Bugs and things

If these last few days are anything to go by then 2018 is going to be a year of extreme contrasts, ups and downs.

We started off  merrily with a party at the inlaws house in brilliant sunshine and the next day were bedridden with a stomach bug while it rained and blew a gale outside.

Someone in the extended family had the dreaded lurgy and it cleaned us all out like a pound of prunes.  We all kissed each other spiritedly as one does here and obviously it got passed on from cheek to cheek.  The only ones to miss out on the plague were the two youngest ones who (quite rightly) refuse to kiss anyone and some of the younger generation who hygenically only indulge in air kisses.

So after two days of herb teas and tentative spoonfuls of sloppy rice and lemon juice it seems a good time to start off again on the right foot and a healthy diet avoiding fatty pork, great measures of alcohol and sticky cakes.

A Cretan herbal tea with sage, dictamus and fliskouni (pennyroyal)

I salute a very healthy 2108 and hopefully a very hearty weight loss.    Celebrations don't need to be times of extravagence as we found out (with the rest of Greece) in 2010 and have slowly forgotten and you don't need alcohol or an overdose of sugar to express enjoyment and have fun.

The rogue herd of goats reappeared and spent much of a very wet morning munching the olive trees in the empty field next door.  I thought goats hated getting wet but I suppose if you're a free spirit, as these ones are, then you have no place to shelter.  There was a rumour that someone rounded them up, shot six of them for the freezer and let the rest go.  There are still twenty or more roaming freely if this is true.

On this wet and windy day the telephone people came along and put in a new pole for our english neighbour's Wifi connection.  They put in an application a year ago, or was it two?  Now they just need a wire laid across the last 20 metres.

Last, but indeed not least, I started to take down our Christmas decorations.  Hurray!   I was heartedly sick of them.  The tree is still up but that is being dismantled and will soon disappear into the storeroom too.

Good health to you all. I'm off to sit beside the fire, do some crochet and enjoy a cup of (milkless at the moment) tea.   I need an easy evening.  Tomorrow is another big day.  Epiphany.  But that's another story.