Time marches ever onwards, eh? It’s quite sobering to think that, come September, we shall have been living here on Crete for five years already. We have seen most of our near neighbours during this past few days, largely because we’ve been perched on our garden wall sanding down and repainting the picket fence, as I mentioned in the last post. Yesterday Manolis, who lives a few doors along from Angla’i’a and Giorgo, came shuffling down the steep lane. It was agonising to watch him shifting his walking frame (what the Greeks call a ‘Pi’ owing to the fact that it’s shaped like the Greek letter ‘p’) a couple of centimetres at a time, yet also inspiring in that he never gives in. He’s ninety this year.

Our nearest neighbours across the lane, Evangelia, and her daughter Maria (who lives above her mother), have shared a few brief neighbourly chats with us too. Evangelia came over to give us a bag of freshly laid eggs from her chickens (those whose daily cluckings are the soundtrack to our daily lives when we’re in the lower garden) and, much as expected, didn’t hand them to me, but rather placed them on the wall in a paper bag for me to pick up. We learned about that little superstition from Angla’i’a some years ago now (see this post). In fact we reflected over our coffees that when we’d first arrived in the village we’d come to know no less than seven people who were already in their eighties, and, thankfully, they’re all still with us.

What brought us up with a start, though, was the thought that, since Giorgos, Manolis, Evangelia, Filia, Sofia, Poppi and Despoina were all aged from around 84 – 90 when we arrived, they must all now be either very close to ninety or already there. When you’re five years old, one year is an awfully long time, isn’t it? In a funny kind of way, that also applies when you’re an octogenarian, because one year when you’re eighty-five can bring all kinds of unexpected, and usually unwelcome, events. Advancing one year in age when you’re close to ninety must surely make you think you’re pushing your luck. What we found encouraging, though, when musing over this relentless pushing forward of time, was the fact that the village is a place of longevity, evidently. Giorgos, Angla’i’a’s hubby, told us not long after we’d moved in and asked them about the quality of the tap-water here in the village, that he’d been drinking it neat for 85 years and he was doing OK on it. We’ve since dispensed with our filter (which had the added bonus of saving us a small fortune, since your average Brita filter or equivalent costs here in Greece three to four times what you pay in the UK) and are content in the knowledge that the mountain above us is the natural filter for the water we drink here.

Another health benefit of living in the village is the fact that, apart from us, everyone has their own horafi (field) where they grow a selection of vegetables for the table, plus keep a few geese, chickens, turkeys and the like. We, of course, receive the benefit of all the abundance that nature provides, and just this past week have been given a huge selection of fresh produce, including eggs, from several different neighbours. You only have to bump into someone for them to insist that you wait before moving on, while they nip into the house and re-emerge with a bag full of goodies (aubergines, tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, peppers…). Almost makes it worth planning a stroll around the village if we find ourselves running out of any of those. Oh, and if we speak to Christina, she then rocks up at the house the next day with a bag full of freshly made pastries for the freezer, all of which just need popping into the oven for a few minutes before gracing a plate on the dinner table.

So, all in all, we can’t complain. This past week or so it has been unseasonably warm too. We’ve had June temperatures, a marked change from last year, when all through March, April and even into early June the changeable weather continued. The garden’s literally bursting with new growth. Here are some photos as proof of that. Firstly, look how quickly the fig tree is blooming, and the figs that we shall be eating come July are already in evidence, currently about the size of a pea. These photos represent the changes in just two or three days…

Here’s a selection of lovely shots around the garden this past few days…

The plant below is evident in pots in most gardens in this area, largely because it’s a near-impossibility to kill it. It needs very little water and flowers most of the time. It’s common name is ‘Crown of Thorns,’ for obvious reasons. Not a lot of people know, though, that it’s actually a plant in the Euphorbia family. You’d never think so at first glance though…

Finally, to round this one off, some shots taken last Sunday morning, before we first took a swim and then sat at the L’Angolo on the sea front for lunch…

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