Aged Wine

I decided it was finally time to open the oldest bottle of red wine.

I think it is 5 years old but could be a lot more.

This old bottle had wax sealing the cork.  I'm not sure where it came from.  Could be from my son-in-law.  The last bottle of K's red wine which we opened, after 10 years, was very drinkable.

This is not Ks wine but a bottle given to us by someone, someone close I should think, looking at that hand waxed bottle

Here goes the sommelier, dressed in his best blue overall

A nicely stained cork

And an undrinkable glass of red wine

The finest vinegar.

And that's where it went, into the big vinegar barrel

Lunch in the Sun

A grilled fish on the balcony day 

Grilled fish on the balcony under the shade of the now leafing grapevine

K grilled more than we could eat at one meal so we can have it as an accompaniment with spinach tomorrow and more salad the next day.

The fish is gutted but neither scaled nor filleted.  This way it doesn't stick to the grill and naturally traditional people insist that there is more flavour in the fish if it is left in its original state.  That means that hands must be used when eating and it gets messy and I always end up with oil spots somewhere on my shirt. 

The fish are easy to clean on the plate, just messy.  The side bones come away, the scales and skin slide off and the backbone is removed in one swoop.  We end up with a big bowl of heads, tails, scales and skin for the cats.

The fish is then dressed with 'salamoura',  oil and lemon juice, a little mustard and oregano.  The dressing is shaken up in a little jar which you will notice sitting on the table at the top of the photo.

We ate the fish with the dressing, a greek potato salad and a lettuce and rocket salad, all dressed with more lemon juice and olive oil. 

Red wine for me, white for the traditional boy. Red wine goes well with white fish, especially a rough, dry local wine which has not travelled more than half a kilometre.

The grapevine is sprouting all over the place which I am happy to see.  Vaso's son pruned it this year and so severely I wondered if it would produce any grape leaves at all.  I have trimmed all the ends of the grape vines which are galloping away and swaying over next doors road.  Now I must collect a bowl of young grape leaves to make stuffed vine leaves.  This before K comes along to spray some sort of blue dust all over it to stop the rot.

Do the Hokey Pokey

Or in this case, 'make' the hokey pokey

Its ANZAC day downunder.  Remembrance day in Australia and New Zealand. 2020, No dawn services,  No gatherings  in Crete or in Athens at the Commonwealth War cemetaries.

We are remembering our homelands here with hokey pokey, New Zealand's unique toffee/honeycomb icecream and Anzac biscuits, supposedly sent overseas to Anzac soldiers during the world wars.

ANZAC Australian and New Zealand Army Corps

Hokey pokey 

Made from baking soda, sugar and golden syrup, or in this case, runny honey

Well done kids

This is added to vanilla icecream to produce a soft icecream with big sweet crunchy bits in it.  Heaven

My share is handed over the gate

They ate theirs with icecream

I just crunched it down 'straight'

Anzac biscuits

There are no eggs or milk used in the recipe and the rest of the ingredients  make for a long-life biscuit.  They would need to be unspoilable.  The sea journey to Europe probably took about three months and by the time they actually reached the soldiers it might have been a few more weeks.  The biscuits would have been a welcome change from hard tack and bully beef.

The poppies I crocheted for last years ANZAC remembrance day

23 April

St George's Day.

My grandson's name day and also the name day of little Georgia, way downunder in Australia. 

I know you both had happy family days

St George the dragon slayer, patron saint of England

Agios Georgios - a great martyr in the Orthodox church

Another fiesta comes and goes. 

Grandchildren and their mother

Finding ways to pass the time

Who managed to stay  the longest?  Wasn't the one in pink

Had some pots of basil delivered today. They will be transplanted into big clay pots 

Back to the New Routine

On a warm day we sit on the balcony

and eat leftover lamb and tripe soup

Today we ate the last of the easter lamb, in a pie

Thank goodness that is over and done with

We are inside today.  It's blustering blustily

Our permit, in greek

We have to fill out one of these every time we leave the grounds

A number 2 for shopping or a number 6 to go up to the bins and throw out the rubbish.

I get most of my exercise on the treadmill or in the garden pulling weeds

We can also send an sms and ask for permission for a walk or gathering of essential supplies.  

Today was rubbish bin day

A lovely windy walk.  All the cobwebs were blown away

There are finally a few poppies out on the verges.  Not many yet.  No-one is strimming so roadsides and fields are waist high in swaying grasses and some colourful weeds

Behind that abandoned car I espied half a dozen artichokes

Someone has been picking them because there are a lot of dry stalks as well

An ice plant

Next time I go up I shall take a cutting and plant it near the nasturtiums

This plant can be invasive, they say.  I hope so.  I'll plant it on one of our little garden walls where the clover is another invader

Elderly neighbour Vaso has been hard at work

She doesn't need a strimmer.  Bent double she  pulled the knee high grasses by hand and laid them down in rows under the orange trees

On the left you can just see the patch she has cleared and this lot of grasses will be pulled and laid out when I next go up the road with the rubbish

Sunday

When we are finally let out of quarantine someone had better give us a medal.  Our family, three families, were amongst the few who stayed at home on Sunday.  I know it is the biggest celebration of the year but supposedly we are in lockdown.  Few others around here stayed at their own home despite the 300euro fine for being out and about.  We heard very loud music coming from across the valley and somewhere over the hills until the wee hours.  Even our elderly neighbour had a small gathering though they were her daughter's friends, not hers.  News of the islands parties are slowly filtering in via facebook and the telephone.  

Our two daughters and 5 grandchildren all live on the island, minutes away by car.  Each family had their easter feast in their own home.  This is the first time in 45 odd years that I haven't taken a photo of our lamb turning on a spit.  

My very traditional greek husband makes this years sign of the cross three times over our doorway with the Holy flame.

At midnight in our neck of the woods all the houses around us, across the valley, were brightly lit up, as was ours.  Someone had gone to the little church down the hill and rang the bell for almost 10 minutes and the sound of firecrackers could just be heard from  the beach below.

In our old neighbourhood our daughter and family went out into the street at midnight to wish everyone 'Christ is Risen'.

Next morning there was no lamb on the spit but we did have a traditional skewer of kokoretsi, all the insides of the lamb wound up with the metres of carefully cleaned intestines

There was lamb on the menu but it went into the oven with a pile of potatoes.  As usually is the way in our house there was far too much food for two.  The cats and ourselves will be eating leftovers for days to come.

In amongst those pieces of lamb was half a sheep's head with one eye and the teeth from the right side only, the tongue but no brains

Down on the roof of our old house our daughter and family also had a skewer of kokoretsi and a mixed grill

Meanwhile round the bay the other third of our family also had a mixed grill out on the balcony

We shared videos and photographs all day long with our girls and friends who usually eat with us on Easter Sunday.  Through social networking we weren't completely alone which made us feel a little more part of an easter crowd but also rather sad.

There was dancing and lots of laughter, but only through cyber space

K is vowing to put a lamb on the spit on that big BBQ as soon as the restrictions are lifted.  I'd be quite happy if they all just came around for coffee

Waiting for tidbits

Saturday

Still preparing for easter as though we were expecting a few dozen visitors.

Late last night I kneaded enough sourdough for two loaves of Easter bread and those went into the oven this morning.  One loaf went off to another part of the family.

  Offal was chopped and a mountain of lettuce washed for the easter soup, magieritsa, which we will eat as usual after the midnight service, to be watched on television this year.

K was busy preparing a long skewer of offal to go onto the BBQ tomorrow.  Potatoes were peeled, the lamb marinated and everything went into the fridge so hopefully we will have an easier day tomorrow.  Just the two of us

The Holy Light arrived in Athens from Jerusalem at 6pm on a special Aegean airlines flight.  Usually the light is sped off to every island, village, and city in the country and is carried to every household, almost, in the country.  Just before midnight the priest lights his candle inside the church and the flame is passed to the crowds outside, from candle to candle .  This year the light went to a church in Athens where it will be kept burning, until it can safely travel from hand to hand all over Greece .

My daughter and her husband brought us up a Holy Light from a Monastery on the mainland.  

We lit our candles, a couple of lanterns and  festive lambathas from years gone by

And our special easter candles made by my youngest grandaughter.

With these we will make the cross over the door.

We lit candles in 2 lanterns and then called to our one and only close neighbour to come down and take the light up to their house and a phone call to another neighbour brought him down to also take the Holy Light home.  

Most homes this year will have to make do with a candle lit by a cigarette lighter.