Living in the heat

Living in the heat

As someone who used to have freckles and red hair, it is not difficult to understand that I am not fond of the heat. The hair might now be white and the freckles turned to 'age spots', but I still can't cope very well with the heat. I do wonder some times why we spend July and August in Kythera!

I guess that the reality is that after considering all the pros and cons it is still a more pleasant lifestyle and more rewarding environment. But is does take a lot of adjustment to be able to survive the heat without just living each day as a soaking 'blob'.

Windows in the bedrooms, hall and kitchen which all have net frames are left open 24/7. The two kitchen doors, the front door and a patio door of the lounge are open from the time we get up to dusk. All of this catches whatever breeze there might be. But as the 'house' is actually a bungalow with rooms on slightly different levels there is a natural airflow. The kitchen is on the lowest level, with the lounge, hallway and two guest bedrooms about a metre higher. Our bedroom and en suite is about another metre and a half higher and the hallway is double normal room height with a mezzanine floor leading to a corridor with the front door at the end of it, meaning that the difference in height between the kitchen as the lowest point and the front door as the highest is about 5.5 metres. This means there is a natural flow of hot air up through the house as the cooler air comes down. But even so we cannot assume that we spend less on electricity in the summer for there are times of the day when we need fans to assist and increase the flow of air, a fountain in the hall helps give the impression of coolness and in the evenings we do need air conditioning.

We try to get up around 8am and do whatever is necessary to do which involves going out shopping, working in the garden, or working inside before the heat of midday sets in. I often sleep in the afternoons but Waldo finds it most difficult to change his daily pattern. But he is often forces by the heat to just sit - and in those times he does an awful lot of work in his head, before he falls asleep in the chair. It is often a shock for him to wake up and find the work still waiting for him. I get our evening meal, the main meal of the day, by around 8pm. This is followed by the ritual of having to change the water reservoirs over so that the plants and flowers get their water overnight and then we work on our computers, watch a DVD or the TV, or read and go to bed early. If we go out then we usually meet friends around 9pm. Whether in or out we rarely get to bed before 1am. But the twice a day sleeping does give the impression of many more days than we actually have.

All food must be kept in the freezer or 'fridge. Butter needs only be on the table for 1 minute before it spreads perfectly. This phenomenon is very useful when baking and the recipe calls for 'softened butter'. Bread is kept in the freezer and 4 slices taken out in the morning are ready for the toaster before the kettle has boiled. Cakes, fruit and vegetables all need to be in the 'fridge and even then their time is limited. Perhaps that is the most time consuming aspect of living in the heat is that most fruit and vegetables must be bought fresh every day or every second day and there is no real guarantee what will be in good condition when we get to the shop. Thus meals cannot be planned ahead but rather are an inspiration of what is available on the day.

One of the great advantages of the heat is that we loose out taste for sweet things. It is impossible to buy chocolate and eat it in the heat. Ice cream too is a rare treat when we buy it and immediately drive to a shady spot to eat immediately. Rarely we go down 'to the front' after a meal and enjoy and ice cream at a beach side spot in the cool evening. I keep cooking to a minimum and so we live, for the most part, on raw fruit and vegetables. If cooking meat it might be some lean steak, chicken breast of a pork chop - anything that can be quickly grilled and which does not need a long time to prepare or supplement with fancy sauces. It may be accompanied by boiled potatoes, rice or pasta but always with lots of salad.

For me hot drinks are out. Waldo cannot give up his cup of hot tea in the mornings. I have my iced green tea and ginger as a morning refreshment. But the rest of the day we predominantly drink water. Apart from the cost, drinking litres of lemonade, cola, squash or other synthetic drinks over a day leave us feeling sticky sweet and bloated. Our cool water is the most refreshing and as we collect it ourselves it has none of the excessive minerals that the local potable water has. But we must keep at least two bottles in the 'fridge all of the time, for when really thirsty it is nothing to down a pint of water in almost one gulp.

Waldo has never been a 'beer' man and I prefer a nice chilled cider to lager. So we have always drunk wine and spirits - ouzo being the one of choice out here. For years now we have found that it not actually conducive to drink alcohol in the heat of the day; it seems to have twice the impact and takes days to clear out of our systems. For the past month I have been on new medication for my unstable diabetes and so, in order to give it a chance, I have given up alcohol completely. In fact it has not even seemed like a 'giving up' in the way I struggled to 'give up' cigarettes, then sugar in tea (both successfully) and more recently milk in tea (only partial success) and I have not had one moment of thinking to default. In this heat, Waldo too drinks far less alcoholic liquid. One 1L bottle of wine has lasted him a month and he has had about 3 ouzos, two of which he consumed when watching the opening of the Olympic games.

When Waldo is working in the garden he always wears trousers with socks and shoes - often with his trousers tucked into his socks, to stop anything crawling up his leg! He also keeps a long sleeved cotton shirt on and wears a hat to keep off the sun. I rarely go outside, but when I do, I too wear hat, long sleeves and trousers. I don't always wear socks except in the evening if we are going to a beach side taverna, for it saves getting bitten by midges and mosquitoes. I can't stand the cheap perfume smell of mosquito repellent - and it rarely works anyway. I have never liked sunbathing and now that we have so much more knowledge about skin cancer, I really can't understand the mentality of people who just strip off and expose their skin to the searing sun's rays for a few weeks every year. They must be storing up lots of problems and angst for their futures.

There is trend which I just don't understand and that is the minute the sun shines, even just a little, or the moment they land in a sunny place, men change their clothes immediately. Whether it be from smart working suits or casual jeans and T-shirt they loose all inhibitions, discard the socks, change the T-shirt for a vest, and step into these knee length shorts that come in an array of horrific colour combinations. I have not seen any man who looks anything less than highly comically wearing such attire. Sean Connery would not go there, even George Clooney is only seen wearing them when he is playing a comic role and yet the lanky, the bandy, the rotund and the squat of mankind quite happily parade our streets, gardens and beaches to the everlasting hilarity of the rest of the world. Thanks chaps for being brave enough and for brightening our days, but just look in the mirror before you go out next time!

Going from pillar to post

Going from pillar to post

It is only in the past year that postal deliveries have been made to our village, but the postman, like rubbish collectors, courier delivery services and indeed anyone with any sense, will not and cannot get up our road. Without a 4-wheel drive vehicle and good off road experience, it is impossible. For the privilege of not being able to have postal deliveries, we have to pay for a post office box; something which has always seemed some sort of perverse logic to me. The post is collected once a week in our village, but the woman in the post office in our nearby 'big village' does not know which day that is.

Letter post comes daily from Athens in the aeroplane, is taken to the main post office in the south of the island where it is sorted the next day and then following morning, around eleven it is brought up to the northern post office. So we get a daily postal delivery, unless of course the 'plane is full in which case they may leave some sacks of post until the following day or even the one after that! Of course the reverse is true when posting a letter and we find that some letters to the UK arrive within an amazing 4 days whereas others linger somewhere in the system for 10 or more days.

Parcel post comes over from Athens by ferry, and as with letter post is taken to be sorted and then delivered to our local 'big village' post office. This means that as the ferry comes twice a week there is no point going to the post office to collect items except late on Friday or Tuesday mornings. The post office closes at 14.00 for the day anyway. Conversely there is no point in posting a package other than Mondays or Tuesdays for they will catch the same ferries. Greece has a wonderfully egocentric view of charging for post. They are not complicated by the politics of Europe, old empire or Commonwealth. Everything has two prices; one for internal national post and one for anywhere else in the world.

Packages or letters sent 'special delivery' or 'express delivery' have a much more circuitous route. Firstly they are sent, by road, from Athens to a town in the lower eastern side of the Peloponnese. Here they are sorted and may linger for days. Eventually they are sent by road to the town opposite us on the mainland and sent over on the daily ferry, where they are then taken to the main post office, yes we know the story now. So the shortest possible time a special or express delivery can reach us is usually two days longer than ordinary mail!

Occasionally letters go astray and are not placed in our P.O. Box we might be given a letter or card that has lain for weeks in the drawer of the local fruit and vegetable shop or supermarket where all letters of unknown location are left. Even when we collect our post we have to sift it carefully to ensure that we have ours and ours alone. When we started with our post office box number we were just allocated one. These boxes were all set in a framework of boxes only open on the inside of the post office counter. The security of the system meant that only the post office employee could reach in to your box and give you your post. But, queueing is an unknown concept in Greece and so, to save time, everyone would just step behind the post office counter and collect their post, their neighbour's post and the post for anyone else they might take en route home. About four years ago this was all changed in favour of purposely designed metal boxes. Each person was given a box, with the same number as previously and a key to the master lock for one of the four outside doors. This lasted about two weeks before people were forgetting their keys and so at first a master key was left in the door. Now, so many people have inadvertently taken the key as their own that the outer doors are now left unlocked.

There was also a dispute because one very short lady could no longer reach her box as it had moved to the top level and so the numbers had to be changed. It was further complicated by the fact that the box numbers were clearly visible on the front of the drawer to each box. However as soon as the master door, containing all these drawer fronts, was opened nobody knew which was which. So the helpful post office staff decided to number the boxes on the inside. All was well for the first two columns but after that someone forgot that one box was unused as it was at the level of the master key. Then they redid it and made a further mistake. Rather than try to get to numbering correct they have now allocated us a number two away from our original number but 'it doesn't matter, still use you old number, I will remember'. Nobody seems to be concerned that I have spent money having business cards and such printed, with the allocated number on it. It doesn't matter because we are known anyway.

If the simple matter of post is a matter of trust and timing then courier deliveries are an amazing challenge. We have three on the island. One is mainly for large containers and everything is put into a large old building and all of the paperwork is piled in one uncertain tower, in no particular order. When you think something should have arrived you go to this place, look around the huge warehouse until you see what might be your parcel. Any attempt to check through the paperwork would be a matter of a few days work.

ACS, or Athens Courier Service is brilliant in that they mostly deliver within two days of the goods arriving on the island. The courier will telephone us and say that he will be at the bottom of our road in about 20 minutes and so Waldo meets him outside the Romantica Hotel and all is well. The other courier, irrespective of any special payment for 'next day' or 'express' delivery only delivers to our village once a week, and only then if he has a few packages. Well, 'delivery' is a relative term; what this actually means is leaving it by the front door of anyone actually living alongside the road. All else is almost thrown into the supermarket with a curt shout 'phone this person and tell them they have a package'!!!!

Waldo has long since found out that wherever we buy products from, however the efficiency of the organisation, if we have a tracking facility via the Internet then all tracking details will stop either once goods are dispatched to Athens or at least when they arrive in Athens. Today we spent most of the morning chasing a package. It was due to be on the island about 10 days ago. None of the couriers here would admit to it being here, even if we collected it. On the grounds that we tell all companies to use ACS and not the other one, we had expected no problems. However when Waldo telephoned the company concerned they were able to tell us that it had somehow spent 5 days in Koropi, a town near Athens airport where lots of courier depots are located. But it had been dispatched to Kythera and arrived here 5 days ago. He was told of the name of a company we had not heard of - apparently new. Waldo telephoned the company concerned as was told, in a very rude manner, that the package was not there and that they would telephone when it arrived. The telephone was slammed down before Waldo could say any more. Red mist descended and I knew that the hunt was on in earnest. Waldo telephoned again and this time was able to give the package reference number. He was told that the package was not there and that the other people were lying. Waldo telephoned Koropi and they confirmed that it has been sent 5 days ago. They agreed that they would telephone the courier concerned and inform them of this. Rather than risk having the telephone slammed down again we decided to actually get in the car and drive to the courier's office in a village in the centre of the island.

When we arrived at the village and asked around we were told that the courier's office was not actually there but in another village, in a new building. Waldo left me doing some shopping in the cool of the supermarket whilst he set off in the hunt for his package. Sure enough he found the courier in a brand new building, just further along the road from the totally inefficient one. In fact it was the totally inefficient one, just trading under a different name. The girl in the office was adamant that the package had just arrived and that is should have come on yesterday's 'plane, but because the 'plane was full it was left until today. Now we know that not to be true at all.

With the package safe in the car, my purchases in a cool bag in the boot of the car we called at Potamos post office on our way back. Who should we meet outside the building but the owner of the courier service. 'There is a package for you in my office. It's been there for days. Why haven't you collected it?'

If Kythera had a newspaper the headlines would be 'bearded Welshman seen doing a war dance on his hat in the middle of Kytheran village'!

Sleeping with Muhammad Ali

Sleeping with Muhammad Ali

It's another hot day on the island. Thankfully the day is bearable by a good breeze that wafts the perfume of our jasmine, lavender and geraniums around the place. I washed a pile of towels this morning, some big heavy bath towels - all were dry and very well aired within an hour of being hung out. That 'big heater' works wonders.

Our swimming pool - aka about to be a lily pond - is evaporating quite noticeably now. The plank that Waldo put for Freddy to sit on is now listing precariously with the bottom half in the water and the top half at an angle as the string holding it in place needs lengthening to allow it all to float of the surface of the water. This, combined with the early morning searing sun means that Freddy has changed his habit of just sitting on the plank and taking the occasional dive into the cooling waters.  Some time during the night he swims diagonally across the pool onto the first concrete step and crawls under a large stone put there by Waldo last year for the birds to stand on and reach the water. Freddy's conversation now has a strange echo sound as his voice hits the stone and bounces back. He stays there until mid-afternoon when the sun has moved around and then he has a leisurely swim back across the pool and onto the sloping plank. I don't know whether it is the effects of the sun but he seems to be getting greener by the day. He has slightly yellow rings around his eyes and under his mouth he is paler green. A handsome frog you might say!
Whilst Freddy was practising his swimming, me and my handsome frog were trying to sleep in the heat.  Both bedroom windows are kept wide open (we do of course have wire screens to stop unwanted guests), but still there is not enough air. We have a large fan which we have to keep gong all night. The sound of the fan obviously reaches into our subconscious. One night I was dreaming that I was in a hotel, near a motorway with the steady drum of heavy traffic. Waldo spent one night testing vacuum cleaners! We have both, separately had nights when sleeping on a ship with a cabin above the engines. But what happened last night cannot be put down to the noise of the fan.

In this heat Waldo sleeps without any sheet over him. I, on the other hand, have this irrational need to be covered from top to toe. Thus I have the sheet quite tightly wrapped over me with only my head, above the chin sticking out. My the time I have twisted and turned in the night I usually wake in the morning to find that I am like the centre of a cigar rolled in a damp few outer layers. Last night I was dreamlessly sleeping in this sweaty cocoon when suddenly, I was grabbed and punched in the face; well directly onto my right eye to be exact. I screamed and tried to unravel myself. Waldo was sitting up in bed, just repeated 'sorry, sorry, sorry' and holding his head in his hands. It turns out that he had been dreaming that for some reason, unexplained in the dream, a man was chasing him and he had returned to his parents' farm in the Vale of Glamorgan. Sure enough the man came into the kitchen and walked down a corridor. Knowing that there was nothing there and that the man would have to return, Waldo, with his mother behind him, hid behind the kitchen door waiting for him. He must have been getting quite worked up about this for the man had a gun and although strong, Waldo is not a big man. He would soon be overpowered and so he knew that he had one opportunity, with the element of surprise to overcome the man and disarm him. Like a cat waiting for the mouse to pass, Waldo waited and then, he pounced. He grabbed and threw the punch. We will never know what happened after that!
Meanwhile I now have a puffy eye which is actually aching, particularly when I turn my eye. But it could have been worse, I might have been shot!
At least, in reality this island is a safe place to live. I can walk anywhere in the dark and never feel afraid. The last 'crime' we had was two years ago when a tired young man, after a night out decided that the couldn't walk home, up the mountain from our seaside village. So he took one of the tourist hire cars. Having had his adrenalin rush, and being more sober when he reached home, he realised that to park outside his home would be somewhat of a giveaway and so he dumped it in a distant field. Before that, the previous crime involved people coming over from the mainland, trying to 'blow' a safe but failing to do so, stole the safe and tried to make a getaway by boat. They were caught. All that was some twelve years ago. But such is the deterrent against crime here that they were immediately imprisoned awaiting trial - the case came to court about 18 months ago when they were found guilty and sentenced.
Because of the lack of crime we rarely lock our car, often we forget to lock our front door. Our garden furniture and all manner of tools are put out when we arrive on the island or when we use them and not returned to their locked cupboards until we leave; there is no fear of rain nor theft.  We readily leave money for meals at tavernas on the table, knowing that only the waiter will pick it up when he is ready. Shops are left unattended, and we either leave the correct money on the counter or take the goods to a local coffee shop where we find the owner and pay. When shops are closed, goods are left outside for us to collect, secure in the knowledge that only the rightful owner will collect them. A few weeks ago I must have dropped a shopping bag when I got out of the car. About a week later when we went shopping and parked in our usual place, there on the wall in full sight was my shopping bag.

The consequences of this are that we have to be really careful to alter our habits when we return to the UK. Having to close windows at night, to lock everything up, to take time and consideration to protect our own belongings is quite restricting. Here on Kythera we feel much freer than we do in the UK and much of that freedom comes from knowing that social values are different. People respect each other, care for each other and are judged not by the work they do or the title they have, by the make of car they drive or the extent of their jewellery but whether or not they are a 'good person'. Sure enough education is valued and Kythera has some of the highest results and greatest percentage of the young population with postgraduate qualification in Greece. But people are thus respected for having worked hard and applied themselves rather than because they have the qualifications. Family is important and thus the pressure 'not to bring shame' on the family is high. In a small island community such as this, any crime committed would be immediately known and the family shamed. It's about 'good, old fashioned values' which make life and living so much easier. We all know the boundaries and keep to them. This means that we all have freedom without impeding others' freedom.
Nikos Kazantzakis understood the Greek notion of freedom, epitomised in his character Zorba; the lovable rogue who lives simply but has so much. Freedom and simplicity are rewarding bedfellows - no sudden punches in the night here! Modern materialism seems to equate freedom with the ability to spend, the freedom to choose what we want to spend our money on, how we want to live our lives and what are our rights as human beings. Why can't we realise that this a great myth developed and created by a market led economy which is dependent upon growth and more spending and more 'doing our own thing'.

Kazantzakis' epitaph reads Δεν ελπίζω τίποτα. Δε φοβούμαι τίποτα. Είμαι λεύτερος. -  "I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free." The first statement is not about lack of ambition, but rather in translation means 'I want for nothing'. That want or desire is not borne out my having everything, it is about having ownership of very little and having the freedom to live, rather than spend a lot of time choosing to buy things and then even more time  and money spent looking after them and protecting them. Living simply means not having to fear the trauma of theft, not being tied to location because of possessions but by relationships with people.

Whilst Waldo and I feel privileged that we are living under exactly the premise of wanting for nothing, fearing nothing (except perhaps death and the consequential separation) and of being free. It was around 30 years ago that we decided that we would have a place to visit in Greece when we retired. It took us 20 years of looking for somewhere, 20 years of financial planning, risk taking and working towards having the ability to make it happen. And at least 10 years of getting our working lives into a framework that could withstand a dual living lifestyle. We've made it, we are here, we are free. What we have is not some designer created condominium that may be let out when we aren't using it. What we have here is a ramshackle, always needing work, home. In it are the photos and remnants of our past and those no longer with us nestling with the clutter or our present hobbies, work activity and leisure.

Our freedom is to be able to stop twice a day and sit together. We have our seats on what we call 'the top patio' in the shade and from where we can watch the ships coming and going along the Maleas Straits, see our island ferry ploughing its way through the waters  between Diakofti in the south-east of the island to Neapoli on the mainland. As we drink iced coffee or water we chat about the day and what we have been doing, we work out what to do and we gossip about friends and relatives. Sometimes we share an issue that is bothering us; usually just by talking enables us to deal with it. But often we just sit, holding hands and share the silence. We are as one; free.

Working with wool

Working with wool

Many years ago, when visiting a small fishing village towards the bottom of the Mani peninsular I watched with fascination at the fishermen mending their nets. This is hard work given the weight of the nets, the seaweed and rubbish that gets tangled in the knotted material and the constant smell of dead fish. Nevertheless I was fascinated and persuaded one of the fishermen to slow down the process so that I could follow what he was doing. After quite some time I plucked up the courage to ask if I could try. All the men laughed, for this was serious 'men's work'. Eventually one man stood up from his stool and handed me the net, perfectly positioned with a tear in it that cut both the cross and down threads over 4 holes. I took up the challenge. All the men put down their nets and just looked at me. The pressure was on. I started out quite confident that I knew what to do, but the weight of the net and keeping the tension took some doing. Getting red faced I fought the strong threads, but eventually, with not quite perfect tension, I mended the hole. The men were amazed but politely clapped and shouted 'bravo'. Little did they know that I was expert enough in the now little used skill of tatting. I even made a bed cover once, which took my quite some years I recall. I don't even know where it is now.

Because I was born before the days of TV in the house, let alone in almost every room. We did not have game stations and computers, mobile telephones; in fact on the farm we did not even have electricity until I was sixteen! So evening entertainment included talking to each other, playing cards and developing our skills in various crafts. My uncle listened to the radio, but that was in the morning for the farming news and in the evening for news. Apart from that and The Archer's omnibus on a Sunday, the radio was silent; saving batteries was a priority. My grandmother was a great card sharp who could have easily made a fortune around the gambling haunts of the old wild west! My aunt was always busy, washing the day's eggs and putting them in boxes ready for sale the next day; darning clothes, ironing, baking, salt curing hocks of bacon and generally doing the unending tasks of a farmer's wife. If I wasn't helping my aunt, I was loosing at cards to my grandmother who never believed in the psychology of letting a little one win every now and again - she taught me that to win you had to observe, learn, concentrate and persist. What a wonderfully sweet moment was the time I first beat her at cards! It was a sort of coming of age and poured upon me a new layer of personal confidence.

A maiden aunt of mine taught me to knit. She too was a hard task master. I spent years just knitting the insides of pockets which she fitted into what are now called 'boyfriend cardigans', for that seemed to be the only pattern she knew. She had ones in pink, blue, grey and something called 'oatmeal'. She knitted one for every female in the family in various pastel shades of green or yellow and a black one for my grandmother. The pockets were all mine. Once I had perfected the tension I was allowed a variation on the theme; I moved on to knitting pockets which fitted on the outside of the garment and so were actually seen! What proud moments I had pointing out to anyone who would listen - 'I made that' I would say as I reached out to any relatives' pockets. I did this quite often to the men who had theirs knitted in sombre colours of grey, brown, navy and green tweed. I had quickly learnt that by doing this, putting on what I considered to be a pretty smile and shaking my curly hair, the man in question would invariably reach into his pocket and bring out a sweet or a coin for me.

Sitting round the table, covered with a green chenille tablecloth, with my grandmother playing patience cards and my aunt with hands in some sort of food or housework, I would struggle with my knitting. Thinking back, my aunt must have only used double knitting for everything for I had a pair of what are now known as 4mm knitting needles which my father had patiently ground down to about half length for me. There were no such things as knitting kits for starters then, kids just did what the grown ups did and took up the challenge of small fingers and adult sized tools. But my perseverance paid off for I was about 10 years old when I knitted my first jumper for myself. It was yellow - a colour I never wear now - and I remember that I had made a mistake on the front neck shaping and so the top of each side had a few rows of reverse stocking stitch forming a triangle, but everyone said that it made it look different and it didn't matter at all that it didn't look exactly like the pattern. I was pleased that I had been creative and 'added' to the pattern. That must have stayed with me for I rarely knit completely from a pattern. I might use a pattern for the overall shape, but put my own blend of colours and / or stitches. Mostly I design my own knitwear and most recently I sort of make it up as I go.

For the past year I have been avidly knitting children's clothes: jumpers, cardigans and gillets. A year last March I watched the terrible pictures on TV of the Japanese tsunami and the devastation it caused. My heart went out to the people caught up in this terrible disaster. Some days later My heart froze as I saw pictures of some little children, orphans standing shivering in the snow. I immediately thought 'I have plenty of spare wool, I can make some sweaters and send to those poor children'. As a fast knitter with time, I had finished three sweaters in a week. Then it dawned on me; where do I send them, how do I get them there? It was then that I discovered that although aid was going into Japan, it was deemed by the West to be an economically viable country and so aid was restricted. This was further enhanced by the pride of the Japanese, not wanting to be seen needy. But those children did not know anything of politics; many of them had lost all they had ever known, except their class mates, they were traumatised, the were cold. At least I could do something about the latter, is nothing else.

Now, 16 months on, through the invaluable services of my relatives, friends, friends or friends, colleagues and indeed anyone who will listen, we have sent almost 2000 items of knitted children's clothes to Japan. I made contact of a friend from university and it was a total coincidence that Yuko had a cousin who is a priest in Kesen-numa City, Japan's main fishing port which was so devastated by the tsunami. In addition we have sent over basic clothes such as underwear and, at Christmas, toys for the children. Because of normal tidal surges most coastal places build schools and hospitals on high land. Thus in the tsunami many of the children, at school at the time, were saved but their parents working and living on the lower land were not. In one instance about 40 children who come over to the mainland to school were made orphans as the tsunami waves washed away the island and all they had ever known. With the facilities of modern technology we have been able to have photographs of the children and they, photographs of the knitters.

What I have found amazing about the project have been the unexpected pleasures. I have been really overcome with the generosity of people donating their time and skills to knit, but also those who have donated wool, money for postage and helped in all manner of ways; packing, motivating others to help, getting donations from wool shops, running raffles to raise money for postage. But a number of elderly people, who really do not have the money to spare for wool, have helped me out by using up my vast stash of yarns and that which has been donated. For some it has become an integral part of their social life; someone pops in to see them to give them wool and collect knitting and of course share a cup of tea and a chat. In one area a group who didn't really know each other before now meet on a weekly basis for a 'knit and natter' session; they share lifts, share cakes and sandwiches, exchange wool and patterns, help each other out with dropped stitches and have formed a great social network. As one grandknitter said to me 'It is so wonderful to be giving again, instead of receiving help'. Wow, what a win win situation has been created.

Here in Greece at the moment it is far too hot to contemplate working with wool, but I have even started to get a few knitters on the island to help me with this work. i have been amazed at how many young people here still knit. It has been a wonderful learning curve as I have studied and tried out new techniques of knitting. One old lady showed me the traditional Greek way of knitting whereby the needles are help slightly differently but the wool is either taken round the back of the knitter's neck or looped over a hook pinned to the front of her clothes just under the chin. This means that the wool is always held in tension and the knitting needle is rather flicked to catch the wool, rather than twisted round the needle. It gives a very even tension. But after years of knitting the British way, I cannot get my fingers around this method.

It does get to about 30'Cin the evening and I do then feel that I can pick up my needles. My cousin's daughter is pregnant and so I have promised to knit an heirloom christening shawl for the baby. My 2ply wool from the Shetland isles arrived last week. I've chosen three traditional stitch designs and will knit the shawl in three sections; a central square, a broad edging taken out from each side and a more lacy triangulated edge knitted at right angles to the inner edging.

When I've finish it and when I've learnt how to put photographs into these ramblings words and pictures will give a better view of life on a beautiful Greek island.

Blood, sweat and tea

Blood, sweat and tea

To all those people in various parts of the world struggling to clear up after floods, mud slides and the ravages of bad weather, I must apologise. Thus morning I woke up and groaned at the prospect of another cloudless day. Another day when the temperature creeps up, engulfing me in a blanket of sweat and lethargy.

But Waldo and I have little time to reflect for before we are out of bed the door bell rings. It is Petros, our computer engineer and general systems engineer extraordinaire. he is an example of the young of the island, educated in the UK and holder of a PhD in robotics he is totally committed to the development of solar energy. Our friend Goran, the Swedish farmer has, for year, had to collect thousands of litres of water per day from a local spring to have enough water for household and garden needs - a time consuming occupation. A few weeks ago Goran and Lalla, and Petros drank champagne to celebrate their new invention.  Petros designed and built a solar powered system which now pumps water up some 800 metres and gives our Swedish friends all the water they need. It is the first such device in Greece and Petros now needs to exploit his invention, not only for his own commercial benefit, but as part of a contribution to environmental sustainability. After all, one thing Greece has plenty of is sun!

We have a different system for water, for we are not connected to the mains. We collect our water from the run-off from our seven roofs (our 'house' is a sprawling bungalow really) and our two drives (the back drive becomes a raging torrent in a heavy storm - it is actually not possible to walk in the water for it is running so powerfully). We try to keep one reservoir for household use, although both reservoirs have filters and the water is drinkable; in fact we have it tested regularly and it comes on a par with UK tap water and above bottled water in terms of bacteria content and unwanted minerals.

The person who owned the house before us was a Dutch engineer. According to Iannis the local plumber who was around when the house was built and thus knows everything about our water systems, this man had his own engineering company and it was he who invented the tripping mechanism for traffic lights. No wonder he could afford winter and summer location holiday homes as well as town and country homes in the Netherlands! Anyway, the consequences of his invention mean that he has used this same mechanism to set out our water irrigation system. We have three sectors which come on alternatively; the only difference being that they rotate in order rather than the traditional red, amber, green, green/amber, red. because our grounds are on the side of the mountain there is a limit to the height which the water can be lifted, thus we still have parts of the garden which have to be watered by hose pipes from taps located higher up the slope.

We do not have enough water to leave our sprinkler system on when we go away. Most of the time this doesn't matter as we tend to be away during rainy periods. But when we are away during the summer, our poor plants have to cope as best they can. This year our newly planted orange tree managed to give forth three tiny oranges before withering in the searing heat. Two of my three avocado trees, all grown from stones, have survived, one is looking good, one is struggling whilst the third is brown and shrivelled. Our reposition pineapple palm has also given up the ghost. It seems that the older, settled plants are well established and probably have roots going deep into the ground, whereas the newer ones need a lot of nurturing.

Waldo has suffered from the barbs and spikes of various plants as he plants, repositions and prunes. I do manage to persuade him to wear gloves for the dangerous oleander and when pruning our rubber tree plant, but apart from that he silently suffers the cuts and grazes bestowed upon him.  For the most part, I just give instructions; where to cut, where to reposition, where to plant. The only exceptions are the rose bushes and the bougainvilleas which seem to have become my responsibility. Anyone who has attempted to prune bougainvillea will know that is has vicious barbs which draw blood at any opportunity, but for the most part I usually come away with minimal damage and just enough blood on my skin to prove that I too have been working! The rose bushes are quite well located in a raised bed along the side of the guest bedroom patio; but on the far side is the top of a steep wall. Hence I have become well practised at reaching through the bush to cut off a bud or stem at the other side. The only real damage I suffered occurred two years ago when I was aiming for a low stem at the back of a bush. I was so intent on making sure that I missed all the thorns of other stems, and that no large spider would suddenly appear from the back of a leaf, that I had not noticed the snake coiled up in the shade of the bush! Annoyed at being disturbed it had probably hissed, but the noise would have been drowned out my the cicada chorus. My arm might have appeared to be a large albino snake, who knows, but the creature did what it had to do to protect itself and struck out. I had two neat puncture holes of the inside of my elbow. I wrenched my arm back, some thorns making gauges down my arm as I did so. I kept squeezing my arm to make more blood flow - if the snake was carrying any poison, I wanted it out of my body rather than in. Shouting, what I always shout in an emergency 'Waldo, come here, Waldo' I ran to the other side of the house where he was working. Little perturbs Waldo, he is excellent in a crisis, and like the finest bushman on Kythera he just lifted my arm to his mouth, sucked and spat a few times, then licked my wound and declared 'that'll be alright now - my saliva will act as an antiseptic'. Then in the next breath calmly asked 'Any chance of a cup of tea?'

I often laugh at the genetic wiring of the Brits; any crisis and the solution is a cup of tea - but only after dealing with the crisis! I laugh at this phenomenon in our society and I laugh when I realise how much we do it. And, on Kythera that means at least three tea breaks a day!

I have long since given up sugar in my tea, but trying to give up milk is still a real struggle. You see, after spending my formative years on a farm, I think my childless aunt and uncle could only bring me up as something within their experience and that was lambs and calves. So as a child I was fed copious amounts of milk, fresh, cooled, but straight from the cow.  No chocolate coloured builders tea for me, my tea has a standard English breakfast bag dunked in a mug two-thirds full of hot water for no more than 3 seconds and then the mug is topped up with milk. I do like this pale ecru coloured concoction. In order to try an give up milk I have experimented with other types of tea; Russian Caravan being my all time favourite. But, shocked at the price of some of the so called herb or fruit teas, and as a diabetic I have to be wary of the amount of sugar some of them contain, I started my own tea blending. Here are two recipes.

Ginger Green Tea - serves 4
Place two or three bags of green tea in a pot of jug that will withstand boiling water.
Take two or three thin slices of fresh root ginger and crush them with a garlic press (I keep one just for the ginger - not to contaminate tastes!) over the tea bags so that all the juice is collected. Cut off the bits of ginger than come through the holes of the garlic press and add to the pot with the remaining squeezed ginger.
Pour over hot water and stir to help the infusion.

If you want to drink it hot, then pour into mugs and serve with a cinnamon stick to stir. Each person can add sugar to taste if necessary.

If you want to drink it cold then use less hot water, After infusion, top up with cold water and leave in the 'fridge to cool. Pour over glasses stacked with ice cubes and garnish with a slice of lemon or a sprig of mint.

Pomegranate Tea
Cut two pomegranates in half horizontally.
Squeeze the juice out of them using a lemon squeezer.
Take the remaining pips and flesh out of the shells and wrap in fine muslin - you can squeeze this to get the last drops of juice out if you wish.

1. Serve the juice over lots of crushed ice and add a few raspberries to garnish, or
2. Warm the juice, add a little grape juice or apple juice if you want it sweeter, serve sprinkled with powdered ginger or cinnamon. A little macaroon biscuit goes well with this.

For the tea: lay the muslin out on a tray, spread the pips out on it and put another layer of muslin on top.
If in a hot place, put out in the sun - make sure that you anchor it all down so that the wind doesn't blow it all away!
If not on a hot place, just spread the pips, (no need for the muslin) a a baking tray and put in a very very low oven.
Leave in the heat until the pips are quite dry (if you leave any moisture in then the final 'tea' will go mouldy).
When dry mix your pomegranate pips with your favourite tea - I use Russian Caravan, Earl Grey or a light white tea.
Put into a sealed container and leave for a week for the flavours to meld.
Use as you would any loose tea.

I have experimented with other teas - some great, others not so good. I have the benefit of what Waldo calls 'the big heater in the sky' for drying, but a low heat over is just as good. Don't use a microwave oven for that cooks rather than dries and changes the flavour of things. Orange or lemon tea can be made easily by peeling the fruit, cutting off the pith and drying the chopped up pieces of rind. Add the any light tea. Experiment with herbs - I dry my own mint, basil, rosemary, dill, wild sage and geranium leaves and add those to teas. Also spices can add another dimension of taste to hot or cold teas; ginger, cinnamon, allspice and freshly ground nutmeg are just some to try.

Happy tea time - it can be done without the blood and sweat!

Time after time

Time after time

It has been a long time since I have had chance to write. All sorts of life has intervened. But thankfully, here on Kythera, life goes on the same, well almost. The Greek economic crisis does reach out it's tentacles of fear as far as here. But in such a long reach stories become mangled as gossip and rumour abound.

I'm not sure whether it is the Greek people's stoic optimism, their naivete of the financial world or that they are simply in denial but there is little outward evidence of problems. Inward tourism to Greece is way down this summer and fewer Greek people will be taking holidays or at least cutting back on the distances travelled, cost of hotels and eating out. nevertheless we are greeted by taxi drivers' complaints that on a Wednesday, 3 flights a day and the Athens ferry now arriving in the evening are too much - to much hurry, hurry. But apart from that Kythera this summer is quiet - 'nice quiet, good roads not many peoples'. We hear that local hotels have refused to take any bookings for August from new incoming tour operators because they want to keep the rooms vacant for all of the Greeks that will come to visit. Hope springs eternal ......

Whoever spoke of 'the enigma wrapped in a smile' must have visited Greece at some time.  For despite all that is going on and the very real financial difficulties of the nation, the people are still smiling, still trying to do their best, still friendly, still giving away free drinks, free desserts and putting themselves out to help where possible.

Apart from the days when I have to 'attend' meetings via Skype, time has a completely different meaning here. I don't wear a watch. There are three types of 'alarm clock' here, each guaranteed to wake the heaviest of sleepers. The first is the bright sunlight as the sun rises before 6am. The second is the leg cracking of thousands of cicadas as they start trying to attract another; apparently triggered by the temperature rising beyond 28'C. If you are not already awake then the rising temperature to it's daily 44'C - 47'C will soon coat one in cooling sweat making it impossible to remain in comfortable sleep.

Breakfast and any shopping that might be needed are the only priorities for the morning. The rest of time is immaterial. I know the approximate time by the sighting of the little ferry that goes to the mainland every day or the sound of the island's aeroplane arriving or departing for Athens. I know the day of the week by the aircraft, ferries or cruise liners that go by. Monday is the Dutch tour operator from Kalamata; the first we hear is the bus driver totting the horn in the village to hurry up the departing tourists and then an hour or so later we hear their 'plane. Tuesday a particular cruise ship goes sedately towards Athens. Wednesday there are two local flights from Athens and a very large MSC container ships goes past on it's way to Athens or Istanbul. Thursday the 'big' ferry goes up past our house towards Githion, the cruise ship from Athens returns and then the Githion ferry returns. Friday the little local ferry has an extra trip. Saturday the large ferry comes down from Githion - we don't usually see it going up as it does so in the middle of the night.  Sunday is usually quiet.

All of this takes place at a distance and does not impinge upon our solitude one bit. As we all get older and our short term memory won't work as well as it once did, we are grateful for these markers of time. We have no rush. We don't have the desperate challenge of keeping a diary, remembering to look at it and to squeeze in appointment after appointment. We don't need to keep pages blanked out 'just in case' a meeting is that day or the next. We don't need to wait weeks, months, years even for hospital appointments. We don't need to plan to take time of work, then telephone the doctor's surgery first thing in the morning on the off chance that we might get an appointment that day.

In Greece life is very different. Friends make plans no more than 2 days in advance, so we are either meeting for coffee this morning or tomorrow, going out for a meal tonight or tomorrow evening. It is very simple. If we are ill we go to the local clinic/hospital, pay the grand sum of 2 Euros (now about £1.55, and the parking is free!) and see a doctor within half an hour. If we need to be admitted we are admitted there and then - not in 10 weeks or left waiting for a letter asking us to telephone to make an appointment. If it is something outside of the remit of our local facilities then we catch the next ferry or flight and are admitted within 2 days at the most to hospital in Sparta or Athens. If we need to see the dentist, we telephone and will be sitting in the dentist's chair that evening or the next morning. Similarly business meetings are called for today or tomorrow and very occasionally the day after that.

We were given a lovely little weather station that told us the temperature, humidity, cloud bank for now and the next 24 hours. Unfortunately Waldo put it in a sheltered spot on our patio where it reached 50'C and then blew up! As the heat become almost unbearable in the afternoons it is impossible to try to work. So we rest. Sometimes that means lying down reading a book, doing some sewing, light work at the computer or actually going to bed and going to sleep. I just love the few minutes of freshness I feel when getting up from an afternoon sleep around 8pm, having a shower and dressing to go out. Of course as soon as we step outside the airconditioning and into the 30'C heat the sticky, sweaty skin looses all it's freshness. But once it is dark, being outside, even in 30'C+ is pleasant as there is no searing sun and often a cool breeze.

And so we have our 24 / 7, but how different, how much more relaxing than the busy world of commerce and Western capitalism. What is amazing, is that I get as much, if not more work done in this atmosphere than I do in the pressurising life back in the UK. just thiunk about it.