stockpiling

Hoarding foodstuffs in case of disaster is a waste of time.  I know.

The first time was in 1986 after the Chernobyl disaster......... 

 The greeks went mad, the media fanned the flames.  We were not supposed to eat anything from the fields where radiation might have fallen.  Supermarket shelves emptied of canned goods and we saw on television news outrageous stories of families who had filled up rooms in their houses with tinned milk so their children would not be contaminated.  

I remember it well.  It was spring and the first strawberries were out, selling at very low prices because no-one would buy them, except me.  It was back in the olde days when there were no frozen vegetables or imports and everything was sold when in season.  We saw strawberries for about a month and then they disappeared for another year.

 I bought lots of wonderful fresh, cheap strawberries that spring - and my children grew up, had 'normal monster-like' children and hopefully will see their children have children.

 I have just been reading a book about Ukraine and up popped Chernobyl.  This author says that when Chernobyl melted the winds were blowing north and thankfully most of the radiation spread to very low populated areas in the north of Russia.

And so to 2000/1 and the millenium......................

  I couldn't even afford to stockpile back in 1986  but by 2000 were in slightly better circumstances.  We were living on Poros by then, having moved from Piraeus to Crete, to Salamina and then 'home'.

Once again it was all the hype from the media that made me think maybe I should just put a few important things aside.  Toilet paper and big bottles of cheap shower gel.  Just in case you might ever be in this position, you can use shower gel to wash yourself, wash dishes and I have even put it into the washing machine in small doses when I've run out of soap powder before the next payday.  And you must have toilet paper, what else could replace that?  Don't waste money on the cheap stuff.  Been there, done that too, not a good memory.  Fortunately, for Elli and Danae I didn't stock pile dried beans and lentils.  We were already eating those once a week.  Any more and there would have been a revolution.  Teenage tantrums were already bad enough.

Little note.  We eat dried beans and lentils because they are a regular part of the greek diet.  Moussaka is not the national dish of Greece.  But 'fassolatha' is.  Fassolatha is a dried bean stew with lots of carrots, onions, celery and tomato (and olive oil).

As we all know the millenium bug was a non event.  I discovered 
the loo paper and shower gel at the back of a cupboard when we gave our house to Elli and moved out up the mountain 7 years later.  Three huge bottles of cheap shower gel and loo paper covered in cobwebs which no-one wanted, not even me.  We had moved even further on..... into those false times of wild  spending when we thought we had finally joined the consumer society. So of course we were using designer toilet paper on our behinds by then.  

And how long would 3 bags of loo paper  have lasted anyway with so many bottoms in the family.

21 December 2012..............................

Another non-event.  It did cross my mind that maybe I should buy a few extra kilos of beans.  K did that for me.  We have a truck that comes every week from Tripoli  (greek Tripoli) that has very tasty and quick boiling beans and he ALWAYS buys in bulk.  We still have about a kilo of those to go.

Bankruptcy.............................

Angela Merkel and the media have put the fear of hellfire and brimstone into us these last few years.  If Greece goes bankrupt or has to go back to the drachma we will have standard of living of Bangladesh/Niger - third-world/poverty/hardship/distress -
Thesaurus.   You name it, if it sounds frightening it has been tossed at us.  

And we were bombarded by this propaganda every time the deadline for the next bailout money came up, every election, every big decision.  Put those greeks in line.  Scare them into submission.  

But we heard it too often, nothing ever happened, we always got the bailout.  It was like the small boy yelling 'wolf'.  We don't watch the news anymore and all is well with the world.  Everything we need to know comes in official envelopes.  Tax bills, pension cuts, 'special' payments.  We're the lucky ones.  We still enough money to pay the bills and buy a few litres of wine.  

And poverty???  We'll always have enough broad beans to eat and Vasso has just brought us half a dozen lettuces, a few kilos of spinach and some beetroot.  She must be cleaning out her winter vegetable garden.

Did you know that you can blanch and freeze lettuce?  No good for salads but it makes a great fricase or stuffed lettuce leaves.  And beetroot. We've had a few too many of them too.  I have just filled up two big jars of pickled beetroot.  Maybe the kids will take the rest.

Pension cuts still being made, the Troika still threatening more.  It is always interesting to see what they have left us, month after month. 

We are powerless.  Why worry.  Worry just makes it worse.  Greek people enjoy life.  Full stop.

Ooops, brave words -

 I have just had some scary info on our economic situation  and I just might ignore my own wisdom and start a new stock pile.  

More news on the next instalment .

And now for some rather old photos.

Elli and me - a few years ago

panoramic view of Poros and the Peloponese opposite

down below is the Navy base 

Karen and Paul in the old house - now Elli's

note K's 'worry bead' collection hanging over the radiator

Kathryn with Danae - Poros

Poros - Tony, Danae with Lydia and Jamie

front Nels and George with Yiannis

The good old days - always pig on the table -

or the spit -

this was for K's birthday one year

when Tony and Rainy were visiting -

the pig was so well cooked the meat literally

 fell off into the ashes when we were taking it down

but we still ate it all!

food - some who have and some who haven't

Signs of the times.........

Danae's brother-in-law visiting from Athens told us a story he saw unfold the other day.  He goes to work on a motorbike and had stopped at the traffic lights.  Opposite was a shop selling coffee, cheese pies and the like.  He saw a woman come out with a bag slung over her arm and noticed a guy on the corner eyeing her bag.  He thought 'he's going to run and grab the bag'.  The man did run but snatched the cheese pie she was holding right out of her hand.  Must have been starving. 

The same brother-in-law, who is always full of stories, told us about his next door neighbour.  An elderly gentleman, always polite and well dressed.  He hadn't been seen for a few days and they got the guy in charge of the building to open up his door.  They found him inside in a very bad condition.  He was taken to hospital where he was found to be extremely ill due to malnutrition.

March 4 -

K had one of his last winter 'get-togethers' in front of the fire.  All 'good' home-grown stuff, even the wine.  Vaso, our intrepid elderly neighbour, gave him one of her roosters, thankfully plucked and gutted.  No way SHE would suffer from malnutrition.  She grows all her own vegetables (including broad beans), makes wine from her own grapes (and drinks lots of it), has goats to give her milk, cheese and meat and chooks for eggs and meat , plus a few turkeys.  She toils from sun-up to sun-down to fill up her freezer and her coffers.  She has a few dozen olive trees and works harder than the roumanian labourer when it comes to picking and pruning.

  Vaso is one of a disappearing generation.  She's a tough nut.  Works very hard, drinks hard, smokes like a chimney and watches over every penny.  And she is very clued in.  Watches the news every night and handles her money shrewdly.   

She thinks nothing about slitting the throats of a chook or turkey and has probably slaughtered and skinned many a goat or sheep.    She lives alone up here and has done for many years.  We are her nearest neighbours and get on well with her.   K will often bring her supplies from the town or fix her TV when it goes wonky.  

She always entertains us with stories from the past.  Her childhood was harsh and she worked long days from a very young age herding goats and working in the fields, those of the family and the neighbours if they were paying.  Her memory is sharp and the tales she tells of life on a small holding and how they survived are tales of a generation just after the war, just able to live on what they produced or made for themselves.  Some days all they ate were a few walnuts, mandarins or even the juice and flesh of their lemons.  The milk from their goats and the egss from their chooks were sold to buy essentials for the large family.   

Her working mode is so different from her Sunday-going-to-church look. Vaso 'cleans up'  nicely and looks extremely  chic at weddings and funerals.

  Her son is in the navy, like K was, and is a good friend of ours.  He was  Quartermaster at the Navy base here before he was transferred to Athens.  She also has two daughters, one is a high school teacher and the other the chief of police on the island of Lefkada.  Vaso was determined they should all get educated and have good jobs. 

This was supposed to be about food .... again.  How did I get onto Vaso?

 -So main item on K's menu was the rooster.  Free range.

- That was stewed with tomatoes - from Crete and served with thick macaroni (tubes with holes down the middle to hold all the sauce).  The macaroni wasn't homemade this time but Elli has a macaroni cutter and we do make our own now and again.

- the cheese that we grated on top was some unsalted goats cheese made by Kyriako's maiden aunts

- it was accompanied by greens (weeds) that K had collected from a field nearby.  Not the field where we pump out our sewage tank.  I boiled the greens and they were served with lemon juice from our lemon trees and olive oil from neighbouring trees

-  the bread was sourdough, made by me.  Heavy village stuff great for mopping up the heavy oily tomatoey sauce.  Great for indigestion too.

- I also made an omelette with wild asparagus gathered by one of K's friends - made with 8 of his hen's eggs that he brought as well.  It made a bright yellow and green asparagus omelette

- our wine is finished so we were drinking wine K bought from another little old lady, similar to Vasso, who makes her own wine and sells it at 1 euro a litre.  Her wine is apparently the best in the area at the moment.....and those guys should know!

The day turned into night and it was after many many hours that K's friends finally wobbled off on their motorbikes.

Not everyone is starving.  We are lucky that we live out in the country side.

You might think that the crisis is not affecting us either.  This sort of 'feast' is a rare occurence now and you'll note that just about everything was homegrown and given to us by others.  K has a very social personality, and is a handyman.  As I have written before he often gets paid in 'goods' and the greeks have the custom that anyone coming to your house, especially to eat  will bring a 'gift'. What is appreciated most is something home-made/grown.  They  prefer a plastic water bottle full of your own wine to a bottle of sauv blanc bought from the wine shop. (alas)

the area where we live - on a clear night we can see the 

lights of Athens

outside Villa Linda - Steven Creasy

he and Teresa took these two photos

the bougainvillia isn't in flower yet but the branches

are 'reaching for the power lines'

K frying over the fire with his long handled pan

Edith

We saw Harry in the last blog.  Well, looking for something else ,these quotes which Edith had copied suddenly popped up in front of me.

Any of you who might like to write take heart and get yourselves into action (Linda?)

Edith was in her 83rd year when she started writing her life story.

Grandmas should write down the stories of their lives however dull they seem to them.  For such tales show history as it is – a procession of interlocking lives.  A unity.  The family of mankind.

          Charlotte Gray

                           AND

It is too late!  Ah nothing is too late

Till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate

Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles

Wrote his grand Oedipus and Simonides

Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers

When each had numbered more than four-square years

Chaucer at Woodstock with the nightingales

At sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales

Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last,

Complete Faust when eighty years were past

These are indeed exceptions, but they show

How far the gulf-stream of our youth may flow

Into the Arctic regions of our lives..

For age is opportunity no less

Than youth itself,  though in another dress

And as the evening twilight fades away

The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day..

               Henry Wordsworth Longfellow

In  the 70's - London

Harry, Richard. Linda, Edith

In days of olde - Paul, Edith with Tony, Linda, Richard

Harry and Edith

And on our big NZ trip - 2005

Te Puke's Citizen's Club

Wednesdays special for OAPs

Kyriakos, George, Danae, Harry, Kostas

PHOTOS OF KOSTAS and HARRY

We got MORE broad beans given to us.  God help us!!

Thought I would do a 'special' and post these photos of Kostas and Harry.  Harry's photo turned up in the middle of the photos of Kostas and his beard when I downloaded them to the computer.  So he is still watching over us and still has his sense of humour!

Kostas in winter mode

Harry - watching over us

Kostas after a trim

Kostas in uniform

Spring is definitely here.  I have cleaned out the fireplace but the room is going to take a lot more work.  The fireplace surround is black  and I imagine the walls are the same.  The rafters are full of cobwebs.  I need a cleaning team - albanian, bulgarian, romanian.  

Danae and children have already been swimming.  Think 'swimming in September in Nz'.  Think 'freezing'

She and her children came up on Saturday and we did some cleaning.  George dug up the potatoes that were left.  Half of them have purple patches in the middle. We aren't eating those. Looked on the web and there wasn't much about purple-patched-potatoes but no-one seemed to think that we should eat them.  Nothing to do with the proper-purple-potato.  Half the crop is ok.....  see photo below

We cleared three huge bags of wild sorrel from the front garden.  The lettuces have finished but the broad beans are ready for picking now.  K loves them boiled and eaten with olive oil, lemon juice and a garlic/bread sauce called 'skorthalia.  Our neighbour just brought in another bag of his broad beans for us and I already have a big bowl in the freezer.  We definitely have too many broad beans.

The garden looks nothing like it should at this time of the year.  Two years ago we paid an albanian 40 euros to clear the gardens and 'lawn' (think knee high weeds) and dig the small garden plot ready for planting.  Last year we paid him 20 euros ....this year we have to do it ourselves and the result is patchy.  It needs an albanian (or bulgarian/romanian) to come and tidy it all up and do some heavy digging.

K is no longer fixing washing machines and doing extra work.  Someone (a 'friend') ratted on him and he has been warned. He could lose his pension or get a huge fine. He still fixes things for friends and neighbours and now and again gets paid in money but is more likely to get a few eggs, a bag of lettuces, a bottle of wine.... or some more broad beans

Last Saturday we had a church service to say 'thank you' for Jamie's good health.  Kyriakos had pledged a service if all went well.  It is a common thing to do.

It was held in the tiny little church at the end of Askeli beach where he was baptised.  The priest, the chanter, the lady-who-helps and four others fit inside.  The candles, the main icon and the rest of the congregation stand outside.


                    
This is the church and that is Jamie having just been
baptised.  With his Mum and Dad (left) and Nona (godmother) on the right.......6 years ago

Our camera is broken so I'm giving a bit of colour with some old photos

Jamie (Dimitris) was born with a calcium growth on his kidney and he was under weight for a long time - but still a very active child.  He  goes for tests to the children's hospital in Athens every three months but is normal weight and height now and even more active.

He has blood tests once a month and is so used to having a needle stuck in his arm he does not even flinch.  There is always a smile on his small and devlish face.

Any one with small children may know the kids programme 'Sam the Fireman'.  Sam spends his time rescuing and saving a little boy called Norman Price who  is always getting into trouble.  Jamie's second name is Norman.

Kyriakos and Elli arranged the service, picked  the priest, chanter and helper up at 6.30 am, provided the candles, oil and communion wine and paid them all a small amount.  Dina (Kosta's sister) brought the bread with the holy stamp and I made the 5 loaves to feed the 5,000 (16 people that were in attendance.)  These are five small loaves which are blessed along with the holy bread and cut up and given to the congregation at the end of the service.  It is a sweet bread flavoured with mastiha (from the island of Chios) and with lots of red wine and orange juice.  I have made these loaves before but this time I surpassed myself.  It is a Cretan recipe I use.

There is a blessing for the health of Jamie and the priest is usually given a list of family names to be blessed at the same time.  Then anyone who wants to takes communion.  The bread is shared around and usually there are cakes and sweets handed out as well.  At some fiestas small pieces of fried fish are handed out too - think, '5 loaves and 2 fish that fed the 5,000'.

George and Jamie were in charge of the candles and it kept them quiet most of the time.  Everyone when they arrive (at any time during the service) kisses the icon and then lights a few candles which are placed in a special bowl of sand.  George and Jamie arranged and re-arranged the candles, re-lit them when they were blown out and removed them when they had burnt too far down.  Perfect job for little boys.

Afterwards we all went to Elli and Kyriako's house for coffee and then ouzo and seafood - and enough wine to drown the 5,000.  It ended up being an all-dayer.

Kyriako's family live just across the water on the mainland village of Galatas.  His two maiden aunts are typical for their generation.  They make every thing from scratch including their own bread and cheese.  They have chickens and a couple of goats.  One of the goats has just had four little kids.  They had the bright idea of giving us one of the kids to keep our garden clear and provide us with milk to drink and make cheese.  Thankfully Kyriakos talked them out of it. Our garden is too small and they might eat up all the broad beans.   I would like to try and make some cheese one day.  Making a 'sort of ricotta' out of yoghurt is easy and Rainy makes feta.  What sort of milk do you use Rainy?

Goats are marvellous lawn mowers.  Our next door neighbour has five goats and they keep her acres clear and clean.  Though in the summer they must need extra feed because everything is dry and brown.  Of course one of the goats has been tagged to be the sacrificial 'lamb' at easter.  

Danae and Yiannis have 'acquired' 2 golden mountain puppies.  Heaven knows what they will do with them.  They already have Spot the scots terrier and these two apparently will end up the size of a bear.  Danae gets bottles of goats milk from a friend of hers as they are still very small and aren't eating solids.  Yiannis says he will keep them and train them.  Good luck.  They must just about bowl him over now at a few weeks old.

Greek easter is on May 5th this year.  A whole month after the rest of the world.

We are well into Lent now.  Danae and Yiannis are not eating meat for the entire 6 weeks.  We will be starting as soon as we finish off Sunday's chicken.

potatoes with purple patches

anyone who knows why they have purple patches, please get in  touch

4,000 year old Mycenean bridge - just 'down the road'

Kathryn (Paul and Karen's daughter) on my quad bike

Poros waterfront

ps I wear a helmet - tho as Kathryn noted it is not 'cool' to wear a helmet here

Ancient theatre of Epidavros - also 'just down the road'

2013 - JANUARY

2013

13 is the Creasy's lucky number I  believe. 


  We had the driest summer for 80 years and everything shrivelled   - even the grass over the leaking septic tank .  The priests had a special all night service to bring some rain and there was  a light shower a week later. 

Because of the drought, grapefruit and lemons fell off the trees and we have no mandarins or oranges this winter.

When the rains finally came we got a good soaking, the olives finally swelled a little and  wild sorrel took over the garden.  The trees have had a good drenching right down to their roots, the lemons have some juice  and the sorrel has smothered everything and made for a  rich green landscape.  We have potato plants which look healthy, but are there any potatoes underneath?

Snow fell briefly.  The icy Siberian blasts brought below zero temperatures at night.

Heating oil is so expensive and money so short that everyone who can is using a wood fire or wood burner for heat.  The smoke cloud over Athens is apparently causing a smog problem.  Heating oil went up from 1 euro to 1.30-1.40 a litre.  A ton of wood went up from 120 euros last year to 180 in some places but it is still much more economical than the central heating.

The house is much colder because heating oil is so expensive we don’t use the central heating.  We did manage pay for 100 litres but turn the heating on only  the very worst days.  We also got half a ton of wood for our fire place.  That meant many hours of cutting and stacking but we do have a fire which keeps two rooms warm in the evening and K can bbq.  The house stinks of smoke and fish after these sessions but he is happy and he can invite a friend for company...etc.
He made a special long handled frying pan so he can cook over the fire and has various other grilling devices.

A hot water bottle stops that first shock of icy sheets when you dash for bed after changing into chilly pyjamas.

17th January was the feast of St Anthony.  We have a small church near us which is dedicated to him.  K goes to the early morning service and is sometimes detained for roast pig and hours of wining and discussion.  This year he came back with his pockets full of sweet bread and wrapped chocolate treats.  Anyone with an Anthony or Antonia will bring trays of cakes and sweets to hand out after the service.

In some town in Italy the tradition is to make boozy apple pie.  Their wine barrels had accidently been emptied (major catastrophe) and St Anthony miraculously filled the barrels again.  I presume it was an area that produced apples and so the apple pies with wine....and wine to help it down the gullet as well I am sure.  St Anthony is also a finder of lost things and a healer of various body parts.  These body parts are depicted in bread dough, baked and taken to the church....in Italy, not in Greece.

Every month means less pension, more taxes, higher prices, larger bills.  People-watching on the waterfront is now a special occasion and we no longer eat out at a taverna.  In the good old days we spent Sunday morning sitting in the shade of our favourite waterfront café with a newspaper and an iced coffee (Nescafe frappe).  Haven’t bought a newspaper in a year or so.  Kosta’s social life has been battered and he is feeling the worst of us all.  Greek life took place  outside in public at the cafes and tavernas where you greeted your friends passing by and spent (your free) hours in conversation and social-intercourse (a Harry-expression no longer in favour!). 

  Slowly slowly our money is getting chipped away and will continue to do so for a while yet.  We are getting used to living on very little.  K’s pension was 2,700 a month , it is down to 1,460 now and will be chiseled down to about 1200 by summer – we hope it will stop there.  ¾ of that is paid out in bills and taxes every month .  We are lucky not to have to pay rent and K does electrical repairs where he can for money under the table.  The poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer.  As usual. 

A little poem by Walter James (Australia's well known wine writer) on the then (1949) tax regime

"And the rain it raineth every day
Upon the just and unjust fellows
But more upon the just because
The unjust steal the just's umbrellas"

Over 300 people on Poros have returned the number plates of their cars because they can’t afford the tax or insurance needed to run them.  That is a lot for this small island.  Our next door neighbour has two cars but only one with number plates.  When he wanted to take his olives to the press he put them in the old car, changed the number plates over and went off to press his olives.  The greeks are ever resourceful!

Today we were all going for a picnic on the beach but there are gale force winds so the kids had a picnic on the living room floor.  K bbqed some (rubbery) octopus and we had some ouzo and a buffet and then went down to the beach for the kids to fish.  Didn’t catch any fish but the rubbish on the beach yielded eight old shoes, ten cigarette lighters (rusty) and a load of plastic.  The south wind blows straight into the bay and it is always interesting to poke about in the debris - with a long stick.

Jamie had a haircut - Zorro rules !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Billy goat gruff - an independent soul

I often meet him on the road down and if  you stop

he comes galloping over to see if you have a crust or some

rotting peel for him

 

 

 

Danae.....well, her kids did very well in their swimming

class this summer.  Nels has a great style and has more than outstroked

all the other little girls in her class.  She got two medals and would have

continued over the winter - if Poros had a heated pool

 

 

Captain Kyriakos with the 'Socrates' on Teachers Island

 

 

At the wheel coming into Poros harbour

 

 

 

Half a ton of wood ready to be cut up and stacked for the winter.

Gone is the grass after the driest summer in 80 years.

Gone is the swing - till next summer

Now in the winter it is green with wild sorrel and potato plants

and the wood is dwindling fast

 

 

 

Kostas salted the first black olives

 

 

The rustic rocker now painted green

 

 

And the five bamboo chairs have been painted green as well.

A helluva job.  Took many days to cover all the surfaces and get in all

the cracks...3 times