Musings from South East Crete. Accretions: "Growth or increase by the gradual accumulation of additional layers or matter. A thing formed or added by gradual growth or increase." This is a spasmodic diary of life in south eastern Crete by writer John Manuel.
As usual the media in the UK knee-jerked over the fires in Greece. I saw some reports where they were giving the impression that it would be folly to go to Rhodes as it was in complete chaos with fire-refugees, both residents and tourists, fleeing everywhere. They gave the impression that the entire island was going up in flames whereas, even though it was indeed the worst fire disaster they’d ever experienced, still 70% of the island was unaffected. It seems to me that the only advice that ought to have been given to people who’d yet to go there, but had holidays booked, would have been simply to double-check the area where they were due to stay. Most would have found that their holiday accommodation was intact and that they needn’t worry unduly. Instead, reports on both major TV channels, at the height of the fires (which lasted well over ten days) indicated that the reporters felt that tour operators would be irresponsible to send anyone at all, and that they ought to be evacuating all their guests from the island.
In most of the areas where there were no fires and not much risk of them even approaching, the air quality was also not too badly affected, as the prevailing winds were taking the smoke and ash southwards, towards the areas that were definitely at risk, and then out to sea.
Now, as the dust and ash settles, and only a few pockets of fire remain, plus the operation to try to stop re-ignition from taking place (a common occurrence after fires of this nature) is going on apace, it’s important for anyone who can do so to think long and hard about how they can help the people who’ve lost homes and businesses in Greece, not just on Rhodes, of course. The best way is to come here and take a holiday, and see how welcoming the people will be when they sense the support they’ll be receiving in this way. 90% and more of Greece is unaffected anyway, and the azure sea, the pine forests and remote whitewashed villages, the quirky little tavernas and ancient archaeological sites, they’re all still here folks.
I don’t mind telling you that everyone here holds their breath during July and August as a regular occurrence. When you step outside in the searing heat that we experience during the two main summer months, you always scan the horizon for smoke, and heave a huge sigh of relief when you see none. Another bone I’d pick with the TV channels in the UK is that their reports used expressions like, “… and the entire island of Crete is on red alert!” The impression that gave was that if you lived in the UK and had a holiday booked on Crete then maybe you ought to reconsider. What the reports failed to mention (because their research into local conditions is abysmal) was that we’re on red or amber alert EVERY summer, and the vast majority of the time that’s all it remains, an alert, with a view to making local residents take more care about cigarette ends, BBQ’s etc. It goes with the territory when you consider the vegetation and the climate in these parts, global ‘boiling’ aside.
During the most recent heatwave, which only began to abate yesterday, we had temperatures in the mid-30’s overnight and, as I’m not a good sleeper anyway, I would take walks around the village at 3.30am, for example. So here below are some photos I took during such a walk a couple of nights ago. I rather like the atmosphere when the place is all tucked up and asleep. The greenish hue to some of these photos is due to the camera on my phone I think, and not to any odd natural nocturnal phenomenon…
And to finish off, a couple of archive shots that I quite like. The first is of an old ya-ya in Arhangelos on Rhodes, and the second is Rethymnon, here on Crete…
T3
The photo at the top of this post is of the harbour at Rhodes, taken from that section of the medieval wall that separates the Mandraki area from the commercial port.
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This post will not contain any photos, I think everyone’s seen enough of those, and of all the video on the TV bulletins and various websites. I don’t want to add to the sense of voyeurism that sometimes accompanies pieces about this subject. Our former home in Kiotari on Rhodes, where we spent 14 years of our lives, has been completely destroyed by the fires which, as I type this, are still raging and in many parts out of control.
Every summer there are outbreaks of fire in the Greek islands and rural areas, it’s a fact of life and has been for many years. How they start is often a mystery, but also far too often the result of either human devilment, or human idiocy, a description which, come to think of it, would include ‘human devilment’ anyway. On rare occasions fires can start simply as a result of some wanton throwing of a plastic water bottle as rubbish into the environment. Most of us remember that, when we were at school, we were taught in physics about how to start a fire, sometimes experimenting with a magnifying glass and a piece of paper. Not so many people realise that a plastic water bottle, if it still has some of it contents within, can easily become a magnifying glass under the intense Greek sun, eventually igniting the tinder-dry vegetation on which it lies. Sadly, though, in the years that we spent living on Rhodes, all too often people were eventually arrested for starting fires in the bush for sheer devilment or, worse still, with the intention of clearing an area of natural beauty that’s protected under law from development, so that, once the ‘heat dies down’ as it were, yet another new hotel or retail complex can be built on land that is no longer of any interest owing to it having been laid waste by the flames.
Even further back in the mists of time, when we spent 24 years living in South Wales, much of which is also an area of outstanding natural beauty (notably the exceptionally lovely Vale of Glamorgan), there was over the years a series of fires that destroyed a number of public houses, strangely enough, all with thatched roofs. Each time a pub was burnt down, it rose again from the ashes, fully renovated but, sadly, often no longer with the formerly ‘protected’ thatched roof, which was of course very expensive to maintain. ‘Insurance’ fires were a known phenomenon back then.
When someone is stupid enough to start a fire in the climate that prevails here in Greece during the summer months, in the expectation that in some way it is bound to be controlled or limited in the area to which it may extend, they almost never bargain for the sheer devastation, misery and expense that they’re going to be responsible for. When we lived on Rhodes, the worst fire we saw was the great fire of 2008, which happened in August and was even then the worst fire for a couple of decades. That fire almost reached Kiotari and the house where we lived, and for a few days about 70% of the sky above the house was the colour of a strong cup of tea, Canadairs flew fast and low across the rooftop and burning pine needles and ash fell constantly all around us. It was the wind direction that saved us then, but not so this time. In fact, I reckon that most people who’ve lived in rural Greece for any length of time can identify the sound of one of those aircraft long before they see one, and no one wants to see one. If you do see a Canadair, you know that danger is near and that somewhere not too far away a fire is raging.
The long-term effects of large bush and forest fires are staggering to consider. The livelihoods of many folk are put at risk, many Greeks have no property insurance on homes that have been in their families for generations, the effects on wildlife are incalculable, and soil erosion is the inevitable result, as hillsides are denuded of vegetation that once retained the moisture with its stems, foliage, trunks and roots but is no longer there. Habitat is gone and species are put under ever more threat of extinction. Fires, wherever they occur, are events that completely change the history of an area, fact. It has been argued that, over a couple of decades, there can be some benefit to the landscape, as the carbon that seeps into the soil makes it more fertile. OK, I get that, but in the meantime much of the soil is washed away by the winter rains anyway. After the vast fires on Rhodes in 2008, large sleeper-like tree trunks were installed horizontally across hillsides that had once been clad in pine forest, to help stop the soil from being washed away while the environment regenerated itself, but many of these were stolen during the winter months by people with chainsaws cutting logs for their stoves and fireplaces.
Having now been lurking inside the house (OK, except for the fact that last evening we enjoyed a lovely meal beside the sea down in Ierapetra, although even at 11.00pm it was very sweaty outside) for three days owing to the current heatwave, we ‘ve not only seen hours of news coverage of the current fires on Rhodes, but also been exchanging messages with friends and acquaintances who still live there. It seems to me that this event has completely devastated a huge part of the island and Kiotari, once viewed by many townsfolk as the choice part of the island in which to have a home, has been hit the hardest. Estimates vary, but they all refer to a five figure amount of people who’ve had to be evacuated from homes, villages and hotels in the area. We’ve seen or heard about businesses that we patronised for years having simply gone, and the valley at the head which our former home used to sit, which was once lush with maquis and pine woodland, is a black charred mess as far as the eye can see. Deer used to wander past our front gate during the winter months and there were several species of mammal that lived in and around the house, all gone.
I’m no expert, but it seems to me that the recovery period from this devastation is going to run into decades. The sheer size of the area that now resembles a scene from an apocalyptic hollywood movie is difficult to take in. Extreme climate events are happening more and more frequently, of that there is no doubt, but human tomfoolery adding to the problem is hard to take, it really is. There has been little speculation so far on the TV news about how all this started, and it seems that it started some 50km away to the north from where the flames currently rage, but when the investigations begin, I really do hope that it doesn’t lead to some human devilment because, if it does, it’s hard to be charitable and not want to see a very harsh penalty dealt out to the guilty party or parties.
As I write this there are still more than half a dozen villages evacuated, awaiting their fate. Asklipio, the village where we used to collect our mail, is burning, and local volunteers are striving desperately in extreme heat to try to save what they can. I’m not going to say ‘pray for Rhodes,’ since it’s not the right thing to say. Praying isn’t much good if those who say those prayers aren’t that bothered about communicating with the Creator the rest of the time, is it? Plus, the problems in this world need to be considered on a much larger scale than this one event. Why should the Creator, if you believe that there is one, act quickly to save Rhodes, when dozens of Ukrainian cities have been laid waste, when millions of people are starving as a result of famine or warfare in other parts of the planet, when extreme weather events are causing flash floods and landslides elsewhere?
The best anyone can do is perhaps to support the island once next year’s season comes around by visiting it, in the hope that such an event as this will not occur again for many a long year. Yes, the place will look different in some parts, but the local residents will doubtless welcome you with open arms. If there are any appeals for financial or other types of aid, then contribute if it’s within your power. That’ll do a sight more good than asking for divine intervention, when that’s more likely to occur when the Creator calls ‘enough’ to man’s ongoing march to destroy this planet through negligence, ignorance or the quest for power. (I always found this verse most intriguing… Revelation 11:18).
Like thousands of other people, I feel a deep sense of shock at what we’re seeing in my former home. I never thought in a million years that the BBC News at Ten in the UK would be showing footage of the local beach where we used to swim, even of the very lane up which our home was situated, yet that’s what I saw when I tuned into that news programme from here last night. Locally, there are appeals from some to report to the police anyone seen throwing a cigarette butt out of a car window. Right now, I don’t think I’d hesitate to take down the number and report it. Years ago when we lived on Rhodes, on more than one occasion I saw glowing cigarette-ends being thrown from the window of the car in front while driving in the summer months. I don’t get these people at all. Why is it that so many seem to think that they don’t need to take care for the benefit of others?
Anyway, enough said. I just wanted to express my feelings about what is surely the worst disaster ever to strike the island of Rhodes. Already it’s reported that it is for sure the largest evacuation of humans ever undertaken in Greece, that’s how bad it is. For all that, there are large areas of the island that are untouched. Let’s just hope that they will still be able to make a living for the remainder of this summer. It does make my blood boil when I see bad reporting too. One piece on a web site I read only hours ago was entitled “Fires rage in Rhodes Town.” Talk about stupidity and poor journalism.
Thanks for reading my piece. Stay safe, but above all, be wise and show social responsibility in all that you do, eh?
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Giannis is probably in his early fifties, and is beginning to lose the battle when it comes to belt size around the waist. He’s also well on the way to needing to rub sun cream on his bonce too, since the hairs that he has left on top are of sufficient scarcity that he’s taken to doing what so many men do these days who are going bald, and that’s having the barber do a ‘No. 1’ all over. If you’re not familiar with the No. 1 in hairdressing/barbershop terms, try googling it.
He moved with his second wife Marina to Ierapetra a year or so after we did and they rent a flat on the seafront, with a gorgeous view from above of the tamarisk trees and the cafés and tavernas that sit beneath them along that stretch of the town’s coastline. It didn’t take us long to notice that whenever we go for a coffee and a swim on the beach during the summer months, Giannis invariably turns up, sits under an umbrella on a director’s chair that he’s carried down to the beach with him from the bar area, and begins fiddling with his mobile phone, much like a teenager. He doesn’t usually use a sun-bed, preferring as he does to sit upright on a canvas and wood director’s chair. The café staff don’t seem to mind and, in fact, all the local Greeks anyway have the habit of rearranging sun-beds and chairs as and how they like to, while they’re passing their hour or two on the beach and drinking their iced coffees and generally having ‘parea’ of a weekday morning.
We became friends with Gianni not all that long after he moved into the area, and regularly exchange a few words of greeting when either he or us are heading for the shower after a dip in the sea. Although while seated on the beach he’s seemingly preoccupied by his phone, he nevertheless still takes a moment to have a cooling dip every now and then.
One day I received a ‘friend’ request from Gianni on Facebook. As you do, I took a look at his main profile before deciding whether to accept, and saw that his profile photo was one of him standing in front of a pile of coloured plastic crates that are all stacked in front of a wall and brimming with fresh tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. It’s very evidently taken in a warehouse or trade market premises of some sort. There are hundreds of crates stacked several deep along the wall behind him. It thus seemed fairly obvious to me that the photo had some connection to Gianni’s work.
Next time I saw him on the beach, and sure enough he had no sooner got himself seated on his chair under an umbrella than he’d got his phone out and was studying it intensely, I thought I’d ask him if his profile pic was indeed taken at his place of work. Although it had to be a former place of work, I surmised, since these days he’s seldom missing from the beach from 11 until 1.00pm on weekdays. Had he retired early? Had he lost his job? I was curious to see the mystery solved.
I didn’t want to offend him, but I wanted to get to the bottom of why he was so preoccupied with his phone while on the beach. It seemed that he didn’t simply go to the beach to enjoy a spot of relaxation and a cooling swim, no, there was something else going on. I asked him, tactfully, “So, Gianni, do you have the Kindle app on your phone then?”
“No, I don’t read a lot of books,” he replied.
“Ah, right. Maybe you catch up on the news on your phone, is that it?”
“Nope.”
By now I knew that he knew that he was stringing me along. He was well aware that I was curious as to why he spent so much time on that phone, and was seeing if I’d be able to wring it out of him.
“Oh, and you’re not talking to friends or relatives from where you lived before, is that it?”
“No, I’m working, if you really want to know.”
“You’re working? Really? What is it that you do then?” I thought I may as well go for the jugular since he’d thrown me a line.
“I’m a fruit and veg broker. Basically I negotiate a price to buy a crop of peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, whatever, from the farmer, then sell the shipment on to a retailer, or maybe a hotel chain. I’ve been working from home for a few years now, which is why we could make the move here to Ierapetra. We were fed up with the city (Athens), and thought that this might be a much nicer place to live, better quality of life, that sort of thing.”
“Right, I get it now. So that’s what you’re doing on the phone all the time.”
“That’s what I’m doing on the phone all the time. I prefer to come down here to do it, because Marina my wife is vacuuming, washing, cooking, cleaning, all that stuff, at home and I can’t concentrate on the job. So I grab an iced coffee and start work down here on the beach under a parasol. Plus I can take a dip when I feel like it.”
“Wow. So the beach is like, your office, eh?”
“Yup, good way to think of it.”
“Not a bad way to make your living then, Gianni. Plus I suppose with all the thermokipia around here there are plenty of farmers who are keen to shift their produce. Why do they need you though?”
“Because it’s a lot easier for them to sell an entire truckload or harvest in one go than to sell a little here, a little there. I take the whole thing off their hands for a price we both agree on, then I find customers at the other end to sell the stuff on to. I’ve become quite good at it over the years, even though I say so myself.”
With that he said it was time he took a dip. The temperature was stroking 38ºC and there were beads of sweat along his brow. I took my cue from him and did likewise. Now each time we see each other, I say, “another boring day at the office then, Gianni?”
Giannis smiles.
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I’ve been meaning to make some observations for some time now about the very ‘inward-looking’ TV news bulletins on the major TV channels here in Greece. All the channels, without exception, broadcast hour-long news on a nightly basis. The thing is, though, much of the content of these so-called ‘international’ bulletins is home-grown. My theory is (and I think I also discussed this in one of the ‘Ramblings From Rhodes’ books) that they simply don’t have the budget to garner news reports from all around the world, and so they pack their 60 minutes with extended reports about why people are heading to the beach in July and August (shock horror!). While the rest of the world is teetering on the edge of a major conflagration owing to Russia apparently having a crazed megalomaniac (allegedly) at the helm this past twenty years or so, or people in some other country are dying of famine due to extended droughts, Maybe somewhere in South America extreme weather conditions have brought about some major landslides, China’s rattling its sabres about Taiwan, and so on and so on, here in Greece people see twenty minutes and often more of their hour-long ‘international’ news report showing video loops over and over again of lots of girls’ flesh as the reporter, logo-festooned microphone in hand, strolls the water’s edge on some beach or other trying to find something original to say about the fact that it’s summer again, and it gets very hot.
If I had a Pound for every beach babe sprawled on a sunbed who’s had a TV reporter shove a microphone up her nose while the camera shoots liberal footage of her cleavage, while she opines ever-so seriously about the fact that she simply had to head for the beach when she finished work at 1.30pm, because it’s just so hot, I’d be a very rich man. News alert!! It’s July in Greece! It’s hot. OK, OK, I hear you. There’s a heatwave afflicting us at the moment. True, but, even though climate change is happening, nobody with a brain argues about that, the fact is that we do get temperatures around the 40 mark every summer here is not exactly a surprise. The world is going down the tubes, but watch Greek TV news and you get the distinct impression that what really matters is how many of the young beautiful people are heading for the beach today.
Above: Another ‘international’ TV News programme about what really matters in the world. The caption reads, in all seriousness, “The sea temperature is around 29 and rising.” Gulp.
Actually, I wonder if Giannis has a second reason why he likes to do his business on the beach?
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Actually, since it is so hot at the moment, here are a few photos taken up on the Lasithi Plateau back in March, to help you feel a little cooler…
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Most people are aware that we’re under a bit of a heatwave at the moment. Driving back from town yesterday the temperature outside the car was showing 42º, but was only a cool 40 when we got home to the house. I don’t like it this hot, I have to admit, even though while we were enduring a cool and changeable March-through-June this year I swore that once the summer finally hit us I’d never complain about the heat this time. Even while we were enjoying our iced coffees on the beach under a straw parasol, the breeze that was blowing across our bodies was hot, like we were in a fan oven or something. Mind you, it’s when you get weather like this that you truly appreciate just how simply wonderful it is to get into that sea.
What have I got to tell you about this time? Oh yes, went round to visit a couple we’ve now known for a few years this week, the hubby Giorgos is 80 and his wife Ritsa is 76. They’re both in very good health though, I’m glad to say. Something I’d heard recently prompted me to ask about how they first met and that sparked off a truly amazing story. Well, I say amazing, it is from a British person’s standpoint, since in the UK for the past half a century and more people have by and large been free to choose who they want as a life-partner, and young people get out and about and hang-out from some time in their early teens, right?
Actually, what sparked off my curiosity was the fact that, at least here in Crete, I don’t know about the rest of Greece, among the more traditional families it’s almost unheard of for a woman whose husband has died to remarry. It’s like they’re expected to honour the memory of their deceased spouse forever, and to remarry would somehow show disrespect for the mate who is no more. Of course, with the passing of time, things have been slowly changing, but it’s still very much an ongoing tradition in the villages. If a woman is unfortunate enough to lose her hubby while still quite young, she may end up condemned to a life of many decades on her own, wearing black the whole time. She’d rather endure that than bring dishonour on the family by showing a lack of respect for her deceased husband.
When it comes to how a couple first meet, well, it seems that here in the islands, especially those that still have remote communities, a couple still, as recently as a few of decades ago, had little choice in the matter. Giorgos, the friend to which I referred above, told us that he was on his way to Canada, on a ship bound for Halifax Nova Scotia, when the news came through that the Generals had staged a coupand taken over the government in Greece. Giorgos had relatives in Canada and he was going there to work for a living and stay with them. He says that the ten-day crossing of the Atlantic was so unpleasant that he spent much of the time throwing up over the ship’s rail. In those days, when there was no internet or mobile phones, the passengers who were privileged enough to have a cabin would get a brief summary of the world’s news slid under their door on a single print-out each morning, after the ship’s telex had received the details during the night. That was how he learned of the start of the ‘dictatorship’ in April 1967. When the ship docked in Halifax, there were Greek officials present cross-examining the Greek passengers in the search for communist sympathisers. If they decided that you were one, then you didn’t stand much chance of starting that new life on the other side of the Atlantic.
Anyway, after only two years in Montreal, Giorgos received a letter from home. His parents told him that he needed to return as soon as possible, because the family had struck a deal with another family for Giorgos to marry one of their daughters, the young Ritsa.
All this I heard in response to my question, “So, how did you two meet, then?”
Ritsa takes over the narrative. She says, “I was sent to meet this Giorgo fellow, and he was told to look me over and say if I’d ‘do’ as it were. I’d never met him before, but in March 1969 we first met, and in June of that year I became his wife. That was when we started to get to know each other, because before the marriage we hadn’t been allowed to spend even one hour alone without other family members being present.” They’ve now been married for 54 years, and neither of them seems any the worse for not having known each other before the big day. Fortunately as it turned out, I suppose, they both really did fall in love with each other and had two lovely children, both of whom are now married with children of their own and living nearby.
Hearing about the culture of never allowing single youths to be alone with someone of the opposite sex reminded me of what my own wife Yvonne told me about the time when she spent the entire five weeks of her summer holiday with her cousins in Athens when she was fifteen. In the UK, at that age, you just went out and came in when you wanted to, even in the 1960’s, and it came as quite a shock and became a real irritation to her that she couldn’t simply go out and take the ‘electriko’ down to Athens centre without at least one of her cousins going with her. To have gone out alone would have been a potential cause for shame in the family. All this, remember, at the time when the hippie culture, Carnaby Street, the “Summer of Love” and all that stuff was all the rage in the USA and the UK.
Despite the obvious contrasts with the culture in the UK and America, Greek family bonds are still today much stronger than they appear to be in those other countries. Greece may be a long way behind the ‘civilised west’ in such matters, but they’re also a few decades behind when it comes to divorce, crime rates and people living alone and isolated in urban communities. Every cloud, eh?
And so to a few photographs…
Above: The amazing and unique food at the Βίρα Πότζι restaurant in Ierapetra.
Above: A few shots taken around the town this past few days.
Above: At the rather traditional, yet quite funky Στσι Κουμπάρες taverna on Ierapetra sea front. In the first of those two photos, you can just about make out the newly-manufactured sandy beach that the local authority has created in front of the ‘promenade’ in Ierapetra. It’s the source of a lot of controversy, because something was needed to stop the erosion of the promenade when it gets pummeled by waves during rough days in wintertime, but this solution hasn’t proved all that popular. In the past you could sit where we were and look down at the fishes in the water. Now the water is 25 metres out across a barren stretch of imported sand, that also causes a problem at the tables when the wind blows in the wrong direction. To have shored up the seafront with steel, concrete and stone was probably too expensive, according to the Dimos anyway, so the sand was the cheaper option. The only thing is, they tried the same thing last year, and by the time this summer arrived, most of the sand that had been bulldozed on to the sea front had been washed away. It remains to be seen how it will all play out I suppose.
Above: The dial on my car’s dash showing the temperature outside as we drove home from town yesterday.
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That photo is taken from above the lovely and very remote village of Apollonas, in the far north of Naxos. A more laid-back and unspoilt part of Greece it would be difficult to imagine. I’ve been trawling through thousands of my old photos taken during our time living in Greece (2005 – the present), initially with the intention of selling some on a few photo-library websites but instead, as you can probably imagine, I’ve been getting lost in reveries of experiences enjoyed whilst visiting all these amazing places.
So, with this post I thought I’d mention some fairly innocuous stuff about home this past week or so, and then begin what may become a series in which I dig out some of my favourite photos from some of the beautiful places we’ve had the privilege of visiting here in this quite remarkable, nay, astounding country, during all the years that we’ve been blessed to live here (despite the flaming bureaucracy!).
Firstly, though, here are a couple of tips that you might just not know about. OK, so if you already do, sorry, and maybe you might want to skip a couple of paragraphs. The first concerns how to keep biting insects from off your exposed flesh, since Greece seems to be well stocked with such little perishers. The ones that cause the most misery are almost invisible and I think that a lot of people believe that they’ve been bitten by a mosquito, when actually it’s more likely to have been a ‘no-see-um’ or, as I also call them, a ‘flying full-stop.’ These little pests fly straight through mosquito nets, they’re that small. So, if, like us, you like to sleep with the windows open and the moonlight gently caressing your flesh as you sleep, the mozzie nets will be no help. You’ll awake to find little raised blotches all over the place, and they’ll be itching like hell. They don’t do any lasting harm, but I’m one of those people they seem to make a beeline for and I often end up with a dozen or so bites, including in parts I’d rather not mention.
Now, if you do discover that you’ve been ‘got,’ as it were, the best thing to ease the itching is the quite marvellous Lane’s Tea Tree Oil and Witch Hazel Cream, also called (for some inexplicable reason) Teangi. I always keep a few tubes of the stuff in, and as soon as I get bitten I rub it into the bite. Within minutes the itching is gone. But, “prevention is better than cure” I hear you cry, and I agree. That’s why I want to mention this…
Above: That’s one of two lemon geranium plants that we have in our garden. Frankly, it’s an essential and you really ought to not be without it if you live here. All you need to do, whenever you’re going to be outside for a while, is to pick a leaf or two, bruise it between your fingers, then rub the ‘juice’ liberally along your exposed flesh. It’s fairly common knowledge that citronella deters insects, and this stuff smells exactly like that. It’s not an unpleasant smell, rather like strong lemon of course, hence the plant’s name. Whenever the better half or I go out to do some gardening, or even to sit and have a drink, we rub the leaves all over us and, voila, no insect bites. In fact flying insects (all kinds) will give you a wide berth once they detect it on you. It’s 100% natural and costs nothing once you have the plant established in your garden. Now, I realise that this will apply more to people who live here than to holidaymakers, but you will see lemon geraniums all over the place, often in pots, as locals know all about its properties. So why not ‘borrow’ a leaf or two as you pass by, bruise it between your fingers and apply it right then and there. Lots of Greeks even use it to make a refreshing natural lemon-flavoured drink in the summer too, by the way.
Tip number 2. Take a look at this really dull photograph…
Now, you may well have seen that people will put a water receptacle on the end of the pipes leading from their air-con units, right? The one above is outside on the floor below the outdoor unit whose indoor unit we have in our lounge. Did you know that this water is to all intents and purposes ‘distilled?’ It’s been harvested from the moisture in the air and thus is free of the minerals that a lot of Greece’s tap water is pretty packed with. Incidentally, a sub-tip here: How do you keep the taps in your bathroom and kitchen from becoming dull with all the minerals left on them when the water evaporates? It’s simply a matter of remembering to wipe them with a towel or soft cloth each time you finish using them. If you don’t leave water on the surface of a tap then it won’t evaporate and leave all that limescale. The taps in our house are as clean and shiny as the day they were fitted. I picked that tip up from Tom, our old neighbour on Rhodes, who gets a lot of mentions in A Plethora of Posts, chapter 21. What about the water you’ve harvested from the air-con unit then? Most people have sealed batteries on their cars these days, but if you don’t, then you can use it to top up the battery fluid but, primarily, what I do is use it to top up the screen-wash bottle. Using tap water in there soon clogs up the jets and they’re a devil of a job to clean once they get clogged from inside with salts from the water. If you top up your screen-wash bottle with this water, it’ll give you a nice clean windscreen and not clog up your jets, and there’s nothing worse than having your jets clogged, that’s what I always say.
Oh, and you can use it in your steam iron too. Nearly forgot that!
There you go. Just maybe those tips (plus the extra one thrown in for free) might just be new to you.
The village is quiet at the moment, apart from the deafening chirping of the cicadas that is. We’re into the hottest two months of the year now and the forecast is for a heatwave this coming weekend. After the spring we experienced this year though, there’s no way I’m going to complain about the heat. Manolis is now walking around permanently with a walking frame, but he still gets about just the same, bless him. He shuffles over to the kafeneion to sit with Heraklis, then along to Angla’i’a’s for another coffee and a brief session of putting the world to rights. Of course, the hot topic this past few weeks has been the general election, after the second round of which the ruling party (New Democracy) of sitting Prime Minister KyriakosMitsotakis ended up with 158 of the 300 seats in the Greek parliament. Thus they get another four years. We try very hard not to get into such discussions, because, well, basically, whatever you say you can’t win! What is notable, though, is how our neighbours can often be diametrically opposed politically, yet still don’t fall out in any nasty way, so that’s good. Everything’s solved by an elliniko anyway, eh?
Photos, yes, that was it, favourite shots from the past 17 years. Here are some more…
Above: All of these are taken on Naxos.
Above: Three from Halki, which has to be one of my top five favourite places anywhere in Greece. The 4th is from part-way up the Kali strata, on Symi, looking down on the impossibly pretty harbour area.
Above: All on Patmos, which has to be up there with Halki as one of my top 5 in Greece. What is it exactly about rickety taverna tables and chairs right beside the sea? Whatever it is, I’m suffering from it and there’s no cure.
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