I’ve been marking our twentieth anniversary of moving from the UK to Greece with a lot of photos, so far posted on my ‘Books’ page on Facebook. The third collection I’m posting right here though. The ones in the gallery below are all taken on Symi or Halki [well, the one of Yvonne dancing on the boat just kind of snuck in there]. Hope you like these…

I’m still a long way from trawling through all the photos right back to 2005, so in all probability there’ll be a few more posts both here and on the Facebook page yet!

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Above: That’s the lower olive tree in our lower garden, and the gate giving access to the lane

I think this must be a particularly good year for cicadas. Not only are they a deafening cacophony that makes my wife shout at them to ‘shut up’ while we’re having our morning coffee, much to my amusement, but they’re everywhere, it seems. All along our veranda they’re sitting on the wooden framework. When I’ve got the sail rolled up owing to the Meltemi (well, it’s not actually a sail, because it’s a 3m square rectangle), that can blow pretty strongly at this time of the year, there are usually a few cicadas hanging from the underside, the part that’s in the shade. Plus, during the night, if I walk down to the lower olive tree in our lower garden, sometimes it’s like a shower of kamikaze cicadas, as they seem to fly ‘drunk,’ as it were in the night, and often can be heard hitting the stoney ground like little missiles. I don’t mind them, because, even though they can be as big as your thumb, they’re completely harmless. I find them quite cute, to be honest, and when Yvonne tells them to ‘SHUT UP, I CAN’T hear myself THINK!’, I remark that the sound of the cicadas is one of those background noises that remind us that we’re in Greece and we ought to be grateful.

She often has the last laugh, though, because if you’ve ever walked along a shady lane in Greece during the cicada season, you’ll have noticed that they have an uncanny knack of detecting your approach. All the cicadas within about ten feet of you stop their chirping as you go by. Then, once you’ve reached a safe distance, they start up again. Of, course, when we’re on the veranda lazing on our loungers sipping our freddo espressos, they are fooled because we’re not actually moving, and thus the ones in the nearest olive tree, which is so close that it adds shade to that which we already enjoy from the ‘sail,’ just carry on regardless, and they can be really loud. That’s with the emphasis on the word ‘really.’ So Yvonne’s exclamation, amazingly enough, sometimes works, and the ones in our immediate vicinity obey her and shut up for a while. Or do you think that maybe she’s just got dark powers and communes with nature or something? The jury’s out.

We hadn’t seen our good neighbours Angla’i’a and Giorgo for quite a few months. I don’t know where the time goes, I really don’t. Anyway, as it happens we’d only just mentioned to each other that it was time we dropped into Angla’i’a’s kitchen to catch up, plus cadge an elliniko and hopefully get a couple of homemade pastries along with it, when she called me on the mobile. She was up at the house just above ours on the other side of the lane. It’s usually empty, as the current owners live in Athens but, as it’s the home they inherited down through the family, they usually decamp here to the village for a couple of weeks during August, when we‘re probably enjoying temperatures in the refreshing mid thirties here, whilst in the city it’ll touch 40 or more. 

Angla’i’a was in the house cleaning up in preparation for the owners’ arrival on Sunday, when she found that the electricity wouldn’t switch on. As you may or may not know, here in Greece all domestic homes are powered by what my electrical engineer Dad used to call ‘three-phase,’ whereas in the UK domestic electricity is on a ‘single-phase,’ system. Every home has a fuse box set into the wall somewhere in the house, and the door to that box is usually glass-fronted, so you can see the little red lights glowing during the evening. If you peer into the box you’ll see a row (or several rows) of fuses, all of which have a trip switch. The main fuse for the whole house also has a trip, which is often slightly bigger and can be red (although not always) instead of black, which all the lesser ones are. Next to the main trip is a safety fuse with its own trip too, and it also has a little black button for resetting, because, owing to the tendency that the electricity supply here in Greece often has to experience current surges, that safety trip can indeed flip off without warning. One press of the reset button, and you can flip it back into the ‘on’ position, no harm done. 

So, Angla’i’a had entered the house and thrown the main switch, which resulted in the safety trip immediately flipping to the ‘off’ position, thus disabling the power to the whole house. At a loss as to what to do, she’d decided to call me (Why me I’ve no idea. Maybe I give the impression that I’m good at this kind of thing, a false impression it would be then). I ran over there to see if it was anything obvious, although what might be ‘obvious’ about a line or two of trip switches that all look basically the same was in serious doubt. I flipped the mains switch to the ‘off’ position, then pressed the reset on the main safety fuse, flipped its lever to the ‘on’ position, then threw the mains switch back to ‘on.’ Bonk! The safety trip immediately flipped to ‘off.’ We had a good look around the place to see if they was any wiring that looked like it had shorted, or if any appliances may have been left plugged in that had seen better days and might need replacing, but there was nothing obvious. In fact the place is generally in very good repair.

The best I could do was to offer to call a friend from town who’s qualified electrician. It was a Friday lunchtime too, so we stood a fighting chance that he’d be able to come over and fix the problem. I called Panteli. Who said that yes, he could come up, so I sent him Angla’i’a’s number and left them to communicate with each other over when he might be able to come.

It was the next morning when we fulfilled our promise to drop by at Angla’i’a and Giorgo’s for a coffee. Once we were comfortably seated at their kitchen table, I asked her if Panteli had been able to fix the problem. “Oh yes,” she replied, “It was only a fuse needed. He fixed it in five minutes flat.” I’d kind of suspected that this would be the case, but the kind of fuse we’re talking about here wasn’t the type that your average bloke carries in his back pocket, but rather the kind that all professional ‘sparks’ would definitely have in their van.

What made us smile, though, was the fact that once Panteli had turned up, Angla’i’a had realised that she knew him, as he was the grandson of her cousin. She was soon explaining all the family connections involved, and which 90+ year old ya-yas or pappous were related to whom, that kind of stuff. If you’ve ever talked to a village resident in Greece about the complicated network of family connections that exists everywhere here, then you also know that we soon lost all hope of following the threads of who was related to whom. It didn’t matter, all’s well that ends well, eh?

As per usual, photo time…

Above: Some late afternoon photos I took in the village this past few days. They were actually shot at around 6.00pm. I don’t think Juliet would have stood much chance of survival if she’d had to rely on that balustrade on that balcony in the last photo, eh?

Above: Umm, I wonder if you can guess what time of the year it is then…

Above: A small corner kafeneio on the edge of the town. The locals are masters of exploiting every piece of usable space, aren’t’ they.

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I really wanted to show you this wonderful trailing garden plant. Our neighbour Maria gave us a cutting a couple of years ago, after we’d seen it cascading over her stone balustrade and admired its bright magenta flowers, which seem to go on forever. Each flower lasts only one day, but it keeps on flowering seemingly indefinitely. We’d originally put the cutting in the flower bed in our upper garden, but it hadn’t done much and always looked like it was ready to give up on life. So, after I’d built the second of the two raised beds on our sundeck in the lower garden, I dug the plant up and settled it there, and the result is plain to see. It’s evidently much happier and seems to prefer being able to trail over wall and tumble gradually down.

Frankly, we had no idea what it was called, and neither did Maria, so only today I finally got around to using a plant ID app on my phone, and it turns out to be a version of Portulaca grandiflora-Hook, which is native to South America, and has the common name Moss-rose, even though it’s in no way related to actual roses. What’s really great about it is the fact that it hardly ever suffers if you forget to water it, and thus is ideal for this climate. Most plants here need to be drought-tolerant to survive, and this one gives value ad infinitum. I’ve no idea if it would survive in more temperate climates, but if you live in Greece and haven’t tried it, I can highly recommend it for a real splash of blousy colour. If you do live a long way further north, I’m sure it would be a probable winner under glass or on a sunny windowsill somewhere.

Just thought you might like to see it.

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The above shot of Ierapetra’s ‘promenade’ was taken after sundown a couple of evenings ago. The atmosphere at that time of the day is lovely, with people strolling along enjoying the cooler temperatures, locals stopping to catch up with each other, some are having an early evening aperitif, it’s lovely, it really is. And with the temperatures we were having last week, a lot of people were only able to go out at this time of the day anyway. For over a week the daytime temperature reached 38 every single day, and one time (see previous post) the car showed 40 as we were driving home from doing the shopping.

Incidentally, and I know I’ve harped on about this several times before, I still can’t believe how many people seem to think that a thermometer placed in full sun will give them an accurate reading. The other evening I was talking to Niko, a Greek friend and father of three, who’s lived here all his life, and I mentioned that we’d endured 40ºC that day, so he showed me a photo that he’d taken with his phone of a thermometer treading 50.5, a look of eminent smugness on his face. I asked him where the thermometer in the photo was situated, and he replied, “outside.'”

“Yes, but where outside?” I asked him, “Was it in full sun, or the shade?” He eventually conceded that it was in full sun. So, trying to be as tactful as I could, and here was where all those Geography lessons I sat through back in school finally came in handy, I suggested he think about any time when he might have sat in a car during the winter months, when the temperature was maybe 18-19ºC outside, and with the windows closed. I well remember when we used to live in the UK, when it may have even been frosty outside, but the sky was totally clear, having sat in the car and having to open the windows because it was getting too hot in the car. Why is it that people are advised not to leave babies or animals in cars with the windows closed? It’s simple physics, the sunlight will heat the interior of a closed glass environment to a temperature that’s way above what it’s reading outside in the air. So, logic would tell us that a glass thermometer placed in full sunlight will experience the same phenomenon, right? The inside of that glass tube will get way hotter than the mean air temperature outside of that sealed tube. The end result? You won’t get a true reading.

I know, I’m sounding like a know-all, and please forgive me for that, but it’s quite important really. I had British friends back on Rhodes many years ago who told me that their garden had experienced over 30ºC during one day in January, when the actual temperature was around 19-20. I do, I must admit, find it amazing that so many people don’t understand this. At my school, when I was between the ages of eleven and sixteen, we used to have a ‘weather station’ in the school grounds and, during Geography, we’d be sent out to take the measurements of rainfall, wind speed and temperature. That weather station was a white louvred box on legs, and the inside was kept dark. It would give us accurate temperature readings all through the school year. I’ve always remembered that principle about true temperature readings ever since. Thank you Mr. Vickery.

I mean, as if 38ºC in the shade isn’t hot enough anyway. We’ve spent the best part of a week with the house all closed up and in darkness, so that we could keep the temperature indoors to a tolerable level, and it works to a degree, although we’ve still had to resort to using the air-con much of the time. The sea temperature now is around 25ºC, so it’s luxurious to take a dip and revel in the relative coolness. Come September the sea gets so warm that it’s almost not refreshing any more to go in for a swim. Mind you, we still do anyway.

Did I ever tell you that Yvonne-Maria, my wife, is rather averse to technology? She purports to not want to use computers and smartphones, saying that life would be so much simpler without them. She’s right, of course, but you can’t go backwards, can you. Anyway, I’ve taken a long time trying to get her to use her quite new phone lately, with very limited success, I have to concede. Mind you, there is one area in which I’ve succeeded handsomely, and that has to do with a certain app called E-Radio that I installed on her phone. When we’re on the beach she likes to listen to her favorite music, which is what can generally be termed as ‘Laika‘, which is predominantly bouzouki music. It’s very different from Cretan traditional music, since that doesn’t use the bouzouki, but rather the lyra, and every song seems to trundle on for about fifteen minutes, barely changing tempo at all from song to song. Incidentally, if you’ve clicked that link and gone to the Wiki page about ‘Laika’ you’ll note that they seem to insist on spelling it ‘Laiko.’ However, in Greece it’s definitely ‘Laika’ with an ‘a’, and if anyone were in any doubt about that they can use E-Radio to track down Yvonne’s favourite station, which is called Dalkas (pronounced ‘Dal-KAS‘ BTW), and you’ll hear the promo ads telling you the station’s name all the time, and, in the process, it regularly says ‘Mono Laika,’ which translates as ‘Only Laika,” since that’s the music genre that the station is dedicated to playing.

Anyway, I digress, as usual. I showed her a few weeks back, when her tiny transistor radio packed in for the last time, that she could use her phone to listen to Dalkas on the beach to her heart’s delight. Guess what, she now never goes to the beach without it. OK, so she’s still not up to speed with all the social media apps and stuff, and rarely makes a phone call, but at least she’s decided that the phone’s indispensable for one very good reason…

Any progress is better than none at all, right? Here are a few more recent photos…

Above: another from the sea front at just after sundown.

Above; Gra Ligia beach at around 1.00pm last Sunday. Just look at those hordes, eh? We can always get the car under the trees in some very much needed shade when we go there too.

Above: This photo is around 80 years old. It’s taken on a beach near Athens in the 1940’s and shows my late parents-in-law before they were married, in company with others from my mother-in-law’s family and some of my late father-in-law’s fellow soldiers. The guy with the cool shades is Kenneth White, my father-in-law, and the young woman to his immediate left, and our right, is my mother-in law Lela. Next to her is her brother and thus my wife’s Uncle Theodorakis, who played the accordion beautifully, and I was privileged to hear him before he died, during a few magical nights at a waterfront taverna in Kalamos, north of Athens in 1977-78. His wife Vaso is the smiling woman with the headscarf and next to her is my wife’s auntie Effie. I never got to meet my father-in-law’s comrades, of course, but my wife’s family members were all still alive and well and living in Athens during my first few visits there in the late seventies. There are some affectionate anecdotes about them in my first book ‘Feta Compli’ by the way.

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Above: Last Saturday evening, at around 10.00pm. The sea front at L’Angolo restaurant was buzzing. These heat-waves may be a bit difficult to deal with, but late in the evening, when the temperature’s hovering at around 30ºC, the best place to be is beside the sea. So that’s where we were, to enjoy our usual epic green salad with a large Pizza, not bad.

I’m a bit depressed though, to be honest. You know me, I’m sure. As a rule I like to keep positive, but occasionally I need to let off steam about something, and I’m feeling like doing so again now.

Let me explain. A couple of years ago we were on friendly terms with the lifeguards on the town beach, and they were a young couple, Mihalis and Spiridoula. They’re probably in Sydney now, because Mihalis told us that they couldn’t really make a living here in Greece, and that they’d worked out in Auz a few years before, and had come home because they wanted to be in their home country. However, the cost of accommodation here was becoming so out of proportion with their earnings, that they felt that the only way to get a half-decent living standard was to go back down under, so they said that they’d see that season out and then return to Australia.

Mihalis was the thinking type, and we had many a chat about world conditions and the state of the environment. Yeah, I know, nice light subjects for a hot day on a Greek beach, eh? I remember remarking that at least now there were recycling bins in evidence in Greece, a country that’s been very late coming to the ‘recycling & caring for the environment in general’ party, to put it charitably. When we’d first arrived in Greece on Rhodes back in 2005, there were no recycling facilities on that island at all, and the irony of it was that during the very summer of our arrival a big hotel in Rhodes Town was hosting an international conference on the importance of recycling. You couldn’t make it up, could you?

Nowadays, though, there are colour-coded dumpsters on most streets and – apart from a few wanton idiots who still chuck their general rubbish into whichever bin’s the nearest to their car window – people do seem to place their cardboard, glass, plastic and cans into the correct bin, which here on Crete is the blue one. I told Mihalis that I thought that this was an encouraging development, something to be positive about. His reply? “Sorry to disappoint you John, but they collect the contents of all bins, blue or green, makes no difference, in the same trash truck. Think about it, have you ever seen a recycling truck, painted in different livery, maybe with a recycling logo on the side, in Ierapetra? I happen to know that there are no recycling facilities here, it all goes into landfill, all of it.”

No doubt observing my reaction by my facial expression, he continued, “Look, I’m sorry to break it to you, but that’s the reason why most of the rubbish collections are done under cover of darkness. Whatever efforts you make to separate your recycling from household rubbish, it makes no difference. Ιt’s a bloody disgrace, but there it is.”

From that day to this, still fired with a basic need to live in hope, we continue to chuck everything that’s recyclable into the blue bins, and the normal rubbish in the green ones. I don’t want to blow our own trumpet here, but we actually have very little ‘normal rubbish’ to throw away anyway, because my wife always cooks with fresh vegetables, never packaged, and we steer well clear of packaged, processed foods as much as we can. Knowing, as I do, that there are European Union treaties and standards that have to be met by the member states, I’ve gone on believing that Mihalis may just have been wrong. Perhaps his opinion was coloured by a general disappointment in his home country, but either way, we’ve gone on trying to do the right thing. Yvonne and I find it impossible not to do whatever we can to help the environment, as should everyone with a brain IMHO.

So, to the reason why I’ve chosen to talk about this subject this time around. I’ve talked many times before about how, since I’m a bad sleeper, I often take a walk around the village during the night hours. All the local cats and dogs, probably even the local bat population, know me all too well by now, and they watch passively as I trudge by. Now and then I’ll pass a neighbour who’s also not sleeping, and they’ll be sitting quietly outside their front door, trying to keep slightly cooler when the temperature never drops below about 27-28ºC all night. We nod a quiet whispered greeting and I continue on my way.

Well, a few nights ago I took my walk at the crack of dawn. Well, it was actually around 4.30am, still before the blackness in the eastern sky had begun to develop its pre-dawn glow. As I walked back along the main road through the village, a loud noise reached my ears from a little way behind me. It was accompanied by nightmarish flashing lights that put me in mind of some hellish scene from a sci-fi movie or something, maybe the war of the worlds had actually begun. I soon realized that the sound was of machinery, including a diesel engined truck, and the clanking of dumpsters being heaved up by the rubbish truck’s lifting mechanism, which tips the dumpsters upside down and empties their contents into the truck’s gaping, hungry aperture at the rear end. I knew that a hundred metres in front of me were the two bins that serve our small lane, so I ducked behind a tree in the murkiness to see what happened when the truck reached our bins.

There are two bins beside the road at the bottom of our small, steep lane. One’s blue, placed there by the new village mayor Manoli after I’d suggested (when he’d asked us for suggestions) that there ought to be one, since our village, when he got elected, didn’t even have one blue (recycling) bin to its name, whereas Meseleri, five kilometres up the mountain, had about six. So now we do have one blue one and one green one (for regular waste) at several spots within the village, and, I’ve got to say, most villagers do put the right stuff in the right bin. The blue one’s often well full of cardboard packaging when someone’s had a new appliance delivered, for example. Good on them.

So, there I was, with a full and unimpeded view of our bins, watching from a dark recess behind a tree as the trash truck pulled up beside them. This was, of course, the regular dustbin-lorry (as we’d call them in the UK) and not one especially allocated to collect recycling, oh no. There are two men who stand on platforms either side at the back, and they cling on to metal grab-handles whilst the truck’s in motion. As the truck comes to a stop, the men leap off, grab the bins, wheel them to the truck, hook them up, then operate a control panel and the mechanism lifts the bins, then tips all the contents into the truck, where the hydraulic crushing mechanism takes over and compresses the waste before forcing it further back inside the truck’s ‘container.’

The men did exactly the same with both bins. In fact, when they emptied the recycling one, I heard the glass in it being smashed and shattered by the crushing mechanism too. To say I was crestfallen would be a huge understatement. Yes, I’d been warned a couple of years ago, but Greece is a member of the European Union, and as such has signed up to a whole raft of environmental measures. In fact, I’ve done some research and, at the risk of depressing you further, here are the facts as they stand, and it doesn’t make for pleasant reading:

There’s a European rule governing whether member countries need to recycle waste, and here are the facts. The main rule is part of the EU Waste Framework Directive (Directive 2008/98/EC, as amended by Directive 2018/851). This directive requires all EU member states to:

Take measures to promote recycling and reuse of waste and meet binding recycling targets:

By 2025: at least 55% of municipal waste must be recycled.

By 2030: at least 60%.

By 2035: at least 65%.

It also obliges countries to implement the following waste hierarchy: Prevention, reuse, recycling, recovery (e.g., energy recovery), disposal (landfill as a last resort).

Member states must report their recycling rates to the European Commission, which can take action (including infringement procedures) if targets aren’t met.

So, how is Greece doing on meeting these targets? The EU Waste Framework Directive (Directive 2008/98/EC, amended by Directive (EU) 2018/851) sets binding rules for recycling across member states, including:

Municipal waste recycling targets, to repeat the figures: 55 % by 2025, 60 % by 2030, 65 % by 2035. A landfill‑use limit: no more than 10 % of municipal waste may be landfilled by 2035

There is a  requirement that member states measure and report recycling rates, with the Commission empowered to take enforcement or infringement actions if targets or reporting obligations are missed.

The current performance of Greece (as of latest data)?

In 2021, Greece recycled just 17 % of its municipal waste, far below the EU average of 49–50 %. Landfilling is still dominant, at around 77–80 % of waste. Waste generation per person is about 509–524 kg/year, slightly above EU average of 502–527 kg. 

Is there a Risk involved when missing the EU targets? Oh yes… According to early‑warning assessments by the European Commission, Greece is at risk of failing to meet the 2025 recycling target and future landfill reduction objectives. Interestingly, In 2024, the Commission initiated an infringement procedure, issuing a letter of formal notice to Greece for failure to properly transpose the Directive and not reporting required data for 2020–2022. Plus, In December 2024, a reasoned opinion was sent concerning persistent non‑compliance with both the Waste Framework Directive and the Landfill Directive, focusing on deficiencies in waste facilities and untreated landfills.

OK, so Greece has implemented landfill taxes, increasing annually until 2027, with revenues redirected to fund recycling infrastructure and pay‑as‑you‑throw schemes. The Recovery and Resilience Plan (2021–2027) allocates €853 million to support recycling, separate collection, and waste treatment infrastructure. In early 2025, government reforms include redirecting 85 % of landfill tax revenue directly to municipalities, plus €70 million in bonuses to incentivise better performance*. Metrics reported for 2022 show recycling at just 17.3 %. Yes, seriously.

And, the consequences & penalties for non‑compliance?

Greece faces legal enforcement steps: formal notices and reasoned opinions, with risk of escalation to the Court of Justice of the EU if improvements aren’t made. Past examples of EU‑imposed fines: in 2000 Greece paid daily fines (over €17,000 per day) over failure to shut down an illegally operating toxic waste facility on – wait for it – Crete. 

(*Which begs the question, if local councils are actually receiving this cash, what the blazes are they doing with it?)

There you go, then. One can only hope that things will get better, because it has to be wholly unacceptable for local councils to be duping the conscientious among their populace with the placing of recycling bins in the community, whilst not actually recycling anything, right?

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Moving swiftly on, to lighter matters, here are a few photos…

Above: Well, I say ‘lighter matters,’ but look at the temperature as we drove home with the shopping the other day)

Above: Our ‘sun terrace’ yesterday. We rarely close the shutters on that bedroom window, but in these conditions it’s a must.

Above: The variety of different hibiscus flowers is amazing. We probably have about 6 different types in pots around the place and they’re all slightly different. This one’s truly ‘blousy’ when it’s in full bloom though, don’t you think?

Above: And, of course, the canas are a marvel to behold. Finally, the one below is of a dead wasp as the local ant population had just begun to arrive to do their ‘rubbish collection.’ Now, if you want to see a good example of natural recycling, look no further than the lowly ant.

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The photo above was taken at Gra Lygia beach, at the Cacao coffee bar, Sunday July 13th at around 12.30pm. Gra Lygia beach is gorgeous and mainly empty, even during the high season. It’s well over a kilometre long and backed by a concrete and tarmac road, which in turn is lined on the other side by a series of dwellings, some very smart, some scruffy, and a few derelict. The sea there, as is the case all along the south coast of Lasithi, is crystal clear and free of floating detritus, so common along the beaches of overcrowded ‘resorts’ these days.

Gra Lygia is nothing much to write home about when it comes to the village itself, although in the past few years determined efforts have been made to smarten the place up a bit, and the road surface through the village, which used to be so bad it would shake your fillings out, or put the tracking out on your car if you hit the lumps, bumps and potholes too quickly, is now ultra smooth after being resurfaced a couple of years ago. There a few new smart, modern cafeterias and tavernas, several pretty good supermarkets and even a school there.

There are, though, a great many immigrant workers in the area, many of whom live in very substandard accommodation, provided by their employers. Most of these are Pakistani and can often be seen when not working (but they usually are, for many long hours) walking around the area wearing traditional Pakistani clothing, which is called the shalwar kameez, which is a long, usually knee-length tunic top worn with loose-fitting trousers. When we first began to spot these men, it was a little odd, because in the UK we were very used to seeing traditional dress from all over Asia on the streets, not to mention from other parts of the world, but in Greece we’d only ever really seen Greeks, mainly white, with dark hair and the men at least with a swarthy complexion. Things are changing.

In general the locals don’t speak all that well of these people who are far, far away from their homes, yet without them the local economy would collapse. Gra Lygia, once you get away from the main road and head inland, is jam-packed with huge hothouses, the agricultural method first introduced by Paul Cooper [Paul Kuyper] back in the 1960’s. Coming from the Netherlands — a world leader in controlled-environment agriculture — Kuyper brought knowledge of plastic-covered cultivation and out-of-season production, which was revolutionary at the time for southern Greece. Before long the hothouses, clad in tough polythene sheeting rather than glass, began to proliferate and now they’re everywhere, enabling local farmers to cultivate a lot of vegetable crops out of season and the crops are now exported to multinationals all over Europe. It’s the reason why the area has prospered for the last 60 years or so, without the need for mass tourism.

The work inside these hothouses is arduous to say the least. We have a few friends who own them, and we’ve been inside for a mooch around. Imagine, when it’s in the mid 30’s C outside, what the temperature must be inside a hothouse half the size of a football pitch. Yup, you’re about right there. These foreign workers work their guts out for a minimum wage, much of which they send home to their families, and when they get a very short time off, they dream of home. Like I said, the locals don’t speak well of the Asians, yet they’re just people, like we all are. They’re in a country where they must agonise to pick up some of the language, and as far as I know, most of them have their ‘papers’ which enable them to work legally.

And that thought takes me back to the first few times I ever visited Greece. The first time I came across someone who was a kind of free spirit was on the island of Poros in 1977. Much of what happened and my first impressions of Poros, my first ever Greek island, is recounted in my ‘Ramblings From Rhodes’ series of books, but I don’t think I ever mentioned Claire.

My late mother-in-law, Lela, had become friendly with Giorgo Lukas, who ran a taverna along the seafront at Poros, back in the 1970s. She actually met him by chance, as she found herself sitting next to him on a plane going to Greece from the UK. She was going to visit family in Athens, and he was returning home after doing a series of Greek dancing shows, since he was at the time Greek National Sirtaki champion. He’d invited her to visit Poros and hence his taverna, and here we were the following year on our way there with her this time, since she’d raved about not only the island (which was a whole lot quieter then than it is now it seems), but also Giorgo’s taverna and the fact that he’d dance most evenings, when the mood took him.

Owing to this connection having been forged between my Greek mother-in-law and Giorgo, whose wife was an English girl named Susan (former holiday rep, usual story), we ate at the same taverna every night for three weeks. It was while we were sitting at Giorgo’s taverna that we also became friendly with this young Irish girl named Claire, who was only just out of her teens, had set off to bum around Europe a year or so earlier, ended up on Poros and was now working in the kitchen of Giorgo’s taverna. She’d been there all season when we got there, which was during the month of September, and she told us her story.

Claire was from the Irish Republic and had wanted an adventure before settling down to some kind of normal life, the life that her family had expected her to live. Only things hadn’t gone quite to plan. Once she’d been on Poros for a week or two, she’d been eating at Giorgo’s and he’d told her that he needed a kitchen hand for the duration of the season. She’d jumped at the idea and a deal was soon struck whereby Claire would live in a small studio over the taverna and receive all her meals from the kitchen below, plus she’d pay no rent, as her work in the kitchen would be her contribution to the arrangement. She’d work from around 10.00am until around 2.00pm, servicing holidaymakers who wanted a cooked breakfast, or simply a coffee or a beer, then she’d knock off and go to the beach for a swim. After a couple of hours on the beach, she’d head back to her room for a shower and a sleep, before starting work again at around 7.00pm and carrying on until the last diners had left, and the washing up had been done. She’d usually get into bed at around 2.30am. If and when she needed a small amount of cash, Giorgos was only too pleased to give her some, unofficially, of course.

Claire seemed to us to be enjoying her life tremendously, and she had no plans to change her situation for the foreseeable. She said she’d probably go to Ireland during the winter time, just to check in with the family, but would in all probability be back on Poros in the spring, ready for another season. What more could she want out of life, at least for the time being?

And thus were planted the seeds of desire within me to one day abandon the ‘nine-to five,’ and do something radical, like move to Greece and start a new life. It was to be three decades later when we eventually did it, but back then, in 1977, I’m sure a little envy at the lack of drudgery in Claire’s life had affected me and my way of looking at things. In the intervening years, of course, things changed radically regarding illegal foreign workers working casually like Claire did. The way that Claire and Giorgo had worked out their ‘arrangement’ was fairly typical all over Greece, and if you were to add to the equation the fact that most Greeks were getting away with declaring only a fraction of their real income for tax purposes, you get the idea as to why the country was on its knees by the year 2010, or thereabouts.

It’s a tough one, isn’t it. I mean, the idea of simply rocking up at a restaurant in a foreign country and getting a ‘gig’ working under the radar appeals to the bohemian in all of us. But, of course, it couldn’t really last. These days, the situation is vastly different, and legal workers are now experiencing major problems finding accommodation that they can afford, and this is in part due to the rise of the AirBnB phenomenon. For instance, there was a news story recently about a teacher living in his car. Unlike in the UK, where teachers in secondary schools probably have a job for life if they don’t step out of line, here in Greece a lot of qualified teachers have to apply each new school year for a position, and, having secured one, they then have to find digs for the duration. Up until a few years ago they’d soon be able to find an apartment in the area close to the school where they were going to teach. These days, much of the accommodation that genuine workers used to rent for a season, or a year, is given over to tourism, as the owners can make a lot more money that way.

I often sit and mull this problem over in my head, and I can’t come up with a ready solution. I mean, Yvonne and I have used AirBnB a few times ourselves when staying a few days away from home here on Crete. It’s a great and financially sensible way to do it without breaking the bank. Yet, to think that the places where we’ve stayed may have once been rented by people needing to work in the area, who nowadays can’t find anywhere that’s priced reasonably enough, is worrying. I saw a news report from Majorca in Spain, and people were demonstrating on the streets because qualified accountants, engineers, teachers, lifeguards (the list goes on) were living in tents because what accommodation was available was so expensive that they couldn’t afford it. One guy told the reporter that the rent that he was told he’d have to pay for one flat he’d applied for was actually more than his entire salary.

You know, this whole ‘holiday island’ thing bugs me, it really does. Places like Crete, Majorca, wherever, are first and foremost home to indigenous folk who have a basic right to be able to live in the area where they were born and raised, earn a decent living, raise their kids. Yet travel companies and tour operators talk about these places as being ‘resorts,’ or ‘holiday islands,’ like I said. So some tourists come here with the mindset that the whole place exists for their recreational pleasure. It’s like a lot of ‘holiday’ destinations are merely ‘theme parks’ for the hedonist. And I don’t profess to have any answers, but I do think it’s a topic that ought to be discussed, and that people who come here for their holidays ought to be educated, if that’s possible, to understand that they’re going to be guests in someone else’s country, and due respect for the locals should be shown.

As for the problem of the cost of accommodation though, and the ‘holiday let’ versus ‘real accommodation for locals’ issue, it’s a tough one. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Photo time…

Here are a few shots taken this past couple of days. They well illustrate what current season we’re now in, don’t you think?

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First off, I want to repeat what I posted on the Facebook page the other day about precisely what was burnt during the recent fires in the Ierapetra area. I wrote, in part, the following:

“The news media kept headlining “Ierapetra fires,” and “Ierapetra burning.” This was totally inaccurate, since the fires broke out a few km to the east of the town and were carried further away by the winds. The rural coastal region that was hit the most hard is part of Ierapetra’s municipal council territory, and for that reason only the fires could be described as being in Ierapetra.

Ierapetra town is unscathed and the local businesses are worried about people not coming owing to the belief that the town is in some way damaged – it isn’t. All the restaurants, bars and accommodation are functioning normally.”

On Sunday morning we took a drive along the coast to see for ourselves what was the extent of the damage. It was bad, but mostly forest and wild vegetation were affected, and mercifully very few buildings, from what we saw. The fires swept very close to both Achlia and Agia Fotia bays, but the buildings looked as if they’d got away relatively unscathed, thank goodness. Here are the photos I took on Sunday. The white van belongs to the telephone engineers restoring phone lines where they’d been melted by the heat. We were relieved to see fire tenders and other Fire Dept vehicles still patrolling the area in case of re-ignition, which is a common occurrence in this climate.

Erosion is a problem that the affected area is likely to have once the rains come this winter. As you can see from some of the photos, large areas of steep hillside, many of which swoop down on to the main road, were stripped clean of vegetation/trees and now are simply bare earth and rocks. In order for the vegetation to make a recovery, rain is necessary, and none is likely to fall for several months yet. Once new vegetation begins to develop, then there’s a chance of it impeding soil erosion, but if we get heavy rains before that occurs, there will be a lot of soil and rocks washed down these hillsides, further adding to the environmental damage, sadly.

The news is still quiet about how the fires started, but arson is still the most likely cause, either that or absolute stupidity when it comes to cigarette ends or barbecues. Either way, humans are the likely cause, not simply an accident of nature. Incidentally, at the risk of ‘telling your grandmother to suck eggs,’ I would like to flag up something that we see all too often for my liking. It’s a very sad fact of our modern society that there is a virtual pandemic of plastic water bottles (and bottle tops) threatening the environment all over this planet of ours, isn’t it. What gets me every time is how many people simply sling their unwanted bottles out of their car windows when they want to get shot of them. As if that weren’t bad enough, once the water in a plastic bottle reaches a lukewarm temperature, people tend to discard the bottle with half its contents still in it, Grrr.

Now, anyone who actually paid attention during their Physics lessons at school ought to know that a lens can easily concentrate light into a virtual laser beam, and I for one certainly have vivid memories of setting pieces of paper alight in the school science lab doing just that. If you chuck away a plastic water bottle (rather than responsibly recycling it) then you’re a cretin anyway, but if you do it with water still in it, you’re placing a potential lense on the parched ground; a lens that, if the sun strikes it at the right angle, can easily set alight the straw-like vegetation on which it comes to rest, fact.

One other thought on plastic bottles, and those newly re-designed caps that don’t come off without a fight. The other day I watched with horror a short Facebook video as a flashy young woman, trying to be so clever, wrenched at the tough ‘straps’ that retain the bottle top when you try to remove it, and kept wrenching until the thing came away in her hands, at which point she cursed the new design as stupid, expecting her loyal viewers to agree with her. I have news for her: the environment is so full of those dratted plastic bottle tops, not to mention the bottles themselves, that this new design has been brought into circulation in order to make it less easy to remove and hence discard the bottle top, thus further polluting our already suffering environment. The new tops are specifically designed so that you can flip them back when you want to drink or pour, then reseal with relative ease afterwards, thus…

People with half a brain wanting to help preserve our environment will always dispose of plastic bottles (if we must use them at all, and it’s difficult not to sometimes, we have to admit) responsibly, right? At least if you employ the new tops correctly, they can be re-sealed on a crushed plastic bottle before it’s put into the appropriate recycling bin, this reducing (however slightly) the number of bottle tops that are cluttering up our world. OK, end of sermon.

Just a few photos now, to lighten the mood (I’m feeling quite a bit of righteous indignation ATM!) –

Above: Spotted on the town beach the other day, a Greek dad with his toddler on a paddle board, but evidently with his priorities right, spot the iced coffee resting on the board beside him.

Above: Just a little backstreet scene that I liked the look of.

Above: Nice, eh? And these last two below are of our sun terrace at home, showing how well our canas are doing…

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I went for one of my nocturnal walks around the village at around 6.00am the other day. If I do the circuit any time from around 1.00am until 6.00, I can guarantee that the only company I’ll come across will be the local cat population and the occasional farmer’s dog asleep in the back of a pickup. Maybe, if I’m really in luck, I’ll also spot one of the barn owls that live in the empty buildings in the heart of the village.

On this particular occasion, though, since it was 6.00am, people were stirring, and those were, as expected, all the ya-yas and papoudes, ie: the old folk. As I crested the top of the village, passing the tiny church that sits at the apex of the narrow street, and began to descend towards the north end of the village, there was Popi just sliding open her glass door on to her terrace. No chance there then of quietly striding by on my power walk. She spotted me instantly and so we had to have the expected polite exchange of greetings before I could carry on my way.

Rounding the tight bend at the bottom of the slope and heading back through the village, this time on the ‘main road,’ passing the kafeneio on my right, to the left, sitting at his rickety old plastic patio table, covered with the regulation oilcloth tablecloth, was Filia’s next-door neighbour (I forget his name), a chap with a shock of thick wavy grey hair, probably in his mid seventies, quietly preparing his first self-rolled ciggie of the day, an Elliniko steaming on the table in front of him.

As I passed the high wall, along the top of which is the lane where there is a series of dwellings, among them Angla’i’a and Giorgo’s, there, as I expected, was Angla’i’a herself sweeping up some leaves, apron on, already having started the daily routine. No, you can’t walk around the village at the crack of dawn without having to say hello to quite a few people, none of them under 75 years of age. It’s their generation, isn’t it? They’ve probably been rising at 6.00am or thereabouts for most of their lives.

As I type this there’s a fire raging about twenty kilometres to our east, along the coast in the Koutsounari, Ferma, Agia Fotia (uncomfortably close to the truth, that name, since it means ‘Holy Fire’) and Achlia areas.

It’s a bad one, and last night I could smell burning as I stood on the veranda and saw a glow in the eastern sky at around 2.00am. This time of the year, every year, everyone’s on tenterhooks about fires, everyone’s on edge, and it’s easy to understand why. Every year there are ‘wildfires’ all across Greece and many of them are extinguished quite quickly, but, there are always the ones that get out of control, cause untold damage and destruction to property and the environment, and are usually avoidable. Fire fighters and equipment have arrived today from Athens to help with the work of trying to contain it and put it out, but with winds of 9 on the Beaufort Scale, they have their work cut out. The current word going around is that it may have been started by thoughtless tourists having a barbecue. I hope to goodness that’s not the case, but let’s face it, 90% of these fires are not started by natural causes, they’re usually human error or deliberate arson, almost unbelievable though that is.

In fact, I’ve been communicating with a few friends in the town about whether we ought to form a team and offer ourselves as volunteers, …watch this space. I’m pretty sure some of the lads from the village here have already gone to help, because, apart from the sound of the wind ruffling the olives trees, the village is very quiet right now, as I type this at 1.15pm.

Every summer, and we’re now in our 21st since moving here from the UK, people get nervy about fires. Before moving here, I thought that it was only earthquakes that we needed to worry about. It turns out that, in general, people here take most quakes in their stride, but fires? They’re always unexpected, always unpredictable, and usually destroy valuable countryside or farm land, not to mention houses, holiday accommodation and businesses. We can only hope that this current fire is contained and extinguished before it reaches Makry Gialos, because it’s headed that way.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, but we’re all on edge here, and it’s as yet uncertain as to how this one’s going to turn out.

Nevertheless, here are some photos, only one of which is new, the others are from my archive…

Above: The town beach on Friday at around midday. Bliss.

Above: A photo taken on Naxos back in 2016. And, finally, below, here’s yours truly back when I was an excursion escort doing regular trips to Halki from Rhodes. this one was taken (I think) around 2017 on the quay at Halki…

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Maria’s plucked a chicken again. It’s a shame, but her mother Evangelia’s getting too old now to do all the work herself it seems. Maria’s in her fifties, maybe towards the back end of that decade, but she’s been sitting outside her mother’s door, large enamel bowl on the upturned crate in front of her, as she prepares yet another unfortunate bird from their chicken run for the pot. We weren’t immediately aware of her presence, because the alley across the way is partially obscured by the two ancient olive trees in our lower garden, but as we sipped our coffees this morning the occasional feather floated by on the breeze and we were reminded that another bird had met a sticky end.

It’s all part of life’s rich tapestry in a small village, as I’ve mentioned before. The summer is well and truly upon us now and we’re already well into the habit of closing the windows up tight by mid-morning in order to keep the inside of the house cool, or at least cooler than the outside temperature. For a few days over the weekend we had some pretty strong winds here, beyond what you’d call a pleasant breeze and more a ‘blow your hat off’ intensity. I’m glad to say that as from last evening it’s dropped to a more acceptable breeze. Unfortunately though, it looks like the strong winds are the reason for the current distressing wild fires that are raging on the mastic island of Chios. Everyone’s hoping desperately that the mastic trees will be spared, since the production of that amazing substance is one of the island’s mainstays economically. Chios is still the only place where a unique form of mastic is produced.

True mastic, the resin from the mastic tree (Pistacia lentiscus), is produced in various parts of the Mediterranean, but the unique, high-quality mastic known as “Chios Mastiha” is only produced on the island of Chios, particularly in the southern villages known as the Mastichochoria.

Here’s the lowdown: The Pistacia lentiscus tree does grow elsewhere, like Turkey, Syria, Morocco, and Tunisia, and can exude resin. However, the resin produced outside Chios does not have the same properties (aroma, texture, purity) and is not classified or marketed as “Mastiha.” 

Why is Chios so special? The trees in southern Chios seem to produce more and better-quality resin due to a combination of a) unique microclimate, b) soil composition, and c) traditional harvesting techniques, plus a few other factors. So, while mastic trees may exist elsewhere, true mastic as known for culinary, medicinal, and cosmetic use is essentially unique to Chios.

In a nutshell, that’s why wildfires on that particular island ring massive alarm bells. Yvonne and I are firm believers in the properties of mastic from Chios. There’s a mastic ‘chew’ sweet that can be bought in some supermarkets which doesn’t contain any sugar, and it comes in a plastic bag (biodegradable) like many ‘sweets’ and pastilles that are nothing like as good for you. Each pastille is individually wrapped and we are in the habit of chewing one after our main meal every day. It’s been used for centuries for its health benefits, and modern research supports many of its traditional uses. The resin contains bioactive compounds like terpenes, polyphenols, and essential oils that contribute to its medicinal properties (like I know what all that means).

If you’re still sceptical, here comes the medically proven and scientifically accepted CV for this amazing substance:

1. Digestive Health: Helps with indigestion and stomach ulcers, especially those caused by Helicobacter pylori bacteria. Acts as a natural antacid, reducing stomach acidity and bloating. Traditionally used to treat gastritis and mild inflammatory bowel conditions.

2. Antimicrobial and Antibacterial Properties: Effective against H. pylori, Staphylococcus aureus, and Candida albicans. Can help maintain oral hygiene, reducing plaque, gingivitis, and bad breath.

3. Anti-inflammatory Effects: Reduces inflammation markers in the body. Studied for use in Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.

4. Liver Support: Some studies suggest it may help protect the liver from damage due to its antioxidant content.

5. Cardiovascular Benefits: May lower cholesterol and blood pressure. Contains antioxidants that support heart health by reducing oxidative stress.

6. Blood Sugar Regulation; Early studies suggest it may help stabilize blood sugar levels.

7. Wound Healing and Skin Benefits: Used in traditional ointments for healing wounds, eczema, and acne. Some cosmetic products include mastic for its astringent and antimicrobial effects.

8. Oral Health Bonus: Mastic gum is non-cariogenic, meaning it doesn’t promote tooth decay. Chewing it stimulates saliva, helping to naturally clean the mouth.

What about that little lot then, and it’s medically accepted as fact, not only by practicers of alternative medicine. In a nutshell: Chios mastic is one of the few natural substances on the planet with both historical and modern clinical backing, especially for gut health, oral hygiene, and inflammation control. It’s a potent example of a traditional remedy with real, measurable effects.

Some additional good news is that you can buy a delicious liqueur made from mastic, one of the best brand names being Skinos.

So, now you understand why wildfires on Chios are especially worrying, and at the time of writing, they’re still raging, and tourists are still being evacuated from some areas. Here’s a newspaper report from earlier today. 

Let’s hope that those fires are soon extinguished, and that they leave the island’s main source of income intact.

Photo time:

Gallery above (click for larger views): First photo is of an artichoke plant just below our neighbours’ terrace. In Greek they’re called αγκινάρες, ‘anginarres,’ and they’re a delicacy of village food. When they’re in full bloom the colour is exquisite. Then there’s a sight that will be familiar to anyone in Greece who lives near the sea. A couple of ya-yas setting up their folding chairs, before heaving off their dresses and wading into the water for a half-hour chat, during which they’ll simply tread water non-stop for the duration, before exiting the water, drying off and trotting home again. Photo three is a corner in Ierapetra Old Town and number four is a superb globe thistle in one of the lanes near the village here. Globe thistles can easily grow to six feet tall. Photo five is a small corner in Heraklion, and it’s an antique and curio store. The last one is one more from our short break in Archanes.

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I’ve been thinking for some time about doing another post about word confusion, but still haven’t really got enough thoughts together to get on with it. Well, there is one exception, which I’ve got ready, so I’ll hit you with it. Of course, if you’re already a fluent Greek speaker you’ll not find this particularly confusing, or will you? Anyway, word similarities can get you into an awful lot of bother if you aren’t careful.

Here’s an expression that kind of illustrates what I’m trying to say: In Greek you could say the following: “Δεν υπάρχει πολύς χώρος για χορό σε αυτή τη χώρα.” Using the Roman alphabet, it reads (near enough) “Then iparkei pollees horos yia horo se afti ti hora.” The eagle-eyed among you will have spotted the word that begins ‘hor‘ three times in that sentence. Ok but, the thing is, each of those three words means something totally different. The first means ‘room/space,’ the second ‘dance/dancing’ and the third means ‘country.’ Great, eh? So the sentence actually says: “There’s not much room for dancing in this country,” but if you get any of the ‘horos/horas’ mixed up, including the ‘tonos‘ (the accent over a vowel that indicates which syllable to stress) then you’ll make no sense at all.

I find I have a similar problem when it comes to paper, card, or a map. (Oops, so I do have another example, after all). Here’s a sentence that mentions all three: “Δώσε μου ένα κομμάτι χαρτί, δώσε μου την κάρτα και μετά θα σου δείξω πού βρισκόμαστε στον χάρτη.” Phonetically, using the Roman alphabet, it reads: “Thosse mou ena commatti chartie, thosse mou tin karta ke metta tha sou theixo poo brisko-maste ston hartee.” That reads in English: “Give me a piece of paper, hand me the card, and then I’ll show you where we are on the map.” Can I remember which is which when it comes to paper, card or maps? No chance, plus you have to remember the gender of nouns too, and in Greek you don’t only have masculine and feminine, but you also have neuter nouns as well. Oh joy!

Changing the subject just a tad, I can’t remember if I told you this little anecdote, which is entirely true by the way. A young woman went up to a periptero (kiosk) to buy something small. She picked it up, and placed it on the concave perspex dish where the person working inside places your change. As yet, she hadn’t spoken a word. The bloke in the kiosk said, in Greek, “Two Euros please.” I can’t remember what she was buying, but for the sake of the story, let’s say it was some chewing gum. When she failed to understand what the man had said, she asked, “I’m sorry, but do you speak English?”

“Yes, of course,” replied the kiosk man, “That will be four Euros please.” The moral of the story? If you don’t speak at least a rudimentary bit of the language, prepare to be ripped off. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Greek people per se, and our neighbours in the village here are simply wonderful to us, but there is often a definite tendency to ‘get away with’ it if there’s a buck to be made. Stems from all those years when everything was done in cash and the people in general were deeply suspicious of things like bank accounts I suppose.

Oh, I just thought of another word confusion. The Greek word for a swimming costume is ‘το μαγιό,’ which reads ‘to magioh,’ or ‘the swimming costume.’ It applies equally to male or female costumes, unless you use the word Bikini, that is. But then, I prefer a one-piece myself, so I don’t use the word. As for a ‘mankini,’ give me a break! If, however you want to do some cooking, the verb is ‘μαγείρεμα.’ [magierima] OK, so it’s a bit longer, but you can see the similarity, right? I always end up saying that I’m going to wear my cooking, when I mean to say my swimming shorts. Hey ho, c’est la vie. Actually, the Greek word for ‘magician’ is even closer, it’s ‘ένας μάγος,’ which reads ‘enas ma’gos.’ I’m sure I’ve probably been into a store to buy a new pair of trunks and asked to try one on. Oops.

Here are some recent photos…

Above: Some evening shots from our recent short break in Archanes. We were there two years ago too, and wanted to go back, since it’s a lovely place to wander around and the square is a great place to eat during the evening. Here’s one more (below), as the nice distressed-looking sign on the wall did make me smile…

This house is apparently now unoccupied, but looks very fetching and traditional. That sign above the door and window, though, reads: “Παρακαλούμε μην πετάτε σκουπίδια,’ which translates as: “Please don’t deposit your rubbish.” Aaah, eh?

A couple more from this area…

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