Good Orthodox Friday

The strictest day of fasting in the Orthodox calendar.

K peels endless small, boiled shrimp.  He eats a handful at lunchtime with boiled potatoes, tomatoes, olives and a slice of bread.

Even olive oil is off the menu today and this is one day that he drinks no alcohol.

A very quiet day.  We are well away from the big churches in town so we did not hear the slow toll of the bells all day long, in mourning for Christ.  There was no candlelight parade through town this evening, no church service in the central square.

We  went out today in the car for the first time in a month.  We dumped a car load of garden rubbish and then did a quick tour of town, with ID cards and permit papers on hand.  There were people out and about, especially up where we live and groups walking along the harbour road.  All getting their daily exercise?  There were no police checks.

From tomorrow at 9pm till Easter Monday at 9pm all fines are doubled for non essential travel to discourage groups of easter revellers. 

Tomorrow is Saturday of Easter.  There will be no gatherings to receive the holy light at midnight and we will eat our tripe soup alone.  And so begins a very quiet Orthodox easter weekend

Holy Thursday

Traditionally the day to dye red eggs.

K boiled dozens of the buggers yesterday and very early this morning he was up dipping them into the saucepan with the dye mix and then polishing each egg with olive oil

Now most of them are safely stashed away into sturdy boxes to be handed out to friends and neighbours, and family.  Anyone in fact who has slipped something over the garden gate this last month.

Yesterday he was busy rolling out over 100 koulourakia, the traditional easter biscuits.  These have also been put into takeaway containers. 

Thank goodness K has decided that only a traditional greek really knows how to make these traditional easter goodies, which I have made for over 35 years.  I agreed whole heartedly with him.  He can traditionally do it just the same way his traditional greek Mama used to, with my traditional foreign blessing

The first box went to elderly neighbour Vaso and her daughter and son in law who are sharing her isolation, and cramping her style.  The second box went out to our wine and raki essential service provider.

These simple, elegantly decorated white candles are called lambathas and will be lit just before Saturday midnight when 'Christ is Risen'.  My grandaughter Luli crafted these candles for us and hung them on the garden gate on a recent visit.  A visit on her birthday.  We couldn't go to her so she came to us and stood on the other side of the road.  We exchanged air kisses and birthday sweets.  

Holy Thursday in the Orthodox church

The evening service is very long with the reading of the 12 Gospels. 

This year K is watching the service on TV, conducted from Istanbul by the Archbishop of Constantinople and Patriarch of the Greek church 

The Carnival is Not Over

I thought there would be a lull in our bartering way of life with all of us in isolation but our rural way of living goes on.

We got a care package from elderly neighbour Vaso's son before he left to isolate in Athens with the inlaws.      Plastic water bottles full of their last years wine, a dozen of their fresh chook eggs and a big bucket of oranges. 

Since then we've had an endless variety of goods coming in over the garden gate, besides our grocery shopping brought by our girls.

A bag of fresh fish thanks to a fisherman in the family.  Only professional fishermen are allowed out now.  A deputy Mayor in Crete who went with friends on an, amateur, fishing  trip  got fined 5,000 euros.

 Yesterday a friend down the road brought us a large bowl of eggs, there must have been 20.  In the afternoon Vaso's daughter brought us another 20 eggs.  All these eggs would normally be kept to be dyed red for the easter table.  Some of them will be for sure but the rest we passed on to our daughters who come up with shopping and medecine.

We passed on a bag of fresh fish and another loaf of bread to one of the egg providers.

Another bag of citrus fruit was passed over the gate a few days ago.  Vaso's mandarines.  They are spot on, big, sweet and juicy.

A long piece of piping was retrieved from the recycling bin and that slid through as well.  Our old bbq, made from a hot water cylinder has, after 10 years or more, rusted underneath so there is a new one being built.  Gives K something to chew on during the day instead of chewing me out.

More eggs than you could shake a fist at arrived today.  Chooks everywhere are laying overtime.  Tomorrow is dye-red-egg day

But the most unexpected and wonderful gift was a pot of icecream.  This is a present from one of the girls but I have to keep it for after the Easter lamb on Sunday.  

Yah hoooooo

Sandy Sensations

My neice, the lucky one who is eating for two, takes daily walks along this long sandy beach.  Papamoa Beach, the beach of my childhood.  Miles and miles of golden sand and surf.  We used to have a little old bach (holiday home) here when I was growing up, built out of an old garage, right on the beach.   Now behind the sand dunes is a huge city sprawling over  acres and acres of  what , in my childhood, was farmland with herds of happy cows.  That old garage is worth millions, prime beachfront real-estate.  Pity it is not in the family anymore.

Someone has been inspired during his isolation to create these masterpieces in the sand.

These are just two of his creations

NZers (kiwis) have great imagination

Another blogger regularly posts photos of the murals which brighten up buildings all over the country, toilet blocks, old shops, warehouses.  Like these sand sculptures the murals bring a smile, a little bit of cheer

This one says

Kia Kaha

Maori words which I learnt after the huge earthquake down in the southern city of Christchurch in 2010 and then the massacre at a mosque in the same city in 2019, just one year ago.

Kai Kaha means stay strong 

Thanks Niki for taking these photos of your little patch of  loveliness

Palm Sunday

It's Palm Sunday here in Greece, Easter Sunday for the rest of you.  Today we are allowed to eat fish, so that's what we've got on the BBQ.    We'll be eating our roast lamb next weekend.

It was a sunny day and half a dozen of our near and distant neighbours were burning olive prunings and clearing the land.  

This fire was at a distance but our close nieghbour, 84 year old Vaso was burning branches right next door.  We stepped out for our first outdoor coffee this spring to be suddenly covered in smoke.  No-one yells at Vaso, she's a toughy, so we retreated indoors till she finished

We had BBQed fish, thanks to the nets of our son-in-law and grandaughters and ate al fresco

Meanwhile on all our social media pages hotcross bun photos were frontline news.  These were made by my neice in NZ, the one who is eating for two.  Lucky she is also very ahtletic.

Early Easter Lamb

This photo is an the easter lamb we were given before the crisis.  It has been sitting in our freezer for 2 months now.  K was very happy to be given this 12 kilo lamb for a job he did for a friend and was planning the easter feast around it.  

How times have changed.  The lamb will remain in the freezer till better times.

Today is Good Friday for most of you.  For the Greek Orthodox this coming week is Holy Week and Easter Sunday is  a week later than yours, on April 19th. 

The government had already warned that there would be strict travel regulations brought into force to stop anyone returning to their village or island for the easter holiday, and spreading infection.  All main roads, side roads and highways and byways have been closed off with police inspection of every car on the road.

If you have papers to prove you are a permanent resident you can travel but will not be allowed to return till the crisis is over.  Residents on many islands have pleaded with city dwellers not to return.  Incoming travellers are not welcome

Each car must have no more than 2 people, the driver and a passenger, all carrying the correct papers.  Anyone caught  will be fined 300 euros, the car will have number plates removed and they will be sent back to where they came from.  Road blocks are on a 24 hour basis so you can't escape at 2am or 4am or whenever you think the cops have gone for lunch or dinner.

Similar checks are being made at airports, harbours, bus and train stations.

Yesterday I stepped, 5 steps, outside our front gate to fill the wild cat bowl with fish bones and I had neither my permit paper to go for a walk or my ID card.  Theoretically I could have been fined 150euros for the lack of papers and 75 for no ID. 

A lot of people here still consider it a joke to outwit the police but the police can appear out of nowhere and they do make checks.  We have no cases anywhere near us, not on the island or on the mainland opposite and I would like to keep it that way.  The islands at least, closed communities, should be virus free but some of them aren't, just a handful, because people returning have unwittingly carried the infection and haven't stuck to the 14 day home isolation. 

Next week we will be baking easter cookies and dyeing red eggs, listening to the church services on TV and my traditional person will light a candle and probably waft a bit of incense around.  I'll be sitting here at my desk writing about it.

Today I should have been making hotcross buns along with my NZ family but I didn't get around to it.  The photos they've posted on Instagram and Whatsap are scrummy.  If I want the house to smell like I remember easter should then I had better get moving

Marmelade Rock Cakes

Sugar and spice and all things nice

Rock cakes are an economic treat, probably from the war years. Spoonfuls of stiff dough dumped on a baking tray which ressemble little piles of rocks when baked.  They usually have raisins in them.  Raisins are not a staple in this house, though we do use them in stuffed tomatoes and a cake we make when we have lost something and are thanking the saint that found it.  

These have no raisins but are a quick and easy way to get rid of some of that jam that has been standing on the shelves and no-one wants to eat.  I used orange marmelade  because we don't have anymore horrid quince jam or fig jam or grapefruit jam, thank you powers on high.

Here in Greece all jam is called marmelade.  Take your pick.  Marmelade or jam.

2 cups of flour and 2 tsps of baking powder
or
2 cups of self raising flour
1/2 cup of sugar
100 grams of butter
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup of jam
1 egg
enough milk to make a stiff dough

Put flour and baking powder in a bowl.  Add the butter.  Rub the butter into the flour with your finger tips until it is the texture of bread crumbs.  Add the sugar, cinnamon and the marmelade.  Break in the egg and add about half a cup of milk.

Mix till you get a very stiff dough.  Put teaspoonfuls onto a baking tray and bake about 15 minutes at 180oC.  Till golden brown.

My mix wasn't stiff enough to make piles of rocks.  Mine spread into biscuits.  Fine by me.  Gosh they do taste nice!!!

Bad times need fun things to make you happy!