Crime Wave!

Vaso has been robbed.  She has been very apprehensive these last few months after watching endless news stories of the elderly in Athens being beaten for a few euros and attacked in their own homes,  She puts a padlock on her gate when she's inside the house, not that it would keep out any serious robber.   And she watches very carefully who goes up and down our dead-end road, who they are and whether they check out the house as they whizz by.

We always reassure her that Poros is not Athens and she is safe living up here in the wop-wops all by herself, as she has for the last twenty years.  

But  robbers came in the middle of the night and took away 4 hens, a rooster and a big (female) turkey.  Naturally she was very upset and wanted to tell us all about her troubles, analyse this heinous crime and lay out her suspects for us to chew on.

She's sure there were two them with a big sack. It wasn't a dog  or wild animal because there was no trail of feathers and carnage.

But she came on the wrong day to get all our attention.  We had been 'robbed' too!  K had just been up to check our land and olive trees at the top of the island.  'Someone' had been up there with a truck, fixed up the road, 'pruned' the olive trees and hauled away the wood.  

'Someone' went to a lot of work.  Wood is an expensive commodity at this time of the year.  It wasn't long of course, in this small community, before he found out who was behind it all.

Vaso and K sat there with steam coming out of their ears, voices getting louder and more vehement with each stabbing accusation.

Vaso doesn't know the identity of her chicken thief but she has a few offenders in mind.  She can't prove anything but K hopes he can.  He has confronted the head of the gang, the wood cutter and the truck driver and been to police to file a complaint.  The wood has gone, squirreled away or already sold but he's pushing for them to clean up the land and plant new trees.  The old ones unfortunately have been 'pruned' almost down to the ground and an old spreading carob tree has been left looking like a xmas tree on the day it is chucked in the rubbish,  Such a pity. 

He could sue them for destruction of property and loss of income from the trees but it would probably take five years for the case to come to court.  
Easier for them to compensate by doing some work on the land. 
Except for the 'mastermind',  This smart arse  owned land up there once upon a time.  He sold it 20 years ago but knows that it is an isolated area.  He blames the wood cutter who cut the wrong trees but they are all the 'wrong' trees.  None are his to cut.  They must have made almost a thousand euros out of the wood.  Around here olive wood is considered the best for  firewood.

Vaso is ill and snuggling up in her bed in this freezing weather.  It was her name day on New Years day and we called her but are waiting for her to recover to go up and have a few glasses of raki with her and discuss this terrible business once again.

We are in the grips of storm Raphael.  Snow is covering the hills around Athens and we heard it was snowing on the next island of Aegina.  I keep peeking out the window hoping to see a snowflake here.   It is very early in the year for such bad weather.  Climate change!

Actually I see this is a second storm named Sofia. She'll be hanging around for a few days. We've got enough firewood, olive wood but not our own.  Hope the raki holds out!