I was coming back from Gra Ligia the other day, in the car with Mihalis, our friend who used to work for the local Dimos and knows more people than just about anyone around here, which was just as well, as I’ll reveal in a mo. The road from Gra Ligia to Ierapetra is a few kilometres of almost dead straight asphalt, with farming supplies, agricultural tool and vehicle retailers, animal feed warehouses and the like strung out along its length. Add to that list a couple of café/bars, bakeries and filling stations, and you get the general idea. That’s to say, it’s hardly the most picturesque road you’re liable to find around these parts. Mind you, if you were piloting a light aircraft that got into difficulties, you’d probably be able to make an emergency landing on it, no trouble.

During the almost six years that we’ve now lived in the area, I hadn’t until this particular day even noticed that there are speed limit signs along the length of that road, together in many places with signs that forbid overtaking. The road is so straight and well wide enough that if anyone comes up behind a vehicle that’s moving irritably slowly, they just zoom on past, causing little if any bother to those coming in the opposite direction. I also hadn’t noticed (let’s face it, the Greeks don’t!) that for most of the length of that road the lines in the middle are double, unbroken and white. In Europe, that’s the universal indicator to motorists that overtaking isn’t allowed. Actually, in the UK it’s interpreted to mean that you could overtake, but not if it meant crossing those double lines. In most cases the width of the road would mean you inevitably would, and thus the basic understanding of the lines is, ‘no overtaking.’ 

If you drive along the piece of road in question, you’ll inevitably come up behind a slow-moving pickup truck or six. Lots of these are super deluxe with great fat alloy wheels and cost a small fortune, but a lot of them are forty-year old (and more) Japanese models that are still just about serviceable and being driven by ancient old papoudes who can barely see over the steering wheel, but they’ve been going along that road to get to and from their horafia, or to buy fertilizer or feed, for all of their working lives. These are the ones that everyone, and I mean everyone, just speeds on past, and it doesn’t really involve a great deal of risk.

Unfortunately, since the police don’t have an awful lot of gangland murders or jewellery heists to deal with around here, they do tend to lurk in a parking lot (and they’ve many to choose from) along that road and enjoy pulling folks over to check their papers and, if they’re really lucky, impose on-the-spot fines for overtaking or exceeding the rather frustrating 50kph speed limit. Keeps them out of trouble I suppose.

So, there was Mihalis, driving back towards town, with me in the passenger seat, our windows rolled down and he with his regulation forearm extending out of the window to catch the air, as it were, when a flashing blue light caught our eye and there was this young stocky policeman with his wayfarers glistening in the sunshine pointing at us and indicating very definitely that we were to pull in, where a smart white and blue police pickup was parked up, just far enough off the line of sight to be able to catch one unawares. Leaning against the bonnet (OK guys, the ‘hood’ if you like) was another young officer, also with his slick shades poised cooly beneath his peaked cap, apparently examining his fingernails so as to look disinterested, which he was, of course, anything but.

Now, we’d been the last in a line of maybe six or seven vehicles, all moving at the same pace, which was around 60kph. OK, that was a little over the limit, but everyone was guilty, not just us. I hadn’t even noticed, but Mihalis had apparently drifted out slightly, making it look as if he was contemplating an overtake, when all he was doing was taking a look along the road for some reason or other, or, more likely, adjusting his sunglasses on the bridge of his nose, thus losing concentration for a second or two.

Mihalis pulled into the parking lot, the police pickup just behind us when we came to a halt. The officer who’d flagged us down was at the driver’s window in seconds and asked Mihalis for his papers. 

I may not have mentioned this before, but his Toyota 4×4 SUV isn’t the neatest of vehicles inside. I wouldn’t say that it was total mayhem, but there were papers, small packs of tissues, spent coffee cups (the cardboard ones), rags for wiping the windows, CD cases all over the place. Every pocket was bulging with ‘stuff,’ as was the glove compartment when Mihalis opened it during his search for his insurance certificate. You have to be able to show your drivers license, your ID, your current insurance certificate and proof that you’ve paid your annual road tax when they stop you. The road tax having been paid (and here, everyone pays it in December for the following year) is no longer made evident by a screen sticker, no. When you pay it you print out a kind of certificate, which is about A6 size, and you keep it in your vehicle in case you get stopped. Once a car’s four years old you have to start taking it every two years for its roadworthiness test at the KTEO depot too, and in the intervening year it has to go anyway for an emissions test. If the vehicle is roadworthy, and hence passes its test, the engineer who examined it will place a small circular sticker on the rear number plate, and this is colour coded and indicates when the next test is due, so it’s a simple matter of looking at the rear plate to see if the car’s been tested and passed. 

Usually the officer who stops you will ask pretty early in the conversation for your license plate number anyway, because, let’s face it, if it’s your vehicle then you ought to remember your number, right? If you can’t tell the policeman your number while sitting in the driver’s seat, then it’s a good indicator that maybe you’ve just stolen it.

Mihalis, whilst flinging open glove compartments and poking around in door pockets, was mumbling “I could have sworn I had it in the car. Where the hell is it?” He was talking as much to himself as to either me or the young policeman. If you can’t produce the required papers, the next step is that the officer will ask you to step out of the car.

“Step out of the vehicle sir, and come with me please,” said the young man in uniform, and I’d have sworn he said this with a smirk beginning to spread from the corners of his mouth. ‘I’ve got one here,’ I reckon he was saying to himself, ‘Yesss!’

I remained where I was, sliding ever so slightly further down in my seat and thinking about calling Yvonne, because she and Soula, Mihalis’ wife, were waiting for us on a corner in the town. We were on our way to pick them up and we were already late. Mihalis is a Greek, after all. Why change the habit of a lifetime? 

As Mihalis and the first policeman reached the other officer, who now joined the conversation, I had visions of him being fined a couple of hundred Euros for crossing the double white lines, maybe breaking the speed limit, probably both. Did he have his cards on him? I’m sure he didn’t carry enough cash. At first, although I couldn’t actually hear what was being said, it sounded a bit sharp, that conversation. Oh dear. The three men were about five metres behind me, but the noise from passing vehicles was making it hard to make anything out.

After about five minutes, Mihalis got back into the car, a huge grin all over his face. I waited until he’d started the car up and we’d pulled out into the road again before asking him what I was desperate to learn – had they fined him? Did he have to go to the police station within 48 hours and show all his papers?

“Oh no, Gianni,” he replied, “Everything’s OK. No problem. Have you called the girls?”

‘Yes,” I replied, “they’re OK about it. But what happened back there?”

Now, Mihalis is a recent retiree, after spending a few decades working for the Dimos, and finally ending up as head of the Cleansing Department. In fact, the bloke who’d now been given his job regularly asks him back in an advisory capacity, which suits him fine as it makes him still feel useful. Like I’ve said before in previous posts, as well as in the book “Moving Islands,” There isn’t a café owner in Ierapetra who doesn’t know him and whose café bar doesn’t regularly grant him a free coffee. Of course, I should have known, there aren’t many policemen who don’t know who he is either.

“So, go on then, tell me – what happened? Did they fine you?” I asked, with some degree of apprehension.

“Oh no, that second man was the son of my previous deputy’s daughter. I’ve known the family for years. Turns out he recently got married and his wife’s already expecting their first. Lovely people. He was only too pleased to see me and catch up a while.”

Needless to say, the reason for us getting pulled over was soon forgotten and we were sent on our way with very best wishes. It’s not what you know, eh?

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This post’s batch of photos…

Above: We couldn’t believe our ears and eyes when, yesterday, as we were supping our coffees on the terrace, this vehicle crept up the lane, no doubt completely unaware that you can’t get through at the top in a regular-sized vehicle. Dimitri does it all the time on his quad bike, but this bloke soon realised that he’d need to back all the way down to the road again. I thought at first that it was Google Maps, but it was the other outfit, Apple, preparing images for their version of Street View, which I believe they call “Look Around.” As he was backing gingerly down the steep lane, I called out in Greek to ask if he needed any help. He replied in heavily accented English, “You speak English? I don’t speak Greek?” Would you Adam and Eve it, but he was a young Bulgarian bloke, sent into Greece just to do this work.

I went for a walk around ‘dingly dell’ the other afternoon. It was the first time I’d done that circuit for quite a while. These below are from that walk…

The sun’s out and the temperatures are climbing rapidly now, after a very changeable April that even got me slightly depressed. I know we need the rain, but it’s been unseasonably cold for April. It’s begun making up for that now though. The forecast is for the low to mid thirties this coming weekend, and we’re off to Sitia on Saturday for our annual two-week holiday in Greece! Below are some shots from the terrace, as we were having coffee on Monday morning…

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