The weather throughout March, April and May this year has been unprecedented in both its changeability, and its low temperatures for the time of year. The one week [14-21 May] we spent in Sitia turned out to be the best and most consistent week of weather in all of that time period, so we could well be grateful for small mercies. Usually summer starts at the beginning of May, when you can almost wake up one day and literally overnight the skies have cleared, the temperature’s ratcheted up a few notches and the air is warm to the skin. During May (usually at the start of the month) the cafés on the town beach in Ierapetra put out their umbrellas and sun loungers and our several months of coffees on the beach, along with a swim for an hour or two, begin.

Not so this year. As I mentioned a few posts ago, January and February were decidedly summery, apart from slightly cooler evenings that is, and we enjoyed weeks of sunny, settled weather. Once March got under way, however, it all took a turn for the worse and it became unusual for the sun to shine for more than a couple of days at a time before the clouds returned, and along with them, more often than not, the rains too. It’s no exaggeration to say that many days during April and May were no warmer than they would have been during January in a normal year. Every time we watched Saki doing the weather forecast, the word ‘unsettled’ was a regular of his vocabulary as he described what we were to expect, and he wasn’t wrong. In this part of the Aegean the summer season for tourists from Northern Europe usually begins towards the end of April, with everything being open once May comes around. This year the whole thing’s at least a month late.

To be honest, it’s not a great bother to us, but when we have been taking coffee down on the seafront we have found ourselves feeling quite sorry for the early season tourists, whose faces have said it all. The locals have been sat around in jeans, quilted jackets, scarves and boots, and the holidaymakers have ambled past in their shorts, strappy tops and flip flops. It’s made us feel chilly just to look at them. At first we said to ourselves, “Why don’t they put something ON? It’s only 18º for goodness sake.” But then we’ve thought about it and realised that they probably didn’t have any proper clothes, after all, they’re in southern Greece in May and it’s usually more like 24-27ºC which, compared to temperatures where they’ve come from, is tropical. Let’s face it, a lot of people who come here,even if they do plan to see a few sights, fully expect to spend a lot of time either on the beach or around the pool. You don’t really want to be on a beach when there’s more cloud than sun and there’s liable to be a shower at any moment, let’s be fair.

Anyway, last Saturday, June 3rd, looked like it ‘ll turn out to have been the day when summer finally did switch itself on this year, a full month later than normal. Friday June 2nd had been wet and grey all day, goodness only knows what the tourists did with themselves, and we’d stayed indoors reading. Saturday dawned bright and clear, with the temperature at 8.00am already well above 20ºc. This was more like it. I must admit that by this time we were very ready to be complaining about being too hot. Down on the seafront at around 11.15am, I took this one…

Now that’s how it’s supposed to look at this time of year. Just returning for a few moments, though, to our short break in Sitia, when it came time for us to depart for home on Sunday morning May 21st, as we came down the stairs into the lounge area, there was Nikos along with his wife, her mother and her aunt. They all made sure to be there to see us off. I don’t know whether I mentioned this before, but Niko’s mother-in-law is around 84 and she and her sister still clean the rooms for the guests. A few times when we’ve been a little late setting out of a morning to stroll along the front to choose a café in which to take our iced coffees, Maria and her sister have been in the room nextdoor changing sheets, towels, mopping floors etc. No wonder that amazing woman (well, both of them, but her sister’s ‘only’ about 80) is still so fit and mobile.

As I settled up with Niko and Eleni, Maria asked whether we had eggs at home, which, of course, we didn’t. “I’ll give you some from our own hens to take home with you,” she said and scuttled off around the corner into the kitchen. She soon returned with a bag of probably a dozen fresh eggs, plus two more items. One was another bag packed full of aubergines, cucumbers courgettes and tomatoes that were easily larger than tennis balls, and the other was one of those oval-shaped clear plastic cake dishes you get from the zacheroplasteia here, and on it were several generous slices of orange cake from her own fair hand, plus some sweet bread and koulourakia, all under cling-film. Interestingly, although she handed us the bag of vegetables and the dish, the bag of eggs she placed on the table for us to pick up. This odd superstition about it being bad luck to actually hand someone a bag of eggs I mentioned some time back in this post, when Angla’i’a had given us eggs back in the village. On more than a few occasions since we’ve tried to get Angla’i’a to simply hand us her gift of eggs from her chickens, but she always refuses resolutely, insisting that she put them down for us to pick them up. Well it seems the superstition is held fairly widely over this region then.

After the usual round of hugs, cheek-kisses and warm pats on the back, accompanied by promises from us to return again as soon as we can, we packed ourselves, our luggage and all the gifts into the car and set off for home. All those kind gifts from old Maria were not only heartwarming, but they also meant that we wouldn’t need to go shopping quite so urgently when we got home. I’ll post a bunch more photos from Sitia, other than those I’ve already posted here on the blog, on my Facebook page after I’ve completed this post, rather than gum up my disk space with WordPress, who are a little careful about how many gb of space we use up with photos on our blog accounts. The photo at the top of this post was taken at 9.06pm in Sitia, the first night that this bar (The Black Hole Music Bar) was open for the season, several weeks later than usual, owing to the weather this year.

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Here are a few photos of random subjects from the past couple of weeks….

Above: Developments on the orange tree. The first of the two photos above was taken on May 3rd at 4.00pm. Tiny oranges, not much larger than pearls, are beginning to form behind the dead flowerheads of the tree. I managed by accident to get a worker bee in the shot too, nice eh? The second was taken on Thursday June 1st, almost a month later. Look how that fruit is developing, isn’t it a wonderful thing to observe? The rains have actually been good for the citrus fruit trees too, so every cloud has a silver lining, right? Amazingly too, if you look close enough, you’ll see that I caught a bee in this one too, only this time it looks like a bumble bee. Both are great pollinators, of course. You’ll need to click on the photos to get the full-sized versions.

Above: Taken on May 1st, during a brisk walk around ‘dingly dell,’ this shows carob pods deveoping on the tree.

Above: Taken on May 13th, the day before we set off for Sitia. It’s a little corner of the village at around 4.30pm.

Above: There can be few sights more lovely than bougainvillea against a bright sky, don’t you agree? These were taken May 29th at 4.00pm in our neighbour’s garden.

That’ll do for this one. Don’t forget to check out the Facebook page for lots more photos from Sitia in May this year.

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Sitting on our modest little veranda at the Nora Hotel, with a panoramic view of the seafront restaurants, bars and beach southwards to our far right, round through the hills straight across the bay to the east, where one can see the road that winds its way along the coast from Sitia and then up through the hills towards Palekastro and Vai, looking directly downwards we could see the vehicles and foot passengers on the quayside as the numbers would grow in anticipation of the arrival of the ferry either to Kassos, Karpathos and on to Rhodes, or back the other way towards Heraklion, the Cyclades and eventually Piraeus. Looking to our left we could see the open sea beyond the impressive harbour wall that ensures that the waters directly below the hotel remain calm for most of the time, irrespective of how many ‘provata’ (Lit: ‘sheep,’ the Greek equivalent of what in the UK we’d call ‘white horses’) there may be in evidence further out to sea to our north. 

For many decades the ferry that plied these waters was the Prevelis, a ship built in the far east back in 1980, and subsequently purchased by ANEK shipping lines in the Aegean, who then operated her from Piraeus through the Cyclades, down here to Crete and then up to Rhodes via Kassos, Karpathos (occasionally Halki) and terminating at Rhodes. By today’s standards she’s quite small, and also, of course she’s now in her fifth decade of service and was becoming (even after a major refit a few years ago) inadequate for the demands of a ship servicing her route. So, this year, for the first time, we noted that the ferry running the same schedule as that which the Prevelis used to, is now the very comfortable, modern and much larger Blue Star Chios. We’ve travelled on Blue Star ferries many times and all their boats are superb, modern, and very stable, even in choppy seas.

So, since the ferry only passes through Sitia twice a week, it was an enjoyable spectacle to have a grandstand seat as she tied up and all the regular quayside hubbub took place while foot passengers came and went, often walking exceedingly close as huge articulated trucks backed on or drove off the ramp, and an assortment of vehicles were marshalled into and out of the ferry’s cavernous rear doors, which are hydraulically lowered to become the ramp, of course, while she’s tied up. Had there been a daily service, we may have been a little put out by the frequent noise, as she’d sound her horn too while turning to reverse up to the quay, but twice a week is altogether different, and I found myself riveted as the whole shebang went on a few metres below me. I’ve watched these port-calls many times, both from aboard the ship herself, or, as in this case, from a vantage point on land, and it never ceases to hold my attention for the duration, which can often be half an hour or so. I know how to live.

Our short breaks usually follow the same pattern. We park the car up and then don’t touch it for a whole week. When we mention to friends here in Ierapetra that we’re going to spend a week in Sitia, or maybe when we’ve come home that we spent a week there, the response is always the same. “Oh, you’ll want to go to Vai, you’ll be wanting to have a meal in Palekastro, go and swim in Zakrou Bay, eat lunch at the Hiona Taverna on the beach east of Palekastro etc. (or, in the past tense, ‘you’ll have done all those things…’).” The fact is, we’ve done all that in the past, and the last thing we want to do when taking a short break is to jump in the car and drive more of the twisty-turny roads around these parts. One place we really don’t want to go to during the season is Vai. Yes, all right, it’s a special place from a botanical and scenic point of view, but it’s also far too developed for tourism for our liking. I mean, you have to pay to park there for starters!! What? We’ve never been anywhere where we’re charged to park the car while living in Greece and we’re not going to start now thank you very much. Vai is the place to go right at the end of the season, or on bright, sunny winter days. That’s when it’s truly a paradise. Plus, the toll booth for the car park is closed. I know, that’s a luxury that holidaymakers don’t have, and they have little choice if they want to see it, and it is worth seeing, but to go during the holiday season. Got to have some perks from living here all year round, eh?

No, when we get to the Nora Hotel, where we can park up right across from the front door, we get all the stuff out of the car, lug it up to our room, and then walk everywhere for the duration, it’s bliss. Our days follow the same pattern, since at this stage in our lives we’re way past all that ‘visiting archaeological sites and walking around ruins’ phase, after having been coming to Greece for nigh on fifty years and having lived here for nearly eighteen of those. Nope, we get up, fix our muesli and fruit breakfast, sit out on the balcony to eat it, then get ready (which usually takes another hour and a half) before stepping out for the short walk to the sea front in town, where there’s a fabulous choice of café-bars to choose from in which to take our morning freddo espresso and then people-watch ’til the cows come home.

What’s lovely about Sitia too, is the fact that, while there is tourism of course (mainly French), still the majority of voices around you as you sip your coffee are Greek. I know, I admit it unreservedly, we are a couple of tourist snobs. We fail to see the attraction of being anywhere where the only voices you hear are those of your own compatriots, or of people from half the countries in northern Europe, all sitting there in their shorts, floppy fishing hats and strappy tops to show off their tattoos (no offense).

Having enjoyed the sheer pleasure of sitting for as long as we like over our coffees, we drift back to the room, maybe eat a lunch of fresh bread, chopped tomatoes and cucumber, fix ourselves a cup of Earl Grey, then slip into bed, read a book for a while, before drifting off for the afternoon siesta. We’ll get up around 5.00pm, maybe 5.30, then mooch about the room and veranda for a few hours before setting out once again around 9.00pm to go and select a taverna in which to eat the wonderful food that’s on offer here (whatever you do, order the grilled mushrooms at ‘To Limani’ taverna). The great thing about going out to eat that late is that’s when most Greeks eat out. Usually the tourists arrive at the restaurants at around 7.30pm, maybe 8.00pm, and are paying their bills by the time the Greeks arrive for the ‘second sitting’ as it were. I’m sorry, but I don’t get why people would want to eat in all-inclusive hotels, where they have the unbridled joy of eating in a bustling ‘canteen’ packed with their fellow countrymen and women. It’s nice that in Sitia there are not that many hotels of any size. Most accommodation is small, which tends to attract the more discerning traveller anyway, the kind of person who truly wants to absorb some of the atmosphere of the country which they’re visiting.

Which brings me to a bit of a cleft stick that the local business community in Sitia seems to have got itself into. I’ll tackle that in the next post though. Meanwhile, here’s batch no. 2 of the photos…

Somewhere above I mentioned the To Limani taverna, so these below [plus the one at the top of this post] were taken there…

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The cats’ feeling insecure, I can tell. We’ve just returned from another extremely enjoyable week-long break in Sitia and he’s currently acting like he worries that we’ll not be there the next time he looks for us. Since he’s been in the habit during the past months of disappearing for days at a time, we’re well convinced that he has a second home, who knows, maybe a third or a fourth. Whatever the case, he can survive quite happily without us when he wants to. Cats are well-known as exhibiting rather independent ways when it suits them and, unlike most dogs, a cat is never really yours, it’s usually the case that he or she deigns to allow you to enjoy his or her presence when he or she wants something, usually a cuddle, some fussing, or – as is more often the case – food.

   So, when we left for Sitia on Sunday May 14th, we hadn’t this time made any arrangements for anyone to come and feed him. Angla’i’a, the village mayor, told us not to be so soft. “He’s a cat, he’ll be fine, just you wait and see,” she told us when we’d broached the subject a few days before leaving. “Half the time he’s along the street keeping Manoli company when you’re wondering where he is. Anyway, I’ll keep an eye out, but he’ll still be here when you get back, mark my words,” she’d said in her usual authoritative manner.

   Of course, she was right. When we drove back up the lane on Sunday 21st he’d been nowhere to be seen, but the next morning, when I ventured outside at 07.00 hours, he came running up to me, meowing like crazy and insisting on being picked up and reassured that we were indeed back. He looked a little rough around the edges, no doubt from a few run-ins with interlopers (nothing too unusual about that, except that when we’re in residence I often intervene before he and a local feral bully come to blows, sending the street urchin packing while Mavkos sits near my feet with a definite air of relief, even smugness, about his face). He’d quite evidently done OK but I’m convinced that whatever he’d been eating for the days of our absence, it hadn’t been as nutritious as the food we usually give him. Plus he’d have had none of the nice little treats that we pamper him with either, his tasty salmon nuggets, or his nice moist salmon ‘sticks’ that he wolfs down in seconds as a rule.

   Anyway, as of now he’s still acting very ‘clingy,’ and I have to keep telling him that, no, we’re not about to abandon him again for a while. I’m sure he knows what I’m saying, I do, honestly.

Our time in Sitia, when I wasn’t worrying about Mavkos that is, was equally as enjoyable as last year. In fact it was one year and one week since we last did the same thing, (See the posts from May 2022) and we’d again booked into our snug, if very basic, little room at the Hotel Nora, near the harbour where the ferries come in twice a week. It’s called a ‘hotel,’ but it would be better described as ‘village rooms’ with a reception area, and that’s why we so love the place. Nikos and his wife, plus his pethera Maria, and her sister, welcomed us like long, lost relatives. We’re convinced that one reason was that our previous stay of 7 nights was in all probability the longest any guests had ever stayed with them. More often than not the Nora acts as a kind of overnighter for those who’ve just come off the ferry, or for those who are due to board the next one that ties up. When you enter the building you’re met with a small reception desk in a quite acceptable lounge area, but there is no restaurant, no pool, in fact no other facilities. The reception desk, though, is manned by one of the family 24/7, which just affords the place that little extra bit of security (like Sitia is rife with housebreakers and muggers anyway). The lounge actually serves as the TV room for the family, and every evening they can be encountered sitting around one of the small tables watching a Greek soap opera on Alpha TV.

   It’s that very ‘family’ feel that makes us love staying there so much. Once you’ve settled into your room, nothing’s too much trouble for Niko or his kin. As soon as we arrived this time around, after all the hugs and cheek-kisses had been dispensed with, Nikos, a stocky, ruddy-faced man with a perpetual smile on his round face, told us, “Anything you want, you only have to ask, it’s no problem at all.” Frankly, though, above asking him for a kettle (which he almost fell over his own feet in his hurry to supply us with), there was nothing more we could have wanted. The room is very basic, but the place is truly spotless. Yes, the bathroom could be modernised a bit, true, but the sink had a plug in it, I mean talk about luxury, come ON! Anyone who’s ever stayed in village rooms will know that a plug for the bathroom sink is usually something that you never, ever see, and wouldn’t even expect to. The amount of clean, fresh, brilliantly white towels they supply you with leads us to insist that they not change them quite so often. We can never use all the towels they give us anyway, so we make sure that those ones we do use last us a while, so as to keep their laundry bill down a little. I”ll not divulge here how much we pay per night, but I will say that I believe it’s a completely unbeatable nightly rate for this day and age on a Greek island. 

So, here is the first clutch of photos from this year’s stay. Expect a series of posts before I’m through with this year’s Greek holiday!

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Mousmoulia is what they’re called in Greek, and in English they’re loquats. You can see Loquat trees all over the place here and it’s about now when they’re laden with plum-sized fruits that are somewhere between yellow and orange in colour. Inside they have a largish sized kernel, again, probably similar in size to the pip in a plum, although their flesh doesn’t resemble plums all that much in any other respect. Apparently they originated in China, but now they’re grown in all kinds of diverse parts of the globe. Clinging to the surface of the kernel’s ‘chamber’ is a kind of opaque membrane that often stays with the fruit’s flesh when you extract the pip. Before you can eat the fruit it’s best to remove that membrane, as it’s kind of tough to chew, even though it looks like a thin layer of ‘mica,’ which anyone who’s into electronics will be able to explain. I used to be a partner in a small electronics company and we used to use ‘mica’ washers in the production of the product. That’s the only reason why I’m aware of the stuff.

They taste a little weird for my liking and, to be honest, I can live without them. The only trouble is, in villages like ours the trees are currently laden with the fruit and the locals will simply eat them raw, or use them to make a kind of marmalade. I’m told that the leaves of the tree can also be used to make a herbal tea, although I don’t think I’ve met anyone here who bothers with that. By far the most often consumed teas here are Chamomile and ‘chai vounou,’ or ‘mountain tea,’ which is made from a specific plant that grows higher up the mountain slopes and is considered to be exceedingly good for the health. Here you’ll often be offered a choice of the two if you ask for tea when being entertained. It’s far more likely that your host will offer you those than what we Brits would call ‘proper tea,’ or even Earl Grey. If you wander around the local branch of Lidl (for those outside of Europe, a supermarket chain originating in Germany) here in Greece, you’ll see mountain tea in see-through cellophane packets on sale alongside all the other teas in their range. We prefer to buy it from the local dried herb shop, but the mountain tea in Lidl is nevertheless a Greek product.

Anyway, we have a very prolific mousmoulia tree in George’s plot just below our veranda and, although the land belongs to him, he tells us to pick and eat the fruit of the few trees he has planted there, since he rarely comes to the village these days. There are also lemons, figs, almonds and mandarins down there, so it’s a handy little food source as the seasons roll around.

The thing is, even though we’re not into mousmoulia, we know that our near neighbours have eaten them since they were born and thus will always have a use for them. They, however, don’t have access to George’s plot, and so, as I gazed down at the fruit-laden tree a few days go, I resolved to go down there, pick all the soft, ripe fruit and give them to Maria and her mum Evangelia across the lane from us. In times past Evangelia would regularly shuffle over there with a bucket to collect both the fruit (always leaving some for us too) as well as fists-full of horta, a staple in her diet, as is the case with so many elderly Greeks of her generation. It’s been explained many times I know, but the habit of picking and eating horta, which is a plant whose leaves resemble the dandelion, is thought to have originated during the Second World War, when the occupying Nazis seconded virtually all of the fresh fruit and vegetables from the locals to feed their soldiers. Without horta, even more thousands of Greeks would have starved than did so. Evangelia cannot now gain entry to George’s plot since his son was up here a few months ago and decided to put a padlock and chain on the gate. I have a way of getting in, but it would be well beyond Evangelia’s physical abilities to do so, sadly.

Thus, rather than see all those ripe fruit fade and wither on the tree, I picked a big bagful of them and left them outside Evangelia’s door when she was taking her siesta. That, it seemed to the both of us, was the best solution and it would mean that all that fruit wouldn’t go to waste, since in no way did we want it.

That was one day last week. Only a day or two later, as I’d risen early because my body refused to stay asleep beyond around 6.30am, I was sitting at the kitchen table bashing away on my laptop’s keyboard, taking the occasional sip from a comforting mug of Earl Grey tea, when a shadow passed in front of the window above the kitchen sink, directly to my left. Fortunately I was wearing my dressing gown. Had it been another few weeks time, I may well have been sitting there starkers, as that’s the usual way we wander around the house during the summer days, as it’s simply too hot to wear anything. It must have now been around 8.30am; still quite early, although, of course completely light outside.

Thinking it might have been the cat (although quite how he’d have managed to get up as high as the window would have been a mystery) I turned to see what was happening. Staring straight in through the open window, through the mozzie screen, was the face of sixty-something Christina, from a little further up the hill, she who had made us a batch of cakes and biscuits after we’d taken a few minutes to pass the time with her in the olive groves when she’d been feeling a little like an outcast. My initial reaction was to shout ‘What the hell are you doing snooping around like that woman?!’

It goes without saying that I didn’t do that, though. After a few milliseconds while I gathered my thoughts, I gave her a sweet smile (even though I was immensely irritated to have been interrupted) while she pointed to something lower than the window sill, where we have a bench which I use to fiddle around with various DIY and gardening stuff, and whispered, “Gianni, I’ve just come back from the horafi, and I thought you might like these, OK? I’ll leave them here for you. Give my love to Maria.” And she was gone like a twilight spectre in the dawn.

‘OK,’ I thought, although she’d frightened the living daylights out of me, ‘I guess she was just being thoughtful. She probably hadn’t expected anyone to be up but, since I was, she’d let me know that there was something out there for us.’ Once I’d given her a few minutes to beat a retreat, I opened the front door and took a look at what she’d left for us.

There, on the bench, was a big bag full of mousmoulia.

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Last May, as we took a week’s break in Sitia (which we’re doing again this year, next week in fact) we’d been rather taken by a flowering plant that was growing in many of the displays along the walkways of the town, especially around the cafés on the harbour front. On our return home we sought the plant out in a local garden centre and bought a couple of small seedlings to plant in our upper bed. It’s a perennial that flowers for at least a month from about now onwards, and we loved the delicate pinky-white flowers. Well, those two tiny seedlings grew very vigorously during the succeeding months, and now, well, look…

It’s exciting to see from those photos that there are loads of buds still to come out. Isn’t it a great addition to the colour palate up there though?

Last Saturday Yvonne (Maria) had a hairdresser’s appointment. so I took myself off to take some photos of the nooks and crannies around the old town. The results are below. Hope you like this selection…

That corner bakery just across from the church (photo no. 2) took me back to the days when we used to take holidays in the Greek islands. Don’t you just adore that early morning stroll along from your rooms to the local bakery (always assuming you’re not staying in one of those huge faceless A.I. hotels, of course) to pick up a loaf or two for the lunch that day? As you approach the bakery that divine smell of Greek bread baking in the oven meets your nostrils well before you get to the door and you feel like eating half the stock in the shop, right? Well, as I drew near to that corner the familiar aroma took me back to wonderful past times when we’d holidayed in such places as Poros island, Kefalonia, Symi, Skiathos, Samos, Naxos and others. There are few smells as evocative of a Greek holiday in some small accommodation among the locals as that.

Finally, at 8.00pm last Saturday, we rather liked the shape of a cloud over the hill to our east, so I snapped this shot of it…

Look after yourselves.

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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)

And here’s the link to the new short story “Outage.”

I know, I know, I say this every year, but it’s exciting to see everywhere opening up and getting ready for summer. I’m nothing if not predictable and, as I’ve probably said in every blog post about the subject that I’ve ever posted, by the time we get to this stage we’re itching to be feeling too hot, to be able to take our coffees on the beach and to feel the need to go into the sea to cool off. By the time October’s well towards the back end we’re always saying the opposite: Bring on the cooler days so we can get our jeans on again, so we can do some country walks and a long session of gardening without fearing an attack of sunstroke.

Last week it was our wedding anniversary. Now, I’m not at liberty to tell you how many years because I don’t relish the thought of being killed. See, it’s like this, if you factor in the age to which my beautiful and lovely wife admits to being these days, along with the actual year in which we tied the knot, then we’d have been married quite a few years before she was born. You see my dilemma don’t you fellas? Yeah, thought so. Still, all that aside, we did receive a couple of lovely surprises, one from more than 2000 miles away and the other from just down the road. Over in deepest Wiltshire in the UK my sister and her hubby are currently going through a very hard time, since my dear brother-in-law has some major health issues to deal with and it’s a huge worry for the both of them. No need to go further down that route here, but I only mention it because we considered that they probably had some much larger things on their mind than our little old wedding anniversary this time around. Yet how lovely when a local flower shop in Ierapetra telephoned to tell us they were about to deliver a bouquet. When it arrived, the attached card contained some beautiful wishes, written in a Greek hand but with English words. It was from Jane and Martin, my sister and hubby. Plus, the Greeks, one has to say here, are superb at presentation, always making even the simplest of gifts look a million dollars. They love to wrap things in coloured paper, tie a silky ribbon around it where possible and, if it’s edible, pack it in a very impressive box made of coloured and often printed cardboard.

Thus the first of our surprises brightened an already beautiful day…

Cut flowers, of course, are very ephemeral. You look at them, appreciate them, then they’re gone. But what thrilled us about this bouquet was that the spray included a nice purple burst of Sea Lavender. Now, if you know anything about that, it’s sometimes also called the ‘everlasting flower,’ because if you put it in a vase and let it dry, it retains its colour for years. It’s the ideal plant to use in a dry display because it’ll remain vivid for ages and ages, so we’ll have a hard time forgetting this loving thought from my dear sis and hubby all that distance away.

The second of our surprises was when a couple, probably our best friends from nearly 18 years in Greece, turned up halfway through the evening with a large, quite heavy box. When we opened it…

Now, this kind of ‘cake’ isn’t anything like the ones you’d get in the UK. In fact they usually call them ‘tourta,’ and when you cut them they’re layered inside and very, very rich and gooey. What added that little bit of pzazz was that it came with a sparkler, which, of course we immediately lit and the video shows the result. The only problem we had with this was, as a rule we don’t eat this kind of thing, but then neither do our friends Timotheo and Sylvia, but the occasion demanded something a bit out of the ordinary, eh? We all tucked into a slice, accompanied by coffee (a given) and then the rest went into the fridge. There was no way that the two of us could ever get through the remainder, so Maria and Dimitri down the lane were only too pleased to help us out when we took a large chunk down to them. Maria told me how much she thought this kind of cake costs, which further increased our appreciation for the kind of friends we have here!

We went out on the day too, and we had lunch (no surprises here) at the Konaki, on the beach. As usual an excellent meal was taken and we didn’t have to tell Gianni what we wanted to order. He already knew.

Another year has rolled around, and here are a few photos from the past few days…

Above: In the village of Stomio (well, the outlying parts) there are lots of hothouses (thermokipia) and, OK, they’re not everyone’s cup of tea to look at. But one has to hand it to the owners of this farm, because look what an amazing effort they’ve made to make the entrance to their place look nice.

Above: Now isn’t he (or she) a beaut, eh? We have a small plant tray of water on the floor outside, mainly for the cat to drink from. However, most nights if you go outside in the small hours, you’ll find this little (well, not so little actually) chap, who’ll actually get into the water sometimes, but then will hang around the area eating bugs. For the latter reason alone he’s very welcome any evening! We’re fairly confident that he’s a European Toad.

Above: In Ierapetra Old Town earlier today. A Jacaranda is just bursting into flower.

Above: ‘In need of some modernisation‘ would be an estate agent’s description of this house. It’s one of the diminishing number of truly characterful old houses in the Old Town area. Lastly, the photo below is of our young friend Eirini (Amanda), who’s a very talented seamstress and dressmaker. She’s just opened her new shop in the town, offering an alteration and dressmaking service. She can take things in, take things out, and make an entire wedding dress or morning suit from scratch. We wish her the very best of success and I was touched when she and her dad asked me (as a retired graphic designer) for my input in designing the logo. Another friend had come up with the chosen typeface, and I did the rest. The needle below, along with the simplified mannequin above, hopefully conveys to the passer-by what she’s all about. If you live in the area, she’s just along the street from the main Post Office. If you do go there, tell her John sent you!

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

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

And here’s the link to the new short story “Outage.”