We finally got together with a few friends last night, after keeping ourselves to the house for three weeks owing to this ‘orrible cold we’ve both had. Turns out, talking to a few, that several people have had what we’ve had and they confirmed that the irritating tickly cough that we both still have tends to hang around for up to a month. I’ve just passed the three weeks and two days mark and Yvonne’s about three days behind me. So another four or five days then. Ah well.

Still, every cloud has a silver lining. Owing to our having to do a lot of thumb-twiddling, I set to and wrote a 12.5k word short story, which meant putting the current book on hold for a little while. The book I’m actually writing is the saga of how we came to move islands from Rhodes to Crete back in 2019. I’ve written four chapters so far and it’s going OK. It was just that, not long after I first came down with this cold, we had a fairly long power cut (outage, to use ‘young people speak’) that lasted from around 8.00am until just after 3.00pm. It was scheduled, as I discovered when checking the website of the Greek electricity infrastructure company (ΔΕΔΔΗΕ), due to some routine maintenance to the cables that was needed in the area. It was while we were experiencing internet/Viber/WhatsApp/Messenger deprivation syndrome, that I began to wonder quite what would happen to us all if the entire planet’s electricity supply were to suddenly go off permanently. What if some freak electromagnetic wave or something were to sweep across the planet and fundamentally change how molecules in cables (whether they be steel, copper or fibre-optic) behaved, in effect, causing electricity as we know it to no longer work.

Before I knew it I was furiously typing away at this dystopian tale, imagining how society would collapse as the days went on once there was no longer any electricity, and hence no computers, no internet, no telecommunications. I mean, let’s face it, our world today has become totally reliant on the vast majority of its citizens using electricity for just about everything they do on a daily basis. Anyway, I had to leave “Moving Islands” on the back burner for just long enough to get this tale out of my system. It’s done now and it’s out there. I’ve purged it from my head, as it were. If you think you may like to give it a go, it’s only £1.99 (UK price) as a Kindle download on Amazon. Since it’s not full novel-length, but rather a short story, it is unlikely to see the light of day in paperback format. Should I ever write a bunch more short stories (and who knows, I’m still just about young enough that it’s a possibility!), then maybe they’ll then be a feasible proposition as a book all together. But don’t hold your breath just now. I’m soon going to be hammering away at the keyboard getting on with the “Moving Islands” project once more. If you like the story, then you can thank the current cold virus that it even exists at all. If you don’t like it, then blame the cold anyway! If you just want to read a little more info about it, then it now has a page on my website.

The photo at the top of this post was taken on Tuesday March 14th in Agios Nikolaos. We went there for a stroll around, since we love it off-season, when it’s wonderfully devoid of the summertime hordes, and eventually took coffee upstairs in the Café du Lac, from where I took this one below…

The weather’s been a bit topsy turvy of late to be honest. Most of February and the first week of March were totally spring-like and it was easily warm enough to sit outside for your morning coffee. This past few days, however, the temperatures have been more akin to what you expect in January, and, although we’d stopped using any heating in the house for a couple of weeks during the evenings and nights, this past few days it’s gone back on again, albeit only set quite low. That explains why the outdoor terrace shown in that photo above was deserted on Tuesday, as it was a bit cool for sitting out there comfortably. Never mind, it was a bright, sunny day and walking around we were just right, not too hot and not too cold. Here’s just one more from Ag. Nik before we return to Ierapetra…

Back in Ierapetra, here are two that I took on March 8th at around 12.30pm, both near the fishing harbour and fortress…

The first of those two above is interesting, in that there are a few old cottages set just behind the harbour and slightly higher than the quayside by about two metres or so. If you walk the road behind the cottages, which is parallel to the quayside, you can look down the alleys between them and, as in this case, stare straight on to the deck of a boat that’s in dry dock. That’s to say, standing on huge wooden stilts while the owners renovate the hull. So, if you look closely (maybe blow the shot up a little) you can see that what you’re looking at down the other end, and it’s blocking the view of the harbour from here, is an old fishing boat that’s well in need of some TLC.

The second shot above looks towards the Venetian fortress ‘of Kales’ that stands sentry at the harbour entrance and has been under renovation for several years. The fortress is due to open again to the public this year, although close inspection reveals that they still have a bit of work to do within the walls. The job they’ve done on the walls themselves is superb though, and I for one can’t wait to be allowed back inside. The last time we went inside was in November of 2015, when we were visiting Ierapetra from Rhodes and staying with our friends for a week. It was after that visit when we’d gone home to Rhodes so wishing that we could live here, we liked the place so much. See? Dreams really can come true.

Finally, the raised bed that I built on our terrace still has a wonderful array of red flowers from that plant that usually flowers in April. I posted a photo on my Facebook page back on 25th January of these plants already flowering, and those flowers are still blooming. Look closely at the close-up and you’ll spot a honey bee slightly left of centre, as he creeps upside down into a bloom to get at the nectar and pollen. We’re still blown away by this marvellous display that we can sit and wonder at while we sip our morning coffee…

There you go, hope you’re keeping well. If you don’t live in Greece, maybe you’ll be paying us a visit this season. If so, do have a fabulous visit, won’t you.

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The latest work of fiction, “The Lone Refugee” (Click on cover image)

The latest work of non-fiction, “Greek Oddities” (Click on cover image)

It’s two weeks ago today that I came down with this cold. I can’t remember the last time I ever had a cold that lasted this long. We finally made it to the pharmacy a couple of days ago and I bought a couple of home tests kits for Covid. I didn’t really think that either of us had it, but every time any Greek friend has called to see how we are, that’s the first thing they ask, “Have you done a test?” I suppose I can’t really blame them. After all, Covid may not be much different from a cold for most people, but Thanasi (who I first talked about in this post back in December 2020) has recently had a scare with his grandmother, a sweet ya-ya whom we also know quite well now, because she’s over 90 and has been in hospital this very week after testing positive for Covid-19. Fortunately, she’s come through and is now recuperating back in her modest little home on the edge of town.

Anyway, I did the test and it was negative. It’s as we suspected, we both have colds. It starts with this horrible dizziness and a pain behind the eyes, accompanied by a sore throat. Then it progresses to a tickly throat and cough, and the catarrh in the nose and throat, and now I’m left with this ruddy cough that’s stubbornly refusing to go quietly. It seems that my live-in nurse Yvonne hasn’t suffered from it quite so badly as I have, since she seems to be getting over it slightly before I am, but confirming that it’s ‘going around’ is the fact that we video called a good friend on Rhodes yesterday and she was down with the same symptoms, as is another young friend who lives in Ierapetra.

Although, like a lot of people, I can quite ‘enjoy’ being sick for a few days, because it means these days when I no longer have to worry about work, that one can stay in bed with a hot water bottle, drink hot honey and lemon with a dash of brandy thrown in for medicinal purposes, read a book, listen to some music and sleep for hours, a few days is enough. More than that and it gets tiresome, right? So yesterday, since it was yet another beautiful day, we went for a walk up the lane towards Meseleri for some fresh air.

The photo at the top of this post was taken during that walk. We came across an almond tree that’s already in full flower, and as well as the flowers it still had a lot of last year’s crop of almonds attached to the branches…

In case you didn’t know, almonds grow in rugby-ball shaped furry shells, and the furry husk is easily removed when the fruit is ripe. The husks are usually green, but if left on the tree long enough they turn dark brown, almost black, in fact. The husk often cracks open with time while still on the tree and can be peeled off with a fingernail, leaving the brown pitted shell that contains the almond inside. If you, like me, remember your parents always buying a selection of nuts in their shells every Christmas, and then watching as Dad would sit by the fire, bowl of nuts on his lap and a pair of nutcrackers in his hand, and crack away at walnuts, hazels, brazils and almonds, usually having to fight us kids off as we’d be too impatient to wait until he’d achieved a respectable pile of ready-to-eat nuts in the bowl, then you’ll know that the hard shell around an almond is usually beige coloured and has a pitted surface.

Seeing this almond tree beside the road, we set to at picking some of those remaining almonds, which is a rather relaxing thing to do in late afternoon sunshine, especially as the blossom on the tree is a wonder to behold while you’re doing it. We filled the pockets of our fleeces and arrived home well pleased with our haul. We could have picked more, and may well go back for some more yet, but, after I’d shelled all the almonds yesterday, we had around 250g of perfectly good almonds to add to our jar. When you consider that almonds grow everywhere here, it can be slightly galling how expensive they still are to buy. So to be able to augment our supply in this way was very welcome.

The weather can’t have been more different to last winter lately. We haven’t seen rain in the village for three weeks now, apart from a ten-minute sprinkling the day before yesterday. Last winter was the wettest for decades, and this year the villagers are cussing the lack of rain. The soil is as dry as it often is during high summer. On our walk we set off down a lane for a few metres, one which we often walk down, simply to admire the view and look at the wild irises. The lane in question is usually muddy and retains some large puddles during the winter months. At the moment the ruts are rock hard and dry as a bone. This past few weeks, following the cold spell in early February, we’ve been waking up every morning to bright sunshine. Overnight the temperatures have been between 9ºC and 14ºC, with the mercury rising to anything between 18 and 22 around midday. There has been very little wind too, which has meant that currently it’s an absolute joy to throw open the French Windows at the start of the day and walk out onto a warm, sunny veranda, where the cat is usually stretched out on one of the chairs waiting for his breakfast.

This seems to be a good year for the wild irises, by the way. They’re only little, but so lovely to look at…

We were walking near the Saturday market in town this past weekend, and spotted one of the prettiest cats we’ve ever seen sitting on someone’s patio table. He must be well domesticated, because, as I whipped out the phone to take a couple of photos of him, he came over for a petting session. Yvonne wanted to kidnap him, he was so gorgeous. What do you think?

Finally, below is another nostalgia pic. My dear dad has been gone for 14 years now, I can hardly believe it. But when he and my mum came over to stay with us on Rhodes, Dad soon made himself useful and helped me build a gate for a fence I was constructing to section the orchard off from our garden. The fence and gate were made entirely of reprocessed wooden pallets, and dad, ever the resourceful one when it came to using his hands, built me a 90º square out of three pieces of wood. I wouldn’t have had the faintest idea how to do that, but he did, and it served its purpose well while we built that gate. The photo was taken while dad was wearing his ancient (and much too short) dressing gown. He came outside to see what I was up to and soon got involved, without bothering to go back inside to get dressed properly. Yvonne took the photo as she loved to see father and son working together as a team…

That about wraps this one up. Thanks for reading it, I never take anyone out there who reads this stuff for granted, rest assured.

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The latest work of fiction, “The Lone Refugee” (Click on cover image)

The latest work of non-fiction, “Greek Oddities” (Click on cover image)