Rooftop Tales

 Somehow I think this is going to be another long one..... 

NZers will totally understand.

Another 'must do' for our visitors has been a drink on daughter Elli's rooftop to admire the view and sunset. It took a bit of organising this time.  It's tax season and Elli works till 9pm or later every night.  Her summers are non-existent.  Every year tax returns are supposed to be finished by the end of June but every year the deadline is extended, sometimes to the end of July, sometimes to August.  That doesn't leave her much time for anything else. 

This is our old house above the harbour.  We built a wall around the flat rooftop and attached a rather frighteningly steep spiral staircase.  When we had people to eat up there I used to haul things up and down in a basket on a rope. 

 Elli has no time for all that and sits on her lower balcony instead and enjoys the cool of the night, and a gin, once she eventually gets home.

She and husband Kyriakos did clean it up though for her kiwi aunt and uncle so we could all watch one sunset.  We had drinks and nibbles while the sun went down.  It was a bit cloudy but just lovely.

The girls with kiwi Uncle

So much bla bla bla and laughter when they all get together

Me and my kiwi s-in-law Rainy

She sorts me out, gets me organised, fills in the english words that I've forgotten and mixes the gin 😊 I need a smiley face there. 

Our kiwi friends, Sherryn and Gary,  brought us a bottle of Prosecco too. Nothing but the best 😀 another smiley face 

We bought a big bag of ice at the supermarket and tipped it into a big thermos (chilly bin/eski) to ice the drinks and keep the beer cold.  

With Greek chips and kiwi dip it was perfect. 

My family knows what we like. They filled up their suitcases with onion soup mix and special kiwi reduced-cream-in-a-tin to make a taste of home.   There's nothing that says home more than a potato chip/crisp dipped deep into a bowl of classic kiwi onion dip.

And lamington mix, Raro drink mixes and kiwi fish batter in a packet, real NZ vanilla essence, chocolates, sauces and a host of other tastes of home. Not just for me but for my girls too who were taught very early on to enjoy 'foreign' food. 

We came for a Poros view

It was the company that kept us there, discussing everything from Greek funeral customs to NZ rowing. Our friends' son coaches the NZ Women's Olympic Rowing team. They quizzed Poppi on Greek rowing and she was overjoyed to be given a NZ rowing outfit from the Tokyo Olympics. 

The next time she rows in Athens she'll be wearing kiwi colours. Another smiley face perhaps 😊

As s-in-law Rainy says, we get on so well together it's a pity we live so far away.  We need to move Poros down somewhere near Fiji.

Pink and white bougainvillia in full bloom

And this my friends, is a Pohutukawa, the New Zealand Christmas tree.  Elli bought it thinking it was an olive tree, until it bloomed.  The leaves are very similar but this is Not an olive tree.

In NZ of course it blooms in December, here it blooms in June.  She is delighted.  

The puzzle is, how a Pohutukawa tree came to be in a nursery in Greece?

Panoramic view of all of us

Pallet benches and tables and a couple of comfy directors' chairs for the oldies.

*I only wrote the word 'kiwi' 8 times, 9 now. I'm loving it 🤩