The rhythm of the seasons is something I’ve talked about before, I know, but it’s so beautiful to be able to observe them from a small quiet hillside, far from the madding crowd. Gratitude, appreciation, thankfulness, these are all things that the ‘experts’ say are good for the human psyche. I agree. Not a day goes by without me expressing thanks for the simple little life we’re both leading since buying this beautiful little gem of a house in a tiny corner of the world that’s, thankfully (there I go again), sleepy, relatively undisturbed and surrounded by stunning scenery. When I think of what’s going on in other parts of this troubled planet, even in the cities of Europe, my heart aches for those who are enduring it all, but also bursts with gratitude.

You know, I sometimes read people’s posts on Facebook, asking where would be a good place to spend a winter in Greece. Many people could be forgiven for thinking that all of Greece is the same, as in: hot, sunny, and enjoying the outdoor life as the norm. That’s not the case, far from it. Greece, like every other country (well, possibly except Andorra, Liechtenstein or Monaco) enjoys a varied climate, depending on whether you’re up north in the mountains around Florina, somewhere in the mainland east of Ioannina, or maybe on an island somewhere either in the Ionian or the Aegean, where the further north or south you go, the more differences there are in the climate.

It’s interesting too to factor in how far east or west you are. In Cyprus, for example, today the sunset time is 4.44pm, a bit UK-ish I’d say. The reason is that Cyprus is on the same time zone as Greece, but is a long way east of us. Here where we are the sunset today will be at 5.10pm, half an hour later. In Rhodes, where we lived for 14 years, it’ll be 4.58pm, a full 12 minutes earlier than here, and that’s something we’ve noticed since moving here in September 2019. In Corfu, the sun sets on December 23rd at 5.20pm. Here in southern Greece, the sun rises so early, even in December, that you don’t endure any dark mornings really. Here today the sun rose at 7.23am, whereas back in the UK, in South Wales, where we lived for a quarter of a century before moving here to Greece, the sunrise was at 8.18am, almost an hour later. It’ll be getting dark around 4.08pm too, an hour earlier than here. That’s two hours difference in daylight hours between where we live here on Crete and where we used to live in Wales.

If you were to check the weather today in various parts of Greece, you’d see a wildly different picture from, for example, Florina in the north, to Ierapetra here in the furthest south point in all of Europe. In fact Florina has much harsher winters than most of England and Wales, owing to its being way up in the mountains and a long way from the sea. If you like the heat, Florina’s not the place for you, since their summers are short and their winters long, with snow covering the land for months on end. The scenery there is spectacular though, and much of Northern Greece has ski resorts, like the Alps of France, Italy and Switzerland.

The Sporades Islands, which include Skiathos, Skopelos and Alonissos, often get snowfall during the winter, owing to their proximity to the mainland. The best place in Greece for winter warmth is without a doubt the southern Dodecanese (Rhodes, Halki) or Crete. Even the two ends of this island have very different climates, as does the north coast from the south, where we are. The prevailing winds on Crete are from the north to north west. This results in the north coast getting a lot more cloud and rainfall than we do here. Over in the west, from Heraklion through Rethymnon and on to Chania, they have much stronger winds and more rainfall than we do, as a rule. Today, we sat out on our sun loungers at midday to drink our coffee in 21ºC and full sunshine. In fact, although I’d already stowed away our huge three metre wide ‘sail’ for the winter, I had to dig it out again and put it back up yesterday, because the sun was burning our faces.

So, there you are, if you wonder where would be the best place to over-winter in Greece, it depends a great deal on whether you want ski or sun, log fires or waterfront cafés. Me and my missus, we’re well happy where we are thank you very much. I haven’t possessed an overcoat now for 18 years, and we only have to resort to heating our home indoors during the daytime on as many days during the winter months as you could count on one hand. I have no need for thermal underwear, and the chance of returning home after being out and about in the winter with freezing cold toes is about zero. Suits me fine.

With one exception, the photos in the gallery at the top of this post were taken during a walk in the hills around the village a couple of days ago. The first one was taken on the beach in Ierapetra, but I guess that’s fairly self-evident. There are a couple more photos from that walk on the Facebook page, in case you wanted to take a look and haven’t already seen them.

You’ve probably noticed that my blog is a ‘Christmas free zone,’ right? I figured that there’s enough of that malarkey flooding the web right now that you don’t need me adding to it. I’m fully aware that my point of view is probably the exception, but I don’t really like Saturnalia much, to give the festival its more accurate title. It has about as much to do with Christ as a snowflake in August if you check the history books. Seems to me too that all the ‘festivals’ these days are getting bigger year on year. When I was a kid you never heard about Halloween, except to know what day it was. There will be those who disagree (and it’s everyone’s right, of course), but I believe that the ‘bigging up’ of Halloween began in the UK with the movie ET. Prior to that no one bothered with it. Back then it was much bigger in the USA than it was in Europe. Since then it’s become bigger every year, much to the delight of the commercial world, which, after all, is the major factor in the expanding of all the ‘celebrations,’ isn’t it?

Here in our tiny village, life goes on very much the same all year round. Dimitri, who lives with his mum Maria in the house below ours, gets up at 6.00am every day of the year. December 25th will be no different. He farms for a living and is out of the house by 7.00am every day of his life. He has sheep, goats, ducks and chicken, plus arable crops too. Those things don’t pay much mind to what the date is, after all. Yesterday, as we inspected the flowers on our potted hibiscus plants on our terrace, he and Maria came walking up the hill below us. She had her arm through her son’s and looked decidedly frail. Most of the time she could pass for someone in her late forties, or maybe early fifties, but she is probably nearer to sixty, truth be told. But when we exchanged a few neighborly words with them, they told us that Maria had Covid – again. She’s had it, as has Dimitri, a few times already. Let’s face it, Covid-19 is with us for the long haul now, much like the flu or measles, and most people only suffer mild symptoms when they get it. Some though, they have it much worse, and it makes them feel very poorly. We wished her ‘perastika‘ as they went their way.

At this time of the year it’s a delight to rise at between 7.00am and 7.30am, as the light’s simply wonderful as the sun peeks over the hill to our left. I’m not going to pretend that they’re marvellous or anything, but I took the next bunch of shots all within ten minutes of each other while mooching around outside the house yesterday at around 7.00. to 7.15am –

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