There hasn’t been much to report about village goings on of late, but this time there are a couple of things worth a mention, both of which demonstrate once again how fortunate we are to be living in this humble community of village folk. After a fairly disconcerting four or five months, we eventually had the chance to pass by Angla’i’a‘s the other day and, as were were walking past, she came out to greet us, since her kitchen door is always wide open if she’s at home. I say ‘disconcerting’ because we didn’t know where that time had gone, it whizzed by so quickly. That’s how this summer seems to have been to me, a bit of a blur and suddenly it’s almost over and the winter’s tuning up. Not that you’d know that from the weather, mind you, which is still a very comfortable mid-twenties during the daytime and around 19ºC every night, and holding steady at the moment.

While I’m on the subject of the weather: by and large, as I believe I’ve mentioned before in other posts, this summer’s been cooler than average, whilst Northern Europe has been sweltering under the kinds of temperatures that we usually get down here. We’ve had some truly beautiful swims during the summer months and just this past Tuesday, October 11th, we had one of the most gorgeous days that one could ever wish for. Already on the town beach the sun beds and parasols are being pulled off the sand and stacked away, it’s only a few locals now who turn up at the beach in the mornings for a coffee and a dip, but that’s exactly what we did and it was simply sublime. The humidity was very low, making the light vivid and intense…

At this time of the year the sea is a nice warm bath, because it’s had all summer to warm up and, now that the air temperatures are slightly lower, it feels even warmer. But to return to our visit with Angla’i’a…

She was already beginning to make preparations for an upcoming family wedding that is to take place in the village at the end of the month. If you know anything about the wedding customs here in Greece, then you’ll know that one of the things they do is prepare a few sugared almonds wrapped up in a pretty pink or white lacy kind of material with a silk ribbon around it. There have to be enough of these put together to give at least one little package containing several of these treats (some of which also simply contain sugar-coated choccy delights too) to every guest, plus enough so that some guests can take a few away with them to give to those who couldn’t be present for the big occasion. There are also several cakes to be made, a couple of hundred of one type being made as a kind of little pastry wrap, all prepared and folded by hand before being popped into the oven. So, we hadn’t been sitting around Angla’ia‘s table more than a few minutes before my big-hearted wife offered to lend a hand, in order to reduce the work to just a few hours instead of an entire day – and then some. So she’ll be popping down there on her own to do the deed when Angla’i’a calls her to let her know the job’s under way. There is a distinct possibility that we’ll be attending the shindig too and, if so, there will be dancing – something which my beloved pines to be able to do most of the time.

As we began to sip our Ellinikos, we asked after her hubby George, who’s now at the wrong end of his eighties, and still goes over to their horafia every day to cultivate the vegetables that he plants up very year.

“Aach,” she replied, “He’s not so good. Has a problem with his leg which the doctors say starts in his back. He can’t have any physio, so they’ve just given him some painkillers, which he doesn’t like taking, of course.” As if on cue, the man himself opens the fly screen and hobbles into the room, all the while making audible ‘ooph‘ and ‘aaah‘ sounds, the pain evident in his face. I couldn’t help but notice that he looked more frail than he had the last time we’d sat in their kitchen. The man’s at least fifteen years older than his wife, who tells him to try and take it a little easier, counsel which he, of course, ignores. When you don’t see someone up close for maybe half a year when they’re that age, there is a difference, sadly, in their appearance and, in George’s case, his mobility, much to our dismay. I commended him anyway on keeping going. If he didn’t get up and go over the road to his veggie patch on a daily basis, he may as well curl up and die, that’s how he looks at it, and he’d be right. Nevertheless, he did say that he hasn’t planted up anything like as much this year as he normally does, he just can’t cope with all the work of weeding, pricking out, pruning, watering etc that is involved.

Of course, both of our hosts ‘tch’ a little when they ask us after our upper garden, “Is it still only planted up with flowering plants?” they enquire, disapproval evident in their facial expressions as they ask a question that they already know the answer to. The locals will never understand, no matter how often we explain, why a perfectly good piece of land isn’t used to grow something that you can eat, rather than just look at, or maybe sniff at for its aroma. Of course, their kindness to us, coupled with that of our other neighbours too, is one reason why we may as well not make our feeble attempts to grow stuff to eat. After all, to make a success of it you need a lot more time to dedicate to it than we’re prepared to give, plus it helps to have been born, weaned, and raised on the land if you want to make a success of growing the kinds of aubergines, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and all the rest that they give us from their surplus on a regular basis. Just this week we’ve been given enough fresh veg to get us through well over a fortnight, plus five litres of fresh olive oil, which leads me to the reason I called this post ‘Taking Steps.”

Some time back I mentioned that our rotting old wooden steps up to the upper garden were finally replaced with a truly awesome new set by our good friend Taki (see this post), who refused to be paid for his time, even though it took him nigh on a week of hard graft in hot sunshine to accomplish the job from start (taking down the old wooden ones) to finish (finally attaching a handrail to the new ones). The old ones needed cutting into manageable pieces, and we intended to chainsaw them in order to accomplish this. We got half the job done when my chainsaw developed a small problem, which necessitated my taking it in for a small repair job. We stacked the still-quite large sections up and mentioned to Maria and Dimitri (who live in the house just below us) that if they could use the wood for their tzaki this coming winter then they could take it away. When, after a few weeks, the wood was still where we’d left it, we decided, having now got the chainsaw back in good working order, to continue cutting it up into manageable sized chunks and, once we’d done that, we stacked it beside Dimitri’s woodpile, ready for the winter to come.

The day after we’d stacked it there, which was yesterday, we were taking coffee on the sun terrace when Dimitri called from around the front of the house. We bade him come on through the veranda and he appeared, both hands laden down with gifts of appreciation for the wood we’d left him. In his right hand he had a five litre bottle of olive oil, and in his left a plastic carrier bag stuffed to bursting with fresh produce. The oil would cost getting on for €30 downtown and the vegetables probably at least €10. Dimitri refused to take any money, expressing the fact that this was in appreciation for the wood that we’d left them (he and his mother). He explained that his chainsaw was broken down and that was why he’d not been for the wood himself. How handy that we’d got our chainsaw fixed when we did, and I offered him the use of ours in the meantime if he needed it.

Once Dimitri had gone and left us to finish our iced coffees, we both expressed disbelief at how much he and his mother had given us just for a load of wood that cost us nothing. We just wanted to get shot of it.

Oh, and returning to Angla’i’a and George for a final thought, needless to say that when we got up to leave, they insisted on giving us a bag of fresh courgettes, half a dozen fresh eggs, plus some freshly made biscuits (Koulourakia) plus some of those little round cheesy pastries that are a speciality here on Crete (and I keep forgetting what they’re called). You never leave anyone’s company empty-handed, here!

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Photo time…

A brief description of the above five shots: 1. Our sun terrace now finally completed with its ‘Naxos/Paros’ effect. 2. A bottle gourd plant with some fruit hanging on it. 3. Me and the third member of our family. 4. Yvonne-Maria during a stroll through the village. 5.Dried mountain tea ready for storing in a jar for consumption. I always snap the dried stalks into smaller lengths to make it easier to get it into the teapot when required.

Be good. 🥴

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