Olive and Vine

Quite a day today.  A morning of memories.   Whilst drinking my morning coffee a photo came in via Whatsap from my sister-in-law in New Zealand.  It looked as though the old family homestead was being sold.  It hasn't been in our family for over 50 years but we grew up there and have so many memories.  

There were messages zapping through the ether  between NZ, Australia, London and Greece.  Seems the kids knew better.  No it wasn't the old family home but the one next door, or was it?  That got us onto google and eventually we worked out which house had been the family home and I found photos of the interior and the gardens as it is today.  Exciting stuff!  

Some neighbours popped in with their coffee cup in hand and we discussed the day's work.  They are pruning their olive trees and this afternoon will be slaughtering little bunnies.  All in a days work if you have any sort of rural holding here.  The rabbits belong to our elderly neighbour Vaso and her children have decided it is too much work for her, so the bunnies must go.  Into the pot.  We'll be eating one of them on Sunday with stewed onions.

The olive tree we bought yesterday.  We are waiting for the same neighbour to come and dig a hole for it.  He can do that on Sunday before he sits down to eat the rabbit.

An olive tree this size  sells for 25 euros at our local garden shop.  Daylight robbery. We bought this for 6 euros

The bottle of red wine.  It wasn't such a bargain after all.  The bottle is only 1 1/2 litres, not 2 as I thought.  It is a nice light, dry red.  Very drinkable.  I had a glass and a half with lunch.  Stir fried vegetables with a few noodles thrown in.  K is still eating the left over bbqed pork from Sunday.  Today it was helped down by a greek salad and some leftover tzatziki.  

The rest will go to the neighbour's dogs.  It really is vital you get on with your neighbours here.  One helps the other.  They kill the rabbit, we cook it.  They provide the wine and the lemons.  We feed their dogs with pork bones.  K fixes their broken heater and gets their power back on when the oven trips the switch.    We get a handful of fresh eggs.  And so on.

I usually get bottles of red wine from them too but they didn't make red wine this year.  He juiced the red grapes and sold the juice.  There are not many around here that appreciate a good red wine.  

He has just popped in again to bring me a long handled cutter so I can gather the lemons at the top of the tree.  I asked him about the red wine and he says he has loads of last years and he'll bring me a few bottles.  Couldn't/wouldn't say 'no' to that!