After a couple of weeks of exceptionally unusual weather, this past couple of days some semblance of normality seems to have returned. Whenever holidaymakers asked me while I was working, “What’s the weather like here in winter?” I would always reply, “Like a British summer.” When we have a normal winter, that’s pretty accurate, but this past couple of weeks have been far from normal. In fact, some days it was so like a British winter that the British were having either the same, or even better weather than us.

This morning we were finally able to take a walk around the village. With warm sunshine and virtually no breeze, it felt much more like the kind of day we expect in January. I think, owing to the fact that everyone’s been hibernating, quite a few of our neighbours were outside, pottering about, or simply doing as we were, sitting or walking in the sunshine. Before I comment on our encounters with the villagers, I’d just like to mention the photo at the top of this post (and indeed others further down). At long last I remembered (can’t believe I’d forgotten!) that I have an old, but very good quality, digital camera. It’s a Canon and it has a zoom. My very handy and much appreciated brother-in-law Martin gave it to me some years ago when he’d moved on to posh SLRs and the like. So, this morning I took the Canon with us as we went walking, and thus was finally able to take a few half-decent shots of the snowy peaks across the way from the village. Before we move on to our conversations with our neighbours, then, here are a few more shots taken this very morning…

The first of our neighbours we came across was Kyria Popi, who was finding reasons to potter outside her house, to enjoy the warmth of the sun. She asked how we’d been and we all agreed that we’d had enough of being indoors and staring at our sofas. As is so often the case, even though she asserted that she’d never known a spell of winter weather like we’ve just had in her 80+ years on God’s earth, she still expressed gratitude for the snow and rain, since it replenishes the soil, fills the reservoirs and helps the olive trees drink enough to get them through the coming summer. Also, owing to the inclement weather, much of the olive harvest is behind schedule, but the harvesters don’t mind too much, because the dry autumn last year had failed to swell the fruit. Now, however, the olives have had a little extra time to grow bigger, and thus will produce better oil, not to mention the ones used for bottling.

It’s not difficult to know what many of our neighbours are currently occupied with, now is it…

We had a few passing, brief exchanges of greetings, then found ourselves passing the village ‘Kapitanissa‘s’ house, Angla’i’a, who, as ever, wouldn’t let us pass without a gift being forthcoming. Although she was just on her way out to go down to the town, she still offered us a coffee. We declined, insisting that she go on with her plans for the day, but she nevertheless said, “But I’ll give you some eggs!” and darted back inside. She came out and placed the bag of 9 eggs on the top of a large pot, in which a mature aubergine plant was growing. Not for Greek villagers plants that are purely decorative. Even Angla’i’a‘s pots are full of plants that produce stuff you can eat. She wouldn’t hand Yvonne the eggs, because – wait for it – it’s considered bad luck to hand someone some eggs. You know, as we thought about this a little later, walking back to the house, I remembered that when you eat with Greeks you seldom see anyone using a knife. I joked in chapter 6 of “Tzatziki For You to Say” that the only reason knives were invented was so that Greeks could demonstrate how they could manage to eat a whole meal without them.

Whenever we eat in company, it’s usually only me that uses a knife to cut my food (and I usually have to ask for one). Greeks will chase the stuff all over their plate and saw away with the edge of a fork in order to cut it, rather than simply admit defeat and use a knife. I used to think this was simply a daft habit, but then it struck me. I read somewhere that it’s also considered bad luck to hand someone a knife. This being the case, it seems that this may be the main reason why knives are so rare at putting in an appearance at the dinner table, since no one wants to hand one to anyone else. Now, I love the Greek people, I’m married to one for goodness sake, but superstition sometimes can be really, really stupid.

Returning to our conversation with Angla’i’a, though, it seems that Covid has finally invaded the village, and it’s done so with vigour. She asked if we’d seen hide or hair of Maria or Dimitri and his younger brother, the family that live in the house below ours. We said we hadn’t and she told us that Maria, who works in the hospital in Ierapetra, came home with Covid-19 without realising it and the whole house became infected. Last time we’d talked with Maria she wasn’t vaccinated, and was having to do tests a couple of times a week to keep her job. Fortunately they have all got through it, but were all pretty poorly for a while. Talking a little later with Christina, who lives up the lane above Kyria Sofia’s house (she who has dementia), she told us that Sofia had had Covid too, having caught it from her children, who come up to the house on an almost daily basis to see how their mother’s doing. She too seems to have got over it, but we don’t know whether her children had seen to it that she be vaccinated or not.

Last year, sitting under a tree for shade and sipping iced coffees with Dimitri, Maria’s son, I remember him saying, “Why do we need to be vaccinated, eh? We’re OK here in the village. Covid won’t touch us here.” Sadly he was proven wrong, although at least not fatally. Needless to say, we wore our masks during our stroll and kept at least two metres from each of our neighbours as we engaged them in conversation. We met a couple more too, but the conversations didn’t really merit a paragraph in this post.

I’ll close this one out with a couple more photos from the walk this morning…

Above: What about that then? It’s an Antirrhinum (snapdragon) growing out of the concrete as a weed.

The Greek government has announced that they will be easing some of the Covid measures this coming Monday. We’ll see, eh? Keep safe.

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