We’re back home after two very busy weeks in Wiltshire. My sister (seen in the above shot with Yvonne, during one of our ‘restorative’ walks while we were with her) lost her hubby recently and we promised to go over and do what we could to help her declutter the home and garage, since she had a mammoth task before her to accomplish it on her own. So we spent most of the fourteen days we were with her painting, cleaning, clearing out stuff for taking to a car boot sale (and actually doing the sale), or for Jane to put on the Marketplace in order to get it sold. So, it wasn’t really a holiday, so much as a ‘working’ trip to help out as best we could. The first three days we were in the UK it rained almost incessantly and I came down with a really catarrhal cold. Lovely. Still, the garage especially looked a lot different by the time we left to come home to Crete, so mission accomplished.

Not long before we went to the UK (on Sept 4th) we’d been having a conversation with Angla’i’a and Giorgo about the nocturnal animal life in and around the village. I’d remarked that I’d had a really good view of a barn owl, not more than thirty metres from their house. Now, I’m not the world’s top expert on birds, but there are a few things I know, and I do know a barn owl when I see one. We used to see them often back on Rhodes and, in the five years that we’ve now been living here, we’ve seen one in the village on several occasions. My most recent sighting was during one of my nocturnal walks around the village perimeter, and I’d happened to glance up to the top of a telephone pole (and those are much shorter than the ones carrying electricity cables) and there he was, in all his glory. I was close enough to see his eyes and he clearly ‘clocked’ me right away. Fortunately, though, he seemed in no hurry to fly away, maybe because he’s so unused to seeing humans around at 3.15am that he didn’t perceive me as a threat, I don’t know, but he remained on the top of that post while I studied him with immense pleasure.

I’d say that it was at least two or three minutes that I stood there while we studied each other before he decided to open his wings and swoop down in the other direction, silently of course. Barn owls make no sound at all when they fly; it’s a truly remarkable feat of engineering is a barn owl’s wing. So anyway, I happened to mention this to Angla’i’a, who promptly corrected me and said, “Oh that wasn’t an owl. We don’t have owls around here. What you saw was a δεκαοχτουρα.”

Now, if there’s anything I’ve learned over the years it’s never to argue with a local, but I knew that she was mistaken. A ‘dekaoktoura‘ is in fact a Eurasian Collared Dove, and they’re quite common around here. They’re also not nocturnal, …fact. Funnily enough, the day after we got home from the UK, we went straight to the beach for a coffee and a swim, picking up a spanakopita along the way for breakfast, since we had nothing in the house. Once I’d finished mine I shook the pastry crumbs out onto the sand, since there was a collared dove hanging around, no doubt because it had spotted what I was eating and thought that it might well be worth sticking around for a while. Its patience paid off too, because, after having approached my lounger a couple of times and then backed off, it eventually threw caution to the wind and tucked in…

If you’ve ever seen even a photo of a barn owl, then you’ll know that there’s no way anyone could confuse one with a collared dove. Still, I chose not to contradict my well-meaning neighbour, it pays to be diplomatic now and then, right?

It seemed to us that this year the weather in the UK was unusually cold and changeable for September. I have vivid memories of going back to school when I was at the City of Bath Boys’ School back in the late sixties and early seventies, and we’d be out on the school plateau playing football all through the lunch break, charging sweatily around in our shirtsleeves, shirt tails flying in the wind. In my mind’s eye I have a picture of one of my old school friends in particular, and I’ve no idea why it’s him, but there’s Steve Jones charging up the wing, deftly dribbling the ball towards the goal (marked by a couple of piles of jumpers) with a cider lolly on a stick dripping from his left hand. An ice cream van would regularly station itself right outside the school gates during hot sunny days (of which I seem to recall there were many in September back then), and most of us would spend our bus fare home on a cider lolly. They were deliciously cooling, after all.

Anyway, I was glad to change the subject after Angla’i’a had told me that my barn owl must have been a collared dove, and we moved on to more pressing matters, like the lack of rain this year and how it’s going to affect the olive harvest if we don’t have a few downpours before November. That conversation took place before we flew to Britain, and boy were we glad to be home when we felt the air temperature, even at 10.00pm, as we exited Heraklion airport to go find our car. We were even happier the next morning to be back where we most love to be at coffee time during the summer months…

Cats have long memories, don’t they. Yesterday morning, the second after our return to our home here on Crete, I threw open the kitchen window as around 7.30am while I was boiling the kettle to make a cup of Earl Grey, and there, through the mosquito net, I saw a couple of black ears…

It was Groucho, of course. Once he realised that the window was open, he turned around and poked his nose right up to the net, evidently hoping for a few treats from the two-week absentees. Cheeky little devil. He could do this because we have a bench fixed to the wall outside that window, beneath which is one of my tool cupboards.

Well, must get on. See you soon (much sooner this time, OK?).

•

Click HERE to go to my Amazon Author Page. There you can browse and purchase all of my written works.