Well, it looked like the winter had arrived yesterday, with the temperature plummeting ten degrees C over the previous day, and for the first time since last spring not reaching 20º even at around midday. We also had some much needed rain, although still nothing like the amount we need, or usually receive, at this time of the year. Today, though, has been gorgeous, with 23ºC registering on the veranda, and we two busy hacking away at our two ancient olive trees in the lower garden.

It’s been very much photo-taking weather of late, including even yesterday for much of the time. So I’m going to make this post photo-heavy, but first, a lovely observation as we were sipping our coffees on the terrace at around midday. As we lay there on the sun loungers, to our right, across the lane and bordering on Evangelia’s chicken run, there’s an abandoned house. Nothing unusual there then, for a Greek village these days, sadly. The roof of that house, as you’d expect, is flat. I say ‘flat’ but, as it’s not been lived in for many a year, the whole thing, which is a crumbling cement-screed over a concrete superstructure, is very noticeably concave in the middle. Since there was at least some rain during the past 48 hours, there is now a lake, maybe a couple of metres across, on that roof. While we sipped our coffees, a flock of sparrows was enjoying some leisurely ‘bathtime’ antics, and it was a pure joy to watch.

I know, you’ve probably seen it yourself too, but with the hot sun beating down on the sail stretched above our heads, the sky not exhibiting even a postage stamp of cloud, those birds put on a lovely show for ten minutes or so, before something freaked them and they all flew off together. While they were there, though, it was so enjoyable to watch as they’d hop into the water and then begin flapping their wings for all they were worth to get the water all over their tiny little bodies. Then they’d stop momentarily, before doing it again until they were satisfied, at which point they’d hop to the edge, onto dry cement, and flap again, much like a dog does it seemed to me, to throw off any excess moisture that was surplus to requirements.

Meanwhile, in the olive tree beside us a warbler landed and chattered about for a while, no doubt consuming the odd insect or two before zooming off over the fence behind our heads. What really thrilled us though, and scenes like this have us constantly expressing thanks for being able to live where we do, was that level with our eyes and not more than thirty metres beyond the balustrade bordering the terrace, a buzzard was soaring, so close that you could easily see its eyes and the subtle colours of its wing feathers. They often soar within sight of the veranda, but this one today must have been interested in something in the olive grove below us to come so close, as it flew past us several times during the course of ten or fifteen minutes or so. I remember many years ago listening to a nature programme on the BBC (Radio 4 I think) where the presenter was talking to an expert on birds of prey. He said that if you have a healthy buzzard population (and we have griffon vultures too here) then the ecosystem is probably pretty healthy. He said this was due to the fact that the buzzard is at the top of the aerial food chain as a rule, meaning that for there to be buzzards there must also be a good population of other small birds and also earthbound rodents and mammals that serve as food for them.

This is encouraging because it’s a fact that a few kilometres below us, and thankfully behind a couple of modest mountains which obscure them from view, are the huge thermokipia (plastic, covered hothouses) that are used to cultivate fruit and vegetables on a grand scale in this area. Many of the farmers do use artificial fertilizers and pest control inside those massive structures, and this worries us sometimes. Up here though, just a few kilometres further up the mountainside, large birds of prey abound, and they treat us to a spectacular show of aerobatics quite frequently.

While we drank our coffees too, we remarked on the low humidity today, making the sea far below us very crystal clear and the horizon really sharp. So, I took these just a couple of hours ago…

Here are a few more from the past few days in and around the house and village…

That final one above is of a butterfly larvae that I found attached to our wall-mounted hose reel, and I didn’t have the heart to knock it off. It’s about an inch and a half long. It looks like it’s the caterpillar of the swallowtail butterfly (by all means correct me if I’m wrong), which is the very one I snapped on the lantana in the same photo gallery above. Maybe once it’s been through its chrysalis stage and emerged as an adult I’ll be able to spot it and say, “that one lives because of me!”

Above (and the shot at the top of this post): The beach has been simply magnificent this past couple of weeks, virtually empty, with the sea a sheet of glass and still really warm to swim in, we’re still swimming twice a week and drinking our iced coffees on the beach at the Chocolicious coffee bar, where they’ve now gathered their loungers into a pile behind the beach, but don’t mind at all if we unload a couple and use them just while we take a dip and sip away, before putting them back before we leave, of course. A couple of those photos make it look like the one-legged man strikes again. Sorry about that.

I know, I know, it sounds smug, and I really don’t mean to, but living here is an immense blessing and a privilege that we try never to take for granted, never letting a day go by without truly appreciating what we have.

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