The photo above is a quiet little corner of the village just a few metres up the lane from our side gate. I just liked it, so I took the shot on Monday October 24th at around midday. The weather continues to be lovely, while just getting a shade cooler overnight now. As I type this at approaching midnight it’s around 15ºC outside and a full moon. It was October 15th when we had the huge storm, when as much rainfall as we usually see in a year fell in a few hours. Since then we’ve had no rain at all. The forecast for last weekend was a big storm to sweep across Western Crete and most of the country further north from us, and we were to expect at least some gentle rain for a few hours on Sunday, but it never materialised, as is so often the case. Over on Karpathos there was a huge water spout photographed just a few hundred metres off shore, and several places on Crete saw heavy grey, almost black skies for a while and very heavy seas. What did we get here in Lasithi? Well, fully expecting to get rained off, we went up to Pachia Ammos and the tiny village of Vasiliki, set in a shallow basin among the hills just a few kilometres inland from there and right across the valley from the impressive ‘Ha’ Gorge, which is visible from just about anywhere in the village.

The photos below are all taken in a very quiet Vasiliki during late morning, Sunday November 7th…

The sky in those shots well illustrates the way in which the mountains create our micro-climate. Whenever you look toward the peaks, you see rolling thick cloud, while further down the slopes, at much closer to sea level, we’re bathed in bright, warm sunshine. The photo below was taken in Pachia Ammos on Tuesday October 29th, and the difference in the sky between the lower areas and the peaks is clearly seen…

I believe I’m not alone in being fascinated by old doorways. So, as I took the ones in the next collection below, I had in mind many of my readers out there who’ll probably stare at them as I do and wonder about how many generations these old doors and windows have seen, yet are unable to tell us any of the details about the lives lived, the loves lost and the joys and sadness experienced by all those who passed through them. Well, although there are four photos, they are of only two doorways, but the old blue one bore closer examination, as it had a small panel that could be opened, so that the people inside the building could check out their visitors before opening the whole door…

Below are two taken on the front at Pachia Ammos…

Angla’i’a struggled up the hill to the house a few days ago. It seemed we weren’t done receiving gifts in appreciation for the work Yvonne-Maria did in helping prepare the finger buffet for the recent wedding. She came bearing a bag full of small triangular pastries, containing what we’d have called in the UK ‘mincemeat,‘ only of the sweet variety, made from dried fruits and mixed with a little cinnamon and honey. It’s similar to the stuff that people in the UK put in mince pies at Christmas time. She also brought us some of her homemade kourabiethes, which we wolfed down with our morning coffees because they were ‘melt-in-your-mouth’ sensational! And they weren’t too sweet either, as some shop-bought varieties can tend to be. She sat at our veranda table for a few minutes to get her breath back, wouldn’t accept a coffee as she insisted that hubby Giorgos was back home waiting for her to fix his, and then struggled back down the hill to her home. She’s had a lot of trouble with her knee of late, and living in a small village where every direction you walk is either uphill or downhill can exacerbate such a problem. We came past in the car the other day to see her sweeping up leaves on the road below her house. She was perspiring all along her brow in some pretty warm sunshine (around 25º that day), and so I rolled down the window and joked that she doesn’t work hard enough, which elicited a chuckle from her, and the reply, “Best to keep moving. If I stop moving, then I’ll drop!“

One of the advantages of the clocks having gone back an hour (even though I fail to understand why in this day and age we’re still doing this) is that I’m getting up at around seven a.m. at the moment, at least I am on those nights when I do actually get some sleep. In fact on Monday morning I went outside at around 6.15, just as the sun was about to crest the hill to our east, and took these from the veranda…

OK, so my phone hasn’t got the best camera in the world, but don’t those two illustrate the fact that clouds are so often a welcome addition to a sky, making it so much more beautiful to look at?

Here’s another one from around 11.45am on Monday, as we were enjoying our coffee out on the sun terrace. Every time we take our morning coffee at home, the cat comes for his little treat. We usually give him a few crunchy ‘nuggets,’ with soft centres, to nibble at, which he’ll do while we listen to his contented chomping, until he gulps down the last one, sniffs around to make sure he’s got them all, then looks first left, then right, before deciding whose lap he’s going to grace on that particular day. On this occasion he chose mine and was soon nestled neatly and very comfortably between my legs. The only problem was, the sun was making his back very, very hot, and when that happens he’ll reluctantly get up, forgo his tickling and petting from me, and re-position himself on the cool stone floor in the shade beneath my sun bed. Aware that he’d not be able to stand the heat on his fur for much longer, Yvonne got up and fetched a towel to stretch over his body to keep the sun off and stop him overheating. I think the little devil appreciated it, don’t you?

To finish off this post, here’s a photo below of the Chrysanthemum plant that we planted not too long ago in the upper bed. Glorious right now or what?

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