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!