Counting Down

Well, here we are in October already. It's Saturday the 6th to be precise and it's 26ºC (80ºF) outside. Yesterday afternoon we had some convectional cloud and a little thunder, along with a very brief shower, but so far here in Kiotari we've yet to have a good downpour. There's been nothing since May in fact. It makes it a nightmare to keep the car clean, since we drive up and down a kilometre of dusty lane every time we go out or come in. And since we've just changed the car (finally said goodbye to the trusty old Suzuki Swift. Quite sad about that, but an almost new Skoda Fabia with a wicked hi fi alleviates the pain to some degree!), I feel duty-bound to hose off the dust every time we get the car under the carport when we get home. It won't last, but you blokes out there will understand where I'm coming from here, eh?

Changing the car here in Greece, as you'll already guess, is just a tad more complicated than in the UK. Both purchaser and seller have to go together to the local K.E.P. office, which is a government-run organisation and the initials stand for Citizens' Service Centre. It's a bit like the Citizens' Advice Bureau in the UK but with more practical hands-on ways to assist the citizen. For example, you can renew your driving licence there. 

When buying or selling a car, though, although the staff are very helpful, there's the usual bureaucracy to wade through. Plus, as is so often the case in numerous Government offices here, if the person who does what you require isn't "in" when you call, you don't get anything done and have to come back another time. Once you finally get seated across the desk from him or her, along with (in my case, since I was the buyer) your seller, you then have to present your residency permit, your Passport, your Tax number and your green receipt from the Ethniki Bank to show that you've been and paid the tax required of all car purchasers. So I'd had to go previously to Arhangelos to pay €135 (commensurate with the car's engine capacity) in order to be ready with my green receipt before we could do the transfer of ownership.

Then the fun begins. The girl across the desk has to fill in an A4 form upon which she has to record your full name and your father's name, if I remember correctly your mother's too!! The same for the seller. Then all the relevant numbers [tax/passport/residency permit] for both you and the seller. Then she'll write your details on the existing Registration Document for the car and rubber stamp that. She'll then photocopy that and give you a copy because you can't get the vehicle insured without proof of ownership, since it'll be a week or two if you're lucky!) before the new Registration Document comes through.

Then, whilst the two of us on our side of the desk sign in the appropriate places and date the Transfer Document, the clerk will fill out a couple more A4 sheets, which we don't even get to look at. By the time we were done I was looking at a healthy pile of A4 sheets and photocopies under the clerk's right hand and asked her, "How do you cope with all this stuff?" To which she replied, "We don't really!"

Of course, I had to look forward to doing the whole thing again once I'd found a buyer for the Swift. Happy days. In the UK you just fill out the lower portion of the Registration Document with the new owner's details, you both sign it and send it off in the mail. Some days later the new owner receives the updated Document. Job done. I asked the girl if my new Registration Document would be arriving by mail, and she told me that, no, she'd ring me when it arrived so I could collect it. That made me nervous right away. I mean, how often does a Greek tell you that they'll be ringing you and then they never do. I live in hope that she'll prove my fears ungrounded.

I began this post with the intention of musing over the fact that the season is soon to draw to a close. Got a bit side-tracked as usual. 

The last few weeks have seemed to slip by as quickly as the the last grains of sand in an hourglass. Coach drivers and waiters, boat-owners and souvenir-shop owners are all now sighing and saying tiredly, "just a couple more weeks, then we can rest". The bee eaters have almost all flown South and there are baby turtles in the small lake behind the beach down near the new Hotel here, the Princess Adriana. Thankfully, as I've mentioned before, the Hotel's builders made sure to leave this body of water intact. It's a very useful little haven for these delightful little creatures to breed in. In fact, on Monday evening my wife and I stood on the tiny bridge above it and were happily turtle-spotting when a Kingfisher flew out from beneath us and along the lake toward the beach before darting to the right into the rushes which line the banks. It was a brilliant flash of turquoise-blue which certainly brightened our afternoon.

As usual the goats are getting desperate again. Every summer they seem to spend more and more time in our valley as the end of the season draws near, ever searching for something more interesting than a dried up tough stalk on which to chomp. They'll wander listlessly along the lane beside our fence, eyeing the lush vegetation just metres away. The compound down the valley, which some local Greeks cleared and fenced off a couple of years ago, and in which they've planted a clutch of fruit trees, has already been invaded twice in recent weeks and the goats have stripped the trees down to stalks just a couple of feet high. The owners turn up on Sunday morning to water and instead they have to resort to finding out where the goats got in and making good the defenses. The trees are resilient though and soon begin to sprout green leaves again. In the long run it's probably quite a beneficial prune that the goats have given them.

We really need the rain now so that the countryside vegetation can sprout and the goats then no longer need to study people's gardens in the hope of a decent meal.

My wife and I rejoice too that the temperatures are now dropping to the level at which we feel like attacking the garden with gusto once again as the sky begins to sport fluffy clouds now and then, rather like one sees on a typical British summer's day. We live in hope that before long some of these will turn darker and really drop some decent rainfall.

The prospect of long walks and quieter roads appeals, as does the chance to catch up with friends whom we've not seen too often during the summer season. November through December and into January will bring the olive harvest, long mornings spent putting the world to rights over a coffee outside a local bar and the planting of vegetables which we hope to be eating come the spring.

Yes the rhythm of the seasons plays loudly in our symbolic ears and it is good. It is comfortable. It reminds one of all that is good about life on a Greek island, despite all the woes that beset this noble and brave little country.

By the way. I've just finished Victoria Hislop's latest book, "The Thread" and can agree with my wife that it's a very good read. She even said that it was one of the best books she'd ever read. I wouldn't go that far, having found the writing style a little banal in places, but the story is nevertheless well told and it's an education for anyone wanting to learn the modern history of the city of Thessalonika, told through the lives of some fictional characters who lived through some of the most turbulent times ever in man's history. It covers a period from just after the First World War down to the present day.

Well, time to go gardening. Or shall I have a beer instead?

A Very Good Lunch (Photos now added)

Odyssey Taverna, Old Town

Left to right: Nikos, Christos, Nora & Babis

For several weeks now I've been eating in the Odyssey Taverna in Old Rhodes Town on Tuesday lunchtimes, whilst leaving my excursion guests to explore the town. You know how sometimes you can eat somewhere, have a really wonderful meal and then go back there another time and be very disappointed? It's for this reason that I've given it a few weeks to see if the standard would be maintained. You know what? I still absolutely love the place.

The Odyssey is in Menekleous Street, which is easy to find, even in a place as confusing as the Old Town in Rhodes. You just walk up the main shopping street (Socratous) from the Square with the stone fountain and, when you arrive at the bar on the right with the huge tree above it, you take a left, walk around a "dog-leg" bend and the Odyssey appears on your right hand side, opposite Romeo's.

It's run by a very nice bloke called Babis, along with Nikos, Christos and Nora (there was also Deanna, but she's now finished for the winter), all of whom I've found to be very helpful and - what's more important - happy and friendly. I first went there on the recommendation of someone else and was given a warm welcome. I ordered courgette rissoles (kolokythokeftedes, OK, maybe better to stick with "courgette rissoles!") and Babis asked me if I'd like to try his tomatokeftedes, made with his own recipe. He said that he'd bring me one to try and see if I didn't agree that it was extremely tasty. It was. Plus I thought I'd see how good the fourno patates were, and they were simply delicious. The presentation was really impressive and the helpings huge. 

I've since sampled a pretty good variety of their menu and last week ate two extremely delicious fish, done over the charcoal and with a squeeze of lemon, with some very tasty savoury rice alongside. One of my favourite dishes is the baked aubergine. It's actually an aubergine skin, with all of its contents scooped out, pulverised and mixed with herbs, onion and a little vinegar and lemon, then all stuffed back in and the entire kaboodle baked in the oven. A nicer aubergine dish would be hard to either find or imagine.

The restaurant opposite is called Romeo's. I've never eaten there and would have no problem expecting it to be equally as good. But I was drawn to the Odyssey by the fact that Romeo's enjoys the patronage of a few walking tour guides, each of which marches their group into the taverna, either during or at the end of their tour. This has the effect of making the casual passer-by see it stuffed full of clients and perhaps drawing the conclusion that this is due to their food being of superior quality to the Odyssey across the way. Babis, on the other hand, tells me that the Odyssey relies entirely on those who pass by taking the plunge and coming in to try his fare. He has no regular arrangement with the guides.

When my wife and I used to take holidays in Greece I'd lose count of the number of times that we'd peruse a menu whilst eyeing the clientele of the establishment in question plus the close neighbours. How often my wife would say, "Let's go into this one, they have more people so it must be good". I would always counter with, "Yea, but if we go into the empty one, they're bound to look after us and treat us well, since they need the business more." I usually lost.

So it was with great pleasure that I was able to take my wife to the Odyssey today. Guess what. She loved it. They brought us a huge helping of both types of veggie keftedes, plus a green salad of lettuce and chopped spring onions and a plate of fourno patates. My wife suggested that we ask for a doggy-bag to take some of the rissoles home, but we eventually ate the lot and then complained that we'd overdone it.

Hopefully the excursion will run again next week. If it does, I know where I'll be taking lunch!!!

PS: On Tuesday October 9th I ate there again. I had the gigantes (big beans), some Haloumi, a delicious green salad of lettuce and baby spring onions and some (just for a change) patates tiganites (chips). Simple, yet superb. And they brought me such large helpings that I was stuffed.

Births, Deaths and Marriages. Well, two out of the three anyway...

Just when you think you're doing really well, motoring in fact, with the language, something happens which reminds you that you still have a way to go.

You know, I've lived out here for seven years now and I can hold a pretty good conversation with a local Greek. I can even read and write the language, a fact which often really surprises a Greek when they see me write something down. So I've been getting used to not dropping quite so many clangers as I did in the beginning. Feeling quite proud of myself, in fact. Still, pride goes before a crash and all that stuff, eh?

Just a few days ago we went to visit Josie (whose new novel "From Lindos With Love" is competing annoyingly well with my four offerings in the Kindle "best sellers in Greek travel writing" list) and, yards before we reached Josie's garden gate, we struck up a conversation with her Neighbour Dimitra. She's all excited about the forthcoming wedding of her daughter, which is to take place during November, which accounts for all the re-modelling of their house that's been going on of late. Daughter and hubby will be living upstairs and Dimitra and her useless husband on the ground floor. A newly built low wall separates the access paths from each dwelling and some swanky new windows have recently been installed all over the house.

As we approached, Kyria Dimitra was hosing down the marble slabs of her pathway with the usual nozzle-less hose pipe and a long-handled brush. Water was freely cascading down the gently sloping path approaching the front gate's step and it was an inch or so deep in a torrent all across the path which we needed to traverse in order to reach Josie's gate. Seeing us approaching, her face acquired a huge smile as she hailed us in response to my wife's "Yia sas, ti kanete Kyria Dimitra?". Stepping out from the gate to within inches of the route we were about to follow it became evident that she was eager to pass the time of day before letting us pass.

Holding her left hand down by her side, the one which gripped the open-ended and still gushing hose, she leaned on her brush with the other and asked us how we were, what we were doing, were we working, had we been to the UK at all, my inside leg measurement (well, I may be exaggerating on that one, but that's how the usual inquisition makes one feel) and so on. As we chatted I was ever more conscious of the fact that my nice dapper new white shoes were beginning to get ever-so slightly moist, so much in fact that my feet were starting to feel wet.

I deftly adjusted my position in order to distance myself from the torrent which was still emerging from the hose, aware as I was also that the white linen trousers which I was wearing were now getting liberally splashed with watermarks from the cascade which was rather fetchingly causing great flying droplets as it hit the concrete inches away and absorbed all the dust of the summer which had built up there.

"You must be thrilled about the wedding. I bet you can't wait," said my wife, and then continued, "Have you got a new dress?"

"New dress? Panagia mou, but I can't afford such luxuries. What with the cost of the wedding and all the building work that's gone on to get the house ready, then there's my useless husband; he doesn't bring anything in these days. New dress? No, I'll be re-modelling an old one, that's for sure." At this point her demeanour changed and she became a little more melancholy.

"Of course, the whole occasion will be tinged with a little sadness too you know." She added, in that way which kind of invites you to ask her to continue, since that's how she's pitched it after all. "You notice I'm all in black?" To be truthful, we hadn't, since it seemed to us that she's always in black anyway. But that didn't stop us from raising our eyebrows sympathetically and enquiring as to what exactly she meant. So, yes, we enquired as to what exactly she meant, since she was waiting for us to do so…

"Ah, well, just two months ago my brother died. Very sudden. Only 72."

Now, it was at this point that I was reminded that I can still drop a clanger when I'm not careful. Let me explain. The Greek word for "Condolences" is συλλυπητήρια, or, in the English alphabet, sillipityria. Right? Good. The word for congratulations, on the other hand, is συγχαρητήρια, or sigharityria. It's an easy mistake to make after all. Especially when you haven't had occasion to use either word for a few months.

I think she knew what I meant when I congratulated her on her brother's demise. Of course, Yvonne-Maria my better half was quick to limit the damage by exclaiming that I'd got it wrong and assuring our friend that I'd meant to offer my condolences.

Unable to restrain myself, I'm not sure if I actually helped the situation by then adding whilst addressing my wife in Dimitra's hearing, "Well, maybe she didn't like him anyway."

Ho hum. You win some, you lose some. Onward and upwards...

Whacky Snaps

Really, you ought to be wearing your safety belt. Incidentally, that's a Komboloi on the mirror. It has no relation whatsoever to a rosary!! It's simply Greek "worry beads" - there's a bit of a run on them at the moment.

The Androgynous loo for hermaphrodites? On board the Nikos Express

The "Info" board on the Nissos Halki. That word at the top is the crew's attempt at spelling "Friday"! I would explain but you'd soon get bored!!!

A tree frog, of which we have a plethora here in our valley. Yes they do climb trees - and walls too. Some friends living nearby actually have them sitting on their wall lamps over their patio doors on their veranda. They make a regular cacophony during the night time, but a pleasant one nonetheless.

The Big Bang

Late August isn't a good time for birds, hares, rabbits and sundry other wildlife in Greece. It's the official start of the hunting season and we've been made well aware of this by the sound of shotguns being discharged in the countryside around our home here in Kiotari in the days since, often at the kind of early morning hour when no decent folk ought to be at large.

Following the fires of 2008 we were sort of lulled into a false sense of security on the "big-bang" front. There was a three-year hunting ban imposed in the area to give the local wild fauna a chance to recover and it was only last year when this was lifted, but precious few hunters appeared in their military fatigues around the hills near us last season. This year though it appears to be a return to business as usual. At the sound of the first shot we were reminded of our very first visit to the site on which the house has since been constructed.

It was a warm day in early October of 2004. There stood the four of us, John, Wendy, Yvonne-Maria and I, imagining the yet-to-be-built house on the bare patch of ground on which we then stood, when over the hill stalked this bloke with a cracked shotgun under his arm, a couple of dogs mooching around in his near vicinity. Just when we thought that we'd be appearing in the upcoming newspapers under the heading: "Four British Tourists Shot in Mystery Killing on Rhodean Hillside - No Motive Say Local Police", the man spotted us and broke into a wide grin, then shouted a genial "KALI SPERA!!". It was late afternoon at the time. We'd never been used to being in such close proximity to blokes carrying huge guns and so still eyed him with suspicion as we all returned his greeting. We all wondered silently, though, whether he'd have been as friendly had he known that a slice of his hunting ground was soon to be cordoned off and a clutch of villas built there.

So it was that, on our very first visit to what would eventually become our home, we were introduced to the fact that a rural Greek goes hunting. It's tradition. Stroll through any local village after August 20th and before February 28th and you'll spot men standing around lovingly dusting off their guns with a rag, encouraging their dogs to climb into the air-holed plywood boxes in which they transport them behind a 4x4 to the hunting ground, or sitting a-la "Kentucky dad waiting for his 16-year old girl to return from the village hop, hopefully still not pregnant", with the gun slung across the knees threateningly.

Hunting is very much a tradition here and one has to get used to it. At least they do only hunt for food. It's never simply for sport, but vegetarians don't generally feel comfortable with this anyway, do they? It's becoming a subject for hot debate nowadays though. Even here in Greece there is a growing number of anti-hunt and ecological lobbyists who want to see it banned. It's estimated that a third of a million Greeks hold hunting licences, so that's a lot of birds and bunnies which are going to disappear from the Maquis between now and March next year isn't it.

Walking along the lanes and among the olive groves in this area one can't fail to see that the hunters have been about. If you don't actually see some huge 4x4 parked under a tree, or see a couple of men standing on the tops of two adjacent hills calling to either eachother or their dogs, you'll almost certainly see the tell-tale spent cartridges lying in the dust in the middle of the lane, some with blue, some with red plastic cases, still attached to their brass heads, now minus their content of shot of course. By the time next February arrives it'll be quite possible to fill a respectable-sized plastic bag with the things when out for a walk in the hills.

When we first arrived here we asked someone what they actually shoot. "Anything that moves," was the reply. In fact, it's not unusual for a hunter to hit his friend in the posterior - they're that trigger happy! During our first winter here we walked nervously in the countryside, fully expecting to be fired at. Now though, we've got used to it. Not that we particularly enjoy hearing the sound of shotguns and the sight of a strapping bloke in army fatigues sporting a loaded rifle isn't one that excites me all that much. Sometimes they're uncomfortably close to the house here when they shoot and that gives us a bit of a shock.

A much more enjoyable sound is the "twirl, twirl" call of the European Bee-eaters, which are now circling above us every evening, often alighting on the nearby wires or treetops for a rest, as they feed to build themselves up for their imminent flight South to Africa for the winter. At least they hunt in relative silence and don't leave litter behind as evidence of their pursuits.

More Shots...

If you're that thirsty, you're just gonna risk all the blood rushing to your head

Just loved how translucent that water looked (Halki Harbour, yesterday)

The better half came to Halki yesterday. This was lunch at Maria's of oven-baked aubergines, squid and patates fournou too. Just in case you're still in ignorance of what a Fix is, click HERE and please do it now (third para onwards)!!

Smile Please

Another post carrying some photos, this time taken on Halki, Friday 7th September...

(As usual, clicking on any image will give you a larger view. "Right-clicking" on the larger view will give you the option to "View Image". In this next view you'll get the magnifying glass, enabling you to zoom even more, good eh?)

Just trying to be arty...

This is Zois [with Katerina, left], who runs Taverna Babis, situated right across the quay from where the Fedon ties up. This freshly caught tuna was already steaks in the cold cabinet by the time we'd finished our lunch!