Hot Peppers

 Little what-nots....................

My salt container.  Pink salt.  Himalyan probably.  It's unrefined and sold very cheaply in the supermarket.  I love the taste.  When we go to the Navy taverna they only provide salt if you ask and they put a little in a plastic glass.

You can't eat fried potatoes or souvlaki without salt so I carry this now in my handbag. Always handy to have salt in your bag. 

Three red hot peppers given to me by a neighbour.

I already have these in the garden.  They come up by themselves every summer.  I told him I didn't want any more but he appeared with these 3.  So we have red hot chilli peppers growing all over the garden, in pots, and planted amongst the tomatoes and pumpkins

A scarab beetle came along and landed on K during a church service.

A sign?

But of what.  

They are symbols of rebirth, transformation and growth,

prosperity and good fortune.

They give protection to the living, guide the dead to afterlife.

He's pretty well covered then, in this life or the next

View of the bay below us. You can see the hills around Athens on the far horizon.

Thanks to neighbour Giolanta

Festivals

 Summer church fiestas come one after another in July and August. 

We're counting down to 15th August, the biggest holiday of all. The country closes down. 

Many attend church services, especially at a Monastery or church with an icon of the Madonna which performs miracles.

  Islands in the Cyclades are known for their celebrations. Every village sets up chairs and tables in the main Square. There will be live music, local specialities on the menu, wine and song. Greeks and foreigners dance through the night. 

15th August is the celebration of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary.  It is an important festival in the Orthodox church but also all across Catholic Europe.

On July 26  the church across the valley from us, dedicated to Saint Paraskevi, a female saint who is a protector of the eyes has a service of celebration.   K always attends one or both of the services. This year we went together to the early morning one.  It was cooler than the evening liturgy. 

Poppi with Evita and Luli 

Kneading the dough

Last year 2 of the granddaughters and a friend of theirs had a sleepover.  The girls made a loaf of Holy bread and took it down the next morning.

  This year I didn't make any bread at all.  There is a tradition at these services to bring a loaf with a special Holy stamp and 5 sweet loaves representing the 5 loaves that fed the 5,000.  Was it 5,000.  I have baked these in years gone by and we have taken them to the church along with 3 candles and an offering of olive oil.  In days of yore.  

It's easier to order them from a local bakery or grocer.  

Because of the fire hazard there was a road block about a kilometre from the church.  Cars were stopped but they were allowed to park and everyone had to walk down.  Honestly, if someone wanted to throw a match into the forest it would have been easier if they were on foot.

There was a huge uproar that evening because the taverna next to the road block had live music and roast pig and everyone and their dog were allowed through.

Everyone sits or stands outside.  First of all because it's cooler and secondly because there is only room inside for Priests, chanters and a handful of worshippers.

The service is broadcast by loudspeaker for those outside, which is why we can hear it across the valley at our place

Three mighty cypress trees.  There are half a dozen planted around the church.  

The icon of the Saint decorated with flowers.

As you come come down you pay a few cents and buy a simple beeswax candle, light it and place it in a container of sand before kissing the icon and crossing yourself 3 times.  Or at least that's what K does.

After that he's free to greet friends and neighbours 

One of our bossy neighbours came along muttering about fire hazards and blew all the candles out.  Self-important git.  

There was a murmur of disapproval as he put out the candles but everyone knows him and it was not the time or place to start an argument.  He got blasted later on Facebook.    

Yes. there was/is a fire risk but the candles were not unattended and are only allowed to burn till the end of the service.

Elderly neighbour Vaso came down the steps escorted by her daughter. All the neighbourhood turns up at these yearly services.  She found a chair beside me and we had a quick natter and watched with amusement the flock of young children leaping gleefully up and down the steps.  There were 3 families with about 5 children each.

K nudged me, as he always does, when it was time to stand up, or the priest was to appear swinging the incense burner.   It lets off clouds of aromatic smoke.  

There were baskets and baskets of sweet bread and Holy bread.      This time I  remembered to bring a roomy handbag and a large plastic bag.  I filled up the plastic bag with big chunks of various breads.  As did everyone else I might add.

Some of it was really nice, soft and sweet.  Some loaves had a lot of aniseed and mastiha (a greek spice) in them.  I got a good selection.  Kept in the fridge away from ants they provided K with breakfast for many days.

Further down the hill are the remains of a nunnery.  I don't know much about it's history but it has been gone for many years.  All that's left is the well and a few foundation stones.

Saints' Fiesta Days

JULY

17th Saint Marina

20th Profit Elijah

25th Saint Anna

27th  Agios Panteleimon (male saint)

AUGUST

6th Agios Sotiras (male saint)

15th Virgin Mary

26th Natalia and Adrianos (that's my Luli's name day)

27th Agios Fanourios (male saint) the finder of lost items

30th Saint Alexander

Those are the days of celebration for the more important Saints.  There are quite a few others

  

Look at This

A few bits and piecesMy daughter Elli introduced me to something newCigarette etiquette When you open a new packet...... Which most of you will never doYou turn one cigarette upside down and make a wish.  Then you leave this for last. I followed her instructions.... and took it out absentmindedly and lit the damn thing at the wrong end. Typical. I've stopped smoking cigarettes and vape instead.  Sparingly. Neither habits are cheap, or healthy, but I can buy vapes without nicotine and with interesting flavours. Salted caramel, g & t. 

From niece Niki in NZHere we had tzatziki crisps but I've never seen souvlaki flavoured, and extra crunchy

From Grandaughter NelsLast night's sunset, a brilliant orange .  The sky all afternoon was covered in smoke from wildfires around Athens and produced these intense colours as the sun went down. The shop where Nels is working this summer makes their own ice cream. They're working on gin and tonic and Pina colada ice cream. Her boss is a master baker and avant garde ice cream maker, the best on the island.Yesterday was one of the hottest yet.  At 11pm we were down at the harbour drinking 'coffee'. It was still very hot and sweaty with hardly a breeze. It was a lovely evening anyway with Poppi and her Mum and Dad. Today isn't much better but tomorrow the heat will let up a little. We hope. 8pm now and there's a hot wind and little relief. 

From the Facebook group Hellenic World

A Bit Hot Today

 Everyday's a scorcher.  I don't know why they bother with the weather forecast.  It's hot hot and more hot.  We really don't want to hear about record highs.

Builders, couriers and other outdoor workers have been told to stop work by 11. 

The Acropolis is closed from 12 till 5.

Back at the Navy beach again. Coffee, cold water and a dip in the sea. There is a cool breeze again today.

 This evening's temperature is lower, just a wee bit, and at 8pm it is comfortable to sit and watch our outdoor tv. 

The cicadas are still going strong 

Ants have been out in force.  They are more aggressive when rain is on the horizon but I think these high temperatures affect them the same way. Now that we are in the middle of the heatwave they've retreated. Not completely, but they're not on constant crumb patrol .

Greek Heatwave

 The heat is tiring, even now at 8pm it's sweltering. The fan inside blows air so hot it feels as though we are living in a sauna. 

We siested in an air conditioned bedroom and then emerged hoping to find a breath of cooler air on the terrace.  It's only slightly cooler. 

I have no idea what the temperature is here. I'm watching the news. The heatwave is the main item. 45o in some parts of the country. Worse tomorrow. 

It's fine if you're on holiday though I'm not so sure about the Brits. They're so white and then turn redder than lobsters. Painful. Not to mention dangerous. They don't seem to understand the strength of the sun. 

At home clothes have to be washed, hung out and brought in, but not ironed. They dry in half an hour. Food has to be prepared, gardens watered. Most housework is put on hold. I mopped our tiled floors yesterday. Dust builds up when all the windows and doors are open. Not something that's on my 'to do' list. 

Early this morning I made stuffed tomatoes and a zucchini. Quick and easy. Enough for 2 days and delicious eaten cold from the fridge.

Later we went down to the Navy beach.

Sun umbrellas and sun chairs free.

There was a breeze which I could almost call cool.

We stayed there till 2 and went home for a siesta.

Tomorrow we will probably do the same

I sit and read. 

Love the way they put 'new' on the front cover. It was, back in 2009.

It's a good light read that I can put down and pick up between swims, people watching and sips of iced coffee.

Around a Summer Garden

 The midsummer garden

 The ground is brown and dry. Still, some plants are loving the sun....... and surviving with constant watering 

This was a good start. 

I'm picking a handful every day

All the tomatoes this year seem to be cherry varieties. Most of the plants came up by themselves from leftover salad I buried in pots. 

All the skins are very tough. They're not great eating. I remove the skins and make relish. 

While my brother and sis-in-law were here they bought a 750gram tomato from the supermarket.  One tomato 3 greek salads.  Nothing unusual for green fingered Rainy.  She's grown a 650 gram tomato in her garden in New Zealand

My pot of basil is lovely green and bushy

These tiny lemons are falling off the trees already rotten.  Not a good year for lemons.   

Only good for the compost

My bonsai bougainvillia.  I clip the new shoots every day.  It grows like mad and if I leave it a few days the branches have thorns long enough to rip my arms to pieces.  I already get attacked by the roses and the lemon trees. My right arm is a mess of gashes and bruises.

This bougainvillia is white and doesn't bloom till about mid September.  Even though I keep on clipping away at it the plant will be covered in thick white blossoms till the end October

Scarab beetles love watermelon rind.  

Here they're known as GoldenFlies.  They're great big clumsy things.  They fly around us at dusk and often end up on their backs when they fly into something.  They are easily traumatised and have to be turned up the right way very carefully.

Pumpkins are slowly growing all over the garden

Cicadas start their shrill noise at 5.30am.  Their noise increases till by midday its deafening.  They finally go quiet just after dusk.  Then we can hear the soft burr of the crickets.

Temperatures are rising again. It's going to be a week of blistering heat. 

Kiwi Recipe

 This is a question for NZers who read my blog.

Back in the 60s my mother made a marvellous curry.  Chicken, lamb or beef curry?  I can't remember.

She served it with rice of course and side dishes of dessicated coconut and banana.

It must have been quite exotic back then. It was certainly a family favourite.

I have the *Edmonds cookery book and there's a curry recipe there.  My old book, 1982 and falling to pieces, has a recipe for lamb or beef curry.

It has..... 

Meat

Dripping

Onion

Apple chopped 

Flour for thickening 

Curry powder 

Chutney 

OXO beef cube

And I've made it over the years trying to get the right taste by adding

Tomatoes

Marmalade or Apricot jam

Orange rind and

1 tablespoon of vinegar

I've never served it with coconut and banana because I thought my greek family would turn up their noses.  

My brothers Richard, Paul and Tony maybe have something to add.

I have many of her recipes books but none of them have the authentic recipe we all loved.

Nowadays it would be made with coconut milk, tamarind and heavens what else.  We want the old classic.

I'm really interested to see if anyone has something similar.  

*This cookery book was first printed in 1956.  It's still being updated and I now have a newer version. Thanks to kiwi visitors.

It's a favourite kiwi cookery book which I'm sure most NZ cooks will have in their kitchen. 

My daughters have copies too and we all use it. 

Stag Moon Rising

 A full moon party

The grandsons did a change of lock on our car. It's handy having mechanics in the family. The electronic locking system has been faulty for months.  The doors were fixed and we hoped that included the boot. It didn't.  Last week we filled the boot with 6 packs of water, got home and the damn thing would not open. We were in the middle of a heatwave and couldn't leave them there. Down came the back seats and we dragged them out.

K immediately ordered a new lock.  He wasn't going to trust the garage where the other work was done. 

Grandsons climbed in over the back seats and opened the boot, unscrewed, replaced, and sat down for a beer. Problem solved.

Thanks kiddos. 

More grandchildren arrived and Papous began bbqing.  More beers, lots of tzatziki, and Pitta bread. 

Daughter Elli and husband turned up with a bottle of Marlborough Sauv Blanc. 

She's an accountant , a good one. She has most of the island's english expats as clients and they know what to bring her when she sorts out their tax problems.

Elli and I are very happy and toast them as we drink.  This bottle was full of bold fruitiness.

We ate on our terrace, and watched the moon rise above the olive groves around Poseidon's temple 

Full moon rising

I finally remembered to give Jamie the marshmallow easter eggs our kiwi family had brought for him.  Reluctantly he let Elli and I have 1 or 2.  OMG.  The taste of Easter's passed 

They're a NZ speciality and tasted exactly as I remembered them from my childhood.

That's a street light behind him, not the moon

Full moon photos 

The Stag moon high over Poros town

Sunset the following night

2 nights later it was still a full moon and it appeared  a brilliant orange, making a moonlight pathway  over the sea

Thanks everyone for taking and sending me photos. I've trained them well.  Take photos of everything and send them to Nana for her blog.

Clearing the Forest

 A crew of municipal workers have trimmed all the tall tinder-dry grass on road sides.  The grass verges of our road were  so long it had almost narrowed to one way.

This year there is a gang of  eco cleaners cutting low branches up in the forest and clearing all the dry vegetation underneath.  They are always busy as we pass by and it looks as though they're doing a good job, trimming, cutting and hauling it away

The branches are hauled to the side of the road and this tractor comes along with a  chipper attached to its front and chops them all up into chips. The chips are piled up and taken away. 

I wonder what they do with them.  A huge compost pile?  I thought of going up and taking a bag or 2 for my garden but it was just too hot. 

All the undergrowth has been cleared

They've finished our area and are now clearing the top of the island where there's dense pine forest

Fire patrols by the Navy Base and volunteers are being carried out all through the night.  The fire brigade has a fire engine parked in our area during the day and fire trucks patrol  at night. 

On days of searing heat and high winds there is a road block where the fire risk is greater.  People are allowed to go up our mountain as far as the rural Paradise Taverna.. Further out are a few isolated houses, like ours, olive groves, a few rundown sheds for goats and pine forest.  Residents are allowed in and out but names and number plates are noted.

Everyone else, including tourists wanting to go down to the beach are turned back. 

Beside the sea

A social morning after a chance meeting with neighbours in the supermarket.  They were going for a beer and invited us along.   Summertime dining. Simple dishes eaten under shady trees with hopefully a light breeze.  Enough to rustle the leaves and ruffle the dark blue sea.

A long established family taverna

You can still go in and choose your meal from the trays of traditional dishes on display in the kitchen

The setting

Tables right on the sea

K with our neighbours, 86 year old Vaso and her son Vangelis

This is Vaso's favourite place to eat, enjoy a beer and smoke a cigarette or 2

K and I shared grilled sardines

Vaso likes baked aubergine with tomatoes and onion and a pile of fries

Nice and soft on old gums lol

One of the 4 (probably more) taverna cats.  We couldn't feed them because the fish bones, and most leftovers, leave an oily stain on the decking.  The owner looks after them

We take a chilly bin (eskie, ice box) with a couple of ice packs when we do serious shopping in the summer. We never know who we will meet and  shopping does not last long in this heat, and I'm not talking about icecream.   A bag of grated cheese has melted back into a block by the time we reach home. That's without stopping for a coffee or a chat. 

We are in the middle of a heatwave again but it's supposed to be a short one. 3 or 4 days. 

Summer Lunching

A birthday lunch with friends who speak English. Do kiwis speak the King's eengleesh?  Do Americans? 

Mr Google says we both speak an English dialect.  We share a common foundation but each country has it's own unique characteristics.

Anyway, we were an international company for lunch.  England, NZ, USofA and Greece.

The setting

Looking back towards the island

It was a little windy and the sea rather choppy.  The breeze was a welcome relief from the scorching heat of previous days

Plaka beach

Local children enjoying the small waves

Here we are.  Except me.  I forgot to get the young lad who served us to take a photo. I also forgot to take a photo of the 2 pooches Winnie and Choco.   We were too busy eating and talking.

K soon moved over to the table next door to talk with some greek friends.

Our english conversation got a bit too fast and colloquial for him to keep up.

We covered everything from local gossip, what the ex-pat community are up to,  memories from years gone by, buying and building houses, dogs and other animals. 

Tomato and zucchini fritters with a yoghurt dip

Lots of fried potatoes (chips) and the ubiquitous Greek salad

Just a little of the delicious food served here at the Plaka Beach taverna.  Known to locals, not on the tourist map. 

They let K and I choose  plates of different food to share.  Enough to fill  the table, our tummies and some to take home. We finished off with cold karpuzi (watermelon). 

This was the 3rd 'party' to celebrate friend Jan's birthday.  She was working on her birthday this year, helping the Danish vets neuter a hundred stray cats.  That was over a month again.

The, possibly last, celebration for this year's birthday was thanks to good friends Steve and Judy who are far away in England.   A thousand thanks you two.

I always enjoy myself immensely when I'm with a few English speakers, though quite a few times I grasp for the right word. They understand. 

Fava - pureed yellow split peas

Pease pudding (cold) mixed with lots of olive oil and chopped onions. 

You can be sure when you let a greek order that you'll have a good variety of traditional food and lots of it