Three Brief Chats

If you click for the larger view you can see the 'ickle babies.

Ditto.

 We've had a simply splendid time of it this past week or two, keeping ourselves well away from all the madness and overundulgence of people celebrating the birth of someone they hardly know (bah humbug!). It's been bliss, with day after day of breakfast at the French windows, a bit of gardening here and there (can't do too much myself, got a painful case of the old Tennis Elbow), and almost daily taking a long walk. Oh, and bashing away on the Mac as I write novel number 3, which I must say is now coming together nicely.

The first two photos above are taken from the end of the orchard. I've already talked recently about the local shepherd who's currently in our valley on a daily basis, back in the post about "driving the flock", but the day before yesterday they came trundling past the front gate as usual while we ate breakfast and we couldn't help getting all "aah" -ish 'cos there are now a whole bunch of babies amongst them, some only days old. Thus the quick dash with the iPad to the end of the orchard (in my slippers, got an ear-bashing for that) as they reached the "grassy" bit at the end and a couple of quick snaps to capture the toddlers. 

The better half said, "Oh, looooook! poor little mites, how do they survive the cold?" Ah, hu hum! It's like 8 to 11 (ºC) overnight here at the moment, so I found myself mentioning the fact that back in the UK we'd very often see news stories of farmers digging their sheep out from snowdrifts up in (sorry to mention it again) James Herriot land, Yorkshire - among other places too of course, like the Brecon Beacons for starters.

No, the sheepses out here have it cushy and no mistake.

But wait! What's this below? You cry. You don't? Ah, well, I'm gonna tell you anyway.

Well, this photo above relates to the reason I've called this post "Three Brief Chats". This is because this little box of extremely gooey, honey-soaked Greek sweetcakes was a gift from our old friend Stamatia, she who keeps the bakery up a sidestreet in Lardos. It was with Stamatia that we had one of three enjoyable little natters over the last week or so (She crops up in this, this (everso briefly) and this (possibly even briefer) previous posts too by the way).

Since we hadn't seen her for a few months, we were greeted by an earnest expression of woe and thus began a conversation - well, more like an audience really - with her that ended rather fortuitously with the little gift above. We'd dropped by to see a couple of different friends in the village, neither of whom had been in as it happened (although, of course, there's room here for the 'Yea, they were in all right. They just knew it was you!' brigade), and thus, since we needed a loaf for lunch and were walking right past the door, we thought it would be nice to pick it up at Stamatia's. Her bread is very, very good anyway.

We know already about her ongoing heart condition which, to be fair, is pretty serious. But she told us why we hadn't seen her for a while and it was because of another problem altogether. She'd had a fall and ended up with half a dozen titanium rods in her leg, plaster everywhere and 18 months laid up. We got the whole story. Granted, there was room for oodles of sympathy, but we only had the one day and it was already getting well into the afternoon. We hadn't eaten either. When she passed on from the consequences of the fall to the subject of her two useless sons and daughters-in-law we knew it was going to be touch and go as to whether we got home in daylight. You always know you're in for the long haul when other customers come in and she says "Hold on" to you while she breaks off and serves them, fully expecting that you'll wait while they are sorted out and off on their merry way before hearing the rest of the tale. You know that Russian bloke that wrote "War and Peace" Leo Toy Story or something? Well, I'll swear she's related.

You know what, though? After what was probably well over an hour, which we'd lost owing to simply having decided to buy one loaf of bread, she expressed such joy to have seen us again, knocked a few pennies off the bread and then insisted that she make up the above box of Baklava as a gift, that we left feeling quite guilty. She'd even told us some details about her financial woes since they opened up a branch of a national supermarket chain not more than a hundred metres away right there in the village. They sell bread, but it's not like hers, she told us. 

"You know what they do?" She'd said, leaning forward in conspiratorial fashion, walls do have ears after all, "They import the dough frozen! It's no good for you. Yes, they sell bread, but mark my words, in years to come people who eat that bread will be having major health problems." She didn't elucidate as to how these possible health issues could be linked in some way to supermarket bread. We did find ourselves sympathising though, when she told us that since it had opened it had knocked her takings for six. "How do I pay back the loan we have on this place to the bank now, tell me that, eh?"

Sadly, we told her that in the UK small bakeries and corner shops like hers had all but disappeared for similar reasons as the great masses of car-driving shoppers all get their bread from the hypermarket with the trolley park in the car park now.

It's the way the world is going, eh? We don't have to like it though.

•

Conversation number two took place just down the road during the walk we did on Sunday December 28th. Having trekked quite a distance to see what a coffee at the recently opened Blue Dreams Café here in Kiotari would taste like, and having found it closed at noon, we'd decided to take the beach road and walk all the way (about half an hour on foot, which I suppose walks usually are) back in the other direction to the Freddito Café nextdoor to Gianni's Flower shop, Gianni's (another Gianni) Butcher shop and the Sofos supermarket. I made brief mention of this establishment under the caption "He Hawt to Know Us by Now" on the "News and Stuff" page.

Why weren't we patronising the Gré Café? Well, it's 'cos they're closed for a few weeks. Fact is, we've been to Freddito's a bit more frequently of late and the bloke who runs it is getting to know us better now. We're even on greeting terms with quite a few of the regulars that are usually sitting in there too, which is nice. We'd particularly wanted to grab a coffee out during the holiday period because the Greeks have a delicious shortbread-style biscuit/cake called Kourabiedes (you probably know all about them anyway. They've been mentioned quite a few times on these here ramblings too) and if you play your cards right you'll get a free one with your coffee whilst the café proprietors are feeling magnanimous. These are simply TDF and covered, like really covered in a dusting of icing sugar. When you eat them you have to be careful or else your sweatshirt or nice smart chinos will be permanently whitened in patches if you drop some icing sugar on them. Trust me on this. If you've been out here on holiday and not seen kourabiedes, it's simply because in Greece they're usually only to be found around Christmas time. Bit like mince pies in the UK I suppose. Or indigestion.

Anyway (I really must find another word some time to substitute for that) we ordered a couple of filter coffees and - guess what - they arrived along with a couple of kourabiedes, on a couple of paper serviettes, on a plate! Eee hah! A result.

It was while we were acquiring icing sugar moustaches that George from the Pelican's Nest tootled by on a motor scooter, spotted us, waved (which almost made him fall off), skidded to a halt and came in to join us. Plonking himself down across the table from us, a huge grin on his face, he asked how we were. The usual stuff followed, like (from my dearly beloved) had he found a young girl to make a wife out of yet? To which he replied, "No. Women are like water melons. Look lovely in the outside, but you never know what you're gonna get until you find out what they're like on the inside and by then it's too late."

Not content with that analogy, he came up with another: "Women? They're like a postage stamp. One lick and they stick to you so you can't get rid of them!"

Hmm, right, OK George. How did the season go with the restaurant? Not so good apparently. So, and here's the bombshell, as I do know that some of my regular readers (masochists all) will know his place and have eaten there, before the season gets under way for this year he's going to convert the place into a tourist shop instead. He doesn't want it to be your regular run-of-the-mill store with a clutch of inflatable li-los and silly hats hanging outside though. No, he's hoping to make it a bit "ethnic" as he put it, with stuff that's definitely more in the "Greek arts and crafts" neck of the woods.

I asked him if he'd be needing staff. "What would I need staff for?" was his reply, "Not much required when you've got a shop like that. I'll just doze out the back and leap up if I get a customer." I suppose that ought to do it then. Needless to say, watch this space (or the "News etc" page) for more developments.

•

And so to chat number 3. 

Trying to be a bit arty here. Sorry.

Last Saturday we were having a bit of a mooch around at the far end of Vlicha Bay. That's when I snapped the photos above. 

You know, with the amount of building that's going on there it put me in mind of the Canary Islands. There are new villas, apartment blocks, possibly hotels from the scale of a couple of the building sites I saw, all over the show. Which makes what a very affable old gent with whom we struck up a conversation there said all the more poignant. Vassos is in his late 70's and has lived in Vlicha all of his life. He was mayor of Lindos for about 16 years once. He had a lovely smile and a gentle way about him as he told us things about Vlicha's past. His family run the modest Yota Beach hotel which is right on the beach at the far end of the bay, further on past the huge Lindos Bay.

Vassos told us that when he was growing up during the war years there were five houses in Vlicha Bay, no more. They were scattered evenly across the bay area and all were lived in by people related to eachother. They all planted trees and grew vegetables. He was keen to stress that he firmly believes that a man (or a woman) should work for their prosperity, till the soil, plant, build etc.. He impressed me with his pragmatism, because he wasn't really bemoaning the changes, simply observing them.

I got the distinct impression too from him that he was industrious, which was why he could now gaze about and be satisfied with his life's work. He heartily expressed his approval when we told him that we worked (albeit part-time) during the tourist season. He pointed to mature orange trees that he'd planted decades ago, trees which were now laden with delicious fruit, some of which, incidentally, he gave us before we left. This got me to thinking about how it angers me sometimes when I hear people (non-Greeks who think they know such things) coming out with such sweeping statements as "all Greeks are lazy". Poppycock. Such 'experts' ought to talk to the likes of this man.

What really had us enthralled were his memories of what happened in the war. He'd been a young lad when the military airfield just north of Kalathos was in full operational mode under the Nazis. They'd hunted down the former conquerors of Rhodes, the Italians, and many had been killed. In fact Vassos' family had sheltered an Italian soldier in Vlicha for a while until he'd been discovered. The Nazi soldiers put a bag over his head and rowed him out to sea in a boat to drown him. Somehow the locals managed to save this poor lad and help him flee the island. One comment which Kyrios Vassos came out with brought to my mind thoughts I'd read and heard elsewhere. He said the Italians weren't like 'conquerors' in the usual sense of the word. The Italian soldiers appreciated fine cuisine and liked to make music and sing and dance. This is a huge contributory factor in the modern day liking that Greeks have for things Italian. It's also why many Italians like to come here for their holidays.

In fact, Vassos said that, very recently, he'd been sitting out front during the holiday season and seen a wisened, white haired old man standing out at the front of the hotel, gazing around. On going out to speak to him it was only Vicento, the very young Italian who'd almost been drowned! They passed several lovely days together, during which the old Italian wept on more than one occasion over the kindness of the local Greeks and his whole experience all those years ago. He'd so wanted to come back here before he died.

In order to clear the land when they'd wanted to construct their hotel, Vassos also told us that the area that's now occupied by the hotel's front garden and pool had been a minefield! He and a few others had cleared the mines themselves, with their bare hands. I know ...I thought the same as you! One land mine going off can ruin your whole day.

If you didn't know about the old military airfield just outside Kalathos village, next time having passed Masari and you're driving south along that long straight stretch of road with the metal railings on either side, about half a mile back from and parallel to the beach, heading towards Kalathos, keep looking left. The remains of the old runway are clearly discernible, though virtually all of the buildings have now been demolished.

No "Trouble at Mill"

I often wonder what some of my transatlantic readers, of perhaps those from non-English speaking countries make of some of the expressions I use when I'm composing this stuff. I mean, I just take for granted the fact that if I use an expression, like in the title of the previous post "Wood anemonies - anemonies wood, a huh huh huh, just like that", then my UK readers will think "Tommy Cooper" right? Well, hopefully anyway. Thus the same applies with the title of this one. I dunno know why we Brits all know the Yorkshire expression "Trouble at Mill". After all, why should there be trouble at the mill anyway? workers' strife, industrial accident maybe? And why the mill, I mean why not the blacksmith's or the canning factory? Well, I suppose it's just one of those unfathomables, but I still do sympathise if you read this and think "what the hell's he on about now?" Mind you, that's probably a fairly sensible reaction to most of what I write, come to think of it.

Anyway, this tale relates to, in fact could be termed a sequel to, the one from November 29th (was it really that far back?) about our friend's visit to the olive mill. The post entitled "O-live to Tell the Tale" it was. What follows was all rather unexpected, really. Rather fortuitous though. I'll explain (I say that often enough too, don't I?)...

December 17th was a Wednesday. That particular week we'd planned to have a couple of unbroken days at home, getting on with stuff around the garden, maybe me writing some more of the next novel, that kind of stuff. As per usual, though, things didn't go according to plan. On the previous Sunday evening we'd been with a few friends in Kalathos when Kostas, one of their number, asked me, "Do you have oil John?"

Now, of course, that question is a chestnut in conversations that take place any time from November through January out here. Everyone's concerned about whether they've enough olive oil in reserve for the next twelve months, well, twenty-four sometimes, since most olive trees are only harvested every second year. Every Greek home has a canister or a drum, sometimes those red plastic ones with the huge screw-on black top, although the purists have the stainless steel ones with a lttle tap at the bottom, you can see both types in the photos at the top of this story. The purists will tell you never to keep your oil in the plastic ones for any length of time, ...well, you can read all that in the post to which I've just linked if you like.

To return to Kostas. I responded by asking him, "Why, do you have some to sell?"

"No" he replied, "But if you don't mind taking them to the mill, I've got four crates of olives going begging. I've already got well over a hundred kilos of oil and I don't want any more, but rather than throw these away, I wondered whether you might like them. I reckon they'll probably net you around 16-18 kilos of oil. That's not bad for free, if you want them. Well?"

"Well?!" That offer was like, does a cat want a piece of fish? I told him that of course I'll have them. After all, the mill's probably past its busiest by now I reasoned. Be no problem to just whizz up there on Wednesday morning, stopping off at Kostas' storage shed on the way to collect the crates, saunter along to the coffee shop while they're processing and drive home with a can full of oil. I wish.

Mind you, after all that advice I'd dispensed to our poor retired British ladyfriend I could hardly balk at doing the same trip myself, could I? I mean, I speak the lingo pretty well now, so there shouldn't be much of a problem.

I was soon zipping along the road to Kalathos, slightly bothered by how many pickups laden to the stops with crates and sacks of olives that I was passing along the way, on my way to the mill. I arrived at around 9.40am, fully expecting to breeze in with my modest little load. Here's what I took along...

Now, to the untrained eye, that might look like a respectable amount of olives. But as soon as I pulled up at the main entrance where they take them in to tip them into the hopper at the beginning of the process, I was confronted by a forklift shifting tons of sacks from a pickup. Beside it there were two men conversing in shouts over the noise of the machinery, so I jumped out of the car and walked over to ask them what the situation was, what the waiting list was looking like. One of them, evidently the one who actually works there, simply shooed me away and made it very clear from a few hand signals that I was to shift my car pretty sharpish.

I shouted, "I only wanted to ask you something!!"

No joy. He simply repeated the same hand signals and turned to face the other other way. I suppose I shouldn't blame him. Taking one look at me, he probably thought, "another xenos who can't speak Greek. I haven't got time for that now." But, before I rather angrily jumped in and moved the car, I spotted the white board inside and was plunged into a huge depression. My flying visit to the mill looked like becoming a marathon endurance session, the list was that long. Gazing about outside, I supose I ought not to have been surprized, for there were olives awaiting processing in every direction. Sitting still on vehicles, stacked on palletts, in sacks, in crates, everywhere...

Past its busiest the mill was not!

...and, as you can tell from the photos, my little stack was rather pathetic by comparison. Echoes of what I'd put our friend through a couple of weeks earlier. What was I going to do? Then I remembered what our friend had done, in fact, what I'd advised her to do. So I took my own advice.

I drove around to the exit side of the building, where the "controller" (not quite the 'fat controller', but certainly stocky) has his little office. He was sitting in there behind the glass partition, just inside the rather basic makeshift coffee shop, which hadn't even been there the last time I'd been to this mill, gazing at his computer monitor. I tapped on his door and opened it.

"Can I help you?" He asked, already displaying a distinctly different attitude from grumpy guts the other end of the building. 

"Well, hopefully," I replied, a sweetness and light smile on my chops. "See the thing is, I only have four crates and I was wondering if there was any way we could get them through. I don't want to jump the queue, or anything." Which is exactly what I did want to do.

"Let's have a look then," he replied and we strolled out of the building and over to the car, where I opened the tailgate and showed him my problem. "Right. Hold on. Can you wait a bit?"

Like, I had a choice? "Sure," I answered and off he strode into the business part of the building, where it all happens.

Five minutes later he was back, "Right. The next man in the queue has agreed that we can pour yours into the hopper after we weigh his, then we can work out how much of the load will be yours and give you the right amount of oil. I mean, it might not exactly be the oil from your trees, but you get the idea. Would that be all right?"

I didn't have the heart to tell him that they weren't from my trees anyway. I agreed without hesitation. I'd brought along a square metal tin which I thought held around 20 litres, so I reckoned from what Kostas had said that it ought to be filled to about two thirds capacity or so. Plenty of room in it for what I was expecting to receive anyway.

He asked me if I wouldn't mind waiting for around half an hour. That to me was a result, since at first I had visions of driving home with my lights on when I met that first bloke. I decided to hang around rather than take a walk along the road and so I asked the girl at the counter for a frappé, which she quickly rustled up for me. When I offered to pay she told me, "You don't pay for coffee. Only if you want a can or a croissant." Things were really looking up now. The room was very plain, concrete walls and concrete floor, a couple of old kitchen chairs and Formica tables, but what else does one need when one has a frappé and one's iPad with a really good snooker app on it...

OK, so the frappé was in a polystyrene cup, but it was FREE. I won the match by the way.

After what was more like three quarters of an hour, my friend the stocky controller emerged from his office and beckoned me over. "OK, you have a drum?" I replied that I sure did and trotted over to the car to get my can. bringing it back to the place where the oil comes out and is weighed, then pumped through a flexible pipe into your receptacle, I handed it to him and he said, pointing to the digital readout that gave the weight of the oil, "This is yours now."

I watched as he stuck the gun into my can and began pumping ..and pumping ...and pumping. When he stopped the oil was at the very brim and he turned to me and said, "That all right for you?"

I could hardly contain my delight, but replied as calmly as I could, "Yes, good, thanks." I'm sure he gave me more than my olives would have produced, but I wasn't about to complain, was I.


"Chuck that in your car then and we'll do the paperwork," he said.

At that precise moment I was beginning to think, 'how could things have gone any better?' But they were about to get worse.

Once back in his office, he pulled a form up on his computer screen and started vigorously typing away. After hitting the "Enter" key a few times he asked for my name, which I gave him, along of course with my father's name, par for the course here. Then my address, "Oh, Kiotari, nice area," he quipped. I smiled, I was just thinking about all that gorgeous oil, courtesy of Kosta, sitting in the can in the back of the car.

"Ah-fee-mee?" he asked. That's ΑΦΜ [AFM] - which is one's tax number. The Greek government records all oil processed because people who have lots of trees get concessions and that kind of stuff. Producing oil is to be encouraged, of course. It's owing to this that everyone going to the mill has to supply their tax number. In fact, you need your ID (in our case, our passports), your tax number, your National Insurance (AMKA) number, for so many things here - even paying an assortment of bills - that we've usually got a file with all our official paperwork in it with us whenever we go anywhere. But today? Umm, well, no, I didn't have it with me. Dammit.

"Ah, yes. Umm, ...oh dear." was the best I could muster.

"Ah, yes. Umm, ...oh dear." was pretty much what he said in reply. "What are we going to do now?" He added. I had lightning mental visions of driving all the way home (half an hour each way) just for this wretched number. After we'd both stared at his screen for a while, hoping for inspiration, it came.

"WAIT!! YES!! I've paid my road tax!!" I shouted and before he could respond I was running out to the car. 

Here, when you pay the annual road tax for your vehicle, which has to be done before December 31st for everyone, thus ensuring long queues on the last few days of December at an assortment of tax offices, post offices and banks nationwide as people rush to pay it in time and avoid the fine that you get if you don't, you can do it by downloading a form from the government website. To be fair, I hate to say you'll be amazed, but you'll be amazed that this particular system works well and is quite modernised, what with it being done on line and all that. You simply put in your car registration number and your AFM, and you get a certificate in PDF form to download, which you take to the tax office, a bank or a post office to pay. They keep one part, you get the other, which you have to keep in your vehicle for the next 12 months. It may have only been December 17th, but I'm afraid I'm one of those types that does everything early, thus I remembered that the Road Tax Certificate has one's tax number printed on it. Yeah!!!

I tore back into his office and with a flourish threw my road tax certificate on to his desk. His face broke into a huge grin of relief and he was soon printing out my A4 statement/receipt for the oil I was taking home with me. I asked him how much I owed him.

"Two Euro," he said. Now come on people, two Euros for around 20 litres of extra virgin olive oil is a result, right? needless to say I thanked him profusely, totally forgot to show that appreciation by slipping him a couple more (a situation I do intend to rectify when I can) and drove home eager to pat my friend Kosta on the back and kiss him on both cheeks. Purely in a manly way you understand.

Sometimes, life does chuck you a bunch of flowers, eh?

Wood anemonies - anemonies wood, a huh huh huh, just like that.

Today is one of those days when you say, "This is why I love living here!" It's 20-21ºC depending on which thermometer you believe, the sky is unbroken blue and the horizon as clear as crystal. It's the kind of day (as I say so often that my other half groans audibly) that any British summer would be proud to call its own.

As I sit typing this at almost 4.30pm on what many would call Christmas Eve, my better half is still out in the garden in a t-shirt having a good potter about. This morning we decided that, in the interests of the dear reader who for some odd reason may just be a follower of this blog, we'd have a bit of an expedition. It's been a day that cried out for a good walk right from breakfast time and so we bit the bullet, started up the car and took it over to the south end of Psaltos Bay, just over the hill from Pefkos on the way to Lindos. There's been a walk that I've wanted to do for quite a while right there. I've lost count of the number of times we've driven past this spot and I've glanced up at the gently sloping hillside and thought, "I must walk up there. It just might lead me to the top of those cliffs that featured in the ridiculously old movie that we still harp on about "The Guns of Navarone". 

Right, first, lets' get this clear. The bay's correct name is "Psaltos". It's really only the ex-pat Brits who've kind of commandeered the place and converted it to "Navarone Bay" in recent decades. There are now signs all over the place demonstrating this fact. But, in truth, to the locals it's still "Psaltos". Well, as you'll know if you've been there, at the Southern end of the bay are some pretty impressive cliffs that were featured in the night scene in the venerable old movie in which the "heroes" come ashore from a submarine, reach the base of the cliffs in fairly rough weather, then climb the sheer rock face. Of course the scene was obviously filmed in broad daylight through some fairly unconvincing filters, but, well, the magic of the movies and all that. What's equally funny is that once the heroes get to the top of the cliffs, they set out across the terrain, up and down a valley or two, through a village and arrive at the Old Town in Rhodes. How do they do that then? Answers on a postcard please...

Anyway, to help you see where we parked the car and set out, here's a Google Map...

You'll notice I've marked the location of a Trigonometrical Point on the map. This is the spot where we took a bunch of photos of the view down across the bay. You'll see them below pretty soon.

Recently I was going on about how the wild anemonies are a picture at this time of the year and how I would be trying to snap a few for you (and of course, I) to wonder at. Well, this was one of the reasons why I wanted to do this walk today, in order to snap some of them in all their glory. Yippee, they didn't disappoint, as once again, you'll see below. So, car parked safely off the road, sun beating down to such a degree that we'd smeared on some factor 15 before leaving home, we set off up what to begin with is a fairly easy path. I had visions of us walking all the way to the end of the headland. Memories of younger days when we used to walk the length of Brean Down in the Bristol Channel, just South of Weston Super Mare, well and truly had me deceived into thinking that this little jolly would be just as easy. Oops.

After a mere couple of hundred metres the ground began to become much (and here I mean, like ...MUCH) more difficult. There were more rough stones and rocks than there was level ground and the lush greenery between them could have hidden some real ankle-breaking crevices. Thus, our progress went from merry jaunt to whoa, double back, Aargh, that one wobbled... and so forth. Add to that the fact that much of the vegetation is designed to scratch you to oblivion and you see why this was no easy stroll.

Never mind, we kept at it and, after a couple of ridges were negotiated where a bit of light mountaineering was required, we arrived at the Trig point. So, good folk in Net-land, here we go then. Hope you like 'em, I almost landed up being airlifted to hospital to get these!!!

The wild flowers are a botanist's dream at the moment.

This is the most common of the wild anemonies

The better half contemplates the vastness of it all, then says, "Which way now?"

This pics helps you appreciate how tricky it was underfoot. Not only could you break an ankle with ease, but if you fell your face would soon be a bloody mess as well!! (Not meant as a swear word there!!) Incidentally, in case you haven't sussed it, this pillar is the Trig. point.

...and there's the proof.

"I REFUSE to go any further!" "Smile anyway then sweetie!"

Not a bad view, eh? Click to get the larger ones on several of these and you'll see the snowy peaks of the Turkish mountains quite clearly. These aren't usually visible in the summer due to the heat haze.

And, no, I'm NOT trying to pull it over! Pefkos Bay in the background. Just to the right of my left shoulder (if you're keen sighted) too is the tiny Profitis Ilias church that we walked up to on a dull day last winter. There are some photos toward the end of this post.

Can't knock the colours of that sea, even in December, eh? The AquaGrand and Lindos Memories hotels are clearly visible.

As mentioned above. Right click to get a larger view and you'll see the snow on the Turkish mountains.

I took this one especially for the snowy peaks on the horizon.

You get a good idea of how tricky it is to walk on this terrain from this one. There's hardly a square foot of level ground.

Stunning. And the entire landscape is awash with them.

Well, you gotta have just one selfy!

A scene of real beauty. Oh, and the wife too.

Three other walkers we bumped into. Not very sociable though.

I took this as we scrambled back down because I was well relieved to catch a glimpse of the car through the boughs of this tree. Saved!

Once we'd finally stumbled back to the car, some medication was in order, ...of the dark brown bean variety. So we drove round to Zucchero Café at Flevaris supermarket, ordered a couple of Frappés and some kourabiedes. Well, we figured we'd already walked them off.

Finally, since I'd packed the chainsaw in the boot after we'd caught sight of some likely logs on the beach during a walk the other afternoon, we detoured down to the local beach on the way home and within ten minutes of firing up the machine, had ourselves this little haul. A satisfying day's work all round I'd say.

I love it when a plan comes together.

Up the Pole

There's a strange rule that applies to new buildings in rural areas here. Basically it says that a new house, or indeed business premise, that has a garden or yard around it, must have its electricity meter mounted on a concrete obelisk somewhere on the edge of the property near to the road, protruding from the top of which there should be another couple of metres or so of metal post, often looking to me like it's a scaffolding pole sunk into the concrete on the top of the obelisk. It's to the top of this pole that the power cable is first attached as it descends from the overhead cables, connects to the meter and thus from there the supply runs into the property, often underground.

Where perhaps a number of properties are built quite near to each other, you may see quite a large concrete "bus shelter" with a recess in one side, into which are mounted all the electricity meters for those buildings, to make it easier for the meter reader, who'll take the readings whilst differentiating each meter by its code number. There are some recent housing developments not too far from us where you can count up to twenty electricity meters all together side-by-side in one rather ugly five meter wide recessed concrete obelisk. The homes that these metres serve can stretch to something like 150 metres away, whilst the nearest one has to put up with this monstrosity dominating the corner of their front garden.

Nattering with our neighbour from further down the valley over a coffee in 21ºC of sunshine yesterday morning, he got to telling us about Johan, who's almost completed a new house down near the beach road. This new property has a grand rectangular garden with a driveway that goes all the way around the house. It's a posh looking place and no mistake. Apparently, Johan contacted the electricity board, having had the builder erect the concrete obelisk and its pole, as per regulations, to ask if they'd install the meter so that he can have electricity in the property. I'm not sure, but I think the builders are meant to inform the electricity company when the obelisk and pole are ready, so that the installation of the meter box and meter may proceed. Following an inspection, during which the man from DEH (The Greek electricity company) comes along and casts a beady eye over the pole to see if it contravenes the quite strict parameters for such things, a meter box and subsequently the meter itself may be installed.

So, our soon-to-be distant neighbour Johan rings up the DEH office and the conversation goes something like this:

"Good morning. My property is [here he quotes the location and the building permit number, plus his own name as the owner], do you think that you could now supply a meter box and meter please?"

"Of course we shall, once you have a pole installed."

"But I do have the pole installed. I'm looking at it right now."

"No, sir, you don't. You must have the post and pole before we can install your meter."

"But the builder erected it last week. It's all ready to receive the meter and I can see it from where I'm standing."

A slight pause…"You will need to have the pole erected first, sir."

"I don't think you're hearing me correctly. I HAVE THE POLE. It's been erected. I just need my meter now. Please will you supply my meter."

"Can you wait, please sir?" Johan says he'll wait. Muffled sounds of pieces of paper being rustled, then the sound of computer keys busily getting hammered. Voices exchange a few words of indiscernible Greek. No doubt the sound of a frappé being slurped through a straw too I shouldn't wonder. Johan twiddles his thumbs, symbolically of course, since one of his hands is holding his mobile phone to the side of his head. He waits.

Then he waits some more. Eventually the voice cackles back at him, "Mr. ---------," may I put you on hold for a moment please?"

"OK, OK. I'll hold." He finds himself listening to a tinny recording of "Jingle Bells". Finally, the voice come back at him.

"Right. Umm, sorry to keep you waiting. You are right, of course Mr. ---------."

"Great. Fine. So I can have my meter fitted now then, right?"

"Yes, your meter may be installed."

"So, when can I expect the men to arrive and fit it?"

"Just as soon as you get a pole installed."

What's That Sound?

The night before last I was up and about at something like 3.40am, which isn't unusual for me, as regular readers of this twaddle will perhaps know. Anyway, now and again I'll wander outside, often just to get some exercise, which seems to help when I go back to bed and try to sleep, but also I do it to gaze up at the immensity of it all and get all philosophical and stuff. Let's face it, it is pretty amazing up there, especially when you live somewhere like this where the clarity of the night sky can be so crisp, the Milky Way so clear as it stretches like fine gauze all the way from one horizon to the other, that you see detail that you'd very rarely get to see back in the UK. One of the reasons is simply the amount of light pollution to be honest. Here, living as we do half-way up a mountainside, we're affected by virtually nil manmade light during the dark hours and so can easily watch shooting stars and satellites drifting by with the naked eye. As the Americans would say, and I'm with them on this one, awesome.

So, anyway, there I was out there in the chill night air, temperature down to a seemingly bonechilling 8 or 9ºC, and I heard this weird noise coming from somewhere beyond the end of the orchard. The best way I could describe it would be like some small electrical machine running, perhaps a small compressor for blowing up bicycle tyres or something. It was virtually constant and had me flummoxed, I can tell you.

In the end I gave up wondering what it could be and, since it would have involved going out the front gate and off along the lane for who knows how many hundreds of metres in my dressing gown and slippers with no guarantee of solving this nocturnal mystery, I decided to go back to bed and contemplate it as I tried to drop off again.

By lunchtime yesterday I'd kind of forgotten about this until I was asked to go up the hill to our nearest neighbours' house with my chainsaw and help them attack a tree that our recent whirlwind (My wife says I'm being overly optimistic calling it a tornado) had almost torn out of the ground, before they could attempt to right it again and hopefully save it from dying. Just as a side point, if you go to the Oxford Dictionary's web site and type in first whirlwind and then tornado, you'll be hard-put to notice any appreciable difference. Nah, nah, ne, nah nah. Childish, moi? 

So there we were hacking off branches and boughs when, stopping the machine for a moment to clear away stuff, we talked about this noise. Dunno why it came to mind, but it did and so I told them about it. 

"Nightjar!" They both said in unison. "We've looked it up with Google," they told me. Why has they done this? They'd been driven almost mad by the same sound, but at much closer quarters, a while back. they have a flue rising from the house above their fireplace and on the top it has one of those revolving cowls that looks like a black crow that's suffering from the desire to resemble that American Stealth bomber, know what I mean? They're quite common here. Well, as it happens they'd heard this noise drifting down the flue into their lounge, so loud that it quite put Mac off his football match on the telly. What did he do? Eventually, after a few attempts to diagnose the problem without success, he decided to creep around the house from the rear, so that he could pop his head round the corner of the wall and get an eyeful of the cowl before whatever was there decided to leg it. well, "wing it" would be a better description of its manner of departure I suppose.

Sure enough, there was this bird, emitting this mechanical sound that really can make you think that some small machine is running somewhere nearby. Have a listen if you like, HERE. Now this made all kinds of other things that had happened to us recently as we drove up or down our 1km of lane after dark make sense at last. On several occasions we've approached what looked like a piece of wood, almost large enough to be collected and taken home for the log-burner, laying in the middle of the lane. As we'd drawn closer though, the full glare of the headlights well illuminating the object, it had suddenly sprouted wings and took off into the night. Now, having Googled "Nightjar" myself, I discover that these elusive, nocturnal birds like to do just that, snuggle onto the ground with their wings down for something to do. If you are interested in this stuff, this is a good article here. Must say at this point, me and the better half are suckers for a good bird sighting.

Courtesy Hanne and Jens Eriksen.

On not a few occasions too, we've been driving up our lane late in the evening, pursuing our resident hare who seems to take delight in waiting for our approach, before bounding out into the lane and bouncing along in front of us in the full glow of the headlights for about fifty metres or so before verging off into the undergrowth, when we've also spotted a bird flying around above us. At first we thought it was bats, but it's the size that gives it away as a bird. Well, now we know what it is - a Nightjar.

If this kind of stuff gives you the bird, then look away now. If it interests you at all, try these two links below too. The Youtube one is especially lovely.

1. Nightjar research youtube.
2. Birdwatch article, European Nightjar.

OK, so if it's not your bag, have you been prompted anyway to rack your brain over that expression "What's That Sound?" that I used as the title of this post? Want to be put out of your misery? Well, even if you don't, I'm going to explain anyway. It's a line from one of the most seminal rock songs ever written. The song is actually entitled "For What It's Worth" but is universally better known as "Stop, Children, What's That Sound?" and was written by Stephen Stills when he was a member of Buffalo Springfield back in the 60's, along with Neil Young of course. If you want to hear it. Click here.

See, come on folks! You get educated on RFR don't you? Eh? Where are you going? I haven't finshed yet!! Come back!!

Blowin' in the Wind

Well, the weather a couple of nights ago was not just wild, it was really wild. It was blowing a gale for most of the night, but at something around 2.30am we were lying awake listening to things banging and bumping outside, accompanied too by the sound of hailstones and vicious gusts when, as per usual in such conditions, the power went out again. There was no way we were going to open the front door to take a peek, so we just vainly tried to get back to sleep, but it ain't that easy when the thunder and lightning gives you the distinct impression that someone's banging a collection of dustbin lids right outside your window and the lightning flashes are so bright that you also half-expect to hear a voice coming over a bullhorn saying "Come on out, you're surrounded, give yourselves up!"

Fortunately, by the time we got up next morning, the power was back on and so we weren't going to have to endure another 15 hour outage like the previous time, a few days before. We ventured outside and there it was, the evidence that we'd had the worst storm in over nine years of living here. Smashed terracotta ridge tiles from the roof were lying around the tiled path beside the house. 

How those tiles, in falling around fifteen feet, didn't smash the floor tiles, is a mystery to me, but one I'm glad to ponder on. Anyway, I won't go into the rest of this story too much, only to say that on two separate ridges of the villa roof there were ridge tiles missing. Could have been a lot worse. The roofing tiles themselves had clung on without further damage and, after a quick phone call to the local builders' yard, where they guy knows me quite well, we were given a phone number for a repair man, who as it turned out was someone we'd known a few years ago. Yesterday he turned up at the crack of dawn, quoted a more than reasonable price for fixing the damage and, by lunchttime had finished the job. 

Y'know, it's when you get a result like that you have to take issue with those who generalise about the Greeks and say that they're all lazy, or that they never come when they say they will. We were well impressed by the  prompt service and by the quality of the repair too. A result!

•

Moving swiftly on, I've been at it again recently with the old iPad and the digital camera. So, once again folks, if you'd like to see how things are looking in December in this part of Rhodes, your luck's in. Here, in no particular order, are some recent shots...

Lardos beach, Friday December 12th, late morning

A Lindos corner, quite a few more follow below too. All Lindos village shots taken Saturday morning December 13th. Temperature around 19ºC

Lardos Beach, same time as the other Lardos one above. Told you they were in no particular order! Seeing the sea like this is great, but it makes it hard to imagine how different the beach looks during the season, with rows of umbrella strewn all along it.

Seashore between Lardos Beach and Glystra Beach, near what's locally known as Lardos Limani [port].

A Mediterranean Toad, we used to see a lot of them, then they kind of disappeared. So we've been excited to see this one on our doorstep after dark on several evenings of late. They're great 'cos they eat the creepy crawlies!!

When we first moved out here we were bemused to see oil lamps on sale in all the supermarkets. Can you imagine that in the UK? Now we know why they're there, ...and we have three in the house!!

This one of Lindos Acropolis is about a month old. Just didn't have the appropriate occasion to post it.

OK, so this is the first a a bunch more of the Lindos photos from Saturday morning, December 13th. So I won't necessarily caption them all.

Know where this is? Looks a lot different now from during the season. In fact it's the terrace of the "Rainbird" Bar, which features in The View From Kleoboulos, which just so happens to be on offer as a Kindle download from Amazon from Monday 15th December for 7 days - only 99p inc VAT folks!!

I love the greenery at this time of the year. The rains are truly a blessing. Plus the wild anemones are all coming out again now and they're everywhere along the roadsides. I'll try and snap a few shots of them soon.

You want "relaxed"? I'll show you "relaxed"!

[I'm sure you don't need telling by now, but clicking on any of the images will give you a larger view. Then (in most browsers) right-clicking (maybe ctrl-click on some Macs) will give you an even larger view than that]

The Answer Lies in the Soil

We've spent a couple of weeks barely seeing a soul and it's been lovely. This time of year is really good for getting the garden into shape as the climate goes through the period that we often call its "second spring" as the rains that come after the long arid summer, coupled with ideal temperatures for "doing things" out of doors encourage so many of the plants to put out new growth and begin flowering again in earnest.

The Gazanias, which have gone quiet during the hottest months of July through September, often withering up to a crisp, put out an abundance of long, pale green leaves once again and already the garden is awash with their huge, orange, yellow and red daisy-like blossoms. They can often appear to be quite dead, yet once the rains have fallen a few times you'll see new green leaves shooting up amongst all the tangled dry, brown dead stuff which we usually try and cut back to ground level, but don't pull the plants out too often, because we've got used to the fact that they do recover once the cooler months of November and December are upon us.

We did have a lone male friend over for a meal the other evening as his wife is in the UK for an extended period and we decided it was time we offered him some relief from trying to cater for himself. We passed a pleasant evening over my wife's excellent (though I say so myself. Nothing like basking in the glow of joint credit for one's spouse's creations eh?) lasagne and a glass or two of Cabernet Sauvignon. In the drinks cupboard I had lurking a bottle of Jameson's plus one of Johnny Walker Black Label, neither of which have I troubled of late, since for me such drinks are best taken in good company. Needless to say, I was delighted when, after we'd retired to the sofa after our meal, our friend accepted my offer of a glass of Jameson's and thus we sipped at the smooth warming Irish spirit as we talked about the kinds of things that one does usually talk about at this time of year, olive oil, logs, problems with the telephone lines, that sort of thing.

I say "problems with the telephone lines" because the ygrasia [humidity] has of late been getting into the cables of many people's phone lines and quite a number of friends locally have reported intermittent internet and been told by the phone company that it's something that's stretching their maintenance teams at the moment. Lots of houses have their phone lines coming into the property underground and, since they're still metal and not fibre-optic, the damp has been "shorting" cables whose outer sheathing has corroded with time.

Another local mutual friend with whom we took coffee a couple of weeks back was comparing notes with us over what vegetables we've planted recently. Tom, whom you may be familiar with if you've read "A Plethora of Posts" chapter 21 entitled "Bringing Home the Bacon", has a kind of private arrangement with his friend and ours Vageli, from the village up the hill, to use a section of his vegetable field as a kind of "allotment". This field is not all that far from our house and the dearly beloved and I often walk right past it on our regular strolls in the area. if we walk down to the beach we only encounter the main road fleetingly, as we simply cross it at the bottom of our lane and strike up the track opposite and over the short hill which then levels out and gently descends toward the beach, about half a mile further down. Just a hundred metres or so along that lane the field is to our right. There's an apothi'ki (a shed, basically) in the corner, where Vageli and his old dad keep their tools and stuff and the actual vegetable field is probably about the size of a tennis court.

Many's the time we've passed that field and become green ourselves with envy at how huge all the plants are that grow within. Occasionally there'll be a battered old pickup parked at the entrance in the fence, which consists of some rigid fencing wire and a couple of wooden pallets, which can be deftly dragged aside to allow ingress to the field itself. If the pickup's there, we'll usually see Vageli's ancient father, often accompanied by his equally wizened wife, headscarf knotted tightly under her chin after the manner that is often "à la môde" for women of her generation. They'll be bent double as they tend the patch, perhaps pricking out seedlings, trimming some of the vines that grow there, earthing up potatoes or some such thing. They always straighten up if they see us passing and we'll exchange a friendly greeting as they remark on whether it's too hot, too cold, not rained enough or far too sodden and the expected consequences which such disastrous conditions will wreak on their attempts at feeding the family.

We'll of course empathize and tut sympathetically about such things before continuing on our merry way, all the while musing over the fact that farmers the world over tend to display this particular trait - that of always managing to make a negative about whatever the weather's doing at the time. Have you ever encountered a market gardener or farmer, enthusiastic gardener even, who says "Yup! Weather's been just perfect of late. My artichokes are gonna win prizes!" I haven't yet. But there's still time I suppose.

These days Vageli, of course, is more often grafting away there than are his parents, since he's now much more able-bodied than they are. Thus it was that, some years ago now, he agreed to let Tom set aside a nice area in the field under discussion just large enough for him to grow some beetroot, lettuce, onions, carrots, broccoli, spinach and maybe some green peppers. Cabbage, cauliflower and potatoes were in the plan too I'm sure. Tom was telling us how the soil wasn't very good to begin with. This was prompted by our expressions of envy about how good and dark, loamy in fact, it looked to us. When we survey, as we often do, the sheer size of the vegetables that grow there, we can't fail to be convinced that, even though it's only a kilometre or so down the valley from us, the soil quality is vastly different from our yellow rock-hard exhausted dust.

I remember my wife looking at me askance when I used the term "friable" to describe the soil in that allotment.

"You made that up!" She said, sceptically.

"No I didn't! Friable means like, you know, easily forked over, good soil consistency, something like that."

"Nah! Eggs are friable, yes, but soil? You're having me on."

"I tell you it's right! I've even heard Alan Titchmarch and Monty Don use the expression on Gardener's World, so there!"

She eventually allowed me the benefit of the doubt, but I could tell that she wasn't convinced. Anyway, the soil in Vageli's allotment is, as far as I'm concerned, eminently friable and that's final.

Tom, though, told us that he'd been using his graciously granted sector of Vageli's field for a few years now, but that in the beginning it was so full of rocks that you could hardly fork it over without jarring your spine as the fork's tines hit something solid virtually every time you shoved it in. Now that's another word that I got disallowed once at Scrabble, tine. C'mon folks, you know what a tine is, surely? I'll say no more, other than that I was furious at not being allowed to use it once when playing the world-famous word game, simply because on that occasion we didn't have a dictionary on hand to consult as arbiter. I'm talking some years back too, when one couldn't reach for one's 'tablet' (unless of course, one had a headache) and Google the thing either. And no, "tine" isn't the posh person's way of saying "tone" all right?

So, anyway, Tom was waxing lyrical about just how much work he and his wife May had put into getting this patch of soil into good enough condition to plant his veg in.

"We worked sack after sack of manure into that patch" Tom ruefully explained, "to get it really fertile. By the time we'd taken out probably half a ton of stones, through digging and re-digging it over, and worked in all that manure that we'd hauled up there in sacks in the back of the car, I suppose we'd been working on it for four or five weeks. I distinctly remember leaving the place late one evening, the two of us staring back at this rich, dark, smooth patch of excellent soil and enthusing about what we were going to plant there as soon as we could.

"Couple of days later, we arrived up there with a load of seedlings from the garden centre, ready to break our backs putting them all in, when, would you believe it, we arrived at the fence to see Vageli's parents pickup parked outside and the two of them inside the field. They'd just about finished as we arrived - planting their potatoes all over OUR patch, the patch we'd worked our fingers to the bone preparing for all those weeks. Turned out that Vageli hadn't told his parents that this bit was ours. Well, he swore blind to us that he had and that they'd just forgotten, but either way, all that work was for nothing. We didn't have the heart to tell them that this patch was the bit that Vageli had let us have. We did wonder who they thought must have prepared that piece of ground. But they'd just turned up and, obviously feeling that anything inside that fence was theirs to use, chose the best patch of soil and got on with it."

"So, what did you do?" We asked.

"What else could we do? We set about forking over another section. Took us another few weeks to get it prepared. You won't believe how difficult it was to source another load of manure too. We'd had just about all that Dimitri the horse would give us, short of his horses developing diarrhea or something in the next couple of days."

"But how did you feel, after all that work?"

"Tell you what, it took all our strength to grin and bear it, trying to talk cheerfully with Vageli's parents as they merrily chucked their tools back in the shed, a few other odds and ends into their pickup and cheerfully waved at us as they drove away, leaving us to pick another patch and start from scratch."

So there you have it, a cautionary tale if ever there was one. Never prepare your friable soil, risking a bent tine or two, unless you're dead sure that you'll be able to plant it up without it getting half-inched from under your noses.

Of course, there's also the possibility that the wily old pair knew exactly what they were doing. After all, Tom did say that they were very cheerful when they drove away. One could have mistaken that happiness for the feeling of 'yay! A result!' 

But, well, let's not go there, eh?