The cats at Stella's taverna

The cats at Stella's taverna

The 'Thursday Cruise Ship' is just going past, looking majestic in the sunshine. Every Tuesday she goes down to Athens and returns on a Thursday; one more of my alternative time markers.

We didn't get up until nearly lunch time today. I woke around 8.45 and discovered that there was a power cut. It is winter now and so we can expect them if not daily, then at least 5 times a week. I decided to turn over and sleep. Apparently Waldo did the same around 10.30. The power eventually came on just as were were finally getting up around 12.00. As usual it was timed after breakfast and the children set off for school and before the housewives of the island needed to start getting lunch which is usually eaten around 14.00.

We ate a leisurely brunch on the patio. It is still so warm that we needed to use the table in the shade, but today there are a few clouds in the sky; nice white fluffy ones, not menacing grey or black ones. As we ate we reflected on our bizarre day yesterday.

I buy and sell books and DVDs on Amazon and so am a regular at the post office. At the last minute Waldo decided to come with me to Potamos to buy an outside light fitting. A few nights previously I had been working so intently in the AcropoLiz that it was only when I finished that I realised that it was pitch dark. I used Skype to telephone Waldo in the house to come with a torch to fetch me! There was no way I was going to risk breaking a leg on the cobbled path or had the courage to brush past the oleander hedge where the night spiders would be weaving their webs. One diligently makes a large web that spans the cobble path, anchored on one side at the end of oleander branches and at the other side on the wall and the metal patio railings. These anchoring threads are amazingly strong. Despite the fact that every morning I break these threads, by the next morning the spider has rebuilt them. This morning I set Waldo the task of destroying the web. We wait to see what the beast will do tonight!

Waldo dropped me off at the post office and drove on into the village. Now that the tourists have gone it is quite easy to find a parking space somewhere around the platea (square). I posted off my 4 items, collected 4 newly delivered ones. The intention of having a Kindle and selling on Amazon is to reduce the number of books and DVDs we have in the house. Somehow it is not working out! Mentally I have this notion that Kindle is for the books that I will really want to keep. All the transient stuff can be bought and sold, particularly when it is cheaper in the first place than the Kindle version. I guess I am too old fashioned and missing the point somewhere!

I caught up with Waldo in the electrical shop. Whilst the girl there speaks very good English, he was having problems with his 'insides' and 'outsides'. He wanted a light to be fitted outside the house and so have all the necessary waterproofing and safety measures. He wanted the switch to operate it to be fitted inside the house, thus no need for waterproofing. But he needed it to be fitted on the surface (outside) of the wall not indented (inside) the wall. He also had the idea that if he fitted the light on the apex of the AcropoLiz roof he could fit the switch immediately inside, if only he could buy a switch with a length of cord attached, like a bathroom switch. The shop, like all Greek shops is crammed full of goods with shelves holding precariously positioned piles of goods often sticking out way beyond the shelf edge and the two walkways lined on both sides with even more of a tangle of cables, boxes, large fittings and display stands. Nikos the owner was at one end of the shop reaching out to various shelves. Waldo and the girl were at the other end of the shop. As the girl shouted out what she thought Waldo wanted, Nikos would reach for it as pass it to a lady who stood part way down the aisle who passed it to Waldo. It turned out that this lady was Nikos' mother. All around her and totally blocking the aisle were bulging carrier bags full of apples, plums, potatoes, tomatoes and a host of other just-picked fruit and vegetables. As I took in the scene an elderly man asked me to make way as he brought in even more bags. It turned out that the elderly couple were Nikos' parents who firmly believed that living, as he did, in the village, he and his family would either starve or poison themselves with shop bought goods. Hence as they had reason to come into the village for themselves they had brought his 'rations'. Nikos, the obedient son simply worked around his parents.

I managed to make my way down the free aisle to Waldo who had a switch in his hand from which protruded a length of string. He was concerned that he couldn't hear it clicking and thus that it wasn't working. The girl stepped over three plastic bags of fruit which had now been placed between her and the counter. She took the switch out of Waldo's hand telling him that he had it wrong. She demonstrated.
'On.' She pulled the string and held it tightly keeping the switch down.
'Off.' She let go of the string and the switch went up.
Waldo and I looked at each other in puzzlement.
'This means that you hold it when you want the light on?' asked Waldo incredulously.
The girl sighed. At last the xeni (foreigner) had understood. 'Yes.' she said 'That is all we have in Greece.'
Waldo capitulated immediately. 'I'll just have an ordinary switch please' he declared and immediately set up another chain reaction of the girl shouting to Nikos, who moved carefully to the relevant shelf, passed the switch to his mother who was by now almost held prisoner by bags and had to call in the services of her husband in order to get the switch to Waldo.
I just gave Waldo some money and got out of the shop as quickly as I could. I had vision of Greeks all over the place having a bath whilst holding tight to the light switch string. Or maybe they just tied the string around their big toe so that both hands were free for washing! We are both still giggling over these amazing light switches.

However much we laugh at the Greeks, they laugh at us. We may all be European but the culture divide is still enormous. Shop keepers think we are quite mad to bring our own shopping bags with us. They shake their heads in wonder at the crazy xeni who pay to bring their own bags rather than taking their freely given ones. And what do we use to take out the rubbish, they ask? We tell them that we compost everything possible and the rest goes into the store of bags that we already have collected and the occasional ones that we have when we shop on the spur of the moment and get given a plastic bag. Waldo gives cause for more laughter than I. He caused great laughter the other week when I had pulled up outside a taverna where a group of men were enjoying a stag party lunch. because we had visitors and the car was full, Waldo got into the boot. They were surprised to see that he had cushions there and was well set up. And just to please them he did his 'nodding dog' imitation. In Potamos he had parked the car near the small supermarket. As he was crossing the road to go to the electrical shop he noticed a grasshopper in the road. Fearful that the little thing would get run over he decided to move it. With no fly swatters to hand he just stamped his foot close behind the grasshopper which immediately took off, leaped in the air and landed a few feet away, still in the road. So Waldo repeated his stamping. Grasshoppers, as we have already found out, have no sense of direction. Thus is took quite a bit of stamping and hopping to zigzag out of harms way. By this time Waldo had an audience of people from the supermarket, the bakers shop, in the kafenion on the square and a motorist patiently waiting for the stamping mad man to get out of the road!

We settled back to the various tasks we had set ourselves for the rest of the day and decided to go out for a meal. The taverna on the Potamos platea has already packed up the tables, chairs and umbrella's on the square and reverted to the indoor space underneath the Bank of Greece. We set off with the intention of going there for a change. On the way down the mountain in the car we remembered that once into winter mode, not having to cater for tourists, Panaretos does not open until eight in the evening - and that would be early for most Greeks going out. We toyed with the idea of going to have a drink beforehand, but decided to forgo that, have an earlier meal and get back in time to watch an episode of Rumpole. Oh what a high life we live in our old age!

Panaretos will stay open during the winter so we can go there later on, but most of the tavernas in our village will close soon. We decided to go locally. Kaleris' taverna was laid out with three long tables; obviously they were expecting a large party. We continued on to Stella's; she does the best cheese pies on the island and her grilled courgette in batter, sprinkled with the Greek equivalent of Parmesan cheese is to die for. It is the last week of Danish tourists, the Dutch all went home and their tourist operation closed last Monday. The Danes will go on Sunday. There were a few tables taken by these tourists and, as usual, a collection of cats moved from table to table as unwanted food was dropped for them.

We headed for the opposite corner. A few of our visitors always get talking to people on the beach, people in the bars or in tavernas. We never invite such conversation, being more than happy with our own company. We do not feel the need to communicate with strangers. Besides on the rare occasions when they open lines of communication with us, we end up saying the same old things; where to go in Kythera, the weather on the island and general comments of tourist information. We are reluctant to speak about the fact that we have a home here. Perhaps we fear visitors, perhaps we fear being used in some way, perhaps we are intolerant of the superficiality of tourists, or perhaps we are just rude and eccentric and crabby in that we just like our own company and want visitors on our own terms, those who are close friends and worth spending time with.

We were just tucking into our starters when I could see a familiar figure walking along the road. It was Louli, our builder. He and his family are now living and working in Athens where they do not seem to be short of work, despite the economic climate. I wave and he comes over to greet us. After the usual greetings we invite him to join us, which he does. His Greek is excellent and he is beginning to add a few English words to his vocabulary. Nevertheless the evening's conversation relies on me being able to understand and translate what Louli says and to translate Waldo's contributions to the conversation. It is rather staccato and very tiring by we manage to cover a range of topics from his family, new baby and parents; the cost of living in Athens compared with Kythera and Cardiff; our newly found road down to Aghia Marina and the stone house being built there; the work that Louli is doing now in Kythera and where he is staying; the disruption of the riots; the Greek government, Angela Merkel's visit and the troika; Albanian economic development; Albanian tsipouro versus Greek tsipouro (this is a very strong liqueur made commercially but prefered from local sources where it is stilled after the making of ouzo from the must, twigs and remains of grapes mixed with wild herbs and raw alcohol); and we reminisce over various times when Louli and members of his family have done various projects for us around the house and land. It is a pleasant evening but I am exhausted.

Louli invites us to have dinner with him again in two days time and we look forward to that. Just as we get up to go, I see one of the cats coming into the taverna with something in her mouth. At first I thought it was a rat, but then as she put it down at my feet I could see that it was an extremely young kitten. The little thing could not be more than 15 days old and it appeared to be the first day that it could see. I did not reach down to touch the kitten for I knew the mother would be very protective of it, but I felt pleased that she had brought the kitten for me to see. Very quickly I realised that I actually had nothing to do with. One of the other cats came running up to our corner. She miaowed and rubbed noses with the mother and then went over to sniff and lick the kitten. Within seconds about four other cats had joined us. All greeted the mother in the same way and then went to inspect the kitten. It really was such human behaviour to watch, it was clear that the mother had brought her kitten out for the other cats to see. The kitten was being introduced to Stella's taverna cat family. The poor little thing was rather frightened with all these big cats reaching out for it. It kept moving backwards. Just like any group of females some of the cats paid due attention to the kitten and then went on with their work of hunting for scraps, most stayed and purred and miaowed with the mother and two just kept playing with the kitten. Eventually they gave the little thing space, but by this time it had back up to such an extent that its back legs and bottom had fallen over the edge of the wall. Stella's taverna overlook the harbour and the floor of the taverna ends in a wall which drops straight down to the harbour walkway. the kitten clung on to the hard concrete, its eyes wide. Gradually it started to sink until just two little paws, a nose and big bright eyes could be seen until the inevitable happened and it disappeared.

Waldo-the-animal-lover immediately ran out of the taverna, around the corner, down the slope and onto the harbour walk-way. The mother cat was still with her friends and relatives, unaware of what had happened. One of the cats that had been playing with the kitten immediately turned to the mother cat, the other followed Waldo but instead of going to the harbour walk way, the small animal moved along a ledge at the side of the taverna. Waldo could not find the little animal. As the winter approaches and sea breeze at night brings a chill with it, all the tavernas unroll large plastic walls. These come from the ceiling, and in Stella's case well past the floor to ensure no draughts, but the clear plastic still allows a view over the harbour. The little kitten, being no weight was wedged by the heavy plastic and held against the wall.  The other cat, a large, strong looking ginger tabby could see this and was at the end, frantically reaching her paws in. It was calling to the kitten which managed to crawl towards the cat. The mother cat was now aware that something had happened and was by my feet spitting and growling at me as if it was my fault. The kitten eventually emerged at the end, but the cat was not able to catch hold of the little thing before it started to fall towards the concrete walkway below. But Waldo-the-hero was there and grabbed the frightened animal by the scruff of the neck.

Louli and I clapped as Waldo came back into the taverna, kitten in hand and large ginger cat by his side. The mother cat ran towards him and rubbed against his legs; she sensed that he was being kind and not a threat. Waldo put the frightened kitten down on the floor and the mother cat took over with licks and soft purring. The other cats, not wishing to frighten the little thing any more just stood and watched. We all walked out onto the road and bade our farewells.

Waldo and I were amazed at the human emotions displayed by the cats. If we had not witnessed it ourselves we perhaps would not have quite believed it possible. But it does make you wonder whether these communities of strays are enjoying a better quality of life with kinship and companionship of their own kind, rather than the life of a single cat being forced to live like a human being. These cats are always well fed and in Stella's case they have adequate shelter. They do not need to fight for scraps and look quite healthy. They certainly care for each other in ways that some humans could learn from.