Bird Food 2

It seems our Jays are now getting a bit stage-struck. Having thrown some crumbs out for the sparrows on the small flower bed in front of our French windows last night, we retired to bed.

This morning as we ate breakfast just inside the French windows, Yvonne (Maria) spotted some movement.

"I think a Jay just flew down to the breadcrumbs!" She said. Quick as a flash I grabbed the camera as both of a pair of Jays landed on our fledgling palms out the front and then dropped into the flower bed to pick at the breadcrumbs. The pics were taken through the glass, fortunately recently cleaned! But these birds were not six feet away from us. We held our breath, tried to remain stock-still and hoped that the camera wouldn't flash, which it didn't as the sunshine thankfully made it bright enough, and so I now present to you four new photos of a pair of Jays at very close quarters.

Handsome devils aren't they! You just get the feeling that they're posing for the camera.
Enjoy!

(As per usual, clicking on any of the pics will open it in a larger window. Once you have the larger version, you should find that you get the "magnifying glass" & can click on it for a slightly larger view again)

Bird Food

While in the UK we bought a new digital camera, one which has a much higher megapixel rating than the old one. Today my better half snapped this shot of a Jay eating from the fruit of the loquat tree in the front garden. It's been cropped to bring the jay into easy view, and he's still pretty distinct isn't he. With the old camera he'd have been so pixelated that you probably wouldn't have seen him at all.

The fruit of the loquat tree is a "jay-magnet" at this time of year and we're not complaining. Although it's edible and some of our Greek friends go "yummy!" at the sight of them, we don't enjoy them all that much, so the jays have a ready-made supply of birdfood!

Click on the image for a lager view.
For another post about the jays, with even better photos, click HERE.

On this winter's weather...

Photo: Pefkos on a stormy day in February (click on it for a larger version)

Each of us sees things differently I suppose. I'd say that the winter hasn't been appreciably colder than usual, in fact when the sun's been out it's been slightly warmer. My wife and I (I know this is sad, but...) we keep a daily record of max and min temps all year round as well as noting when it rains. Would you believe that in Feb 2010 we had 9 days on which it rained. As for 2011? - 9 again. The difference has been that when it has rained this winter, it's not known the word "moderation!"

We have a log-burning stove and there have been evenings during this winter, especially during January when we had a couple of weeks of glorious warm weather, when we haven't had to light it. Last winter we lit it every evening when we were in.

The fact is that we've been able to enjoy a coffee out [fave pastime] at least once every week this winter, much as usual. Once again, the difference has been that when we have had the bad weather - it's been Baaaad!

One of the theories as to why the floods came is that the hills between Lardos & Laerma have been denuded of trees after the fires of 2008. No trees = nothing to absorb the water when it rains. So, whoosh, straight down the valley...

The Gennadi tornado? Well, we've been here 5 years and have a glorious sea view from our front French windows. Every winter we've seen twisters out on the bay, sometimes three at a time! The difference last week is that one finally (which of course is a very rare occurrence) came ashore - at Gennadi.

Today it's been one of the coldest days of the entire winter, barely topping 11ºC. But that's unusual. In fact we're the only part of Greece not to have snow today!! But the forecast is for temperatures to be in the 20's by the weekend (that's 70ºF).

On balance, I'd still rather a Rhodean winter, weatherwise, than a British summer. Honest!

By Popular Request...

This may well be termed one of our favourite spots on the island from now on. Why? It's the first (that we are aware of) actual recycling centre on Rhodes. Finally the possibility of recycling plastic bottles, tin cans and glass bottles has come to Rhodes. Not before time. They've chosen an odd place to put it mind you, right outside the Old Town Wall on the Old Harbour. Above you see the beloved getting to grips with her first black bagful of plastic bottles.

...& here's yours truly with a huge sackful of cans which we'd been saving up for our next visit to town. The machine is quite clever actually. You're not supposed to crush the plastic bottles or tin cans first, which I thought was stupid until I realized that the machine does it for you. Plus it records each piece you feed it and spews out a modest credit note at the end which you can use in your local branch of Carrefour when you go shopping. You can also select to donate the cash to the public good if you so wish. It seems a good way of creating a bit on incentive among a people who by and large haven't up until now been very interested in environmental issues like recycling.

Above is the "view" from the recycling centre. Not a bad backdrop in which to be doing your bit for the environment is it? Yes, that's our baby, the white Suzuki Swift!

Above shows the outer terrace of one of the swish new cafes which grace the area right beside the new marina that's taking shape quite quickly now at the north end of the new by-pass on the East coast of town. We had to visit the bank you see to the left, so I snapped this on the way in.

The Old Town on February 28th 2011. I went and parked the car on the edge of town and wandered through the Old Town whilst making my way to meet the missus for that all-important frappe. Yes, it was a frappe day today! See below (not the next one, but further down)

What gives these photos away as taken during winter time is the greenery (oh all right then, weeds!), apart from the lack of people that is! After a wet night, it was a truly glorious day.

Note the Almond blossom on the tree to the left, just beyond the tiny cafeneon. It's quite late this year [see ch. 20 "Gilma's Tears" in the book "A Plethora of Posts"]

Above: Socrates Street, very different from the tourist season eh?

We've decided that our fave cafe is the one right next to the court house on Mandraki, which is where I took this one. It was actually almost too hot in the sun!

The one above should be a lot bigger when you click on it to view in another window. It's two photos fused together, which accounts for the change of hue half-way across. I wanted to show not only the poppies and red anemones growing in the moat area, but how beautiful it is when it's green. In fact I just noticed that it's difficult to make out the flowers, which are in evidence right in front of the wall on the right hand section of the photo. The limitations of my camera I'm afraid folks.

These photographs are posted in response to the many requests I've received for some photos of Rhodes Town during winter. We knew that we'd be in town for most of the day yesterday, Monday 28th February, so I took the camera along and the results are above for you to peruse. As usual, clicking on any of these pics should open them in another window at a larger size.

Hope you like 'em!

Further Mayhem in a Winter to Remember

On Wednesday (Feb 23rd) a tornado came in off the sea and hit the village of Gennadi, completely destroying one of the beach-front tavernas (Klimis) and severely damaging the two on either side. mature trees were lifted out of the ground and a "container" which was sitting in a field was lifted up and carried several hundred metres, where it was dropped on to a house, destroying the roof in the process. We frequently see these twisters out across the bay during the winter months, although they seldom if ever approach the coast. This time it was different.

In a winter that's seen the worst flooding in several South Rhodean villages for decades, several incidences of hail, some of which have left cars with dents all over them from hailstones the size of golf-balls, this is just another worry for the over-stretched finances of the local councils.

Check out a series of videos in this link (which is a local TV station based on Rhodes):
http://www.newskosmos.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=56857:-video&catid=31:2009-11-28-16-14-18&Itemid=55

If you're planning to come to Greece this summer, please do come, the local economy needs the tourist's cash more than it ever has before! For all the freakish weather that we've experienced this winter, you can still rely on wall-to-wall sunshine during the high season and very little to interrupt it even during the early and late season too.

I spoke to my friend Philip Gareth Anstee of Lardos just this morning. His house it was that my wife and I helped to clean up after they'd been flooded with filthy silty water on January 28th (see THIS POST), and he told me that, with all the heavy rains that we've had on and off during this past week, he and his family aren't sleeping because every few moments, when they hear the downpour outside, they have to get up and peer out in apprehension. Can't imagine the emotional stress they must be under at the moment. He also told me that he had to buy tyres for his car rather unexpectedly while on a trip to town this week. In fact, at 10 o'clock one night recently, we ourselves hit a huge pothole during the road-works that have been going on for three years now further up the island and burst both our nearside tyres. Tyre retail is the business to be in on Rhodes at the moment. When you couple the fact that many of us have to drive along very rough tracks to get to and from our homes, with the state of the road between Kolumbia and Faliraki, it's hardly surprising.

This country continues to suffer from weekly strikes, including the pharmacists - who currently are striking several days each week - as people seem unable to come to terms with the austerity measures which the government is trying to implement. But frankly, the country has precious little alternative, its finances are in that much of a mess. Don't laugh, if you live in the UK or any one of a clutch of other European countries, you've got all this to come, if it hasn't begun already!!

The great assets which this country will always have are it's warm people (on a grass roots level that is) its superb summer climate and its rich history.

Every Greek we talk to agrees that we need the rain. It's just that we'd like it in slightly smaller doses! ...and without the tornadoes.

28th January Floods - Watch the Horror

Couple of videos of Lardos, Jan 28th...

Feb 2011 Photos

Above is an olive grove in Lardos, just a couple of days after the floods. These yellow flowers proliferate at this time of the year. I'm not sure what they're called in English, but the children love to pick them and suck the stems, as they taste like lemon.

Above is the river-side lane just outside Phil & Vicky's home, which was inundated with muddy floodwater on Friday January 28th. It's hard to imagine from looking at this pastoral scene, that the waters on Jan 28th were a full meter higher than where I'm standing on Tuesday Feb 1st. There's a bit of blurb at the bottom of this post about what happened to Phil [Gareth] and Vicky's home.

"I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK!" Here's my beloved doing what she enjoys most, getting her hands dirty. Whereas many women prefer to sit in cafes with their high-heels on, my other half is much happier getting stuck in. Here she is when we were up in the hills replenishing our wood supplies with the chainsaw recently.

Just after collecting the logs, this is just above Asklipio village, looking up the river valley. 20th January.

These are the scenes the tourists sadly don't see. the citrus groves are so beautiful during winter time.

This is a corner in Asklipio village. In winter time these trees are so beautiful with all their gorgeous orange fruit on them and such a lush green carpet below.

Clicking on any of the images above ought to open it on a new window

February 9th, 2011. Another bright sunny day when it'll reach 21-22ºC in the shade. No clouds to be seen. It's hard to imagine that just a week or two ago it was raining and blowing so much that several villages on this island were declared emergency areas by the island's governing authorities. Lardos, just a few kilometers north us us, had a raging torrent flowing through the middle, which made it impossible to tell exactly where the usual river banks were as homes and businesses were flooded in what resembled a mini-Queensland, some up to a height of two metres.

A couple of friends, Phil (Gareth) Anstee and his wife Vicky, live just metres from the river bank in what is usually a peaceful backwater (another unintentional pun there) on the edge of the village. Their single-story home was inundated with a torrent of muddy river water and Phil actually videoed while the electricity poles came down and their lights went out at dusk a couple of Fridays ago. Then they climbed out through a window and evacuated, leaving their home and all that was in it to its fate.

Here in Kiotari we closed up the windows and brought down the shutter on our front French windows, the ones that afford us a view down the green valley below to the sea about a kilometre and a half away. The log-burner was glowing cozily and we settled in for a night of listening to the buffeting that was going on outside. Next morning dawned bright and with broken cloud. Venturing outside, the worst we suffered was water on our shed floor, which often happens when it rains really hard, which isn't too often if the truth be told. It's just that, when it does, it makes up for lost time! We were blissfully unaware of what had happened just a short distance away from here, in the villages that were set low in valleys, like Lardos, Pilona and Arhangelos.

It was actually the next Monday when Philip called on the phone to tell us what had happened to their house. For some reason or other we'd not heard any local news over the weekend and so we weren't aware of the floods that had wrecked lots of people's homes. Phil was amazed that we hadn't heard, but when he gave us the picture we agreed immediately to go over the next day and spend all day helping with the cleanup operation.

If you want to see just how bad it was in Arhangelos and Lardos villages, check out these links:
http://www.guide2rhodes.com/news/200/Rhodes-was-drowned--by-intense-rainfalls

Phil & Vicky's house is just a couple of hundred metres up from the bridge in this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyOYuddvfc0