It’s proving to be a most tolerable August so far, and with only a week or so to go, it looks like staying that way. There has been another heatwave in northern Greece, but we’ve largely escaped it and the daytime temperatures here have been in the lower thirties this past couple of weeks, with overnight levels hovering in the mid-twenties, very acceptable. In the area around the north eastern town of Alexandroupoli there are currently a number of fires raging, sadly, whereas here in Lasithi the danger level has been reduced to the lowest, which isn’t always a good idea according to my thinking.

When the danger level is announced as low, I get the feeling that some people think that it’s OK then to light a barbecue in a risky location, say on a beach with trees and vegetation behind it, or on the edge of a village where there’s tinder-dry vegetation close by. At least if the danger level is ‘red’ then people know to be extra vigilant. There we are, just my thoughts on the matter. We did see a small fire a few kilometres away from us a couple of days ago, down near Gra Ligia, just a few hundred metres or so the other side of the lake, which is just behind the right hand of the two mountains that we see from our veranda. We woke up from an afternoon sleep and went outside to smell burning, not a good experience at this time of the year.

In very short order too, we heard and then saw in the distance a helicopter with one of those cables suspended beneath it, on the end of which is a huge ‘bag’ for scooping up water and then dropping on the fires. As we watched, a column of smoke arose and we wondered whether we were in for a major emergency or not. Full marks to the local Fire Department, which responded lightning fast and scrambled that helicopter, which I’m glad to say was able to douse the fire within an hour or so. We have some friends who live within a few hundred metres of where the fire began and I called them to ask what the situation was and whether they were in any danger. Giorgos told me that, thankfully, as the winds were extremely light, the fire didn’t spread at all quickly and the ‘copter, along with fire tenders on the ground, soon got it dealt with.

Unless you live in an area like this, you probably can’t imagine the feeling of relief one experiences when the smoke slowly disperses and the smell of burning dissipates. In fact, you’re on tenterhooks all through the summer until the first rains arrive. The countryside here right now is composed of brittle, yellow, bone-dry vegetation, with the exception only of the leaves on the olive trees. One carelessly thrown match or cigarette end could result in a tragedy, fact.

In the village here, the other day we had our first coffee and conversation with our neighbours at Angla’i’a & Giorgo’s house for months. Dimitris was there, as was Angla’i’a’s granddaughter, little Maria, who’s about 6 years old. Seeing the little clutch of ‘parea,’ old Manolis, who’s nearly ninety and only lives a few metres from Angla’ia’s, was soon heading our way using his walking frame. It’s sad to see him having to resort to using that frame whenever he goes out from the house now, but his smile is still as permanently fixed to his face as it ever was. And he doesn’t seem to let the fact that he needs to shuffle along with that contraption stop him from still getting all over the village. Well, almost all over, since he is no longer able to manage the hill up past our house at the top of which is his ‘apothiki‘ where he would make daily trips before the walking frame became a necessity.

Dimitris, who lives in the house below us with his mum Maria, as I’ve probably mentioned before, is of very slight stature, owing to a serious illness he suffered for most of the first 12 years of his life after having been born very prematurely. His mode of transport, since he’s too small to reach the pedals in a car or pickup, is a quad bike. Now, he’s an expert at handling it, having driven one for fifteen years now and counting, so it’s not quite the same as foolish tourists renting such death-traps while enjoying their week or two of sun. They are death-traps in the hands of inexperienced tourists, but not when driven by someone who uses theirs every day of their life. Lately we’ve heard Dimitri having a lot of trouble getting his going in the morning, and while we sat there sipping our ellinikos, we noticed that where Dimitris parks his quad, this time there was another right alongside it.

“What, you’re a two-quad family now then Dimitri?” I asked him.

“Yup,” he replied, “The old one’s a bit sick. Needs to retire, so I found another one.” Can’t say we were surprised, and the prospect of no longer having to hear his starter motor tanking on for ages while the sparks plugs failed to catch in the early morning was a nice one, have to admit.

It proved to be a pleasant interlude, and we commiserated with Angla’i’a, who was sporting a black eye where she’d slipped and fell on her front step a couple of days before. Her husband Giorgo was wincing at the pain in his back and leg too, so all-in-all we felt remarkably healthy for a while there. As we eventually got up to leave the usual scenario played itself out. I’d read somewhere recently that raki could actually be a good sleep aid, and, since I had none left at home, I asked if I could maybe buy a bottle from Giorgo, if he didn’t mind. If you mention buying raki from a store in the town you elicit a grimace from your neighbours, while they express disgust at the quality of the stuff you’d get from a shop. No, the only good raki is the stuff that they make themselves in the village. When I’d asked about buying some, the response had been, “We’ll see what we can do.”

As we bade our goodbyes, Angla’i’a disappeared for a few moments, then re-emerged from the house with a large carrier bag. She didn’t want us looking inside until we’d got home, which was only a matter of a few minutes anyway, so we thanked her and took off. Arriving in our kitchen, we opened the bag, which contained a few huge Cretan cucumbers, and a 1.5 litre bottle of raki.

Regarding the photos in this post: The one at the top plus the last one in the ‘gallery’ are both taken on the town beach, where we take our iced coffee and have a dip twice a week. The last one was taken at 8.00pm, when the beach and sea are just perfect temperature-wise at this time of the year. The other beach shots are taken at the Kakao Bar at the far end of Gra Ligia beach, where you’re never overcrowded, not even in August. The one of Yvonne taking a refreshing sip of water is taken at the fountain just a few hundred metres outside the village, and when we’ve undertaken to do a short walk (which is the only type of walk you can attempt in high summer), it’s a truly luxurious experience to sip from that cool water as it emerges from the mountainside.

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