We’ve got oil. Must admit, it was a bit of a relief. For a couple of years now we’ve been getting our olive oil from our neighbours Dimitri and his mum Maria. OK, so in this post I mentioned how we managed to harvest about 7kg from one of our own trees this past winter, but that only gets you through a couple or three weeks, let’s be honest. It was toward the back end of last summer when Dimitri told me that the family had run out, and so he could no longer supply us, at least until the new harvest, and when that began this past November, he also mentioned that it didn’t look like being a very good one. When you look at the price of olive oil in the supermarkets this past year or so, it makes your eyes water to think about having to buy it there, because by and large the prices have more than doubled in the past 18 months or so. 

So, anyway, a couple of weeks ago I gingerly walked the few metres down the lane to their front door, knocked and waited. When Dimitri answered, I asked him if it might be possible this year to again get our supplies from him, whilst also assuring him that we wouldn’t be at all offended if he said no, since we understood that the harvest might not have been as good as was hoped for.  He told me that he’d have a chat with the rest of the boys in the family (cousins and a brother, who all run their ‘farm’ together), and that he’d get back to me, probably that very evening. I did add as a parting shot, “We’ll not be offended if it’s a ‘no,’ but I had to ask, didn’t I?”

That evening, he didn’t show. So we contented ourselves with the knowledge that he was usually as good as his word, so we’d wait until the next day and see, before starting to find another source. Next morning, as we sat supping our coffees on the terrace, from where we can just see the steep lane that runs alongside the lower garden, we heard the familiar sound of Dimitri’s quad bike, as it was coasting down the hill. If we look to our right while sitting on our sun loungers, we can usually just about see who it is passing. We didn’t need to guess, as the sound of the machine said that it had slowed to a stop and the engine had begun to idle, and then we heard Dimitri’s reedy voice calling out, “Gianni!!, Gianni!”

I shot up from the lounger and saw that there he was, with his mum perched on the passenger seat behind him, and she was holding up a 5 litre bottle full of that wonderful delicious, viscous liquid that we all know and long for – fresh, extra virgin, home produced olive oil. I opened the gate and went out to accept it from them, and we agreed on a very acceptable (not to say silly) price, and I promised to drop by that very instant with the cash, while they continued to coast the last few metres down the lane to their home.

Before I went into the house to grab my wallet, Yvonne suggested that they might want one of our lettuces. We’ve had very little success over the years with growing vegetables, but leafy green lettuces have at least been one of our success stories, and this year’s been no exception. We planted up a dozen or so in the lower bed late last year, and for weeks now have been pulling leaves and making wonderful salads for every lunchtime (when we’re at home) since. Our neighbours all regularly give us aubergines (eggplant, guys), cucumbers, tomatoes and courgettes (zucchini, guys) and the like, but we’ve never been given lettuce. So we thought, maybe, just maybe, it’s one way we can give something back. And, all modesty aside, our lettuces are a wonder to behold.

I pulled a choice example from the ground, shook off the soil and took it with me down to our neighbours’ house along with the cash for the oil. I was delighted with Maria’s response and couldn’t wait to tell Yvonne, whose thought it was after all, what a great idea it had been, and how it had further oiled the wheels of neighbourliness (‘oiled’ the wheels; see what I did there? Honestly, I amaze myself sometimes). 

Of course, you can never win in the generosity stakes with these lovely people. Not one minute after I’d handed Maria the lettuce, and Dimitri the cash, Maria said, “You need some eggs?”

A minute later I was walking back up to our house, a bag of around 12 fresh eggs in my hand and Maria’s words ringing in my ears “Any time you need eggs, just ask.”

There’s a story in the Bible about the Jews in the wilderness after they’d come out of Egyptian slavery, with Moses at the ‘helm’ so to speak. It relates how they were only in the desert a short while before they’d forgotten about how hard their lives had been back in Egypt, and instead began to moan about all the vegetables and fresh food they’d been able to eat. Never mind the beatings and killings, ‘Take us back so we can enjoy those cucumbers’ was what it amounted to. They particularly bemoaned the lack of meat. The story goes that God sent a flock of Quail, and thousands of the birds fell dead to the ground outside their tents, and the people rushed out to grab them, cook them and gorge themselves on the birds and, as a result, owing to their previously meagre diet, many of them died due to overstuffing themselves. A salutary lesson indeed.

For some reason this came to mind when, the day after we’d received the eggs from Maria, the other Maria from across the lane, who’s the daughter of Evangelia, our octogenarian friend, pulled up outside her home in her battered old car, and she began helping her aged mother out from the passenger door. We made polite conversation, since Evangelia seldom goes anywhere and it seemed to us that maybe her daughter had taken her to the doctor’s or something. Anyway, after a couple of minutes, we also offered them one of our lettuces, which they accepted readily. I was delighted to place it in Evangelia’s hand and watch as she broke into a broad smile. It’s so rarely that we can do anything for those who live around us, so it felt good.

Of course, as we should have expected, the next day, as we were pottering around in the house, Maria’s head came bobbing up the drive, and so I went out on to the veranda to greet her. Guess what she was carrying in her right hand… Yes, right first time, a bag of fresh eggs from Evangelia’s hens. When Maria (Dimitri’s mum that is, do keep up) had given us the eggs, we’d been out of them. Now, here we were 48 hours later with eggs coming out of our ears. Needless to say we’ve substituted our usual breakfast of muesli with boiled eggs and ‘soldiers’ this past few days, not to mention eaten a frittata or two!

Photo time:

The photo at the top of this post was taken on Friday April 4th at around 3.28pm as we did a walk up the mountain behind the village. This next one’s of the same scene, after I’d rotated a few degrees to my right. You can see the same mountain is now more centre-shot, whereas in the top photo it’s on the right. I ought to have fiddled about with Pixelmator Pro and merged the two shots together, but I haven’t had time…

Here are a few more shots from the same walk:

That self same evening, the rain clouds gathered and it showered for a while, resulting in a rainbow that was so close to the house that I could almost see it touching the ground just a few hundred metres from the veranda. Should have got me wellies on and gone searching for that pot of gold…

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