the other with some tastefully decorated bars and eateries, was much more like it. We decided to eat at <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/lamarinafood" target="_blank">Lamarina</a></b>, which turned out to be an excellent choice. The Haloumi pittas were cheaper that at the Kali Pita the previous night, but in a far, far more chic and vibrant environment. The staff were young, attentive, friendly and decked out in very modern, grungy garb, and the menu was excellent. By the time our food arrived (and it arrived fast) people were queueing up to get into the place, which, incidentally, was very well air-conditioned too, even on the roofless terrace where we sat.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">All the people promenading around looked to be chic, relaxed and 'normal', not at all like the kinds you'd walk past in the rabbit warren of streets just metres away. That's not meant to sound snobbish, well, OK, just a bit then.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Here are a couple of shots I took from our table...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And here's our food. That salad was called Salad "<i>Tou Agrou</i>" - which means "S<i>alad of the field</i>", evidently referring to the fact that it's a mix of vegetables all of which grow in a farmer's field - plus a few olives. It was arguable the best salad we've ever had and was certainly the largest. <a href="https://www.e-food.gr/delivery/peiraias/lamarina" target="_blank">Here's the menu</a> BTW.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We were really excited about the whole place and, as we walked the promenade before going back to the hotel, we decided that we could easily now spend another long weekend in Piraeus, this time just the two of us, by spending the mornings taking coffee and a cake down here, jumping on the <i>electriko</i> into Athens centre during the afternoons, before returning here for the evening meal and digestif.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">All in all then, after an initial dismay at how scruffy and dirty urban Piraeus appeared to be, we found a truly bright outlook with that marina promenade. Cities are cities the world over, of course, so one shouldn't be too surprised at the shabbiness; but once you factor in the nearness of that modest hotel both to the quay where one can hop on a boat and sail off to Aegina, Agistri, Methana, Poros, Hydra etc., as well as to the chic marina where we ate on our last night, and also the fact that it's only fifteen minutes walk from the airport express bus and the Electriko station - well, you have the recipe for a flaming good short stay.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Something I can't stress enough too, is the fact that through all of our nighttime walks through the backstreets of this huge urban sprawl, we didn't once sense any threat to our security. We never found ourselves saying "<i>Oh, better avoid those people over there. Let's cross the road</i>." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Our final judgment of Piraeus? Forget the fact that it's an urban maze. Seek out the good points and you can have a damn good stay there.</span></div>
John P. Manuelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07426089334296469215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8754379282583650722.post-36260170566168457772019-07-09T12:38:00.001+03:002019-07-10T02:52:47.033+03:00Looking on the Bright Side - Part 1.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A typical Piraeus pavement (sidewalk, guys) More about this further down the post.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">At this time of the year, if you awake early enough, it’s important to try and get a few things done before the sun gets more than a finger’s width above the horizon. We’re lucky enough to be living in a rural area and, when I first arose this morning and went into the kitchen to put the kettle on for a pot of Earl Grey, I did the usual, which was to close the windows and blinds down tightly on the side of the house that faces east, because once the sun’s rays hit that wall, it will very soon raise the temperature inside way beyond what’s comfortable if you don’t.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">As I closed the window above the kitchen sink, I stopped momentarily to marvel at the already busy cicadas. From inside I could only hear the few that were within a couple of meters of the window, and their sound rather resembled that of someone vigorously and rhythmically shaking a pair of maracas for all they were worth, to punk music timing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Once the kettle was on, I ventured outside. It was around 8.15am. When you open the house door at this time of the year, even as early as just after eight, as you walk outside it’s rather like walking into a bread oven. The cicadas now all merge into one and, if you close your eyes, you could imagine that sound as rather resembling the noise of a giant tyre being deflated at speed, as though someone had plunged a knife into its wall. The tyre in question would be about the size of a London bus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">The cat wasn’t around, so I didn’t have to worry about feeding him today. Sometimes he’ll have left some of his dry food from the previous evening (usually when he’s not so hungry because he’s eaten a lizard the previous day) and he eats that at dawn, thus eliminating the need for a fresh dish-full until later. He was off on ‘patrol’ somewhere and so I did what I needed to do, which was to half-fill a watering can and top up our two plant pot trays that serve as bird baths.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">After not more than ten minutes outside, and already needing my first shower of the day, I was glad to get back inside to pour the tea, fish a couple of digestives out of the biscuit barrel, and take the tea back to bed for a while.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Then it was time to reflect on our whirlwind trip to Athens over the past weekend. I say Athens, but we were actually staying in a modest, yet almost new hotel in downtown Piraeus. I don't know how much you know about Piraeus, but it's held in very high esteem by writers of traditional Greek music, who extol the virtues of its Bouzoukia, its tavernas and coffee bars, its maritime culture, its women. Of course, such songs are highly romanticised, and they don't pay much mind to the downside of the place. Like its neighbour Athens, into which nowadays it seamlessly bleeds from an urban development point of view, it's a vast sprawl of five and six-storey buildings, which looks from the air very much like lichen all over a low stone wall.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Whenever we watch the national TV weather forecast here in Greece, we see the map sweeping all across Greece from satellite height, and eventually swooping into the Athens-Piraeus area, thus displaying the lichen-like effect on the landscape that I mentioned above. There are precious few skyscrapers in Athens, it's simply street after street, mainly in a grid-like pattern, inside of which one can very easily get hopelessly lost. At least, before the days of wi-fi and smartphones one could. These days, of course, most people can whip out their phone and within seconds know exactly where they are. Never has there been a stronger case for modern telecommunications technology than that, I can tell you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">We were in Athens with a bunch of friends and were block-booked into the hotel, which I'd gone searching for in Google-Earth 'Streetview' beforehand, since one of the friends had selected and booked our rooms, and thus I wanted to know what the place looked like, since we weren't all travelling together on the same flight to get there. When I typed the address into Google Earth's 'find' box, it took me to a street just one block away from the quay from which all the boats set sail for the islands. I was quite excited about this, because the last time we'd been there was in 1982, just a few years back then!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">When I went into 'Streetview' I was able to stand on the exact corner where the hotel was located, since it lists its address with both street names. The building in question shows itself to be empty, derelict. This was why I concluded, rightly so it seems, that the hotel was a new venture. It was only a modest, two star affair, but despite the rooms being lacking in a few of the things you come to expect from a hotel, they were brand spanking new, had decent air conditioning at no extra cost and the bed was comfy. The only problem was the noise at night. Once we were past midnight, despite double-glazed windows, the music, the motorcycles, the rubbish trucks and the human voices were incessant until dawn.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">To get there, we'd opted to take the bus from the airport. Fortunately, a friend here on Rhodes, whose son was doing his military service on the island of Poros, had gone to visit him a couple of years ago, and that trip had involved her flying to Athens, then getting to Piraeus and taking the island boat from the very quay which was just around the block from our hotel. The Piraeus Express bus service is perfect. For a mere €6 a head you get the same bus all the way from the airport (which is a very, very long way out of town these days) and it drops you metres from the quayside in Piraeus. So we followed her example and got off the bus around fifteen minutes walk from the hotel. We were travelling light, with very small hand baggage and only one modest suitcase, which has wheels.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Another advantage of taking the bus is that you don't get pestered continually during the ride by beggars, as happens perpetually on the train. Now, putting all morals about whether or not one gives to these poor unfortunates aside for a moment, the experience is nevertheless quite unpleasant, and some of them exude a truly awful smell from several feet away. Even with the best will in the world, they exist in such numbers that one simply cannot afford to give to all of them. On the bus, you avoid all of the moral hand-wringing anyway.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">The photo at the top of this post was taken during the short walk from the bus stop to the hotel, and it's right across the road from where all the island boats tie up.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">First impressions of downtown Piraeus? That those who write all the songs extolling its virtues are on drugs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">But our overall impression was to change over the three nights and four days of our stay.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">More on that in the next post, along with a clutch of photos, of course.</span></div>
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John P. Manuelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07426089334296469215noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8754379282583650722.post-57977554772772561922019-07-04T06:51:00.000+03:002019-07-08T14:07:00.599+03:00It's Called 'Progress'. Or "Viva la Difference!"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I've probably mentioned before that we tend to watch the TV quiz show <b><i>"Troxos tis tixis"</i></b> ["Wheel of Fortune"]. Our excuse is that it improves our Greek vocabulary and spelling. What's also interesting about it as well, though, is that the subjects of the word puzzles that the contestants have to solve often reflect the differences in modern culture between Greece and our home country of England, or the UK in general.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The puzzles that need solving are frequently under categories like <i>"Fashion"</i> - in which case the contestants will often have to find perhaps three names of famous models or designers, <i>"Cinema"</i> in which the answers will often be American or British actors [and they'll be spelt using the Geek alphabet and the Greek way of rendering consonants that don't exist in Greek. These can bear little resemblance to their Roman alphabet counterparts. For instance, <u>Brad Pitt</u> is spelt in Greek "Μπραντ Πιτ", <u>Daniel Craig</u> is rendered "Ντανιελ Κρεγκ" (good eh?) and <u>Robert Redford</u> is "Πομπερτ Πεντφορντ"], or perhaps "<i>Song Title</i>." Such categories one may expect to find coming up in the UK version (which I believe is no longer running anyway), but there are others that kind of indicate the differences between life here in Greece and life in the UK.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">For example, a category that comes up quite often is <i>"In the Church."</i> I read very recently that Greeks are <i><b>among</b></i>, if not <b><i>are</i></b> the most religious people in Europe. In a largely secular society, such as it is nowadays in most European countries, something that can he hard to adjust to here is the way that the Church still exerts a huge hold over peoples' daily lives and habits. I can't imagine for a moment a category like <i>"In the Church"</i> (which can refer to various implements and aids used during religious ceremonies inside a church in Greece) coming up on a UK TV quiz show.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Another category that comes up at least once a week is <i>"At the Demonstration."</i> I'm not having you on, seriously. Let's face it, since 'austerity' kicked in here in Greece some 10 years ago now, demonstrations, involving the usual chucking of Molotov coctails, setting fire to wheelie bins (or dumpsters) and the frequent use of tear gas and the like, have become such commonplace occurrences in Syntagma Square that it's now considered a good enough subject matter for a round on a TV quiz show.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Something else that demonstrates how things have moved on in the UK a little further than here (and I'm not so sure I think it's <i>entirely</i> a good thing), is the fact that the show (like a few others too) still features primarily a male host, the genial and cheeky-chappie style <i>Petros Polihronidis</i> (Πέτρος Πολυχρονίδης) and his sidekick, who's quite definitely simply there as eye candy, Josephina. At the beginning of the show she's expected to parade up and down in front of the camera like a model on the catwalk. She does this to the sound of the males in the studio audience whistling and cheering as she does her twirls to show off whatever sartorial outfit she's wearing for that particular show.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Apart from the occasional interjection, perhaps to declare the category for the next round's puzzle, or to reel off the details for viewers to write in if they'd like to be contestants, she's simply there to spice up the view a little. It harps back to the days when women were kind of viewed as pretty dumb things to be seen and not heard from too often. <i>"There there, dear, you just stand there and look pretty, now won't you."</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Now, as I alluded to above, I said that I'm not sure that the changes that have taken place in more 'progressive' countries are <i>entirely</i> good. I maybe need to expand on that before I experience a backlash from the bra-burners! See, it occurs to me that the kind of society that's developing in 'the west' is one where women and men will eventually all end up looking like Chinese workers in Chairman Mao era China. The sexes are becoming blurred perhaps too much. Yes, of course, it's entirely right that women should have exactly the same opportunities as men to advance their careers, and they absolutely deserve equal pay for doing the same jobs as men, no contest. But I'm not entirely convinced that a woman doesn't want a man to show some respect for the fact that she's a woman. The differences in the sexes ought not to be trivialised to the extent that we can't celebrate the difference without demeaning the female of the species.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I still have the sneaky suspicion that most women like it when a man holds a door open for her, or compliments her on her appearance. These days one's on thin ice doing such things in the UK and America. The showing of respect has been transformed in many cases to being termed "patronising." Give me a break.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I rather like Formula One. Now I know it's not everyone's cup of tea and it's a total waste of time arguing over who likes what. It wouldn't do for us all to be the same. But I only use that as an example because the era of the 'grid girls' has now gone. <i>"It's making women like sex objects," </i>they cried! I wonder if anyone ever asked the girls who did that job what they thought though? A lot of them are now out of a job.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ah well, by and large the way women have been emancipated is of course completely right and proper, but I for one still think we ought to remember that the sexes <b><i>are</i></b> different, and always will be. Doesn't mean that one is better than the other, but they're certainly <b><i>not</i></b> the same and why on earth would we want them to be? Just before I get off that subject, which has become a bit of a tangent I'll admit, I'm truly irritated when female actresses are called <i>'actors'</i> and a chairman has now to be called a <i>'chair.</i>' Let's get this straight, the male and female genders are what they are, so what the dickens is that all about then? A <i>chair </i>is something you sit on. A female in that role is surely a Chairwoman, and a man a Chairman. I can't for the life of me see what's wrong with that. And a female actor is an actress, it's purely a matter of correct use of language. The world's gone mad, mad I tell you!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Oh, I'm getting all in a lather now. I need to chill out a little. Let's have a look at the TV schedule. Ooh, look, Wheel of Fortune's on in a minute...</span></div>
John P. Manuelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07426089334296469215noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8754379282583650722.post-21905593919155877222019-06-29T04:05:00.002+03:002019-06-29T13:39:53.037+03:00Care in the Community?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I'm not sure how many people who don't actually live here in Greece are aware of this, but a practice that is quite commonplace here, at least on Rhodes, is for some families with an aged parent/grandparent who needs caring for to employ a live-in woman to do the job. For some reason that I'm not able to explain, it seems that the majority of these paid carers are Bulgarians.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We've had occasion to meet and befriend a few of these 'carers' over the past fourteen years, one of whom was the diminutive 'Dhopi', whom we </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">quite often </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">used to give lifts to, and who never failed to demonstrate her appreciation, even if the very least she did was to leave the equivalent of the bus fare in small change on our rear parcel shelf after she'd got out of the car when we were dropping her off somewhere. We gave up telling her it wasn't necessary. I wrote quite a bit about this plucky little woman and her very hard life in <b><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Plethora-Posts-Ramblings-Rhodes-ebook/dp/B006ME9RG6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1323956534&sr=1-1" target="_blank">"A Plethora of Posts,"</a></b> in particular <i>chapter 12, "A Little Bulgarian and Her Appreciativeness,"</i> and <i>chapter 41, "Get Your Ya Yas Out." </i>Dhopi would have us clutching our sides with laughter quite often, even though she was telling us things that demonstrated just how tough her existence was, while she was looking after an old lady (who was actually younger in years than she was!) who suffered from dementia.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Dhopi came back to mind just recently as we were talking with some Greek friends, from a village near here, about their difficult situation, which revolves around their oldest family member, now a widow in her mid nineties. There are several siblings, all middle aged or older, and a few grandchildren, ranging from their teens to their late thirties, who are tasked with looking after their mother's/grandmother's wellbeing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The major burden falls to just one of the woman's children (and she has five) who lives right next door to her in the village. This daughter has herself two grown-up sons, and two brothers, both with families, still living in the same village. One or two other siblings have flown the 'nest' quite literally and live in other countries these days.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">One of the old lady's sons is himself now in his mid seventies and has pretty major physical problems that make it difficult for him to walk. He and his wife have five children, all of whom, save for the oldest son, now live in other countries. The son, now just entering his forties, is still single and is tasked with helping his dad run their little business of renting sun-beds and a couple of modest little boats during the summer season. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In the UK there are all kinds of provisions from the state to help people with housebound relatives. My own mother' sister, in fact, back in the West Country of England, lived out her final years in what we in the UK call '<i>sheltered accommodation</i>,' consisting of a comfy little flat, with a warden living on-site. Each resident has a panic button or specially adapted phone so that they can call for help in event of an emergency. My aunt's daughter would also look in on her mum several times a week, doing the best she could, while also managing her own family of herself, hubby and three children. My aunt even had her meals delivered to the house regularly by the UK "Meals on Wheels" service, manned by volunteers I believe, but I may be wrong.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Here in Greece there are no such provisions. It's expected that each family will care for their own, come what may. Unless the invalid is hospitalised, that is. But even then a member of the family will always be at the bedside, family members often running shifts to ensure that their love one always has someone next to the bed to help them to wash, or shuffle to the WC, for example.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Our local Greek friends, whose parent is in her nineties, well they all have to work. One or two of them are approaching 'pensionable' age, but, as is the case in the UK, the age at which they'd long anticipated retiring has in recent years been pushed back owing to austerity measures placing grave restraints on government spending. So, even though one of the siblings spends her entire life cooking, cleaning and caring for her mother, they've recently decided to take on a live-in paid carer, because the dear daughter who looks after her mother hasn't had a break for decades and the stage has now been reached where her mother needs constant vigilant care, including constant agonisingly slow trips to the bathroom all through the night.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">At the time of writing, the family are on their third or fourth carer, all of whom have been Bulgarian. It's not that the carers haven't tried to do a good job, it's rather that the 'patient' simply refuses to have a stranger 'doing' for her, including helping her to the toilet. Thus, each time the sixty-something daughter has decided that she can maybe take a breather while the carer does the basics for her mother, the carer walks out owing to the recalcitrance of the patient making her job an impossibility.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We are aware of so many families, those who either don't want to or can't afford to employ someone, where one sibling is basically 'sacrificed' to the needs of the sole remaining widowed parent. It seems that it's expected that one of the siblings will forego any life of their own, often (though not always) entailing that they reman single too, in order to be sure that the parent is adequately cared for until they finally die.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There are nice aspects of this, in that it demonstrates a closeness in the family unit that's sadly long gone in much of the UK and other 'civilised' countries nowadays. On the other hand, though, it means that someone who may have wanted to marry, settle down, have a few kids, foregoes this life and becomes a full-time carer. Often the other siblings don't do much to help, since it's kind of, well, whoever draws the short straw is charged with all of the responsibility.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It's a cultural thing, harping back to patriarchal days, I suppose. Of course, respect for the elderly is still alive and well in Greek rural communities, which is one reason why this situation prevails, I suppose. Any one of us, considering how we shall possibly spend our dotage, would like to think that we were going to be well cared for, wouldn't we? Hopefully ungrudgingly too.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Just recently we heard news from our friend Dhopi, by the way. Some years ago now, she packed it all in and moved back to her home village in her native Bulgaria, where she was </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">finally</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">due to receive a modest state pension. She's now well into her seventies, but is still very agile and gets around a lot.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Oh, and she's caring for her mother, who's not far short of a hundred years of age.</span></div>
John P. Manuelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07426089334296469215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8754379282583650722.post-26766041258193793322019-06-24T02:05:00.003+03:002019-06-24T04:06:49.856+03:00On the Up and Up<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We've lived 4km from the village of Gennadi for 14 years come August, and for much of that time it's remained a sleepy village, with perhaps an appeal to those who'd like things really, really quiet, but not much atmosphere during the long warm summer evenings. The main 'street' which leads several hundred metres along from the square to the part-time police station, (which, incidentally, is where the main character Adrian Dando lives in my novel "<b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Two-Bush-John-Manuel-ebook/dp/B078RZDTRV/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8" target="_blank">Two in the Bush</a></i></b>" - the street, not the police station), is quintessentially "Greek village" in appearance. It's barely wide enough for a vehicle to pass along for most of its length, and is closed to traffic anyway for much of the time during the summer season.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Part-way along from the 'square' end of the street is <a href="https://www.facebook.com/MamasKitchenRestaurant/" target="_blank">Mama's Kitchen</a>, which has been there a very long time. In past years, when we've had the chance to go out for an evening and have chosen to eat in Gennadi, this would have been the only restaurant along the entire street with a few tables out in the street for diners to sit. They also have a nice courtyard across the way from the restaurant itself. Now, though, things are much different.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Last night we went out for a light meal, looking for our favourite, which is vegetarian pitta, stuffed with salad, fries, tzatziki and a generous chunk of grilled Haloumi. Most souvlaki houses now offer this as an option for those who don't eat meat. We'd seen a photo on a friends' Facebook page very recently, showing the souvlaki joint just adjacent to the nice and trad-looking <a href="https://www.facebook.com/antikabargennadi/" target="_blank"><b>Antika bar</b></a>, run by the bloke who also services our car, Stergo (where have you heard <i>that</i> kind of scenario before, eh?). So we made a bee-line for that place first, because the location looked so appealing. Sadly, they didn't do what we wanted, but instead offered us Saganaki. Never mind, we simply trotted off to our favourite souvlaki house in Gennadi anyway, the excellent <b><a href="https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g1189606-d4567650-Reviews-Lime_Grill-Gennadi_Rhodes_Dodecanese_South_Aegean.html" target="_blank">Lime Grill</a></b>, but it was a bit of a shame in one respect, because I'd particularly wanted to sit in the main street, where the atmosphere has most definitely taken a turn for the better this season. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Although the Lime Grill is truly excellent, it's location isn't as nice as some. Not complaining though, since we sat out on their agreeable terrace and devoured two wonderful, well-stuffed Haloumi pittas, a serving of Hummus, which also comes with a pitta to dip into it, two bottles of water and a bottle of retsina and the bill was €17.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But, we've made a mental note to go out again soon and this time try perhaps Zorba's, one of the establishments that are now packing the 'main' street with tables and chairs and thus giving it a truly enjoyable and essentially Greek evening atmosphere. I took these two quick shots before we headed off to the Lime Grill...</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfA7aYMMj6mnK8_P8I_NDBGh_zxabPxwhUE-mmTlGKDq9fxdD-gPfPmfU814rxYKbAI1ycRUnKiy1B-RIgLATeiabafP3CHrQ5kpJuYGtsmCs59xiG2Vkp2yQS8O6tfU6Bt9YsiRwAErU/s1600/fullsizeoutput_1881.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfA7aYMMj6mnK8_P8I_NDBGh_zxabPxwhUE-mmTlGKDq9fxdD-gPfPmfU814rxYKbAI1ycRUnKiy1B-RIgLATeiabafP3CHrQ5kpJuYGtsmCs59xiG2Vkp2yQS8O6tfU6Bt9YsiRwAErU/s400/fullsizeoutput_1881.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKRnG_iQlT9wepbXxLU9VbtSrVOFzxQ8MQEcbZMMR6Qy1gBScz7wcMaXRLfG_1xcxUxlYIgMp0IckDNZFpjGdn2yFlr-xbib_ziqHZvwnLTuFbG4SkWh9ogMuJDpq7OqTvANl4PM0YrHI/s1600/fullsizeoutput_1882.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKRnG_iQlT9wepbXxLU9VbtSrVOFzxQ8MQEcbZMMR6Qy1gBScz7wcMaXRLfG_1xcxUxlYIgMp0IckDNZFpjGdn2yFlr-xbib_ziqHZvwnLTuFbG4SkWh9ogMuJDpq7OqTvANl4PM0YrHI/s400/fullsizeoutput_1882.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Bear in mind that these were taken quite early in the evening. We'd been down to Gennadi beach (where the water was as flat as a mirror) for a swim, because they have good walkways there to stop your feet burning, a couple of changing huts still in serviceable condition, and showers that work well too. Following this we just shot up to the village to eat something before going home to watch the closing stages of the Queens Club doubles tennis final between Andy Murray/Feliciano Lopez and Rajeev Ram/Joe Salisbury.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I think you can tell from the photos though, that the atmosphere in Gennadi on a summer's evening is well and truly on the up and up. If you click for a larger view on those shots you'll see that there was already a sizeable crowd of diners enjoying the balmy June evening.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I can't remember Gennadi ever looking so attractive and I'd suggest that if you're staying in the south of the island any time soon, it would be well worth checking Gennadi out for an evening meal or a drink.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I'd say that a good and satisfying meal out along that street may go quite a long way towards curing some of any dependency that may have had to book all-inclusive too!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">•</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A day or two earlier, we had lunch at the <b><a href="https://en.tripadvisor.com.hk/ShowUserReviews-g1175546-d4701067-r596746197-Il_Porto-Kiotari_Rhodes_Dodecanese_South_Aegean.html" target="_blank">Il Porto</a></b>, situated on Kiotari Beach right down the lane from where we live, too. Our friends Anastasia and Tassos, the couple who run the place, always extend us a warm welcome, even if we don't patronise the place nearly as often as we'd like. Here are a couple of photos I took before the food arrived...</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR_in94WlI0qwc5cBt_eTan9O3LlQGdEaeRvo_oj-RtK6QB-j2-dRB-LRkY-eaCCkIfbs4FDLHJaZkBY7tK1IOSjdJfnsFXH9cIzl4CF5AgC-DT9pjCwFOFW8FhpyCE51yXLv3bimRs88/s1600/fullsizeoutput_187f.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR_in94WlI0qwc5cBt_eTan9O3LlQGdEaeRvo_oj-RtK6QB-j2-dRB-LRkY-eaCCkIfbs4FDLHJaZkBY7tK1IOSjdJfnsFXH9cIzl4CF5AgC-DT9pjCwFOFW8FhpyCE51yXLv3bimRs88/s400/fullsizeoutput_187f.jpeg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We <i>were</i> going to sit at one of those tables under the parasols, but TBH it was too flippin' hot.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYRm-Z6Olq6JkVDgjy4V4YLOXSIiwVEt_vE0C799DlRpZXU_s07tJPeWfXpxmmGoxBfnLx5jMFhnJM142OE5c1Ny8GOIp27GgJJ9dC3cYginBhaZxvFGP3vNXT8aBzWVdlH9looXyXeQU/s1600/fullsizeoutput_1880.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYRm-Z6Olq6JkVDgjy4V4YLOXSIiwVEt_vE0C799DlRpZXU_s07tJPeWfXpxmmGoxBfnLx5jMFhnJM142OE5c1Ny8GOIp27GgJJ9dC3cYginBhaZxvFGP3vNXT8aBzWVdlH9looXyXeQU/s400/fullsizeoutput_1880.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This year they've commissioned a new logo, making the place feel a little more up-market, although it's still very good value. The menu is excellently laid out and offers all the trad Greek food that you'd expect.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUcY9JMbFG4Dx7q-9j9_FnYRo33OTgYQ-rrnCp2gKvv-XrMrEiX6jc-tHJ_efbPJPQpAgGfaXm1VtQS44PQ31F2a6XTUnQt34O71oE0KQbs380Opelca0CxLq-lzs2uVaH6BGDZozvfRQ/s1600/IMG_0623.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUcY9JMbFG4Dx7q-9j9_FnYRo33OTgYQ-rrnCp2gKvv-XrMrEiX6jc-tHJ_efbPJPQpAgGfaXm1VtQS44PQ31F2a6XTUnQt34O71oE0KQbs380Opelca0CxLq-lzs2uVaH6BGDZozvfRQ/s400/IMG_0623.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I know, it's only a swallow, but I've such a soft spot for the little perishers.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We ordered a beer, a tonic water, a green salad, some hummus and fries (chips!), which are hand-cut and done in olive oil. Not exactly going to make Anastasia her fortune, are we eh? Nevertheless she brought us a plate of dolmades on the house. Nice touch. The bill? around €14. Cheapskates? We wrote the book.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Frankly, I can't think of a nicer place to enjoy a meal or a drink within shouting distance of our home than the Il Porto.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">See, finally the fact that we're not having to rush off to work any more is beginning to make a difference. Apart from having been out several times this week, we've also watched a whole load of excellent tennis from Queens Club in London, something we'd never have had the time to do over the past ten years.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I <i>will</i> be writing about stuff other than food and drink soon, honest!</span></div>
John P. Manuelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07426089334296469215noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8754379282583650722.post-38907651297173420752019-06-21T02:48:00.000+03:002019-06-21T02:48:01.856+03:00It's Oh, So Quiet...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Considering we're both not working any more, it's been a bit hectic of late. There we were, back during the winter, planning how we'd be at the beach and having lunch in a beachside taverna at least once a week when the summer was under way and here we are getting to the tail end of June and, apart from a few walks down to the local beach in the early evening for a swim, then the walk back, it's not really gone according to plan.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There have been a few extra-curricular things to do, which have largely fallen into the category of helping out friends and doing a spot of destructive DIY for a neighbour, plus other stuff like having to visit the accountant, having to post a letter to a UK government office, and...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>"Wait."</i> I hear you cry, <i>"Having to post a letter to the UK? Is that really something that could be counted as an 'extra-curricular' thing to do?"</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Oh yes. See, the nearest post office to us is in Gennadi, but, unless you want to spend a couple of hours waiting your turn and, in the process, lose the will to live, we tend to avoid that one. I've written about the experience of using the Gennadi post office before. If you have long enough (I'm serious) check out these posts:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="https://ramblingsfromrhodes.blogspot.com/2014/01/it-helps-to-pass-time.html" target="_blank">"It Helps to Pass the Time"</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="https://ramblingsfromrhodes.blogspot.com/2014/01/up-and-down.html" target="_blank">"Up and Down"</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So, as and when we have a need to post something, we tend to do it at the post office in Arhangelos. There is a post office in Lindos, of course, but to park the car about a mile outside the village (it's tourist season now, remember) and then walk all the way into the village and then through the warren of tiny streets you need to negotiate in order to get there, well, you may as well be sitting on your rear in the Gennadi office for an hour or two. It's less sweaty and you don't have to continually collide with the barely dressed and tattooed hordes all the way there and back.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Thus we bite the bullet and, once we've written our epistle and inserted it in a neatly-printed envelope, or package-taped up our package, or whatever it is we need to send, we find it less stressful to drive the twenty-five minutes up the road to Arhangelos, where one can almost always pull up in the car right outside the post office, and dash inside, often discovering that the place is empty, save for the decidedly "Grizzly Adams" type bloke who's sitting behind the toughened glass screen waiting to be of service.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Despite his appearance, which gives one the very definite impression that he's liable to be out in the hills howling up at every full moon, he's actually quite erudite and always efficient at processing your request, often sticking the stamps on for you himself. And before you say, <i>"How do you know he actually sticks them on and doesn't simply chuck the letter in the old 'circular file?'"</i> We know because nothing we've ever had occasion to post from there has ever failed to reach its destination.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The plus point about going to Arhangelos too is that we can then do a spot of serious people-watching over a very reasonably priced Freddo espresso and perhaps a slice of <i>bougatsa</i>, plus we can buy some mountain tea and fresh fruit and veg from the very 'ethnic' local fruit and veg shop in the main street. A result, whichever way you choose to look at it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Anyway, as I type this we are actually planning a stroll down the hill to the <b><a href="https://en.tripadvisor.com.hk/ShowUserReviews-g1175546-d4701067-r596746197-Il_Porto-Kiotari_Rhodes_Dodecanese_South_Aegean.html" target="_blank">Il Porto</a></b> café-restaurant at lunchtime tomorrow for a drink and a spot of lunch. Maybe then we'll finally reach the realisation that we are now supposed to be people of leisure.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">•</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I was talking with Petros the other day, he who's very 'careful' with his money whom I wrote about in chapter 10 of <b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tzatziki-You-Ramblings-Rhodes-ebook/dp/B005FNQJ3O/ref=sr_1_5?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1312359659&sr=1-5" target="_blank">Tzatziki For You to Say</a></i></b>. A few years ago he planted up a huge number of aloe vera plants in order to try and start a business selling them for the gel that's found in their 'leaves' that appears to carry so many benefits for one's health. At the time he told me that the plants need three years before they're mature enough to be harvested for the gel. Well, the three years have now passed and not much has happened vis a vis his getting the business off the ground. Plus, the crop looks decidedly under par if I'm going to be honest. I asked him about the whole project and why it appeared to be stalling. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It all has to do with the water. Now, I've talked on many occasions on this blog about how the last few winters (leading up to, but not including the winter we've just been through) have been much too devoid of rain. Before last winter began, the water shortages on Rhodes had reached critical levels. Friends of ours in Rhodes town have endured a couple of summers when their mains water was cut off for 20 hours at a time several times a week, owing to the severe shortage of water, due partly to the drought conditions of winters that were much too dry, and partly to the over-development that's going on all over this island.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Now, I have it on good authority that new hotels that are constructed near the beach must also install a desalination plant for the water that's to be used in the hotel, so as not to place further strain on the already-overstretched water supply on Rhodes. But the fact still remains that the natural aquifer beneath the island has been dropping for some years now, and the upshot of this is that the sea makes incursions further and further inland metres beneath the surface of the ground. As the aquifers retreat, the seawater advances. It's happening in places like Majorca in Spain too, I hear. Now, this past winter we finally had something like the amount of rainfall that was once normal for Rhodes, thus filling the reservoirs and likely to some extent helping replenish the aquifer to some degree.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">From what I'm told by friends who live in town, the water coming out of their taps is now once again sweet and drinkable. Even we here on a hillside in Kiotari did have a few weeks of 'brackish' water coming out of our taps a couple of years ago, which did kill one or two plants in our garden. Some parts of the island had non-potable water coming through the pipes for months, even years. That problem seems to have been alleviated, though, after this past winter. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So, back to Petros. He'd told me ages ago that the aloe vera plants had suffered, and some died, owing to his having to water them with this - what amounts to - sea water. It was that or nothing. Now, though, we were discussing the fact that his house in Kalathos once again has sweet, potable water coming out of the taps and, like us, they can simply filter it and use it for drinking. They'd had the problem of brackish water for much longer periods of time that us.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Looking at his 'crop' I asked him if it was taking time to recover, now that the water was sweet again. He said, "<i>it's not sweet, Gianni, it's still virtually sea water</i>." Reading the puzzlement on my face, he went on to explain that the water he uses to water the 'farm' comes from a well on his land. If he'd had to use mains water, it would have greatly increased the cost of the project and severely cut his anticipated profit margins. So, there was the rub: the aquifer, since his house is so close to the sea, is still not recovered sufficiently to displace the invading salt water deep underground with fresh water, and thus he still has the same problem, despite the improvement in the quality of the tapwater.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I have to admit to feeling deeply sorry for him, since it looks like the whole project is dead in the water. And that's not intended to be a pun.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">He'd invested in the new plants and irrigation system right at the time when the natural aquifer that feeds his well had begun to lose the fight owing to a) tourist development outstripping the available water supply and b) a succession of winters that didn't bring the needed amount of rainfall.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Seems that everywhere you look, man's idiocy when it comes to managing our planet's resources is becoming more and more evident. Even a beautiful Greek island isn't immune. And I must stress that, despite the problems, despite the apparent lack of careful thought going into infrastructure-planning, Rhodes is still largely a wonderful place to be.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So, apart from the delay in our summer of leisure actually getting going, and apart from the ecological changes going on, it's generally really rather quiet around here at the moment.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Back soon.</span><br />
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John P. Manuelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07426089334296469215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8754379282583650722.post-25092078677375813502019-06-11T17:07:00.005+03:002019-06-11T19:34:41.648+03:00A Little Bit of This, and a Little Bit of That...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If you haven't ever heard of <a href="http://leeritenour.com/" target="_blank">Lee Ritenour</a>, then it's time you did. He's a guitar virtuoso from the West Coast of the States who's been at his craft for many decades now and has produced some of the best music I've ever listened to. My favourite album of his was called <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/album/rio-mw0000649703" target="_blank">Rio</a>, and it was packed with all South American rhythms and percussion and stuff, with Ritenour playing acoustic throughout. Why am I droning on about Lee Ritenour? Only because I nicked the title of this post from a track on that album. Plus it gives me the excuse to plug his music.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">All kinds of stuff has been trekking through my brain of late. But first, I thought that just for a change I'd start with some photos and then start rambling on, and on and on...</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO69f-19Y4HNwTiUYKCq19vBUig4y5hxmJfoWv2yRK6Ging_82jNeWZFrUtR91HUCKoNc70ggcZWgFG9DEqvYZrNnN6pbua1_GBY6wjpNtFTpfK1QEa3-Ts5UH7_FIiPgv6J3gZiP30_Q/s1600/fullsizeoutput_1867.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO69f-19Y4HNwTiUYKCq19vBUig4y5hxmJfoWv2yRK6Ging_82jNeWZFrUtR91HUCKoNc70ggcZWgFG9DEqvYZrNnN6pbua1_GBY6wjpNtFTpfK1QEa3-Ts5UH7_FIiPgv6J3gZiP30_Q/s400/fullsizeoutput_1867.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH0oJ16mDB43kT36w7KEUukTtpoEQPn174xuqr-7W2GRSOs3xbicAdrox_L4jRPlzZMeklSfux_TiWJMLNyeLD51ZKcvHh19P4FJgJAEsS95WCER06VroGcNMuZ0S-ESsIbxa6u6bxjYY/s1600/fullsizeoutput_1868.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH0oJ16mDB43kT36w7KEUukTtpoEQPn174xuqr-7W2GRSOs3xbicAdrox_L4jRPlzZMeklSfux_TiWJMLNyeLD51ZKcvHh19P4FJgJAEsS95WCER06VroGcNMuZ0S-ESsIbxa6u6bxjYY/s400/fullsizeoutput_1868.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">2.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwOkStqbHbgSxsoNteJJAICmG-CJabpcU0Mlno-4K6eWcnftbslSe4r15X7IzZoxLpATc_QwSkXILu6jcmLq8Sov2JTGyv4CJ8wQDfgNHuSmCKtmlHlRxa0zSjV_3fJQcBomWlod37GMw/s1600/fullsizeoutput_186a.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwOkStqbHbgSxsoNteJJAICmG-CJabpcU0Mlno-4K6eWcnftbslSe4r15X7IzZoxLpATc_QwSkXILu6jcmLq8Sov2JTGyv4CJ8wQDfgNHuSmCKtmlHlRxa0zSjV_3fJQcBomWlod37GMw/s400/fullsizeoutput_186a.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">3.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSwPSOgvEGmsRHCgCosO0by-Q2lVNFsvz3D7g2cKCT51NWU-taKo-PW3vPEqijzfJBBEKPrISNx1_PxzANJGKoDliRXafgLfUgGZCbAAyodayyYDiA-ouhaVJedEAQgqVBbsONJQxNULA/s1600/fullsizeoutput_1869.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSwPSOgvEGmsRHCgCosO0by-Q2lVNFsvz3D7g2cKCT51NWU-taKo-PW3vPEqijzfJBBEKPrISNx1_PxzANJGKoDliRXafgLfUgGZCbAAyodayyYDiA-ouhaVJedEAQgqVBbsONJQxNULA/s400/fullsizeoutput_1869.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">4.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9vgxMVlLPckuU0qRHrhQxjQIBzfT7-bCHJKtHMiuWWKSDATKx0Zj0pLhL0ZteJWVTsFHRAUDKMzB3n6yfl_KcXnx4Z_u1c5Hr-IHzznRO59r3d_vYctL1MPA24mx0B4jEmRPDRZkmlf8/s1600/fullsizeoutput_186e.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9vgxMVlLPckuU0qRHrhQxjQIBzfT7-bCHJKtHMiuWWKSDATKx0Zj0pLhL0ZteJWVTsFHRAUDKMzB3n6yfl_KcXnx4Z_u1c5Hr-IHzznRO59r3d_vYctL1MPA24mx0B4jEmRPDRZkmlf8/s400/fullsizeoutput_186e.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Someone's got it sussed.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">5.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge1FvLAvu0ZHmln8D3LWDV3VyMOuXptNneICChhIkqB_3jB85atTbyZWAUVNgfaCdS7mRdv4WO1Tqw9Lh-BX2tSDEETtt2RidemS1OVl2b-rlSQlR7XDZbxV-ReNwC29uC2qUdlrAY0S4/s1600/fullsizeoutput_1870.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge1FvLAvu0ZHmln8D3LWDV3VyMOuXptNneICChhIkqB_3jB85atTbyZWAUVNgfaCdS7mRdv4WO1Tqw9Lh-BX2tSDEETtt2RidemS1OVl2b-rlSQlR7XDZbxV-ReNwC29uC2qUdlrAY0S4/s400/fullsizeoutput_1870.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">6.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Right, in the first two photos (imaginatively labelled 1 and 2) you see why we were rather delighted to have had the opportunity to take a meal at <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TsambikosTaverna/" target="_blank">Tsambikos</a> Restaurant in Kolymbia the other evening. The location is nothing to write home about; situated, as it is, on a fairly unattractive section of road leading from the traffic lights at Kolymbia up towards <i>Epta Piges</i>, or <b>Seven Springs</b> (mentioned with photos in <a href="https://ramblingsfromrhodes.blogspot.com/2013/08/any-bream-will-do.html" target="_blank">this post</a>, and <a href="https://ramblingsfromrhodes.blogspot.com/2016/01/a-spring-or-seven-in-ones-step.html" target="_blank">this one</a>. Oh, silly me, <a href="https://ramblingsfromrhodes.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-road-goes-ever-on.html" target="_blank">this one</a> as well. Hope you have an hour or two). In fact, as soon as you take that turn, it's only when you're about fifty metres from the junction that you see the taverna on your right hand side, and it's right next door to <b>Anthoulas</b>, which we </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">once </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">had difficulty leaving. Now, go on, admit it, you were thinking, '<i>He's going to refer to yet another older post,</i>' weren't you? Damn right I was. Check </span><a href="https://ramblingsfromrhodes.blogspot.com/2012/02/leaving-anthoulas.html" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;" target="_blank">this one </a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">out and you'll see my report on our one and only visit to Anthoula's back in February 2012. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The fact that we haven't been back to Anthoula's since then is no reflection on the quality of the food or service. It's merely that it's a location that we seldom have cause to be near to at a time when we need some sustenance.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Having been up to town a few days ago with a friend who needed some assistance with a medical matter, we were driving home in the early evening and all three of us were in no mood to get all the way home and then have to think about what we were going to eat. Solution? Eat out. I don't need much encouragement in that area anyway.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Our friend suggested Tsambikos, after she'd been there once by accident. She and another friend had intended on patronising Anthoula's, but it was closed for renovation, and so they went next door. There are just the two tavernas there, adjacent to each other, and literally nothing else apart from pine trees and the road. Having eaten an excellent meal at Tsambikos, her loyalties were severely tested and she ended up going back there a few more times. Poor Anthoula's. Still, that's life.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Now I have been known to bemoan the fact that when we're on Patmos, we never eat a meal without receiving some kind of freebie at the end. Whereas on Rhodes, it's become a bit of a rarity in recent times. Tsambikos is the exception. Not only did our friend rave about the freebies she's received at Tsambikos in the past, but she convinced us that they were probably as generous any anywhere else in the country. No contest. You've got to give it a go then, haven't you?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The photo labelled '1.' above shows just how generous the lovely people at Tsambikos are. When I called for the bill after a lovely meal, during which the three of us had ordered a meze and all tucked into the various dishes until we were stuffed, they first brought us that delightful box with the logo of the best Mastiha from Chios you can buy </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">(Skinos)</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">on it. It contained a half-bottle of that fab digestif and three themed glasses for us to imbibe. We didn't even finish it, there was so much there for us. Now I know there are some folk who'll make sure they drain every last drop if it's a freebie, irrespective of how much alcohol they've already drunk, but we weren't those kind of people. It's an unexpected kindness that they bring you this gift, so it's good to show a little respect and appreciation. But then, I'm old fashioned. I like to leave a good impression when we get up to leave. I may well be coming again, after all.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Apart, though, from the Mastiha, they also gave us six (two each) little pots of panna cotta and ice cream (just visible beyond the box in the photo) to eat, which went down very well after a good savoury meal. Oh, and when we finally did receive the bill, it came with this...</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9-K25A-4Y7kahP5NlKNbY1vvKAyQcOVjN-AJ59IdE5TM_Y0YmlH4Bulq2Z1M6WL6AC5djVqQIM7fe5VdwOxkL9QyD7Y49Ld7-IvUsBO9280_lJF_puSkupVNaymch-vVIk6TErKy9_Ho/s1600/IMG_0601.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9-K25A-4Y7kahP5NlKNbY1vvKAyQcOVjN-AJ59IdE5TM_Y0YmlH4Bulq2Z1M6WL6AC5djVqQIM7fe5VdwOxkL9QyD7Y49Ld7-IvUsBO9280_lJF_puSkupVNaymch-vVIk6TErKy9_Ho/s400/IMG_0601.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Nice touch. Now we have something nice and ethnic-looking to put some savoury nibbles in when enjoying that early-evening aperitif.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">All in all, the bill came to €41.20 for three of us, so we theorised that, factoring in the freebies, they didn't make much out of us. Yet the staff were very helpful, friendly and attentive, without being obsequious. I'd say there's a real possibility that we'll go there again. Photo no. 2 above was how the place looked from across the road when we left. Anthoula's is next door to the right.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Photos 3 and 4 you need to look at more closely, perhaps click for the larger view. OK, so the Mediterranean Toad is common in these parts, but when you're walking in the backstreets of a large village, as we were doing last Saturday in Arhangelos, and some movement catches your eye as you admire the plants in the pots placed along the edge of the street (which is barely wide enough for two people to pass, leave alone a motor vehicle), you'd probably be as delighted as we were to discover lots of baby toads lurking behind the pots. The street has no water anywhere, there's no drain or stream for miles around, yet somehow these little cuties seem to survive on the water from someone's watering can (or old olive oil tin more likely) which they regularly dowse their potted plants with. No doubt the toads aid in keeping the general level of biting insects in check as well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The fifth photo I haven't numbered. The caption says it all really.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The next two, captioned 5 and 6, are of one of the apricot trees in our orchard. Boy is it laden with fruit this year. Must have really appreciated the rains we had last winter. We've already sampled a few, and they're truly delicious. The flavour is something you'll never be able to appreciate if you buy 'fresh' apricots in a supermarket in the UK. Last year our landlords were here in June and every apricot they picked was mushy on the inside and had little worms crawling around in there too. This year we've yet to pick one (even fallers) with anything alien on the inside. Hooray. The muesli's looking good in the mornings right now.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Finally, the other day we dropped in to see our good friend Mihali, he of the smallholding in Kalathos who regularly dispenses horticultural advice when we talk about planting vegetables. He's laid up after surgery right now, poor thing. He's had a new knee. At first the surgeons said they couldn't operate because he was too young. We couldn't get our heads around that one at all. Only when we went and sat by his bed did he explain their reasoning. A new knee of the type that he needed is expected to last maybe 15, or twenty years. Had he been sixty or more, they'd have said OK, it'll see you 'out' so to speak. Since he's only in his mid fifties, their logic was that he'd outlive the implant and hence need more surgery when he's an old codger (I know, I <i>know</i>). He was in a good deal of pain, but found it endlessly amusing to think that he's now a small percentage German, since that's where his current knee-joint originated.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The fact that he couldn't get up didn't stop him enthusing when we put it to him that we needed to know what veg to plant at this time of the year. Seems the best thing to go for in the next few weeks will be the black-eyed 'French' beans we'd planted at his suggestion over a decade ago.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Once again he repeated the planting method in case we'd forgotten. You make a small saucer in the soil. You plant one bean each side of the 'dish' and wait until they germinate. Once they're about six inches high you decide which is the more robust of the two and pluck out the other without mercy. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>"Right,"</i> we said in unison. "<i>We'll stop by the garden centre and get some to put in."</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>"June 20th."</i> he replied.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>"What?"</i> we responded? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>"June 20th. That's when you must plant them."</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I think I've mentioned before that it never ceases to astound us how precise the locals here are regarding dates for planting their vegetables. You simply must comply if you want the best results. Now since Mihalis, like all the other <i>agrotes</i> around here, was born and raised on this land, who are we to argue? June 20th it is. Assuming we can get ourselves to the nursery and buy the beans in time, of course.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And so I round out this post, which has truly been a little bit of this and a little bit of that. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The other? I'll leave that to your imagination.</span></div>
John P. Manuelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07426089334296469215noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8754379282583650722.post-50575733735787262162019-06-06T01:56:00.002+03:002019-06-06T01:59:32.144+03:00Down the Tubes?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The season's well and truly up and running now, as the roads around here well testify. This island is still a wonderful place to visit, at least, parts of it are, yet I can't help feeling that the authorities here are hell-bent on killing the goose that lays the golden egg.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I don't, as a rule, like to dwell on the negatives, but the occasional post of 'realism' is probably the right thing to do. So, this post may seem somewhat less cheery than most, but I shall endeavour to inject a modicum of humour next time. Stick with it until then. I'll say please!!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The Rhodes 'powers that be' are perpetually telling us in the local press about how the numbers of tourists are up by 5% here and 10% there, year-on-year. It must be good, surely? Hmm, well, I'm not so sure. I'll illustrate.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">My very good friend is the head chef at a restaurant on the edge of Pefkos. She is an excellent chef and the restaurant where she works has a very good reputation. As far back as the last week of April, she told us that the place was already almost full. I guess we assumed that meant she'd be pretty busy by the time we got to the end of May. Yet, when we spoke last week, we asked her if she was rushed off her feet now and she replied that the restaurant was barely half-full the previous evening.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">See, the thing is, in the past most people staying in this area would have been in self-catering accommodation, or at most a modest hotel where they would perhaps get breakfast included. Even today true Grecophiles know that eating out is the heart and soul of a good Greek holiday. Yet the increase in visitor numbers is largely down to the proliferation of the dreaded 'all-inclusive' holiday, which is being ever more aggressively sold to the UK's prospective holidaymakers by the tour operators.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Some adverts on UK TV try to make a virtue out of the advertiser being a company that is exclusively 'all inclusive.' The result? Yes, more people are getting off aeroplanes at the airport, but there is less revenue for all the small businesses across the island, across the country (the world, in fact). Our friend says that she can't remember a time when the restaurant was so empty at the end of May-beginning of June. All the while the local government announces that tourism on Rhodes is booming.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I'm only a very tiny voice, but I beg anyone who reads this, or considers taking a holiday abroad, to remember...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>1.</b> All Inclusive hotels bleed very little income into the local economy. Most of the profits go to the owners, many of whom are not even Greeks. Yes, they provide some labour, but it's usually very poorly paid and involves people working ridiculously long hours, seven days a week for six months. They have no life to speak </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">of </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">whatsoever</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> during the summer.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>2.</b> I worked on excursions for eleven out of the 14 years that I've lived here. I would be a rich man if I had a Euro for every time a guest on my coach asked me to recommend a restaurant at which to eat out. I'd reply, <i>"but surely you're 'all-inclusive,' you get your meals at the hotel, right?" "Yes,"</i> they'd reply, <i>"but the food's awful."</i> Either that or they were so fed up with the same food and the same faces (all of their own nationality, or maybe from other countries, but none of their fellow diners was a Greek), that they were desperate to try something else. One might argue that, well, there you are then, money going into the local economy! OK, so one meal out of a few hundred, when fifteen years ago <b><i>all</i></b> those people would have been enriching their lives by eating out in local restaurants and enjoying the hospitality of the local folk.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There can be no doubt, and I stress - it's <b><i>not</i></b> the fault of the tourists, they're simply swallowing the propaganda put out by the tour operators - but 'all-inclusive' is relentlessly homogenising the planet and killing off local businesses at a rate of knots.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Do yourself and the local people who live in tourism areas the planet over a favour, holiday 'small' and feel your life being enhanced by the whole travel experience. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I've been doing some sums of late, and it's a truth to say that if you find a good quality, modest apartment to stay at, arrange your own flights and transfer, then eat out sensibly, perhaps doing it like the locals, you'll probably pay the same or even less than you would by going 'all inclusive'.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But your abiding memories of that vacation will be infinitely more satisfying. Plus, a few less locals will have closed their businesses due to lack of custom.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Also, since we've lived here in Kiotari, at least five (or more) huge new hotels have been built in our part of the island, all on 'green field' sites. These edifices cater for hundreds, even thousands of guests, virtually all of whom are 'all inclusive' holidaymakers. I was trying to work it out, but even by modest calculations, the extra vehicles on the road in the south of Rhodes from the thousands of hotel guests now staying here hiring cars during the season must have added around 25 to 30% to the traffic on the modest roads around here.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The road system anywhere south of Kolymbia is two-lane only. Plus the roads are often twisty-turny and thus don't allow for overtaking in very many places. It seems to me that the authorities here have given very little thought to how the infrastructure of the island is meant to cope with all the extra cars that all these new guests are hiring. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to discourage you from coming to Rhodes. There are still wonderfully remote places up in the hinterland, with quiet villages and little old men playing backgammon in the <i>kafeneions</i>. All that it still here to be discovered. But facts are facts and the coast roads are being put under much greater strain than they were ten years ago. There are probably five or six thousand more people staying in the area between Lindos and Lahania than there were a decade ago. Probably 90+% of those are all inclusive too.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The power to change all of this is in the hands of those who take summer holidays in foreign countries. It would be so great if more and more people would think a while before booking what the tour operators thrust at them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Right, rant out of the way, the next post - I promise - will be a riot. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">😁</span></span><br />
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John P. Manuelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07426089334296469215noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8754379282583650722.post-46039225357801548662019-05-30T05:21:00.001+03:002019-05-30T05:21:27.644+03:00Smile. Well, Say Cheese...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">As happened last year, our host on Patmos, <i>κύρια</i> Suzanna, kept us supplied with her delicious, home-made cheese. She has a <i>χωράφι</i> [smallholding], up near the village of Kampos, where she keeps goats and chickens, among other things, as well as growing vegetables.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Every morning she's up and out at 4.00am to go and tend to her vegetables and livestock. The cheese she makes from the milk of her own goats and it's delicious. When it came time for us to leave Patmos, just as last year she presented us with a brand new cheese to take home with us. She makes it in a mug-sized steel container with a convoluted surface, so that when it's set she can turn it out on to a plate and it looks like an off-white, mug-sized <i>thingamybob</i> that tapers toward the top, not unlike a mini-model of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devils_Tower" target="_blank">the mountain in <i>Close Encounters of the Third Kind</i></a>. Once set it's very hard, and you can grate it. I suppose one could describe the container as a giant tea strainer type-thing. Only as well as holes it has a surface that gives the cheese a rippled surface when it comes out of the mold.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It was Suzanna who suggested that her cheese (it's very tangy) goes very well on a '<i>spag bol</i>,' and so we grated it when we got home and we shall be very sorry when it runs out. But for now, we have it (what's left that is) in a glass container, from which we spooned liberal amounts on to our meal last night. Be prepared to lick your lips...</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir_15oRrN7QDIIPMl-0g3SgbVwN00yUkGAGpq1wUlxcuNVR-LSKvQMkMLEEE2PGPsfnjzH6330ijUOCxO5RQZ-2oCuZqNfdownk128bQ4JxTm_Th7Fscj-TJ6ylEqAZwOsn875NJ6T_DU/s1600/IMG_0578.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir_15oRrN7QDIIPMl-0g3SgbVwN00yUkGAGpq1wUlxcuNVR-LSKvQMkMLEEE2PGPsfnjzH6330ijUOCxO5RQZ-2oCuZqNfdownk128bQ4JxTm_Th7Fscj-TJ6ylEqAZwOsn875NJ6T_DU/s400/IMG_0578.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Incidentally, not wishing to preach or anything, but I challenge any carnivore not to find my wife's vegetarian Spaghetti Bolognese entirely delicious.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">C'mon chaps, every fella needs to score a few points now and then.</span></div>
John P. Manuelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07426089334296469215noreply@blogger.com0