From Above

 One sunny day. Which is Not today. My granddaughters walked up to the Old Mill at the top of the hill. Beside the abandoned mill there is a little church too. And a wonderful view of the harbour and across to the mainland mountains.

Poros. On a sunnier winter's day

Today it's pouring 'chair legs',  thunder and lightening rumbling all around.

Great day for ducks 🦆🦆🦆

And olive trees

No gnomes today

My gnomes have gone away

......they shall return 

G'day Maties

Classic Eats

 

I made moussaka' for the family.

Layers of fried

Melitzanes (eggplant or aubergine )

Kolokythakia ( zucchini or courgettes )

And potato

Topped with ground beef in a tomato sauce, finished with a layer of cheese sauce 

Quite a bit of work . I cook the meat and fry the vegetables the previous day. Then put it all together and make the bechamel/cheese sauce.

Moussaka and Greek salad are the two most well known greek dishes . However neither of them are considered the national dish.

That's fassolatha, bean soup.

I baked it early in the morning but then had to deliver it down to their houses in town.

On the worst day of winter.

As they say here

'ti na kanoume'.

And a shrug.

What could I do. We had to take the food down while it was still warm. 

The rain had been coming down like kareklopodara (ha, try saying that!), chair legs, or cats and dogs .

 We did it. Dragging s-in-law Kyriakos out of his house to grab the oven tray, covered in foil and a plastic bag, and run back up the slippery marble steps.  I got drenched in a minute and so did he.

The football field which is at sea level had turned into a swimming pool . The road round the back of the island called Turkodromos, Turkish road, was closed because of rock falls. The harbour road was flooded and water rushed down the stone steps like a series of waterfalls cascading down to the sea .

Dear granddaughter Luli loves moussaka. The 'stage coach' battled the blizzard and delivered the 'mail'. 

Meantime in Athens granddaughter Nels made a big baking pan of pastitsio, Greece's other favourite. Something to stick to the ribs and warm you up in the winter....or summer.

It's a layer of thick tubed macaroni with a tomato and ground beef sauce topped with lots of cheesy bechamel.

What a Beautiful Pussy You Are

 12 days ago

It was a quiet, enjoyable day. Without fuss. Without bother. I dressed up a little.

New Year's Day 

Not at our house!

Some of us went to eat at the slightly more classy restaurant we discovered only 10 minutes across the water, and straight down the road

Photo - 

Elli and Luli 

Enjoying a first course.

 Boiled vegetables with a little olive oil

Cheese pies 

And a huge pile of  fried potatoes, eaten, gone

Jamie  with his new look

And Papous looking on

This eating place is a little above your normal taverna.  The food is excellent, the wine very drinkable, quick service.

Low music. No loud voices.

Extremely reasonable prices. Full of Poros people, friends and acquaintances enjoying, like us, good company and good food. 

It's cheaper than a Poros taverna even after paying return tickets for 2 cars on the ferry.

Fresh little cakes served afterwards were offered 'on the house'. 

After our meal we found a handy place for smokers outside on the porch. 

Elli noticed all the smokers were female. A big change from days gone by when it was almost exclusively males who smoked. 

Gossip time!

 

Back to Elli's house to cut the New Year's cake. Vassilopita

With a cup of coffee

The lucky coin

Not wrapped up in a five pound note* but a bit of silver foil. 

We missed you D

The owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea

In a beautiful pea-green boat

They took some honey and plenty of money

*Wrapped up in a five pound note 

The owl looked up to the stars above

And sang to a small guitar

'Oh lovely Pussy, oh Pussy, my love

What a beautiful Pussy you are

You are

You are

What a beautiful Pussy you are'. 

- Edward Lear

That's a few too many 'pussys' to be politically correct these days

Gn-omes

 My daughter sends  a 'good morning' to me and my other daughter every morning, via WhatsApp, along with a daily gnome. 

I like gnomes. I have a few in the garden. I've knitted a few too, Christmas gnomes. They're more popular than elves or reindeer these Xmases past. Called 'tomte' in Swedish, they help around the home and are rewarded with porridge. 

Anyway

Why does the English language have so many  oddities?

Gn is a digraph. That's from Greek of course, meaning double writing.

In English a digraph is 2 letters that make one sound.

Take gn

At the beginner of a word

Gnome

Gnash

Gnaw

It is pronounced as N.

At the end of a word 

Reign

Sign 

It is pronounced as N

However in the middle of a word

Recognise

Signal

Each letter is pronounced separately N G

This is just the tip of a slippery iceberg, the opening of a deep and convoluted  rabbit hole. 

All I can say is 'thank goodness ' I was born in an English speaking country and didn't have to learn it as a foreign language 

This fine gnome means something more to my long suffering family.

When I was going through my 'new-age stage' I used to chant at them

I am fine 

And my mind is fine

I am fine 

And my body is fine

I am fine

All around is fine

And drove them round the bend. It had a few more 'I am fines' and I had it on tape too.

Now I can laugh at myself. 

Clever Elli for finding this 'gnome of remembrance'. 

Light and Water

-  6th January. 

The end of the Christmas and New Year festivities. 

A public holiday here. Another 3 day weekend. And a very important Orthodox celebration. 

January 6th is................ 

- 12th Night

Depends . Elsewhere it could be January 5, the eve of Epiphany, or January 6

- Time to Dismantle the Xmas Tree

You'd better get your Xmas decorations down before the night of the 6th. It is said to bring bad luck and all the baggage from the previous year if you don't .My father used to say a wicked witch would come and cause havoc.

- Epiphany 

Commemorates the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River.

- Three Kings

Celebrating the visit of the 3 Kings to Bethlehem 

- Blessing of the waters. 

In Greece, on Poros, after the inevitable church service the Priests and bigwigs board a small boat and move out into the strait. A cross is thrown into the sea 3 times and the third time a group of hardy young people, mainly male, dive into the freezing waters to be the first to retrieve the cross. The lucky one is blessed by the Priest and is guaranteed a year of good luck. From what I remember he, or she, also gets a reward from the Mayor

- Also known as the 'Festival of Lights' or Theophania. 

- Name day for those named Fotis (male), Fotini (female) or Jordan

-Tomorrow

January 7  is the Feast of St John.

Name day for Yiannis or Yianna. John, Joan, Jan and Joanne. That's half of Greece. 

As they say here 'a house without a John is not a real home'. 

And the next day, the 8th, schools reopen. 

Grandson Jamie took the last hydro foil to Athens tonight to continue his studies. Along with a tupperware bowl of his Nanas meat pies and sweet bread filled with Nutella. The latter from the bakery.

New Year Pressies

 Neighbours have been popping in with homemade Xmas biscuits and bottles of this and that. All very welcome, more so by K.

2 x one and a half litre bottles Fousa wine. From a friend's small vineyard just down the road. Fousa is the name of the area.

Plus

5 litres of red wine from somewhere close by. That's for me because I enjoy red wine. When I'm drinking, which isn't often now.

Plus

*Raki 1 1/2 litres

Plus

1 litre of  raki made from 'moura' which I think are mulberries.

I tried a few drops of the mulberry raki. Usually can't stand the stuff. It's firewater. And the mulberry was firewater too. I won't be drinking anymore of that!!

*Raki

Distilled from the pips and skins leftover from the grape harvest.

It's antibacterial properties are thought to be good for digestion and gut health. I can imagine it killing 99.9% of all known germs and a good percentage of its drinkers. In the end.

Called raki in Crete.

Elsewhere known as either tsipoura or tsikoudia.

Plus

A bottle of ouzo 

Plus

3 bottles of wine from son in law. 

We shall be 'slow drinking' 

Drinking in moderation while enjoying good company , good food and conversation.

Says me

Oh hell! I just remembered the 60 litres of boxed wine that's outside in the K-shed. 

Have we got a certain reputation....... or what? 

I hope there will still be plenty for summer visitors. The real Greek experience. 

PS a few bottles of olive oil would have been nice too

2025

 NZers will soon be waking up to a sunny first morning of 2025.

Perth West Australia will be clicking over to their new year in less than half an hour.

Poros Greece, we have almost 6 hours to go. Plenty of time to make a Vassilopita, New Years cake with lucky coin, bake a loaf of bread with another lucky coin and cook some bifteki. 

K needs a hearty meze, snack, with his wine so he can get through to midnight without going to sleep. 

I probably will go to sleep. New Year's eve no longer excites me. 

Poros Harbour this morning was sunny and bright. There was happy Christmas music warbling out from speakers along the front. Groups of young children banging triangles and singing the New Years Carol.

The shops were brightly decorated, people everywhere calling out

Kali Chronia

Happy New Year

And

Chronia Polla

Many years..many happy returns.  

Playing quoits in the square with a friendly Elf

The Poinsettia, Alexandrino, in greek

Is the Xmas flower

If you've got very green fingers you may even be able to keep it alive for a few months 

Our good luck Boska

Hanging on the front gate

Wishing for you all in

2025

Good Health

Happiness

And Prosperity