From green lizards to green peas

From green lizards to green peas

Kythera is like the little girl with the curl; 'when she's good she's very, very good and when she's bad, she's horrid'. It is constantly challenging, extremely loving and can send you from the heights of love and peace to the depths of despair and frustration - often all emotions pass through within an hour or so. Today has been one of those days.

A few days ago we received our annual bill for our NOVA TV subscription. I read this to the best of my ability and it appears that it is an actual bill rather than a receipt; which is a bit of a surprise as we thought we had set it up as an automatic annual payment. Last year when we spoke to a person from NOVA, they spoke excellent English, were extremely helpful and dealt with us incredibly efficiently. But something has changed since then. Waldo has tried on three occasion to speak to someone from NOVA on the telephone. Each time has been the same; the telephone rings for about 15 -20 minutes before it is answered, the person says that she will put him through to the correct office, the telephone rings for a further 30 - 40 minutes and then he is cut off! A really efficient system!

Greece is a cash economy, cheque books are not allocated to bank accounts and credit, debit or charge cards are virtually unknown outside of Athens. Here on Kythera only two shops will accept them; they will try anything for you not to use them and if you insist they then charge a fairly hefty usage charge. So the electricity bills, and other utilities can be paid through the post office; although almost all locals prefer to pay in cash. If we order goods to be delivered then we pay by paying the courier driver. Although at the beginning of the year Waldo wanted a new sound system to attach to our TV. After searching the Internet and contacting the manufacturers he was given the name of the importer in Athens. He contacted them and was informed that the product was not in stock but that they would get it in a week. Amazingly they did so and e-mailed Waldo of the fact. He then telephoned them to give details of our address and which courier company to use.

'Oh, but we cannot sell it to you.' the woman exclaimed 'We are a wholesale company.'
Waldo was too shocked to ask why she had not told him this beforehand. After some discussion he was given the name and contact details of one of their retailers. Telling the woman not to sell the goods to anyone else, he himself had to contact the retailer to ask them to order the goods from the wholesaler and ask them to send them to us. A long and involved series of telephone calls ensued which resulted in the fact that the goods had to be dispatched from the wholesaler to the retailer who would then courier them to us. All of this was arranged and then Waldo asked if he could pay by credit card (we only bring a limited amount of cash over here for our daily needs and in that we play the 'exchange rate' game to our advantage). The goods were delivered well before arrangements to pay were settled. It ended up that using his credit card, Waldo had to pay the shop next door to the retailers and then they would sort it out between themselves! How they reconcile their accounts is a mystery even the Greek tax man doesn't know; just like any other business here.

When in the post office I noticed lots of people paying bills and so I asked the post mistress if we could pay our NOVA bill with her. No, we had to see George, the Nova engineer. When we returned from our shopping expedition, we decided to stop at Mitsos' beachfront bar for drinks and ice-cream. We whiled away a few pleasant hours enjoying the view and chatting with Goran our neighbouring olive farmer who has his granddaughter and her friend staying with them. Poor Goran's hair has already turned from Viking red to Swedish blond in the sun; at the end of the fortnight it will be white from the responsibility of looking after two beautiful Swedish teenagers. Other friends, most with the grandchildren passed by and chatted and eventually, as we knew would happen, 'George NOVA' came within our sights.
'No, not me. Me only engineer.' he declared. 'You go Livadi. You go Germanos and pay.'

This morning, we sat on the patio enjoying breakfast: freshly squeezed orange juice, muesli with a fresh peach smothered in local yogurt and a cup of local 'mountain tea' (a type of dried wild sage which I pick and dry myself and infuse with pieces of fresh root ginger - a great morning starter). As usual, this is our time to chat, decide what we are going to during the day, together and/or individually. As we were chatting I heard splashing in the pool. I had already said 'good morning' to Freddy who was sitting under the shade of a rock on the steps of the pool - his morning location. I jumped up and looked; Freddy hadn't moved but instead of looking at me and rolling his froggy-eyes as he normally does, he was transfixed on a spot on the opposite side of the pool. I followed his gaze and sure enough, there on the bottom curve of the metal steps into the deep end of the pool, clinging on was a green lizard. he was a good 2 metres away from the base of the lizard ladder. I didn't want him to drown and it seemed quite a distance for him to swim back. Waldo reached for the net that he uses to clear leaves off the surface of the pool, and for saving lizards in distress. He put the net in front of the lizard expecting him to move onto it, but he was an agile young adult and leapt right over the net. With Waldo keeping the net behind him he did a wonderfully speedy sort of dog paddle right back to the base of the lizard ladder - he knew exactly where he was going. Once his feet were on the ladder he stayed there a while to get his breath back. He then glanced up at Waldo and you couldn't help but feel that he was saying 'thank you', he seemed to sense that Waldo was not a threat to him. Once rested the lizard ran up the ladder at full speed, jumped off the wall and scurried into the shade of the oleander bushes where he lives with the rest of his family. Fred watched it all with interest.

Having done our good deed for the day, we decided to go to Livadi. Our shopping list was not too onerous; leave a note for Petros in the village,  hopefully collect some newly ordered DVDs from Potamos post office, fill up with petrol, go to Livadi to pay our NOVA bill, take Waldo's glasses to the optician for a minor repair and then treat ourselves to a leisurely lunch out. Next to Petros' name in our contacts book I have written 'computer wizard', which he is. Petros is an amazing engineer who has set up a solar powered system for our friend Goran - it brings water up the mountain, sufficient for all his needs. It is the first such system in Greece and one of just 5 in the world. Petros really is a magician with electronics, he studied robotics for his doctoral thesis. Despite all of this and his access to all of the latest telephones, i-pads, computer programmes and such, he is very difficult to get hold of.  We keep in our car what we call the 'We want Petros kit'; a notepad, pen and roll of sticky tape. When we need Petros then we simply drive to his house at the bottom of our mountain and stick a note to his front door. E-mails, telephone messages all fail, but our system is guaranteed to have Petros knocking at our door.

The post office did not have much for me, but then Tuesday's are usually the big bounty days.  Just after we call for petrol we pass the office of the builder's merchant, the handsome Michaelis who promised that tomorrow, he will send the man with the grader to do our road. We decide to pull in and see whether the machine is back from Antikythera. We look around the yard to no avail and so decide to go up to the office. Michaelis is not there, but his brother George is sitting down. As soon as we appear he turns to the woman in the office and asks her about 'Koksma's road'. Gosh, we are known all over the island now as the people from Koksma's road. Our hopes lift, but are soon dashed as he says he can only do anything if the mayor says so. After a few minutes of discussion, telling him that the mayor has, like the man from Delmonte, 'said YES', on numerous occasions, I start to get mildly annoyed as he tells me he knows nothing of this. I start to raise my voice in Greek fashion, and thankfully the words come to me. I challenge him, that if he knows nothing about it, how come he mentioned Koksma's road as soon as he saw us? Where was the machine? After some minutes of quite heated discussion we know that the machine will not come tomorrow as promised - but we do now have a meeting with Michaelis and the mayor at 1 o'clock on Monday. Watch this space!

Our journey through the island is as beautiful as ever. The wildness of the scenery is spectacular and whichever way we look, the blue, blue sea is the backdrop, often it is impossible to see where the sea ends and the sky begins. The perfume of the drying wild herbs wafts through the car and all is well with the world.

We park the car in Livadi and walk to the Germanos shop; paperwork and credit card at the ready.
'No, not us. You cannot pay here.' the man at the counter tells us. 'Germanos used to deal with NOVA, but we finished 4 years ago.'
So much for George NOVA's updated knowledge. We explain the situation to the man and he suggests that we should pay either in the post office or through our bank! There is a new electrical shop in Livadi and we decide to take a look and ask them if they can help. They have some very nice things in the shop and we order two new lights for over our bed. As for NOVA payment; yes you've guessed it - we should go to Germanos up the road! When we explain that we have just come from there a very helpful young man makes a telephone call and then writes down a name and telephone number. In triumph he tells us that he has found out what we should do, this is the man to speak to; who's name and telephone number does he give us? - George NOVA!

We walk back down the road to the opticians. Just as we come in sight of the shop we see that in the space of time we have been chasing the elusive NOVA contact, the shop has closed. There is a 4x4 just starting up nearly, and Waldo asks if the optician is near. It turns out that the driver is the optician. He is just off with his family to the beach. If we come back at 7pm they will deal with it. I explain that we live at the other end of the island and so can we leave the glasses with him and collect them next week? Waldo has a store of glasses which he looses and finds in rotation, so he won't miss one pair. The woman jumps out of the vehicle and looks at the glasses and then declares that she will fix them. She opens up the shop, turns on the electricity, unlocks the cupboards and eventually finds the right size screw to fix the glasses. It is a fiddly job but she does it. When I ask how much, she looks at me in astonishment. No, it is nothing. After all the trouble she has taken, delayed the trip to the beach and left husband and children in a hot car in the sun, we are astonished. Once locked up and on her way back to the car it is the woman's turn to be astonished as Waldo runs in front of her and opens the back door of the car. He thrusts a few Euros into the little girl's hand and shouts 'Pagato' - ice-cream. Smiles and thanks all round - everybody is happy and with a warm feeling.

We walk back down the street and meet the man with the parrot. He causes consternation with some of our visitors, especial after a good lunch, as he literally walks around with a green parrot on his shoulder. The man is a great character (I guess you would have to be if you walk around with a parrot on your shoulder every day!), but the parrot is none too friendly, not like his brother who resides in one of our favourite beach side tavernas in Platea Ammos on the north of the island. It is a regular haunt for us, particularly for Sunday lunch where we simply order whatever fish he has and a salad. He only sells freshly caught fish and so it is the catch of the day. It maybe one, two or three bigger fish, it maybe a selection of shrimp, squid, muscles, sardines, whatever the sea has given up hours before.

Now we reach Pierro's; an excellent restaurant of long standing. Pierros is one of the best restaurants on the island; the fava (fava beans crushed with lemon juice and onion) is the best in the world, served with freshly sliced raw onion and half a lemon. Pierro's is of the Greek tradition whereby you go into the kitchen, see what is cooking and select what you want. Today he has roast pork, roast chicken, stuffed cabbage leaves in an egg and lemon sauce, moussaka, pastitsada (minced beef mixed with tomatoes layed between pasta and covered with bechemal sauce), braised beef with onions, and a selection of vegetables; courgettes, horta, peas, cauliflower. We both choose roast pork and decide to add a Greek salad and peas to the meal. We ask for a jug of water, two freshly squeezed orange juices and a soda water.  The meal comes and is delightful. It is always a delight when I realise that Greek cooking tradition will never allow plain vegetables to be served. Instead of a plate of peas we get a tasty dish of peas mixed in with oil, sweated onion, a little tomato, a few pieces of chopped cooked carrot and a potato cut into tiny chunks.  Pierros brings us a jug of his Cretan wine - 'from me'. We chat and laugh as we recount our morning. We try to decide upon plans of campaign to both pay the NOVA bill and get the road sorted. It looks as though a trip to Potamos is on the cards for Monday.

There are just 14 adults and 4 well behaved children in the restaurant but the noise is deafening; everyone is eating, talking, and laughing. It never fails to amaze us how much Greek people eat and how quickly they do so. A party of three generations of a family sitting on the next table to ours, having arrived after us, have tables groaning with food; 2 x tzatziki, 2 x roast cheese, fava, a huge plate of boiled vegetables, 3 x crushed aubergine salads, 2 x Greek salad, 2 x plates of chips. Then to our amazement come the plates of main courses, each plate piled high with accompanying chips. We are still chomping our way through our main courses and they then move on to devour two huge plates piled high with assorted melon. Then the puddings of fresh yogurt sprinkled with crushed nuts and layered with local honey end the eating spree.

Eating, drinking, chatting and being silent together have taken just over three hours. How privileged we are to be able to spend such time together, without any pressure. I no longer wear a watch and Pierro certainly would not cough surreptitiously to suggest that lunch-time is over. In fact people are still arriving.

We drive back, still admiring the view. As soon as we get back, Petros telephones - he saw us driving up the mountain. Exhausted by our excursion we go to sleep for a few hours. Then it will be the Olympics, news and maybe a DVD. As for tomorrow, well Petros is coming up for coffee around 11am and then we will see what happens.