Wheeere's Poppi.....and the other Grandchildren

Family Post............

My Mokapuna s

 Heeeere's Poppi

What's she up to? 

She's studying in Athens

She's a bit sad that she hasn't starred on my blog for quite some time. I promised I would let her fans know she is still rowing but she's studying hard at the esteemed Athens Gymnastic Academy 

Her syllabus includes actual hands-on athletics, everything from her rowing, soccer to dance choreography.  She also has lectures to attend and studies sport regulations, history, health, physiotherapy and a lot of complicated sport science. 

This is the way a true athlete studies. 

There's no time-out

Coffee time is study time too

The café here she says is actually a flower shop, and study hang-out

Poppi is not my only granddaughter

Though I can't say I blame you for thinking so

Oooooof the suitcase is finally packed AND closed

Luli is finishing high school and will be in Athens for higher studies next year

In their final year at Lykeio (High School) the kids go on a 5 day 'educational' trip

Her class went up to Thessaloniki, the northern capitol of Greece

It's an all day bus trip up North.

That didn't tire them of course

They all went bowling later

The class visits museums and historical sites during the day and enjoy a 'lively' nightlife 

 

These school trips can be wild

Ask the grandsons George and Jamie

I don't think they slept for the whole 5 days

Partying continued all night in their hotel rooms

George went to Crete for his 5-dayer

and 

Jamie also went to Thessaloniki

Poppi went to Yiannina, a city near the Albanian border. It's beside Lake  Pamvotida where she's often gone for rowing competitions

Poor Nels missed out altogether because her graduation was during the first covid lockdown

My girls, Elli and Danae,  went to Rhodes and Crete

There are hotels which give the schools special packages 

The kids spend months organising transport and hotels and raise money by selling raffle tickets, organising parties and luncheons and soliciting donations from the islands businesses and municipality 

There are usually a couple of  schools at each hotel.  Must be bedlam for the staff

The aftermath 

Luli caught the flu, along with a dozen of the other kids that were on the bus

 That nasty one called Influenza A

She didn't/ couldn't eat anything but Nana's brownies

Then her mother caught the bug and then her father

So I made another batch of brownies

And left them on the steps

I didn't dare get any closer

They wanted Weetabix too but I searched and there are none on the island

The brownies recipe is one I used to make with Luli many years ago when I babysitted her. They often came out too cakey.

  It's difficult achieving that gooey brownie-ness.  I googled and followed the tips. 

The eggs need a really good beating  

Don't over mix

Don't over cook

A packet of chocolate drops or 

A few spoons of nutella lifts them up to another level 

But

Back to Poppi

She's the Brownie Queen 

Her recipe takes 2 days to make and it's worth waiting for. However I don't have her recipe. If I'm going to make Brownies, I want to eat them today. Right Now

Luli's back at school now.  She has extra lessons on key subjects and will be swatting hard till her University Entrance exams in June

Nels, Luli, Poppi

My three girls

My 2 boys

George and Jamie

Winter By the Sea

 

Evening rowers at

Sunset 

The little stone chapel dedicated to St Sophia

Guarding Love Bay

This is a very small bay and in mid summer it's very popular.  There are lines of cars parked along the road above turning it into a one-way track.

Down on the beach there are 2 or 3 rows of sunbeds and half a dozen yachts anchored just off shore

There's one small canteen which does a roaring trade 

I've only ever been down there once.  The seabed is quaggy, squishy underfoot

    But the little bay and beach live up to it's name.

It's a very romantic little bay with St Sophia and her chapel keeping guard and the pine trees almost down to the water providing shade

St Sophia has her fiesta on 17 September.  The service here is always popular and in latter years the 'Women of Poros' have made sure there are piles of sweet Holy bread and other delights to be handed around after the liturgy

Wintery Days

 Fields full of colour .  The  green vegetation scattered with daisies, mauve anemones and tiny flowers, deep purple, and red

A peaceful world.  Very few quad bikes with noisy tourists break the peace at this time of the year.  The locals are friendly and always give you a smile and a 'yiasou ti kaneis ' (g'day  how are you) 

Blue skies.  Without the heat.  Greece enjoys over 250 days of sunshine, so they say.

Time to talk with the animals.  Cats and sheep, chooks, turkeys and the herd of goats.  I always chat with the 2 dogs who live in our road, tell them off for barking at me.  I'm not exactly a stranger around here

Deserted winter beaches full of fascinating flotsam 

At the Temple site the wild greens are thriving

This local couple are filling a bag with a variety of greens to take home and cook

The bay below us with it's winter rubbish. 

 Not as much as I thought there would be.  Lots of bamboo. Not so many old shoes and plastic bottles this year. 

I couldn't go down and poke around . The rain has made deep channels along the bank which are treacherous for me

Wild flowers amongst the ruins

This cat looks well fed
He gets fed I think by the owner of the sheep next door along with a dozen other moggies
He just sat there in the late afternoon sun watching me 

This small flock had escaped from their pen.  They just stood there, undisturbed,  turning their heads to watch me as I walked past

Neglected grapevines 

The elderly owner has let Mother Nature take over

The flooded harbour 

This happens every few years.  After days of rain the sea levels rise and pour in all along the waterfront.  A salty lake 

A few days later it had all dried up

My Winter Garden

 Winter garden on a Greek island

The garden tap

The smashed pomegranate is still there...... bringing good luck

A pot of rosemary on the left

The usual winter greenery

Nasturtiums, oxalis and other weeds

A tranquil sea of green 

The sun will always shine

Even though it's lost a few rays

Rose geranium, oregano and sage

Herbs are the only crop that thrives summer and winter

A tomato plant

It came up from a composted salad and is still surviving through wind and rain and  icy sleet

At the moment it has a flower too

I'm not expecting tomatoes but it's a small miracle in my winter garden

My money plant. Also known as a jade plant

I trim it down to almost a stump and it grows and prospers again and again

Ks backyard

As usual a sea of weeds which will be cleared for Easter

Grow Darn You

  I've been reading a lot recently about growing sweet potatoes 

 I don't want a crop of them. 

 They are supposed to grow, like an avocado pip, in a glass of water and turn into a house plant 

This is what it's supposed to look like after only a couple of weeks

The reality... 

After a month.... 

Growth? 

Zilch, diddly squat, nothingness 

I've googled.  

'Choose a sweet potato with multiple eyes 

All you need is warm water, a glass jar and sunlight' 

They say

'Suspend your sweet potato in a glass of water by poking it with toothpicks' 

They say

'Make sure it's submerged. 

Put it in a sunny window

Refresh the water every few days

Watch as it grows over the next 2 to 3 weeks' 

They say

I did all that. Plenty of sunlight.  I waited. I changed the water

My daughter Elli has done the same

Zilch there as well

Any ideas? 

I suppose I should buy another sweet potato

We get red and white varities

I'll try a white one 

House Bound

We are in the eye of another short storm. 2 days of rain and wind 

What can a pensioner do on these wet miserable days when he's forced to stay inside with only me for company?

He cooks  

Chicken with hilopites in a tomato sauce

Lots of oil and garlic with bay leaves, a cinnamon stick and allspice berries

Hilopites

Made from flour, eggs and milk

AllSpice berries

It's hard to describe their pungent flavour

Google says a mix of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves.  It's very popular here.  When I make a tomato sauce I'll add a cinnamon stick and half a dozen berries. 

I don't like either but it's traditional

My traditional greek

With a tray of cheese biscuits

The perfect accompaniment to a glass of tsipouro 

Tsipouro.... made from the residue of wine making, skins, pips and stems. 

40-45 proof alcohol

Decanting olive oil

We buy the oil in 5 litre containers now

In years gone by we bought 16 litre tins

Put the Kibosh on.....

To put the Kibosh on something....to put a stop to it

ie  'his parents put the Kibosh on the teenager's plan to hold a party' 

Thanks Wikipedia. That's the perfect example. 

I can hear my father using it in that context. It's an expression he would have loved 

This phrase came to mind this morning. It's years since I've heard it used.

'the phrase has been used in English since the early 1800s. Exact origin unknown. May come from a Turkish word for a whip'

Photos in the Storm

 Why has this storm not been given a name?? 

There was bad flooding all over  the country.  Two people were killed, one by raging flood waters and the other by huge waves while securing a yacht

Our stupid cat 

It's pouring with rain and she's sitting out there on the wall. She's been fed and had a little extra but just won't go and shelter

Daughter Danae suggested she wanted to come inside.  Not this one. I've been feeding her twice a day for 10 years but she still spits at me when I bring her food and will swipe with open claws if I get too close

 

Son in law Kyriako's, blue and white,  water taxi in the distance . It had just been hit by a rogue yacht.  The yacht came free from it's moorings across on the mainland, got swept across the strait and collided with the Socrates which was tied to the wharf on Poros .  Fortunately the damage was minor but involved a lot of paperwork afterwards

Cleaning up

The harbour is full of rubbish

Son in law Yiannis went down to pump out the water in Ks boat

He had to do it with a hand pump 

There was so much flotsam and jetsam he couldn't risk it being sucked back into the engine if he used the boats electric pump

A stormy harbour

Fousa.

 Grapevines under even more water

And now there's more rain scheduled tomorrow 

Red Alert

 

*The time has come the Walrus said

To talk of many things

Of ships and shoes and sealing wax

And eating gingerbread

It's gingery and peppery . The best gingerbread house I've eaten.  K loves it too so thank goodness I don't have to eat it all by myself

Today is the perfect day for eating gingerbread and drinking mushroom coffee. For a start...... 

Last night we all got a Red Alert on our phones.  Extreme weather was on its way. Has arrived.  

We are now being battered by strong winds and rain. Schools are closed today.  I know, once upon a time we'd be battling through the storm barefoot to get to school. Times have changed.  But I must admit that we are seeing pictures on the news of schools with flying tiles and the front yard of the Primary School here floods in weather like this.  

I was going to open the Beaujolais. Vintage 2024

But today I need something to warm the cockles of my heart

I decanted a 'vintage' red, from a 5 litre jar to a smaller bottle and into my special wine glass, a present from a special friend.

The red wine was given to me by my son in law Yiannis . Yiannis gets his wine from a small village a few hours away where family grapevines produce excellent wine. It's a 'bold' tipple.  One glass and I'm glowing 

Meanwhile down under in the Bay of Plenty, NZ, they've also had a Civil Defence warning

Our family man digging a trench to divert flood waters away from their house 

The only difference are the temperatures.  It's probably in the 20s there while it's 7oC here.  

*I hadn't realised how many verses there were to this piece of poetry .

The Walrus and the Carpenter

By Lewis Carroll 

Worth the Google and the read

Ukrainian Freeze

 Ukrainian freeze refers to the polar weather  we are experiencing at the moment

The cold  snap comes down from the Ukraine, with temperature drops up to 10oC, gale force northerlies and snow on the peaks around us. 

I lit the fire at 11 this morning and brought in armfuls of olive wood.  It burns fast and I can see the huge wood pile going down, down. 

A big pot of traditional bean soup, fassolatha, went on the stove early in the morning.  This is Greece's National dish. Not moussaka. 

It would have been even better with a few pieces of sausage but I've eaten them all.  K approved of it as-is so all is well. We have some feta cheese and a tin of sardines to go with it.  Salted sardines are more traditional but he'll take what he gets today. 

Yesterday I was supposed to attend a memorial to commemorate the passing, one year ago, of an elderly aunt but it was just too darned cold. 

I would have had to drive down icy mountain roads to the harbour, huddle up against the glacial winds, take the car ferry across to Galatas and be blown along the waterfront to the church. My fingers would have turned white, my nose would have been running and I'd have been completely frozen when I finally entered the church.  Not to mention being vulnerable to all those seasonal bugs from the close company of a church full of coughing worshippers. 

So naturally I stayed at home. 

I did miss out on roast lamb and potatoes though.  The family had put in a large oven tray of meat before they left for church and they are renown for their excellent traditional Greek cooking.  Aunt Eleni, RIP, used to be head cook.   Her fried cheese bread was irresistible.  Thankfully she passed on her recipes, knowledge and love of cooking to others in the family. 

Daughter Danae has just added something which is worth noting.  Danae makes Tiganopsomo, fried cheese bread, and so do I sometimes.  I have even watched Eleni kneading and frying them but they just aren't quite as good as Eleni's .  Tasty, crunchy but her touch is missing .

She was a master chef and we were fortunate to have had her in our lives.  Eleni was the Aunt of our son in law Kyriakos and became part of our extended family only in the past 20 years

Poppi got another award yesterday

Her Aunt Elli picked it up for her. Poppi is at school in Athens

The Poros Rowing Club held their New Years cake cutting and Award Ceremony 

I'm not sure what the award was for exactly

She helps coach the younger ones when she's on the island too

Our house in the foreground amidst the olive trees

Under winter skies 

And underneath those abandoned houses on top of the hill