Sunday, 16th June, 2024
Beautiful morning. Just 26C/79F at 8.30 am (Greek) as we went up to the rooftop for Breakfast looking down over the Thermaic Gulf.
Breakfast is becoming a problem. I just can’t eat much more of it. Bacon & Scrambled Egg is a delightful novelty for the first day or two but, by now, my body is saying, Enough! Of course, breakfast for many Greeks is a cheap, dry bread-ring covered in sesame seeds bought from a street vendor’s barrow. In that case, I could do without breakfast at all.
You wouldn’t think these girls know what any kind of breakfast is. I am never going to be as skinny as these two. They are my neighbours Dee (at No. 2), Lecturer in English and Michelle (at No. 3), Copywriter. They are both in their 50s, both have had kids, both have gyms in their garages and both run everywhere. They both say they eat like horses and they both definitely drink a lot but ….
They are on a Hen-Do in Malaga this weekend leaving their husbands at home to look after the houses and mow the lawns. They Whatsapp’d me this photo around midnight last night just to make me feel old and fat and tired and …. Some other neighbours, John & Jill, Whatsapp’d me this morning to ask if they can park on our drive until we get back. They have a skip on theirs while the garden is redesigned. I replied to them totally in Greek to make them work for it. It is lovely to have such nice neighbours.
Monday, 17th June, 2024
Lovely morning. We’re forecast to touch 34C/93F today. We are being incredibly lucky to enjoy such lovely weather. Sunny, hot and a bit sweaty when we want it with an ice-cold, air-conditioned Suite to retreat to when we don’t.
Lovely evening. We’ve eaten so much that we didn’t bother with Supper last night. We just shared a bottle of wine and some nibbles on the balcony before watching the England match. I bet you were watching it as well, Dear Reader. I must admit, it was a bit boring and, of course, it didn’t start here until 10.00 pm and finished at midnight. After all the walking, the heat and a bottle of wine, I was really tired.
While watching the match in Northern Greece, I was talking to my friend in Northern Yorkshire. He wanted to know if I could get it in Bongo Bongo Land. I illustrated it with a photo of my Laptop and iPad and asked him if he had electricity in Yorkshire. Apparently, he has a number of youths in the garden pedalling furiously to power the generator.
I am better at reading Greek than speaking it. I’m less good at that as we get further away from our life in Greece. Walked past this group of old ladies with a stall in the shade. One thrust a leaflet into my hand and said, Welcome.
It takes a lot of Greek words to say a little. I’ve had to enlist assistance by downloading a clever app on my phone. Taking a photo of text in any language leads to it reproducing the photo in English. Just brilliant.
This leaflet was about abuse of the Elderly. I didn’t like to tell them that I’ve been abusing the elderly for years.
Last year we were the only English voices at the hotel. This year, there are quite a few. I met an old guy in the lift. I have two icebreakers in the lift:
- Where are you from?
- How old are you?
Both subtle questions as you will acknowledge, Dear Reader. The old guy with a stick and little hair was …. 73! He came from Sunny Scunny. As we quickly guessed, he was from Scunthorpe. What shocked me was … he won a scholarship for Harrogate Grammar. He was there just before I went to Ripon. Strange world!
Tuesday, 18th June, 2024
Well, Dear Reader, you will be pleased to read that we are home safely from our adventure. Last night was a delightful one even though it was our last night for now. I met this alcoholic on my balcony. I’m going to make her my wine taster.
Lovely meal out yesterday evening and then packing for an early off today. Up at 6.00 am and breakfast at 7.00 am. Checkout as the desk called us a taxi for the airport. Straight up to the Executive Lounge for coffee and newspapers. Flight arrived on time.
We were first on – as usual – and settled into our seats at the front of the plane. It always amazes me that some people turn up and sit where they want and then look surprised when they are moved to the seat on their ticket/Boarding Pass. Saw that twice on our flight.
Anyway, the flight went smoothly and we were soon in Gatwick Airport feeling, Has that all happened? I don’t know if it occurs to you but, as I drove back home, I find myself thinking, Just 4 hrs ago I was walking around in Northern Greece. Shuttle to the Long Stay Carpark and then 50 mins home where the temperature was a warm 25C although not a match for the 37C we had left.
The garden had survived and we lifted our first Early Potatoes for Supper with roast Salmon with Pest topping. travelling is always tiring and nothing will get done until tomorrow. In Greek Time, I am writing this at 8.30 pm. Here I am writing it at 6.30 pm while chef cooks Supper.
Wednesday, 19th June, 2024
Woke up early – 5.00 am (UK) and listened to the radio which sent me back to sleep. Didn’t get up until 7.30 am. Lovely, warm and sunny day but we have to go shopping and have Dentist appointments too. They’re all in the Dental Plan and, the older I get, the less deterioration I have with my teeth. Thought it would be the other way round. I was so used to all the elderly complaining about their dentures in my youth that I thought it would be my fate too. Anyway, this morning’s appointment at Calm & Gentle was just a quick check-up producing no work which is pleasing.
Outside in the garden today, we are reaching a gentle, 25C compared with the more savage 37C that we left yesterday. I am desperately watering everything because we’ve gone from a wet May to a bone dry June. When we first went to Greece back in 1981, it was the intense heat that attracted us. Now, we try to take things a bit more carefully.
On our first visit to Sifnos over 40 years ago, this grey-haired senior citizen was a gangly youth, riding his motorbike too fast, chewing gum, ostentatiously wearing his gold necklaces, looking totally disinterested in everything but girls as youth are want to do. We nicknamed him Cool and that stuck for the rest of his days. He was part of the large and influential Boulis family who ran restaurants, owned hotels and farmed the land. Cool had three jobs. He farmed animals – goats, etc, waited on tables in the restaurant and he also served as a rope catcher in the harbour.
Kamares Harbour spends large sections of its time in the serenity of blue skies and warm sunshine. There are few boats or people around. When the ferry arrives, all hell is let loose. Men have to be on the dock to collect the ropes thrown down from the ferry and loop them over the mooring bollards – in choppy seas this is quite a hazardous operation. It would usually require two men to be present each time a ferry docked. Of course, they couldn’t be there all day – there might only be one ferry on some days so Giannis/Cool would leave it until the last minute and then charge down the mountain from his farm on a motor bike and arrive just in time to meet the boat. He would be paid a sum for being always available.
Over the years, we saw young Cool turn from youth to married man with children and responsibilities but this week, we heard that he had gone. He did have a heart attack some years ago while we were there and it seems this latest one has finished him. Heart attacks on remote Greek islands are so often fatal because of slow communication links and poor island facilities.
Islanders joke that when you have a heart attack, you die because it takes 50 mins for a helicopter to arrive from Athens and 50 mins for it to get you back there but the real trouble starts then – assuming you’re still alive. The traffic in Athens is so bad that it takes an age to get an ambulance from the airport to the hospital. If you survive all that, you probably didn’t have a heart attack in the first place.
It is one of the things which decided for us that time had come to depart. The medical facilities on the island are rudimentary and, as we got older, we realised it wasn’t sustainable.
Thursday, 20th June, 2024
Another lovely morning, windless, warm and sunny. The garden is looking good and I hope to enjoy it later. And there should be much later because today is Summer Solstice and The Longest Day. When you’re young, you long for the next day. When you’re old … ah, never let tomorrow come. Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow.
Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow
Don’t stop, it’ll soon be here
It’ll be here better than before
Yesterday’s gone, yesterday’s gone ….
This is a young person’s song, a song of optimism and future dreams. Am I depressing you, Dear Reader? Nil Desperandum. I’m going out to order a couple of pairs of reading glasses. Go mad with me!
I’m all in favour of political protest and some radical approaches to social change … like the Suffragettes .. but risking damage to hugely significant historical sites is off limits even for me. This goes beyond protest.
It’s hard to believe the political news at the moment. I always expected Labour to oust these Tory lunatics but it looks like they’ll do more than just blow the doors off. Our local candidate is so far ahead of the oldest Tory MP in the house that he will be collecting his pension in a couple of weeks. The whole of the South Coast is going to turn red. Joy of Joys! To make matters even better, interest rates are holding while inflation has fallen to 2%. Most of my investments are making 3 x that rate and will do for another year. It’s been a long time coming.
We live in an EU microcosm in our road. Lots of lovely expats from Europe. Have you noticed how people who come from abroad to live here are pejoratively referred to as immigrants whereas Brits who go to live abroad are fluffily called expats. Well our lovely German/Australian expat, Dee, went back to Munchen, Germany for her Dad’s 96th birthday and brought us back some European chocolates. Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to eat them but my Manager will scoff the lot in very short time.
I was talking to Dee about the election. I have some great chat-up lines. It turns out that, although she’s been in UK for more than 20 years, married a Brit, had a child, lectured English in a UK college, paid UK taxes all that time, she is not allowed to vote in the UK election. She can pay taxes to the state but has no say in how they are spent. When Labour are swept to power and start to widen the franchise to allow 16 year olds to vote, I am going to push them to allow people like Dee a vote as well. It is disgraceful that she hasn’t got it now unlike all those who have left years ago to live in Spain and can have a postal vote without argument.
Friday, 21st June, 2024
Lovely, warm night with a beautiful, full moon. Were you watching, Dear Reader? The Summer Solstice and June’s Strawberry Moon coincided for the first time in nearly 70 years. Pity the England team didn’t take the hint.
These are lovely times. Very warm – we reached 25C again yesterday – and a time for sleeping on the bed not in it. First thing I do in the morning when I come down to Breakfast – well chef is juicing my oranges, making my tea and making sure the day starts correctly – the first thing I do is go out into the garden and check all is well.
We have a couple of beautiful blackbirds who have been serenading us from the rooftops each evening searching feverishly through the newly watered soil in our raised beds for worms.
Thirteen years ago, we were getting to grips with Mediterranean gardening in the intense sunshine of a Greek Summer. Our Lemon Trees were fruiting well and we produced Courgettes, Peppers and Potatoes. We even had a crop of Green Beans.
Nipped down to the beach this morning as we had a parcel to return nearby. It was hot, sunny and almost deserted. You always get one cluttering it up, don’t you.
Saturday, 22nd June, 2024
Do I seem weather obsessed to you, Dear Reader? Maybe I am. Gardeners definitely are. Our local Pick Your Own farm which is 2 mins away has a big banner up on its website saying most crops are delayed because of the wet Spring.
It certainly was. I can see from previous Blog records how far behind some plants are this year. Having said that, the weather really organised itself well this week. Yesterday was gorgeously hot and sunny. Over night, we had really sustained rain and, this morning, it is hot and sunny again. Couldn’t ask for more.
For the last few years in Greece, we experienced lots of heatwaves. The hottest we personally experienced coincided with a trip to Athens. We had travelled from our island home to the city to search and buy tiles for the outside of our house. I can see us even now arriving in Piraeus from the ferry and the temperature showing 41.6C/107F. If you’ve never felt that heat, I can tell you that it’s almost impossible to walk and, the older you get, the more dangerous it is.
A decade ago I was arguing that Greece was so totally reliant on Tourism that it was dangerous in a world of Climate Change. Greece doesn’t sell sophistication but simplicity. Greece doesn’t sell Haute Cuisine but simple, Mediterranean cooking. Greece doesn’t even sell ease of travel and access and but retreat and isolation from the busy world. What Greece does sell is guaranteed sunshine and warm, dry weather in the Summer months … unlike UK and many other parts of Northern Europe.
The European Commission paper on the Consequences of Climate Change points out exactly this and suggests Greece, Spain, Portugal, South of France will have to shift their offerings to Winter to survive. If they do, it will be old people like me who they will be catering for. I think they will have to change their economic model altogether.