Home from Home?

When I was a lad growing up, even before I reached the ripe old age of ten, my dad, bless him, always tried to give the family a bit of a summer break, even though back then we didn’t have a great deal of disposable income. Times were ‘ard. The lack of riches was never really noticed in our family, because we were extremely rich in the most important way, the way of family love and security. Both of our parents made it their business to provide my sister Jane and I with a secure, loving family environment, and that included – I’m proud to say – a little ‘correction’ now and then. Why am I rambling on about this? I’ll tell you, because some of the best summer holidays we ever had were either spent on daytrips from home, or staying only thirty miles away, on Brean Sands in Somerset, for example. You’ll see where I’m coming from soon, promise.

Just before I get to the point, though, I should point out that back in the late fifties and early sixties, when we used to go to Brean, it was possibly a lot different place than it is today. I would imagine that it’s still a lot less commercialised than places like Weston Super Mare, but my abiding memory of the place is miles of stunningly beautiful sandy beach, backed by miles of wild sand dunes and bookended to the North by the wonderfully moor-like Brean Down which juts out into the Bristol Channel, and to the South by the rather elegant and low-key seaside town that is Burnham-On-Sea. I make no apologies for plugging this little corner of my home county of Somerset because, if it’s a part of the UK that you’ve never visited, you’d be well-advised to put it on your bucket list. Even today, after all these decades since my parents used to make a beeline for the area from our home village of Tunley, about six miles South West of Bath, it’s a part of the UK that is still stunningly beautiful and devoid of mass-tourism.

What I wanted to stress was the fact that the best holidays don’t have to be the most expensive, or involve huge mammoth journeys. Having done a fair bit of globetrotting in our time, I can well speak from experience when I say that we’ve been to places that involved epic journeys, changes of flight en-route, in fact all the usual things that travelling vast distances involves, and yet had breaks no better, no more restful or invigorating than those my Dad took us on back then, which involved a car journey (Dad strove very hard to run a car, even if his were often decades old) of no more than thirty miles each way.

So, and may I thank you for your patience at this juncture, I reach the point where I explain why we’re spending a fortnight in a modest apartment in Sitia (again!), not an hour’s drive from our own front door, rather than some other island that may have involved sea journeys, flights, lots of waiting around and carrying/dragging luggage this way and that. When you go away in the car, it’s simply brilliant how easy it is. You can just throw anything that you think you might need into the boot (trunk, guys) or onto the back seat, and leave most of it there when you get to your destination, only returning to the vehicle to retrieve it if you decide that you can use it. Because this year it’s a huge milestone for our marriage, and our anniversary was April 20th by the way, we sat down ages ago and thought about what we might like to do to mark the occasion, where we might like to go. The Seychelles, the Caribbean maybe, what about Rome? Perhaps any one of all the Greek islands that we still haven’t been to (and we’ve done a lot, I can tell you!)? We eventually pared it all down to an island that we’ve been to twice in the past, and on both occasions spent three weeks there, and that was Naxos. See, it’s all very well going half-way around the world, but when it comes down to what we really want out of a short break, it’s all right here on our doorstep, in our adopted home, Greece. Plus, speaking the lingo is a huge plus point.

We have very fond memories of Naxos, and thought that, OK, maybe it was the place to go back to for our fiftieth. In fact, had we carried on with our plans to go back, I’m sure we’d have had a lovely time. The other destination that vied very closely with Naxos was Patmos (an island that we’ve also spent around six weeks on), but since moving from Rhodes to Crete nearly five years ago, that’s now become a lot more difficult place to reach. The journey would have been fraught, to be honest. To get to Naxos from our home in Makrylia would have been fairly straightforward, although it would have meant our leaving the car on the quayside at Heraklion and taking the SeaJet as foot passengers but, after quite a lot of deliberating, we found ourselves staring at each other a couple of months ago and both thinking the same thing, and that was, “What we like to do when we’re away we can do in Sitia for a lot less travelling, not to mention a major difference in expenditure to get there, and indeed, stay there too.”

Over coffee on the terrace back in March, it was funny how the both of us stared at each other across the rims of our coffee cups and began at the same time to suggest that maybe we ought simply to go back to Sitia, where we’ve been for short breaks twice in the past two years, during May 2022 and May 2023. Yes, OK, the whitewashed Cycladian streets are pretty, and the buildings very photogenic, but it seems we have very basic requirements when it comes to what makes us happy these days. We no longer feel the necessity for photogenic places (usually well stocked with tourists as a result). We like to get up at leisure, prepare our own breakfast of muesli, yogurt and chopped fruit, thus ensuring that we get the nutrition that we need (I know, let’s not go there this time, I do go on a bit about how healthy we are), then venture out for a long walk that will inevitably involve stopping at a waterfront coffee bar for a spot of people-watching, before ambling around a little more and getting back to the room for a simple lunch on the veranda. Then it’s a sleep for the afternoon, before taking a few hours to get ourselves ready to step out at around 9.00pm for an evening meal at a taverna or restaurant, also beside the sea.

To be honest, we could do all that from home too, in Ierapetra, but it’s six kilometres from the house to the town, and so it would have involved taking the car every night. What’s better than parking up and forgetting the wheels for the duration? It’s amazing how relaxing it is to simply walk everywhere for a fortnight, not to say more healthy, and it doesn’t matter if one sips a glass of wine or three while out either. So, Sitia (I know, I know, in previous posts I’ve spelt it Siteia, you pays your money…) ticks every one of the boxes that we have on our ‘ideal holiday’ list. We’d be hard-put to think of anywhere that we’ve so far been in Greece that has as good a choice of waterfront eateries and bars as the harbour area in Sitia. OK, so it’s not as pretty as Paros or Mykonos, but at least here you are mainly amongst locals, the overseas visitors being very much in the minority. It’s not always what takes a good photograph when you come right down to it.

So, here we are, and here we’ll be for another week and a half yet. Since I’m a terrible sleeper, some of the photos I’ll be posting will be taken during the wee small hours too, when I have the whole place very much to myself, apart from the local cat population, of course. Here’s the first batch, taken between Saturday 20th and Tuesday 23rd…

Above: For the first night (our actual anniversary meal), we decided it had to be our favourite restaurant on the front at Sitia, and that’s the Limani. Not only is it ideally situated, it also has a an excellent menu for vegetarians, including a lot of ‘home cooking’ dishes that many restaurants don’t do. In the photo above we’ve put the kolokithokeftedes on to the plate with the grilled mushrooms in order to make room for all the dishes. There are gigantes too and a lovely green salad with fresh spring onions in the mix. They charge a very acceptable €5 for a bottle of Malamatina Retsina too, which is one of the best brands in Greece.

In fact, we’ve made the executive decision that we’re going to the Limani every second evening, and we’ll go elsewhere on the other nights to see what else takes our fancy. Thus, we were there again on Monday, when we ate courtesy of my lovely sister Jane, who gave us a nice anniversary gift of a wad of cash, much of which went on Monday’s meal, when we ordered gemista and fasolakia (arguably the best fasolakia we’ve ever eaten anywhere. The only place that rivals the Limani for fasolakia in my mind is the Odyssey in the Old Town of Rhodes). Here’s Monday’s meal…

That choccy dessert, by the way, was on the house!!! Very naughty, but boy did it go down well. We’re here a full three weeks earlier than we were in ’22 and ’23, so it’s really great to still be able to sit outside to eat after dark.

Lots more photos to come in the next post, but first, I wanted to just tell you something, if you’ll indulge me. Blogging is an odd kind of pastime when you analyse it. I mean, when one writes a blog, one is essentially spouting on about one’s own life and, frankly, when I see people doing that on Facebook (for example) I don’t much like it. Yet here I am, having kept a blog both on Rhodes and now here in Crete for a decade and more. I am very conscious of the fact that people out there in ‘internet-land’ have to give up a few minutes of their lives in order to read one of my posts, and for that I can’t find enough words to express my gratitude to one and all, believe me. I do hold out the hope that what I write entertains, informs and interests people who love Greece, and that’s my main motivation when I prepare a post. Please believe me when I say that I’m truly humbled when people give me feedback and I learn that they’ve enjoyed something that I’ve written, maybe learned something that they didn’t know before, or perhaps have been motivated to go somewhere I’ve written about. That’s what gives me the most joy.

I don’t think that any blogger should ever take his or her reading public for granted. We are in a very privileged position if we have followers, and I feel a deep responsibility to write what they’ll enjoy, and in a way that they find pleasurable to read. So, once again, if you read my ‘stuff’ and find it in any way worthwhile, I’m happy, not to say eternally grateful to you.

Oh, alright then, a couple more photos in this post…

That extremely attractive woman who looks like she’s just stepped off of a luxury yacht, I’m sure she’s following me…

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The cat that crept away

Mavkos has done a runner, the little blighter. The above photo shows just how comfy he was with us as part of the family, and that lasted for over two years. He was not much more than a kitten when he adopted us (and it was his initiative, not ours, to begin with) and he eventually became like a shadow following us around, and we loved him.

For reasons known only to himself, though, about six months ago he began staying away, often for up to a week at a time. But then he’d come back and start hanging around the house like he’d never been away. Every morning he waited to be picked up for a cuddle before he’d eat his breakfast, and would always end up on one of our laps, like the photo above, as we drank our morning coffee together on the terrace. Of course, he also used to get a little puddy-tat treat when we had our coffee too, the crafty little devil.

His absences, though, gradually became longer and, this past few weeks, we haven’t seen hide nor hair of him, heartless fiend that he is. The last time he came by to see us he ate a good meal, then sauntered off again, and that was that. We’re convinced that there’s another family in the village that maybe gives him food to eat that’s not altogether good for him, but cats are like children, they’ll always eat junk food over healthy stuff all day long, won’t they. The annoying thing is, we really miss him. Mind you, at least we don’t have the headache that we’ve had in the past of finding someone to feed him while we’re away, and as it happens we’re going away on Saturday as it’s a mega-big anniversary for us on that day, April 20th. When he first began his absences, we’d worry sick that he’d been poisoned or something, but he’d always turn up again, looking fit and well. Oddly enough, though, Maria and Dimitri just below us have a ginger tom that adopted them when he was a kitten too, and he’s just as happy around humans as Mavkos is. ‘Ginge,’ as we call him, comes by most days and talks to us incessantly. I’ve never known a cat to talk as much as Ginge does. He also wants to be petted, he especially likes the back of his head smoothed, and only after he’s satisfied with that will he wander on through the garden and go somewhere else. So, at least we do get to fuss over a pussycat, even if it isn’t Mavkos. Ginge, too, will accept a little dried food with relish, whilst not being dependent on us, so we shouldn’t complain really.

Here are some recent photos…

Above: The upper garden’s looking lush these days, and we’re really happy with how it’s turned out.

Above: Saw this tree on the edge of town on April 7th, I think it’s a kind of magnolia, but I don’t really know. Nice blooms though, don’t you think?

Above: Couple of shots in the village. I just liked the aspects.

Above: These were from a walk we did on April 12th. I love the middle one, because it really draws your eye into the distance. Least, I think so!

Finally, for your amusement, below are a couple of shots from the past. The first is from when I was in the Raggamuffins in South Wales UK, a reggae band set up by my good friend Howie Grey from Trinidad and Tobago, who lived in South Wales around the time we did, but now lives back in the Caribbean with his wife Marilyn. Those fake dreadlocks were full of static electricity and we took them off after one number! The second was taken at Feraklos Castle, between Haraki and Agathi Beach on Rhodes. I’m pointing across the bay to what’s known as Red Sand Bay, which is only accessible by boat.

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Out of the way places

On my Facebook ‘Books’ page I recently posted a photo taken at a tiny little bay called Tholos which is only accessible by a lane that runs down from the village of Kavousi, here in Lasithi. I mentioned that I’d soon post the rest here on the blog, so here they are. Since moving here to south-eastern Crete almost five years ago, we’ve been struck by just how many little hideaways there are within easy driving distance of home. Lasithi’s only true tourist hotspots are Agios Nikolaos and Elounda, and the rest of the ‘county’ thrives more in agriculture than it does on tourism. There are a couple of small resorts too, like Sisi on the north coast, and Makry Gialos on the south coast about 20 km east of Ierapetra, but even these are small and not at all overcrowded. Sitia gets some holidaymakers, but these are primarily French. Sitia has its own airport, as you probably know, but road-wise it’s so far away from anywhere that it has the effect of keeping tourism in check at a sensible level, I’m rather glad to say.

What’s lovely about Tholos is the fact that it’s just far enough away from anywhere not to get too commercialised, and yet there is a beach restaurant down there which is open during the season for those intrepid enough to find it. There is a small jetty at one end of the beach where one or two boats tie up, and the beach itself is mainly yellow sand and very shallow for safe bathing. At this time of the year it’s a paradise, although there are some umbrellas and sunbeds down there during the season (we saw them stacked up). By the looks of what we saw when strolling along the beach on Friday April 5th during the late morning, I’d still say that it’s never overcrowded, even in high summer.

When we reached the harbour end, a Greek chap of probably around seventy years of age approached us to engage us in a friendly conversation. His name was George and, like so many Greeks of his generation, he’d spent many years away from his ‘katagogi‘ [place of origin] owing to his having been a policeman in both Athens and Heraklion for the length of his working career. He’d recently retired and, since he [of course] still had a house in Kavousi, he’d recently returned home to enjoy his golden years. When he was young, he told us that the hills around Tholos Bay had been rich with wheat, barley and potato cultivation, all of which was now gone. “Nowhere stays the same, I suppose,” he said with a copious helping of melancholy in his voice. As we stood on the concrete jetty and looked across the bay toward the steeply sloping mountain on the other side, he told as about the new villas that had been built there. Fortunately, the regulations in those parts stipulate that a new build has to have a pretty generous parcel of land around it, to avoid overdevelopment. He did tell us how much land each new house had to have, but I can’t remember the exact figure now, but it’s measured in ‘stremmata,’ of course.

“You see those villas there,” he said, pointing at some rather swish-looking buildings low on the hillside, within easy walking distance of the sea, “they’re built for Germans, Scandinavians, etc., who only come here for their holidays.”

Above: The villas that our friend was referring to are those to the right of the bay, whereas the harbour is out-of-shot to the left. OK, so the existence of these buildings testifies to the fact that tourists have indeed discovered Tholos, but it’s still fairly evident that the whole thing is as yet still low key. As we bade George ‘kali syne’heia,’ he went his way to a pickup truck that was waiting for him, leaving us with a faint sense of sadness that he knew that his beloved home village and bay, although still lovely, was now nothing like it had been in his childhood years. It’s the same story the world over, though, right? All in all, though, we rather liked the place and the fact that it’s another beauty spot that’s yet to be overrun by mass tourism, one of many that we’re fortunate to have dotted around the county that we are so blessed to be living in.

Here are the rest of the photos from Tholos…

After leaving Tholos, we drove back to Pachia Ammos for a coffee in the rather cozy little coffee bar called ‘Take a Break.’ It’s almost exactly opposite the souvlaki house (a glorified wooden hut) that was converted into a petrol station for one of the episodes of the excellent TV series ‘Cartes Postale from Greece,’ which is really well worth watching if you haven’t yet seen it. The ‘Take a Break’ is the ideal spot for passing truck drivers and sales reps to stop by for a coffee because, not only is it right beside the busy Sitia-Heraklion road, but it’s right across from a large parking area that backs onto the beach. The photos below were taken at the ‘Take a Break’…

In the first of those two you can just make out the Souvlaki house between the two white cars across the road. In ‘Cartes Postales’ that Souvlaki House became a petrol station, outside of which the main character caught the bus a few times. I’ve mentioned this before, but we actually drove past the spot while they were filming and, in the episode in question, our car can be seen fleetingly as it passes on the road during one of the scenes at the petrol station.

We’re trying to make room for more brief excursions this year, during which we’ll seek out those out-of-the-way places that dot the area around Ierapetra. As and when we do, I’ll of course snap away and share the images on future posts. It’s so easy to get up in the morning, tidy the house, make the bed, wash up the breakfast things and then get busy either in the house or garden and, before we know it, another day, indeed series of days, has passed and we haven’t been anywhere. I’m not complaining, because it’s a nice life, but when there are so many worthwhile places to visit, we do feel that we ought to make more of an effort now and then.

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Reflections on the relentlessness

Ierapetra Harbour, Sunday March 31st 2024

Time marches ever onwards, eh? It’s quite sobering to think that, come September, we shall have been living here on Crete for five years already. We have seen most of our near neighbours during this past few days, largely because we’ve been perched on our garden wall sanding down and repainting the picket fence, as I mentioned in the last post. Yesterday Manolis, who lives a few doors along from Angla’i’a and Giorgo, came shuffling down the steep lane. It was agonising to watch him shifting his walking frame (what the Greeks call a ‘Pi’ owing to the fact that it’s shaped like the Greek letter ‘p’) a couple of centimetres at a time, yet also inspiring in that he never gives in. He’s ninety this year.

Our nearest neighbours across the lane, Evangelia, and her daughter Maria (who lives above her mother), have shared a few brief neighbourly chats with us too. Evangelia came over to give us a bag of freshly laid eggs from her chickens (those whose daily cluckings are the soundtrack to our daily lives when we’re in the lower garden) and, much as expected, didn’t hand them to me, but rather placed them on the wall in a paper bag for me to pick up. We learned about that little superstition from Angla’i’a some years ago now (see this post). In fact we reflected over our coffees that when we’d first arrived in the village we’d come to know no less than seven people who were already in their eighties, and, thankfully, they’re all still with us.

What brought us up with a start, though, was the thought that, since Giorgos, Manolis, Evangelia, Filia, Sofia, Poppi and Despoina were all aged from around 84 – 90 when we arrived, they must all now be either very close to ninety or already there. When you’re five years old, one year is an awfully long time, isn’t it? In a funny kind of way, that also applies when you’re an octogenarian, because one year when you’re eighty-five can bring all kinds of unexpected, and usually unwelcome, events. Advancing one year in age when you’re close to ninety must surely make you think you’re pushing your luck. What we found encouraging, though, when musing over this relentless pushing forward of time, was the fact that the village is a place of longevity, evidently. Giorgos, Angla’i’a’s hubby, told us not long after we’d moved in and asked them about the quality of the tap-water here in the village, that he’d been drinking it neat for 85 years and he was doing OK on it. We’ve since dispensed with our filter (which had the added bonus of saving us a small fortune, since your average Brita filter or equivalent costs here in Greece three to four times what you pay in the UK) and are content in the knowledge that the mountain above us is the natural filter for the water we drink here.

Another health benefit of living in the village is the fact that, apart from us, everyone has their own horafi (field) where they grow a selection of vegetables for the table, plus keep a few geese, chickens, turkeys and the like. We, of course, receive the benefit of all the abundance that nature provides, and just this past week have been given a huge selection of fresh produce, including eggs, from several different neighbours. You only have to bump into someone for them to insist that you wait before moving on, while they nip into the house and re-emerge with a bag full of goodies (aubergines, tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, peppers…). Almost makes it worth planning a stroll around the village if we find ourselves running out of any of those. Oh, and if we speak to Christina, she then rocks up at the house the next day with a bag full of freshly made pastries for the freezer, all of which just need popping into the oven for a few minutes before gracing a plate on the dinner table.

So, all in all, we can’t complain. This past week or so it has been unseasonably warm too. We’ve had June temperatures, a marked change from last year, when all through March, April and even into early June the changeable weather continued. The garden’s literally bursting with new growth. Here are some photos as proof of that. Firstly, look how quickly the fig tree is blooming, and the figs that we shall be eating come July are already in evidence, currently about the size of a pea. These photos represent the changes in just two or three days…

Here’s a selection of lovely shots around the garden this past few days…

The plant below is evident in pots in most gardens in this area, largely because it’s a near-impossibility to kill it. It needs very little water and flowers most of the time. It’s common name is ‘Crown of Thorns,’ for obvious reasons. Not a lot of people know, though, that it’s actually a plant in the Euphorbia family. You’d never think so at first glance though…

Finally, to round this one off, some shots taken last Sunday morning, before we first took a swim and then sat at the L’Angolo on the sea front for lunch…

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Noise Pollution

We’ve been perched on the wall around the lower garden painting our picket fence. I know, ‘picket fence,’ sounds all very ‘Anne of Green Gables’ doesn’t it, or maybe ‘Little House on the Prairie.’ It’s true though, around the lower garden we have a wooden picket fence and, in the four and a half years since moving in, we’ve only painted it once, and so it’s in need of another protective coat, after first receiving a good sanding, that is. We’re both very familiar with the regular sounds of the village and surrounding area now, and in general we like what we hear. What our ears are assailed with is predominantly natural in origin, although the occasional rotavator or chainsaw must be added into the mix. As a rule though, when we’re outside pottering, the main components of the audible recipe that we listen to are Evangelia’s chickens, the squabbles of the local feral cat population, birdsong (particularly impressive in the spring, and year-round featuring Griffon Vultures and Buzzards with their eerie plaintive cries), and the local shepherd’s large flock of sheep. Oh, and the occasional dog’s bark.

I’ve mentioned before, I’m sure, that we’re well familiar with the daily goings and comings at Maria and Dimitri’s house, just below ours. Dimitri rises around 5.00am most days and the tiny square bathroom window, the only window in the rear wall of their house, as it sits a few metres lower than our veranda and twenty metres away, lights up at around 6.00am as he prepares for another day’s tending the animals and crops that are his lot in life. His cousins and brothers all farm with him and they drive a selection of pickup trucks in various states of repair. Usually one of them turns up at around 7.00am and, if I’m prowling around outside, which I do tend to do a couple of times a week when I’ve woken up too early for decency, I’ll hear the rattle of the diesel engine as it arrives in the steep lane outside the house, whereupon Dimitri will usually emerge, they’ll talk about what their tasks are for the morning, before Dimitri mounts his quad bike and trundles off to some hillside in the near vicinity, and his brother/cousin (I hate to admit this, but they all look the same to me) does the same in the pickup.

At between 10.30am and 10.45am, never varies, one pickup and Dimitri’s quad will return and again pull up in the lane right outside Maria’s modest little veranda, and either Dimitri or his brother/cousin (whoever arrives first) will simply shout ‘Mama!!!’ from the driver’s seat. The idea of actually dismounting the vehicle and going in through the front door, which is all of ten feet away, never seems to cross their minds. We believe it’s the signal for Maria to get the coffee on and the boys will then hang around for twenty minutes or so, usually finally having gone indoors, before starting part two of their working day. The pickup is often then hosed down with a hosepipe that’s permanently coiled up on the veranda, before the driver and pickup set off again. Sometimes they’ve been shifting compost in it, sometimes feed, occasionally they’ll have a small lamb in the back, which they’ll leave there while they take their coffee, the tiny mite bleating all the while for motherly attention. 

The next time that a pickup (one of the three in the team) arrives it’ll be the cousin who’s addicted to Cretan music. His pickup is the smartest of the three and sports a pretty impressive set of alloy wheels. He charges up the lane, both windows open fully, Cretan music blasting out from the cab. He turns it around at the bottom of our drive, then parks it up beside the wall at Maria’s, when he’ll then jump out and start cleaning any filth from the day’s activities off of his baby. 

Are you familiar with Cretan folk music? They actually invented what DJ’s nowadays refer to as the ’12-inch mix,’ I’m sure of it. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a song that doesn’t last for a quarter of an hour or more, seriously. The band is usually composed of a lyra, then a kind of triangular lute that sounds like an acoustic guitar when strummed, a drum that’s hit with both sides of the hand or with the use of a small stick (startlingly in common with some Irish traditional drums, in fact) and a wind instrument, sometimes like a small clarinet, and sometimes made of an animal’s stomach lining (this one’s got a fair bit in common with the bagpipes of both Ireland and Scotland). The rhythm’s usually a kind of tum tum, tee-tum, tum tum, teetum and the tempo can vary slightly, it’s true, but to the untrained ear an hour’s music could sound like it was all the same song (often is). The singer will often resort to simply shouting the words, or when he does sing them, they sound like he’s making them up as he goes along. After every ‘verse’ there will be instrumental burst, and these passages can be extended for as long as the band deems necessary. It’s during the instrumental breaks that the singer (and others I suppose) will add the occasional ‘Oooaaahh!’ or perhaps an ‘Ela!’

It seems to me, too, that the majority of the recordings we hear of Cretan bands in full swing are done live at some event or other, and in the villages perched on the hillsides of Lasithi there’s no shortage of such live events all year round. Walk through Ierapetra any time of the year and you’ll see fly posters on walls, electricity posts and dedicated noticeboards advertising the next shindig, and telling you in which village it’ll be taking place. Don’t expect a bouzouki, that’s all I’m saying.

So, there we are, rhythmically ‘feathering’ with our brushes as the fence gradually turns whiter than white, and one of the hens in Evangelia’s yard across the lane lets out a particularly loud ‘Aaaaaw, puk puk!’ – causing Yvonne to shout, addressing herself to the offending fowl, ‘Shut up!’ Noticing the surprise with which I stare at her, she says, addressing herself to me this time, ‘Well, they never shut up, do they?’

‘No,’ I reply, ‘but I’d say they’re mildly less irritating that Saturday night drunks calling out in their foul-mouthed way as they trek home through our housing estate in the small hours on a Sunday morning, or the constant background drone of a busy road, where trucks, buses and cars are constantly passing this way and that, aircraft noise from a busy airport or trains on a nearby mainline, the couple next door making a particularly ‘loud’ job of whatever it is they’re doing, maybe…’

‘All right, point made!’ She says, no doubt recalling as I do that at various points in our long married life when we’d lived back in the UK, those sounds had indeed been our daily soundscape. Add to that neighbours who’d ‘f and blind’ with their kitchen door open while we were sat in the garden with some guests too, and you more than get why our current village soundscape can scarce be described as ‘noise pollution.’

We’ve scarcely been anywhere this past week, because I’ve had a rather virulent version of ‘the flu’ that’s been laying a lot of people here low recently. So I’ll just start by sharing a couple of photos from before the pandemic, taken in February 2020 when we’d only been here a few months, and a bunch of us went up into the mountains above Viannou to a beautiful plateau where there’s a lake called Omalou. That picnic was memorable, not least because the forest track that we negotiated to get up there and back almost destroyed my car…

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The photo below was taken on Spinalonga, with my sister Jane and her hubby of over fifty years Martin. This was October 2nd 2020. Last week Martin died after a valiant and protracted battle with the big C. My sister has a lot to deal with right now, and we’ll be heading over to the UK just a little later this summer to help her with a lot of the practicalities of sorting her life out.

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The one below is of us with Martin when he and Jane were here in Ierapetra with us in October 2020. Despite being a very accomplished photographer himself, Martin was never all that comfortable in front of a camera and found it hard to smile when having his picture taken. So I especially like this one, because he does indeed exhibit the traces of a grin in it…

Last of all, a couple taken at what is surely one of our favourite locations for a taverna, the ever lovely Hiona Restaurant at Palekastro…

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You may recognise that one on the left, since it served as the front cover image for my book ‘A Slightly Larger Motley Collection of Greek Oddities,’ published in 2022.

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Tractors and Teams

The photo above was taken on Sunday morning March 10th at around 9.22am. It’s a view along part of Ierapetra sea front from beneath the marble dolphin sculpture that stands at one end of this section of the waterfront. I particularly liked the cloud formation on the mountains in the background. It’s like the mountain is belching out white smoke in a keen breeze, don’t you think?

I called this post ‘Tractors and Teams’ because, after observing the majority of agricultural tractors that are in use in this area (and indeed back on Rhodes whilst we lived there) I was moved to reflect on the fact that just about all farmers here are still living in the distant past when it comes to the safety regulations. I haven’t taken any photos myself of the machinery that I’m referring to, but anyone who spends any time at all in rural areas here will notice the problem pretty quickly. You won’t see a tractor anywhere with even a simple roll bar, not to mention an actual enclosed cab. It’s been European law for getting on for ten years now, if not longer, I believe.

I was brought up in a part of the UK called the ‘West Country,’ and from the age of 18 months up until I was eleven, we lived in a small village about six miles outside of the city of Bath. I grew up mainly in the fifties and into the early sixties and, back then, everyone in the village knew everyone else. It was very much like it still is in villages like the one we now live in here on Crete. In that part of the UK nowadays (and almost every other part too I’d guess) no one leaves their doors on the latch any more. Our back door while I was growing up only had the one latch on it, and it was that lever type that was so common back then, in which one lever passes through a small hole cut through the wood of the door and it’s lifted by compressing a thumb lever on the outside, which is hinged so the the inside section rises, lifting the metal bar from the ‘cradle set into the door frame. This was how it looked from the outside…

Photo courtesy of https://www.rensup.com/

There were no bolts, deadlocks or alarm systems. Your nearest neighbours were the alarm system, and they were seldom needed in that capacity anyway. I’m getting sidetracked, I know. I’ll get to the point. There wasn’t a single family in the village whose name we didn’t know, whose kids we didn’t play with or, if they were older than us, look up to and aspire to imitating. One such was Robert Millan, who lived a few doors up from our house and was already in his late teens while I was yet to reach double figures. Robert Millan worked on a farm and drove a Massey Ferguson tractor, and it was the same as all tractors back then in that the driver’s seat was open to the environment. The highest point on all tractors in those days was the chest, neck and head of the driver. They all looked something like this one…

Photo courtesy of https://www.lovetoknow.com/

One day Robert Millan got a mention in the local news. He’d turned his tractor over in a ditch and been crushed beneath it. He died instantly. A tractor weighs a few tons, imagine having that dropping down on top of you. It was accidents like this one that eventually drove the powers that be to specify that all tractors had to henceforth be manufactured with cabs, and those cabs had to be strong enough to protect the driver, should the machine ever turn over.

The foregoing is why I’m sorry but I worry myself silly when I see all these local Greek villagers tootling around on tractors that not only don’t have cabs, but they’re also more often than not as old as the bloke who’s driving them too. There you go, just an observation, but one born of worry and concern. Some of our neighbours in the village here drive their tractors down across some impossibly steep-looking hillsides, and it seems to me that a disaster is only a hair’s breadth away for most of the time. Every time I walk through the village in the hours of darkness doing my power walk around the village perimeter, I heave a sigh of relief when I pass Manoli’s tractor, he it is who was recently elected as the new village ‘mayor.’ He drives a cabless tractor on a daily basis while going about his day-job. If it’s parked up outside his house as I walk past, then I know he’s got through another day unscathed.

Regarding unlockable back doors though, a slightly more positive thought: at least here it’s still like it was sixty and more years ago in rural Somerset, in that no one locks their doors and very few even lock their cars or pickups, which are dotted around the village’s larger thoroughfares (and not a few of the narrower ones too) all through the night hours. It would be foolish to assert that crime doesn’t exist, but it has to be said that in villages like ours it’s still a very rare commodity.

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On the thought of ‘teams,’ I have always been amused and amazed to hear how quiz show hosts greet their contestants here on Greek TV. In the UK you would surely never hear a TV game show host getting to know a ‘guest’ by asking them “what team are you?” Here, invariably, once they’ve asked the player’s name, maybe too where they come from, the next question (and it doesn’t matter whether it’s a male or female either) is just that – “What team are you?” It’s a measure of just how fanatical Greeks are about their football. Maybe once in ten years I’ve heard a contestant reply that they don’t have a ‘team’ that they follow, owing to not being particularly interested in football, whereupon the host looks at the contestant ‘gone off’ as it were. ‘How can someone not be interested, nay fanatical, about football?’ their facial expression asks. I’m not having you on here either. It’s such a given that everyone loves football that the question isn’t about whether they do or not, but simply which team they’re fanatical about. They all give a team as their reply too, even the women. It’s usually one of the top five Greek teams, which are AEK, Olympiakos, PAOK or Panathinaikos, but it’s not unusual for someone to reply ‘Manchester United’ or ‘Arsenal.’

It’s a funny old world indeed. Here’s a batch of photos that I hope you’ll like…

Above: The first two were taken on a country walk we did on March 8th. These were around 11.15am and it was a route we hadn’t trodden before. The next two, taken at the L’Angolo Restaurant, were all taken at about 9.15am last Sunday, March 10th, and the rest on the seafront further south on Tuesday evening March 12th at around 6.00pm. The next few were taken at Pachia Ammos on Thursday March 14th at 11.30-12.00pm…

That one in the above gallery showing a new building under construction very near to the modest little harbour wall at one end of Pachia Ammos beach rang an alarm bell or two. As far as I could tell, that ‘cave’ went well under the outer wall of that new house, when I scrambled down to take a peek at how far in it went. I don’t think that if we were in the market for a new house we’d be putting an offer in for that one.

One more little gallery below, and these were taken this very afternoon on a walk we have just returned from around ‘Dingly Dell.’ They were all taken between 4.00 and 4.30pm.

The Asphodel plants are looking radiant at the moment, as are the Euphorbia, as hopefully you can see. Plus the first one is of a Rosemary plant dangling over the wall from a garden at the last house we pass on our way out of the village and up the stony path. Even if you were never to use Rosemary in your cooking, she’s a majestic plant to have in the garden, isn’t she? If you’re only ever on Crete during the summer for your holidays, you’ve probably never seen how wonderful the countryside looks during the winter months. Pretty green, eh?

That last shot I really love. You only get that light when the sun’s at a certain angle, and it lasts for maybe ten minutes, that’s all. When it looks like this though, I can’t help thinking of the old phrase from Tolkien, ‘the road goes ever on,’ and I half expect to see the fellowship of the ring come trundling around the bend. I know, there’s no hope for me, is there?

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Seasonal stirrings

“Don’t you ever tell me you’re having a bad hair day,” I said to Yvonne as we passed this rather clever mural on a school wall in the town the other day. It hasn’t got much to do with the theme of this post, but it was such a good shot that it demanded to be taken. No, what the title refers to is the early beginnings of preparations being made for the summer season that will soon be upon us. Usually the Greek business owners whose businesses relate directly to tourism kick everything off immediately after Easter every year. The trouble is, this year Greek Easter (because they do insist on using a method of date calculation that’s at odds with most of the rest of the world) is a whopping five weeks after everyone else’s. In the UK and most of the Western World so-called Easter falls on Sunday March 31st, whereas here in Greece it’ll be Sunday May 5th.

So, in view of that fact, I’m quite sure that many businesses will at least attempt to be open before Easter this year, especially because the package tour companies will already be sending people from colder climes over here to enjoy a stronger sun than they get during spring up in the north. This past few days the weather has indeed been reminding us of what’s to come. In fact, much earlier than is usual, I’ve already strung the sail up over our sun terrace to avoid us being fried by a pretty powerful sun while drinking our morning coffee when the clouds aren’t in the way, which they haven’t been lately. Cue a couple of photos of our house and garden, taken today and during the past week or so…

Above gallery: The first photo is a view down across our modest little lounge taken from the top step of the stairs up to our ‘patari.‘ The next two are scenes from our upper garden. The modest little table and chair set up there in front of the jasmine that I’m training to grow around my mural of an urn and vine is now looking decidedly dapper since we sanded it down and gave it a new lick of paint this past few days. That table and those chairs have been with us for many a long year and are still fulfilling the purpose for which they were manufactured. See, look after your furniture and it’ll look after you. The shot of our parking area with the sea in the distance was taken at the same spot, but looking in the other direction. The shot taken through the window is taken through the mozzie net from the side window of our bedroom, and you can see that the sail is up. I’ve recently added a couple of quick steel sprung-locked links to the four corners of that sail, so it can be taken down or put up in seconds. No need any longer to tie and untie ropes and stuff. My ingenuity amazes me, although I say so myself. All right, I’ll admit it, it was Yvonne’s idea. She’d murder me when she read this if I didn’t come clean. The last shot is taken from the same spot where I photographed the furniture and jasmine, I just rotated a little, that’s all.

This next few show the early signs of preparations for the summer being made…

That second shot above shows a few poles which will be sunk into the beach for straw umbrellas (like the one in the last photo) to be attached. If you’ve ever been here at the start of the season, you’ll know that these posts usually have concrete ‘boots’ on them that are sunk into a hole that’s dug into the sand to a depth of a couple of feet usually. Once they’re set into the sand and it’s filled in around them again, they ain’t going nowhere for a few months. I know, there are those out there who’ll throw their hands up in horror and insist that they can’t stand umbrellas and sunbeds and, owning up for a second time in this post, I used to be one of their number. But it’s all a question of balance. Yes, there are beaches in areas that suffer from ‘overtourism’ where you can hardly see the sand for the umbrellas and beds, they’re that close together. I have to say, I avoid such places like the proverbial plague, like any sane person. But here, I’m glad to say, our beaches, at least those that do have umbrellas, have them few in number and well spaced, so as to afford the user a degree of privacy. As we’ve grown older, we’ve come to appreciate the need to stay in the shade as much as possible, whereas in years gone by we’d simply have plastered sun cream all over ourselves and resorted to draping a large towel over our bodies if it got too unbearable.

I don’t mind admitting that these days I seek continual shade, except for when taking a dip, and to be able to relax on a soft lounger rather than try and get comfy on a rush mat or towel on the floor is a ‘pleasure’ that I’ve been happy to leave behind me this past decade or so. Takes all sorts, I know.

Sales of the new book ‘Moving Islands‘ seem to be going well, I’m relieved to say, and there will be some readers who might be ever so slightly curious about where we live now. So in the above ‘galleries,’ as you’ll have seen, I slipped in a couple of shots of the house and garden, and here below are couple more. The first is the house itself, and the second is the view of the crag behind us at sunrise this morning. I hope you can see it, but the sun’s first rays on the rock face make it look to me like it’s glowing from within, almost as if there were molten lava inside, which, thankfully, there isn’t! The third is a scene I love to see, on the rare occasions when I’m up early enough that is, as the sun’s rays begin to shaft across the mountains to the south of us, between us and Ierapetra Town.

And, to round things off this time around, a few more photos from around the town. The first, of the corner where L’Angolo restaurant is situated (one of our faves), was taken last Saturday, when the weather was definitely more wintry than it is currently. The other two are just corners I liked the look of…

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The humdrum

The above photo is of a building in one of the sidestreets of Ierapetra Old Town. It’s nowhere near as pretty as some ‘old towns’ it’s true, but it’s still surprising what it turns up when you go strolling around looking for something photogenic. What I love about the artwork above is the cat on the upstairs shutters. Takes all sorts, I suppose.

It’s an overcast day today and it’s drizzling outside. It’s what we tend to call a ‘British’ kind of day. It’s still about 17ºC outside and only went down to around 13-14 last night, so we shouldn’t complain really. We’ve just come back from the town, where I had to drop by the EFKA office to renew my health insurance cover. It’s funny how sometimes things go ‘omala’ as the Greeks say, when you least expect them to. That word means ‘smoothly’ by the way. It’s a word you don’t often associate with visits to a Greek government office. Yet that’s exactly how the visit went. Each year in March I need to renew my health cover, and that entails dropping into the EFKA office, filling out a standard form (Yep, you guessed it, an A4 photocopy) and then signing it. It’s only logical, because it’s basically to prove two things, 1. I’m still alive and 2. I haven’t dropped everything and hightailed it back to the UK. The whole process took no more than fifteen minutes and the lady behind the desk is actually not only courteous, but friendly, dare I say.

I don’t like to mention it, but by and large our experience of the staff in government offices here in Greece has led us to the conclusion that the majority of them wish that the public would just go away. Their lives would be a whole lot better if they only had to shift piles of papers around, stare at their computer screens now and then, and sip their iced coffees, then go home. Oh, and nip outside the front of the building for a crafty fag now and then too. Whether it’s the KEP, the Tax Office, or the Police Station, the person that greets you usually gives you the distinct impression that you’re interrupting something and they are keen to make it clear that they don’t want you messing up their day. The lady behind the desk at the EFKA office in Ierapetra obviously missed the training session where staff are taught how to make members of the public feel small and irritating, because, even though she was rubbing the side of her neck when I approached her to wish her a ‘kalo mina‘ and ask about renewing my health cover, she smiled at me. Maybe it’s just my natural charm and charisma, what do you think? (Don’t answer that!) I began by asking her if her neck was hurting, and she replied (with a smile nevertheless) that not only was her neck aching, but most parts of her body. I wished her ‘perastika‘ and mentioned that I’d try not to add to her burden of pain with my request. Chaps, if you want any lessons, you know who to ask.

Winter weather in this part of Greece is quite varied. Yes, we get those bright, sunny, cloudless days that get all the ex-pat bloggers and Facebookers all in a lather about rushing outside and taking lots of photos to show just how great life over here is during the winter, and I am among that number, I must admit. It does rain, however, and sometimes heavily. What’s so encouraging though, is that it never rains for very long. We (as most people do here) have a solar heating panel on the roof to heat our hot water. Most of these systems also have an electric element (immersion heater) inside the ‘boiler’ (as they call the cylinder section) and that’s wired into the main fuse box in the house, on an individually switched fuse, so that it can be switched on to heat the water electrically when needed. When we had our system installed, we opted not to bother with the ‘thermosifono‘ as they call the immersion heater over here, and to rely totally on sunshine to heat our water. As a measure of just how often the sun shines, even on days when it rains, I can honestly say that in an entire winter (December thru March) you could count the number of days on which we go without hot water (and even then it’s still lukewarm) on the fingers of one hand.

When we get ‘British’ days like today, it’s OK, because at least, like I said, we can be confident that the sun will be out again tomorrow. If it isn’t, the day after it will be for sure. Here are the photos for today’s post then, starting with another couple of corners in the Old Town…

Another of my nighttime power walks around the village produced these next few. I took them at around 10.30pm last Sunday evening…

One of our favourite cafés in town is the Cup (I’ve mentioned it numerous times I guess). Not only is their Americano one of the best in town, but they also do our favourite ‘bar’ of all time. It’s produced by a wholly Greek company, called ‘My Greek Taste‘ and they’re very into healthy products. The best in our book is the Tahini Bar (see wrapper in one of the photos below) which is entirely made of healthy ingredients. There’s no sugar or salt and no preservatives. it’s mainly tahini, carob honey and oats. It’s delicious and is fast becoming a must every time we sup a coffee in the Cup.

Finally, a couple of shots in the upper garden from yesterday (Thursday 29th Feb) at 11.30am:

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No sign of Julie Andrews

Friday morning February 23rd. Went for a walk in the mountains above the village this morning, it was a simply wonderful day. Across the vast valley from us you could clearly see the snow on the peaks that surround the Lasithi Plateau, but where we were walking it was t-shirt weather. The hills were alive, not with the sound of music, but with birdsong everywhere, including warblers, blackbirds and chiffchaffs. Plus, high above, and even not so high at one point, griffons soared, their beady eyes searching hundreds of feet below for their next meal, no doubt. Their wingspan is truly awesome, and would easily outdo the width of our car’s windscreen by a considerable margin. So, here are the photos from that walk. Hope you like them:

In those last two in the gallery above, you can play ‘spot the wife‘ if you like, because she’s in each of them somewhere. You’ll probably have to click on them to open them in a new window though.

This next one (below) shows the mighty crag that is the sentinel standing above where we live. I have prescribed a faint circle near the top that you’ll see if you look closely, and that’s where a griffon vulture swooped in and landed on its nest a moment before I snapped the shot. I hadn’t taken the camera with me, so I snapped this with my phone, which was why I couldn’t attempt a better zoom shot I’m afraid. The vulture is just about discernible if you look closely enough. I don’t think it’s all that likely that any humans are going to be disturbing their nests on that cliff somehow.

Friday afternoon (late) February 23rd. The next series of shots were taken at around 4.30pm in our garden, and that of our neighbour. This time I took them with the camera, which was why I could zoom in and get some quality close-ups. Hope you like these too…

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Two visits and a crisis

The old saying, as I remember, is ‘a new broom sweeps clean.’ The new ‘mayor’ of the village, Manolis (forget his surname TBH) is certainly making his presence felt. Lots of overgrown trees that had overhung the narrow walkways of the village, plus some along the roadside too, have now been heavily pruned to facilitate ease of passage. Great piles of tree clippings that were at first left beside the road have now been taken away and the place looks clean and tidy, one has to admit. Although we were aware of him over the past couple of years (we first met him at his mother Poppi’s place when he came home on his tractor one day while we were having a drink with her in her patio room) we’ve only exchanged the occasional hello, nothing more really.

That all changed this week. Since he was elected he’s swept past on his motor scooter once or twice whilst we’ve been passing the time of day with Maria, our neighbour, and on those occasions we’ve exchanged polite greetings and he’s gone on his way. The day before yesterday, however, we were graced with a personal visit. We both recall that we thought him a little brusque on earlier occasions, and wondered whether he resented us foreigners moving in. Angla’i’a is his aunty, since Poppi is her sister, and yet she’s not all that enamoured with him for some reason. Of course, to have her nephew beat her in the village election and take her place as the village ‘proedros’ can’t have been easy for her, but apparently they’ve not talked much to each other for a couple of decades. Families, eh?

Anyway, we like to speak as we find, and try not to adopt viewpoints about people based purely on the opinion of another. There we were pottering around outside the house when we became aware of a motorcycle zipping up our driveway. No one ever comes up there unless we’ve invited them, as a rule. He swept up to the turning area beside our front door, flipped his stand down and dismounted. Then he came over to us and gave us both a warm handshake. Must admit, at first we were both thinking, ‘what does he want from us then?’

I felt quite ashamed to have thought that way when he told us that he just came to check in with us and explain that he was always there for us if we had any issues needing to be addressed in the village. He’s evidently been made aware of the frequency with which Yvonne cleans up the leaves and street debris on the steep lane outside our garden. He also knew that, at our own expense, we’d bought some ready-to-use pitch and filled in a couple of potholes in our little lane a while back. It seems to have made him quite positive about us, a fact that we were grateful for. 

‘Are you sure there’s nothing you’d like me to get done, or at least look into then?’ He asked, which did prompt me to ask one question. 5 km up the road is the village of Meseleri, and they have no less that three blue dumpster bins, the ones specifically for recycling, whereas our village doesn’t even have one. Why was that, I wanted to know.

“I’m already on it,” he replied, “I’ve asked the council and they say that there are no more blue bins, but they do have some on order. When we get one I’m going to have both it and the green one (for general rubbish disposal) placed in a new ‘bay’ that we’ll have built beside the road, so that they can be parked tidily and be less likely to be blown over when it’s windy.”

Can’t say fairer than that, I suppose, always assuming that it does arrive one day. He’s already put our lane on his ‘to do’ list as regards the few potholes there as well. Things are looking up. Mind you, Angla’i’a, during her years as village mayor, accomplished a lot too, and was always down the council offices getting on their case about something or other.

Talking of Angla’i’a, it was high time we dropped in for coffee anyway, since the last time was way back last year. We’re both conscious of the fact that she probably has a lot less to do now, since she’s handed over the ‘mayoral’ reins as of February 1st to her nephew. So yesterday we strolled down there at around 11.30am, and found George outside using a blunt axe to split some kindling wood for their tzaki. As always, the kitchen door was open and Angla’i’a bade us come inside for an Elliniko. Needless to say she also placed some loukoumades and a few koulourakia on the table too. You never leave their house hungry. She has, it seems, already adjusted to not being mayor any more and seems to be just as busy as ever. Both she and George had been down with Covid a couple of weeks ago, and were laid low for five days or so. Nothing worse than a cold though, she told us. Just as well we hadn’t thought about dropping by sooner though, we thought. 

Her granddaughter ‘Gogo’ is now working as a chef in the hospital in Agios Nikolaos, which explains why we hadn’t seen her around for a while. In fact, what village news there was we were soon apprised of, while we sipped her excellent coffee. Her daughter Maria (you can never have too many Marias, eh?), Gogo’s mum, popped her head in the door to greet us too. She’s warmed immeasurably towards us of late and I was particularly touched when, a couple of weeks ago, after I’d posted a couple of photos of us two on the sea front, she’d replied to my comment, using the expression, “Γειά σας χωριανάκια να’στε καλά!” Which means, ‘Hi there villagers, all the best.’ For her to have called us ‘villagers’ is a compliment indeed, as we’ve only been in the village around four and a half years and, by usual standards, could be considered outsiders, or newcomers, for another couple of decades if we weren’t being accepted. 

Our visit drawing to close, we were given a bag of freshly laid eggs, which Angla’i’a placed on the table for us to pick up, remarking with a grin on the fact that she still wouldn’t run the risk of actually handing them to us (see this post)! She also gave us a bag of fresh oranges, which she said would be excellent ‘juicers.’ I can confirm that they were indeed too.

So, that’s the ‘two visits’ dealt with, but what about this ‘crisis’ then? Well, it’s a very long story, but it appears there’s a major crunch coming to the seafront in Ierapetra, because all of the cafés and restaurants along the waterside apparently have illegal structures out the front, in which the majority of their business is done. Many of these structures are built elaborately using expensive folding glass doors, roofs and awnings, not to mention having electricity installed and some even have bars inside them too. They’ve been there for decades, but the council in its wisdom has decided that they all have to be bulldozed, which will, with no doubt whatsoever, not only wreck the sea front for a couple of years while it’s being re-developed, but also bankrupt most of the restaurants and bars that will be affected. Tomorrow there’s a huge demonstration planned since the bulldozers are apparently poised to begin the destruction any day now. I’ll say more about this in due course. But it’s all rather unsettling, and seems rather self-destructive on the part of the Dimos. We’ll see what develops.

Above: No, it’s not me. I’m afraid I don’t feel like braving the water at this time of year, but you can see that some do. We know a few regulars who swim every day through the winter months. Good for them!

Above: You see all those structures on the right, those with tables and chairs inside and out? Well, if the Dimos has its way they’ll all be bulldozed imminently.

Above: Sadly it looks nothing in the photo, but that moon, being partly obscured by a nighttime cloud, it looked wonderful at the time when we were in the town the other evening.

Above: That little beauty is standing outside Angla’i’a’s front door, and there’s a Poinsettia beside her!

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