Actually, since I decided that this post would be composed mainly of photos, I decided to entitle it ‘Not much to say‘ but, as per usual, I’ll probably end up rattling on about some of the shots below anyway. Here goes then, a selection of recent photos and a few (*#!?*) comments about them individually under each one…

Above: Here’s Yvonne (Maria) doing her ‘Emma Peel’ bit on the waterfront a few days ago. And if you remember who Emma Peel was, you’re probably older than you look.

Above Gallery: All these were taken during a long walk around the mountain that we did last Monday. The first one shows the village sitting snugly on the hillside from across the valley in the midday sunshine. The one of the ‘butchered’ olive trees shows you what an olive grove looks like right after having been harvested. Contrary to what you may think, you can hack back an olive tree as hard as you like and it’ll always grow back. In fact, the ‘flattening’ of the tree’s profile is essential to ensure that the next crop of olives gets enough sunshine on to the fruit itself.

Above video: I love the sound of the bells on the sheep which, of course, help the shepherd to keep track of them. I have to say though, if I were one of those sheep, would I get a little cheesed off with that clanging all the time?

Above: Those very same sheep, and if you look closely, there are a lot of little baby lambs, one of which is just born. On our way back from this walk, we encountered a well-weathered old chap filling a plastic bucket with this bulbed plant (photo below), which he held for me to photograph…

We asked him why he was picking this particular plant, and he told us that it was for eating as an accompaniment when drinking Raki. It looked very much like small crocus bulbs to us, so we’re interested to go back up that path in a couple of months time to see what flowering plants are in evidence and maybe isolate what this one was. This chap had a 25kg bucket full of them and he showed us how he was going to strip the bulbs to their white heart and then prepare them for eating. I actually thought he’d said that he made his raki from these bulbs, but my wife understands better than me sometimes when someone’s talking in a broad accent, and she reckons that it was not for making the drink, but rather eating along with it. Ah well, suppose it’ll be less likely to cause hallucinations than magic mushrooms.

Above gallery: Of course everyone gets enthusiastic about the gorgeous anemones that grow wild here during the winter months and, no matter how often we see them, I still can’t resist (any more than half the Greek bloggers in the country it seems) taking a few photos.

Above: Not hard for anyone coming to our front door to deduce that we’d just returned from a country walk, is it?

Above: This little bunch were all taken during a lovely stroll along the waterfront, including the taking of coffee (of course) at the Island café/bar, where the guy also gave us that cake as a freebie. It was deliciously moist and not at all too sweet. We very often take our coffee on the Island’s sunbeds (on the beach, the other side of that building across the road) during the summer season, but this time we sat just outside the main building, against the wall, in order to do some serious people-watching. If you study the photo in which Yvonne’s left arm features heavily, you can just make out the old green moped that now serves as a handy plant-stand. The orange directional indicator on the handlebars is easy to spot. Like I’ve so often said, the Greeks were into recycling (or should that be re-motorcycling?) long before we caught on.

One last photo, below, to show just how wonderful the sky has been lately, and it shows the building that houses the Ierapetra Port Authority office, which was just across the road from the Island Café…

There you go then. If you happen to be reading this in some wintery country further north than we are, I hope those have brought you a little warmth from sunny Crete.

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