1,500 and Counting

This is blog post number 1,500 on this particular blog.  

I don't remember how I found out about blogging but back in 2007 I started a blog called 'On the Edge of Life'.  Heaven knows why I named it that.  But anyway, I started blogging as a way to keep family and friends updated on my life without having to write a whole lot of individual emails.  The first posts were long and rambling, interesting only to family who presumably ploughed through all the text.  A few other people started reading it and one complained because there were no photos.  Then a friend asked me how I could put such personal stuff out there for everyone to read.  That was way back before everyone put their entire lives on Facebook and the like.  I was a bit annoyed and deleted the blog, but not before printing out all the posts.  It hadn't lasted long, a year or so.

After that I decided to start another blog, not tell that friend.  She didn't need to read anymore about my life I decided.  I called it 'local-kiwi-alien' because that's what my girls called me after the song 'I'm in Love with an Alien'.   

My first post seems to be in 2010, once again for family and friends and anyone else that found me on the internet.  

The first post was about a family celebration.   Little has changed over the years.    I could change the date and repost half the blog with little alteration.

That 1st post had a long list of food, no photos.  It was just before the economic depression.  Our feasts are no longer so extravagent.  

 It took me a while to work out how to post photos. Now I take photos of every little thing and make a blog post out of them.  I start off everytime meaning to just add a few words and always get carried away.  I'm not a great talker but I can sure blab on my blog. 

2008 - excerpts from several old blog posts 

- TV. It's all Greek except for 'Days of our Lives', 'The Young and the Restless', 'Friends' and 'Gilmore Girls' in English with subtitles. 

No NZ news unless some maniac wipes out his whanau, family.  Or a sealion attacks parked cars in a seaside town. Anything sensational. 

2026 ..... much the same now.  The soaps are different except for 'Friends'

2008 .......I wrote ....

 Cars,  don't bother with seat belts, or stopping at redlights. Forget pedestrian crossings. 

If you double or triple park at least leave the keys in your car so the poor devil you've blocked can move the car and get out.

Give way to all taxis, buses and datsun farm trucks. Forget the right hand rule, there isn't one. Beware old ladies dressed in black riding donkeys. 

2026..... it'll be rare now to see anyone riding a donkey.  We are more law abiding and wear seat belts and helmets and double parking often means a ticket.  Fines are expensive.  Pedestrian crossings are still ignored.

 2008 ................

K went fishing and had a good catch.  Enough for family friends and neighbours.  He had given most of it away before he reached home.

2026 ............

K hasn't been out on the boat for a few years and recently sold it.  He had many marvellous memories.  Fishing with the girls and the grandchildren.  Diving for cockles, clams and mussels, spearing octopus with a long handled trident, pulling up squid at night by the light of a lamp and catching kilos of fish, different catches according to the seasons.

2008 .......

Our nearest neighbour, a wily old fox, has a problem with her oven.  A mouse ate through the wiring.  A hazard of living in the wop-wops.  K comes to the rescue again.  He's up there repairing the damage.   He returned home with a bottle of wine she makes herself from grapes grown on her small vineyard, a bottle of homemade vinegar and fresh eggs from her chooks.

2008 was the year of the Beijing Olympics.

Greece won 2 silver medals and a bronze and 2 athletes were expelled on doping charges.  The silver medals were won by 2 young 'boys' in a double skiff.  One of them was from Poros and he had gone to school with Elli and Danae.

Poros came to a halt while the race was on.  The whole island cheered them on .  A road has been named after the Poros lad, Dimitris Mougios Parade.

2008 - wine season

I wrote.......

K will be putting up 300 kilos of wine this year.  He has been scrubbing 2 big wine barrels. He is buying 100 kilos from our neighbour and after lengthy discussions the other 200 kilos will be from another vineyard on the mainland.

Our neighbour and her family pick and press the grapes themselves.  Some of the wine is pressed by foot and some in a wine press.  One year the grandchildren went up and trod the grapes with them.

2026............

K hasn't made his own wine for many years.  Nowadays he buys it in 20 litre cardboard cartons from a village not far away on the mainland.  The closer the vineyard the better the wine he says.  It does not travel well.

Over the years I started following other people's blogs, seeking out those from NZ.  I got a few more followers and feel I'm part of a small corner of the blogging community.    I'll keep on writing although it often seems to be on a repeat.

I've grown older, the grandchildren have grown up, there are more tourists around but Poros has remained much the same.