Summer Time

First the weather report.  Heatwave gone, new heatwave on the way. 

Flora and Fauna -

So many swallows this year.  It has been many years since we saw lines of them sitting on the wires, swooping and diving in the evening.  And K says they're eating all the mosquitoes.  That's why the mosquitoes aren't eating us.

I like swallows.  They're a delightful bird to see flitting past in the twilight with their long streamer tails.  They bring good luck, so some say.

My pumpkins have grown all over the garden, have produced loads of flowers but I don't see any maturing pumpkins.  They start to grow, get to a few inches in length, turn yellow and drop off the vine.  I've started pruning them back.  It's a waste of time watering so many.

Cherry tomatoes are being gathered by the bucketful.  Their skins are tough so I puree and freeze them to use in sauces and saltsas.

Church fiestas are being celebrated one after the other.  

Watching the Olympics. Didn't think much of the opening ceremony. It went on for far too long and we didn't understand what it was all about. The commentator didn't explain it all very well. Enjoyed seeing all the teams sailing past. So many small African States and a lot from the Pacific. I was pleased I knew so many. 

We don't get much variety in the coverage. Rowing in the morning, swimming and tennis and gymnastics later on. Greece and NZ are doing well. 

I am watching the NZ rowing with great interest. The coach of the NZ women's fours is the son of friends who visited us earlier this year. The final is on Thursday. We will be cheering for Tom and his girls. 

I had a rare, in this summer heat and madness, coffee with my best friend. It was a good day with coffee turning into a glass of wine and plate of meze, cheese pies, sausages, cheese and other tempting bites. We caught up on news and swapped books. 

The island has gone crazy.  I had forgotten how much till I went shopping last week.  Coming down into town in my car a woman suddenly opened the door of her car parked opposite the little grocers.  Her husband appeared from the other side and sauntered out into the middle of the road.  Neither looked nor cared. I slammed on my brakes.  The rude git had the audacity to turn round and yell at me.  These were Greeks.  Rude city greeks who think this little island and it's peasants are there to serve them.  I hope they're being ripped off at every place they eat and shop.

There were cars and bikes and people everywhere.  The grocers actually had a queue, the supermarket was full of yachties with overflowing trolleys.  Lord give me patience.  One month to go.

Join the Navy

The Poros Navy Beach Canteen, run by the Navy Training School,  opened for the summer season at the end of June, once all the conscripts had left.  The next batch won't be back till September when it might possibly be a little cooler.

We have been down there a few times with family and friends.  It's our summer hang-out and we eat and drink at the Canteen a couple of times a week.  It's subsidised of course and a fraction of the price of the island's tavernas.  

K always finds an old Navy cohort with whom to reminisce, though 'some recollections may vary'. 

Anyone visiting in July or August, is taken there in the evening. This canteen beside the sea provides a simple and tasty meal.  Greek salad, various meats on a skewer, tzatziki, pita bread,  pizza and cheese pies along with beer, wine or soft drinks.

It's open all day, serves coffee and sandwiches,  and has an organised beach with umbrellas and loungers and a lifeguard.  

Identities are checked.  I'm usually OK. The officers there know me either because they're locals or because K quickly becomes well known and 'I'm with him'.  However I'm very obviously a foreigner and I have been asked on a couple of occasions, in English, 'what am I doing there'.  Politely.  'I'm with him!!' 

Looking out at the empty beach in the evening

The presentation has gone up a notch this year.

We have little wire baskets for the fried potatoes and wooden trays for the souvlaki.  

We are though, still given paper plates and unless we ask for proper glasses we will be given paper ones.  And we still clean up our table at the end, bundle up the leftover salad and tzatziki, paper dishes and empty cans in the paper table cloth and throw it all in a big bin.

We won't be complaining.  The two of us can eat and drink for 10 euros.

Each table also has a 'night light' for romantic dining.

More of Summer Life

 10th day of the heatwave and more to come. It's now uncomfortably hot at night and midday it's scorching. We spent the last 4 days beside the sea. It's cooler but tiring being there all day, in and out of the sea. Today we are staying home and will spend the midday hours in an air conditioned room. I need to do some home work. Washing, cooking and a very little cleaning.

Every day the main mountain road is blocked by the Municipality.  Only residents  can move through the area.  Beside us there is land full of long dry grass, we are right next to olive groves and only a stone's throw from acres of pine forest. There has been a steady breeze most days but today it's blowing a gale. The fire warnings are on red alert. 

  We took down our big sun umbrella. The wind was threatening to tear it to pieces. The washing I hung out dried  in half an hour.  

Fire fighting planes drone overhead several times a day either looking for fire or on their way to put one out.

WELCOME

POROS

ISLAND

Fried peppers from our garden

Plain or stuffed with feta cheese.

Cro, on his  blog (Magnon's Meanderings) the other day, pictured his lunch plate with  fried  green peppers. His were padron peppers from Spain. 

I picked some green papers from our garden and began frying some for us.  It took 30 secs to remember why I don't fry peppers.  They spit hot oil all over me and the kitchen.  A minute later they were out of the frying pan, into a baking dish and in the oven.  15 minutes later and they were ready to eat. They had a thin coating of oil and all they needed was salt.

Both K and I preferred the ones without the feta.  They were nice hot and later cold.

We ate them as-is although  I thought of drizzling over  some balsamic vinegar with honey. 

A piece of watermelon skin

and a scarab beetle

 K saw on Facebook a photo of a piece of watermelon skin  with a bunch of scarab beetles feeding on it.  

I thought maybe we could feed a few of them too.   We always have a scarab beetle or two whirling round our heads in the evening. However, ours don't like watermelon.  This one on the watermelon is actually dead and the brown spots are seeds from the peppers.  

Scarab beetles land and overturn themselves.  They are very fragile.  I turned this one over so it could fly away but must have been a bit heavy handed.  It never moved again.

Alas Poor Scarab

Today we have been advised there is a water shortage.

No washing of cars or watering gardens.

I shall give my pumpkins a little each day, using a watering can, not the hose. 

For the rest it will be survival of the fittest

 

The Heat's Still On

Train tracks outside the city of Patras (a bit further north from us) melted and twisted in this heatwave.   Trains have stopped running of course.  Repairs will begin immediately..... when weather permits.  It happens now and again.  Passengers will be bussed onwards. 

We spent hours at the beach yesterday.  From morning till almost night.  There was no power cut in the end but we enjoyed a nice cool day by the sea anyway. In and out of the sea.

The road above us was blocked off because of the high risk of fire, as it is today.  So the beach was quiet.  There were 3 big catamarans out in the bay but for once there were no jet skis making waves to swamp our sunchairs.  The only cars that came down were  locals like us looking for some respite from the heat in the cool waters of Vayonia Bay.

Kosta learnt all the news from some very talkative neighbours and I finished my book.

The sea unfortunately was dirty, full of plastic, watermelon skins and disagreeable pieces of seaweed. Not enticing but we had to swim. The north wind was blowing them onto the main beach so our little side cove was cleaner.

On the night of the UEFA  football final our rooftop cinema showed the match on the big cinema screen.  All for free.

It was Spain v England.  Spain  won 2-1, kicking the last vital goal just a few minutes before full time.

Hundreds turned up and  the spirit of the Poros fans equaled that of the crowd at the actual stadium in Berlin.  So I read. Singing, chanting, cheers of joy and moans of disbelief.  

Spain might have won the Cup but both English and Spanish fans at Cine Diana had a great time.   So did the cinema's neighbours.  At least there was no extra time.  Sounds from a rooftop carry a long way and it went on till midnight.

We watched the game at home on our balcony with the fan on full and K giving a very critical commentary on the refs decisions and the players performances.

It's over!

The Olympics are getting closer 

 

Life in the Heat

 It's hot today.  Very hot.  It was hot yesterday and it will be extremely hot till July 21st and possibly even later in the month.  We learn to live with it, live without aircondition as much as possible and survive.  This too shall pass.

Nights so far have been bearable with open windows, mosquito screens, and a fan.  We sit out on the balcony at night watching TV, greek 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire' till 10pm and possibly a film or European athletic matches.  We have a fan out on the balcony as well but it blows warm air till around 10.30 when finally it seems to get a tad cooler.

I drink litres of homemade sugarfree icetea and K drinks water by the gallon, along with his wine and raki.

Aircondition has to be turned on for the afternoon siesta.   By midday the house, inside and out, is a furnace.  We keep cool from around 2 till 5, inside our one cooled down room and then go down to the beach till 8 or 9.  The only way to cool down a body is to dip it in the sea.  Even if the sea is warm, as it is now, it brings relief.  The core temperature of the body is lowered considerably and we once again feel like human beings.  We are lucky living on an island near the sea.

Tomorrow there will be a power cut from 9am till 2pm so we will have to change our routine.  I'll have to get up a little earlier, water the garden, tidy the house, which is of course full of dust.  We don't close windows even if we are going out shopping or down to the beach.  I doubt if anyone has the energy to burgle us at the moment.  We lock the doors and leave the windows and shutters open with flimsy fly screens.  It's a joke really.

Tomorrow I'll make a couple of flasks of coffee and put them in the chilly bin (cooler) along with a bottle of water, a couple of beers for K and some ice packs, and we'll head to the beach.  I suppose he'll want a sandwich too.  I can manage that but not much else

Our spot under the trees.  

I sit and read.  

K finds a local to talk with.  He learns all the gossip and tells quite a bit of his own.  I wonder if the others embellish as much as he does.  He loves story telling.

I keep my nose in my book and mutter 'yes, of course dear, that's the way it was', trying not to roll my eyes, when I'm asked for confirmation.

Sometimes a group of be-hatted friends stand out in the sea for hours, feet just touching bottom,  discussing fishing and the navy and heaven knows what. 

 I can hear the murmur of voices, the bleating of goats amongst the pine trees on the rocky slopes opposite and laughter echoing from the yachts anchored in the Bay. 

Blessed peace.

So far no noisy quad bikes. 

Touch wood. 

And only happily splashing young children. 

I swim when I arrive, do a slow breaststroke across the bay and back. Then I spend the rest of the time drying out. I hate sitting in wet togs but there's no where to change.

I hang my towel on a branch of the tree hanging out over the water. It's amazing how fast it dries. Togs (bathers, swimsuit) take longer. 

We come home a little tired. I'm sleeping much better lately despite the heat. 

Plumeria

  The Plumeria is flowering now on the island.  It's gorgeous and the sweet scent is intoxicating.

My granddaughters picked some one evening and put it behind their ears.  They all walked into the taverna looking most alluring.   The lovely 'children' brought one for me too.  I appreciated the gesture even though mine kept falling out everytime I moved my glasses from top of my head to face. 

I googled and found plumeria is greek for the white frangipani.

I always thought of the franipani as an exotic plant which grew in Hawaii, a Caribbean island or Central America,  It does grow there and it grows well here too.  

At the moment my daughter's frangipani is a big bush but it could grow into a big tree.

If you wear it behind the right ear it means you are single.  Behind the left that you are taken.

I'm taken already.  

We have had more visitors this week.  Two lots .  All greek, and not staying with us.

Hence our taverna visit.

Nice to see them, nice to wave goodbye.

The heat is rising and I'm in zombi mode

 

Bouboulas and Other Wildlife

These little grey bugs come out in the summer.  Wood lice I think.  They do no harm.  My girls, and their children later, loved giving them a gentle poke and watching them roll into a ball.

Here we call them bouboulas.

Two ants carrying a cat biscuit.  I watched fascinated as these two jiggled the cat biscuit along at a speedy pace.  I only just managed to get my phone out and take a pic before they disappeared into a crack in the corner of the terrace.

An excellent bit of team work

The fig tree at the top of the road. 

 It shed the first crop of small black figs, called brebas, and is now growing the next crop which will be ripe next month.

The figs used to disappear very quickly as soon as they looked soft, picked by passers-by.  However this tree was one of those pruned when the road was tarsealed and these branches hanging over the road have been cut right back.  The figs are all on the other side of the fence this year.   'Scrumping' them will be difficult.

Finally!

Broken water pipes and a road of potholes and trenches.

Thats been the story of our little cul de sac for the past 3 years

Fountains provided daily water to the wild goats

 

After endless pipe patching all the piping from one end to the other was eventually replaced. 

The goats moved on to other water sources.  I had got used to them making strange noises in the night while clambouring up the wall and pruning our lemon trees. I miss them. 

When pipes were laid and trenches closed we were promised the road would be tar sealed and we waited. 

Local elections gave us a change of Mayor. 

Same story. Next Monday, next week. 

Maybe they'd concrete the house entrances instead.

 Well, last week the bulldozer arrived and edges were smoothed out.  All the trees hanging over walls were severely pruned. I was so happy about that. Dodging overhanging branches while riding a motorbike can be a bit dicy, especially when road edges are an obstacle course. 

We parked the car at the top of the road. K made many phone calls to neighbours and kept everyone up to date with developments. 

It didn't happen quite on the day it was supposed to. But the road was finally covered in tar and sealed. 

Just look at this!! 

It took the 2 councils over 3 years to solve our wee problem but it's done. 

All thanks to K I might add. If he hadn't phoned them weekly over those years, accosted Mayor's and Councillors, accused them of treating us like 2nd class citizens, then the goats would still be enjoying their watering hole and we would be worrying about water metres and grumbling about water waste. 

It was all done in one day by a cheerful crew in blistering midday sun. K hovered to make sure it was all done correctly. By late afternoon we were driving over it. No melting tar, no dirty sandals. 

The road, without the hanging branches and with a smooth seal out to the edges is half as wide again. 

5 households have every reason to say 

'Bravo'