Years Gone By

 Looking back to 2014 and an extended family baptism on the next door island of Aegina.  I have a cousin who was married to a greek woman, lived in New Zealand, who moved to England, remarried and whose son married a Greek.

Cousin John's son, with the Greek wife, had a daughter and they decided to baptise her on the island of Aegina.  The child was baptised Marina.  The baptism took place at a picturesque blue and white church dedicated to *Saint Marina overlooking the village of *Agia Marina. We were invited to the baptism naturally enough, being the greek connection actually living in Greece. And Poros is next to Aegina in the Saronic Gulf.

* Agia is the greek for a female Saint.

So we booked tickets and a hotel and arrived with half the family.

Back then it was easy.  We got on a boat and sailed for an hour to Aegina.  Nowadays we would have to take the hydrofoil back to the port of Piraeus, 1 hour, wait and catch a boat to Aegina, another hour. And the same to return.  Plus the bus ride around  to the other side of Aegina to the coastal town 

Walking up to the church on the hill

Here we are, our family contingent, minus K, the photographer.  Don't worry, he turns up in another photo

Me and daughter with 3 of the grandchildren

The baby held by kiwi grandfather, cousin John, surrounded by english and greek family

And in she goes.  She was dunked right under 3 times

He is, obviously, Scottish.

 Can't remember his name.  I think he is a friend of the english family.  He was very popular as everyone wanted a photo of him and his kilt

After the formalities the kids found huge mounds of dried seaweed and let off steam climbing up the piles and throwing 'chaff' to the wind

A mighty mural of Sea God Poseidon

The reception took place at a small taverna right beside the sea.

It wasn't quite summer but warm enough for small children to enjoy a dip in the waves

Here we are seated for lunch

Party on the sand

And then came the music

The accordionist was the french step father of the greek mother of little Marina.  An international crowd

And naturally there was dancing

Daughter and father kicked off their shoes to dance on the sand

Waiting for bus to do the return trip round the island and down to the Port.  The bus takes the scenic route through the villages which was great for us.

Past this mighty temple
Dedicated to the Greek Goddess Aphaia

And another little white church.  This one is down on Aegina harbour.  One of the first things you see as you get off the boat

Our Funeral?

 Had a late coffee this morning downtown and after an hour or so of K chatting with the locals we decided to have a cold beer before going home.  

2 beers and a snack.  My beer was alcohol free.

When we finished the first round the guy in the background here told the girl to bring us 2 more of what we were drinking and another plate of snacks.

The snacks!

The first plate was enough for breakfast and lunch.  We were going to bring it home in a disposable bowl but more of K's friends stopped by so it got eaten.

And our benefactor?  The local undertaker!

I know he's an acquaintance of K's but it was extremely generous of him to shout us all that.

Methinks he sees us as customers-soon-to-be and he'll make sure of it by feeding us lots of fat and alcohol.  Ftoo ftoo ftoo.  Begone, you evil eye.

He may bury us one day but hope it's not for many years yet.

He's a nice guy, arranges all the foreigners' funerals and any cremations which take place in Athens.  He's got always got a smile and a joke.  Not your grim, gloomy stereotype at all.

He has already buried a few in the extended family. That's a small community for you. Even the undertaker becomes part of the social circle. 

Delivery

I couldn't get a decent photo of this guy.

He's taking empty beer crates back to the shop.

Three tied on the back, four at his feet and one in hand.

All this on a little motor scooter

Oh, and no helmet

 

Nothing Much

 Every day is hot, over 36o mostly.   The heat takes away all my energy.  Its amazing how different I feel after a half hour in the air con but we only use that when it really is unbearable.  Today was 2o cooler.  Just 2o but it made a difference.  We had a comfortable siesta with just a fan going . 

 I listen to audio books.  Today it was 'Death of a Nurse'.  A nice light detective series written by MC Beaton.  The red haired Scottish policeman Hamish Macbeth solves a series of murders.  It's the 28th book in the series.  That's an awful lot of murders, all taking place in and around his little Highland town of Lochdubh.  You get to know the characters and enjoy hearing what they're up to while canny Macbeth outwits his dimwitted senior officers and catches all the baddies.  Easy listening. 

25th July was one of the fiesta days of Saint Anne.  There's a little church across on the mainland which is looked after by our son-in-law's family.  Some years we go to the service.  Show our faces.  But this year it was just to hot to trek across to Galatas.

The church of St. Anna

Agia Anna

 

26th July was the festival of another female saint.

We went to the early morning service at the church  of Agia Paraskevi, very close by

  She protects the eyes

There were loads of sweet Holy loaves and this year I remembered to bring a big bag with a plastic bag inside to stuff with chunks of the bread.  They are flavoured with carraway seeds and other spices

Then we went off down to our new cafe for a freddo espresso.  Perfect for dunking the holy bread 

Dionysos Cafe 

Nice and cool under the leafy canope and just a little cheaper than the other cafeterias.  A lot of K's friends hang out there too.  Easy parking, good internet and the supermarket is right next door.  So we are both happy.

Health Care

I had to go to a rural hospital for an appointment with the gynocologist.  I usually sing the praises of these hospitals.  And did last time.  I stayed in overnight for a scrape and biopsy.  The results came back very quickly.  Negative for all nasties.

But there has to be further treatment, an operation.  One of those women's things.  The gyno doc is retiring and expects to get leave in the next week or so and not return.  He doesn't want to perform the operation.  He's done enough of them and anyway the necessary materials are not available just now.  **Often in a case like this you presumed the doctor just wanted a little extra and a discreet but bulging plain envelope did the trick.  This doctor really is tired.  He tried to put us off in every way he could.  His final suggestion was that I go back to my 'native land' to get it done.  That rather flabbergasted us.  Go home?  I think he presumed I was a refugee from Romania or Hungary or another Balkan state and had found a rich greek to marry. It has been many many years since we have run into someone who does not know where NZ is in the world.  He came out with Finland?, no.  Then finally seemed to remember a land in the mist down near Australia.  He really has been working hard, hasn't had time to learn about current affairs, geography and certainly no time to learn a little of the english language.  No, I don't expect the whole world to speak english but it seems strange.

The hospital does what it can for foreigners.  There was an elderly english gent there with his wife who had broken her leg.  He had been sent along to the secretary's office to get the right papers.  Everyone in the queue helped him out and he wasn't refused treatment for his wife because he didn't have his passport and was not in the greek system.  

I hope he finds the nurses as friendly and helpful as I did on my overnight stay.  They went out of their way to make sure I was comfortable even keeping my lunch back so I could eat a few hours after the biopsy.   The Matron was friendly with a sense of humour.  

So what do I do now? The doctor also told us that no other doctor had been appointed in his place.  He told us too that most rural hospitals cut back on staff over the summer and only urgent surgeries were being done.  Mine's not urgent so we have till October to find another solution.  K will start to make phone calls.  There are 2 other rural hospitals but we could possibly use the Naval Hospital in Athens or one of the General hospitals in Piraeus.  All perfectly fine except we don't want to go into Athens or Piraeus.  'Tha thoume', we will see.

We filled up on petrol over on the mainland and were pleased to see the price had gone down by a few cents.  The car ferry ticket however had risen from 6.80 euros to 9.70 euros.  That's a helluva an increase , especially when petrol prices are no longer sky rocketing.

A trip to the closest city, Nafplio, now costs us almost twice what it did before Russia began the war.  It's still far cheaper than going into Athens either by car, boat or fast hydrofoil.  Another reason we prefer these rural towns.

Nafplio is just over an hour away and if we choose the right day there is also a very big farmers market selling everything from lettuces to lingerie.  We know where to park, where to find good coffee, really good bread and K has his special 'old mens' cafe where he loves to sit, drink a litre of local wine and enjoy a plate of little fishes.  

It was 38oC on the day we went .  We left very early in the morning and got there before the heat of the day hit us.  I was prepared to be exhausted but thankfully there was aircondition everywhere, especially in our car.  It was too hot to contemplate going through the german supermarket but we stopped on the way back for a quick coffee and I dashed into the Greek supermarket next door.  That was my thrill of the day.  A bigger supermarket than the one on the island.  I got a few essentials and a few non-essentials.  

Then home for a cold shower.

**In days of old people thought if you didn't pay the doc under the table then he wouldn't look after you. Some doctors demanded it even in a free public hospital.  This is illegal now although  often a couple of  50euro notes are handed over as 'thanks'.

Bulgarian Salad No 1

 No, not a Greek salad, but a Bulgarian salad made the No. 1 spot on the survey of food website, TasteAtlas.   In fact two Bulgarian salads made the top 10.

 1 - Ovcharska salad 

 2 - Shopska 

The greek salad, 'dakos' with tomato, feta and olive oil on a hard rusk, came in at no.3 and the classic Greek salad (country salad, horiatiki) was at no.8.  

All this from the greek news website in english, greekreporter.

Hardly worth noting really.  Salads just need a bit of imagination and some fresh ingredients.   I looked up these Bulgarian salads and they are worth a try. Shopska is the simple version of the other.  The Ovcharska looks darn tasty though to eat it at its best you surely need the traditional cheese and like everything, you need to be there sampling the local atmosphere.

Ovcharska Salad...... 

Thanks to barcafe.bg

And what's in it?

- Tomatoes chopped

- Cucumber chopped

- Green pepper or baked red pepper. I'd use red peppers from a jar

- Onion sliced

- Pickled mushrooms. Not sure about these. I'd probably put some sliced mushrooms in vinegar. Or maybe lightly fry some

- White bulgarian sirene cheese. Here I'd use feta. Grated or crumbled. Or maybe I'd just grate my favourite yellow cheese

- Chopped ham. Looks like thick chunks

 - Hard boiled eggs chopped

- Salt to taste

- Parsley

- Apple cider vinegar

- Olive oil

- 5 olives for decor

Put it all in a big bowl and mix up with the oil and vinegar

Bulgaria is one of our neighbours, on the northern border with Greece. I follow a couple of blogs written by English expats who have built houses in Bulgaria.  The best is

auntiebulgaria.com

Claire Rushton is a British writer. She and her husband moved to Bulgaria to grow vegetables, collect cats and live a slower life. Hers is another fascinating and well written blog. She is a vegan and has a load of really tasty dishes, Bulgarian and otherwise. But her blog is not only food. She writes about real life in Bulgaria with humour and without using incomprehensible Bulgarian words.

She's also on Instagram as

auntie_bulgaria

A Post

 I have covid. Tested positive a week ago. Still positive. A positive person, as my daughter says. Had a few days of flu symptoms, took it easy, and am still doing so. Good excuse. It's hot and I'm bothered.

I feel fine but can't be bothered with blogs, annoying people or constant whining. Not to say the three go together. 

I went through social media lists and cleared out all the annoying people I was following or who followed me. Then I cleaned the floors. And went out into the garden and ripped out all unproductive plants. Made me feel much better.

Daughters gathered around doing shopping and giving advice.

K has been negative throughout.

The one interesting happening all week were some very low flying big passenger planes. They sounded as though they were preparing to land in the bay below. But they continued on to Athens. I had fascinating views of their under carriages from the terrace.  

Today there are fires on the outskirts of Athens. Cool breezes which will turn into a heatwave by the weekend.

Hopefully I'll be out by then and able to swim again.

Our local beach had a big cleanup which we should have been part of.  No photos of it on Facebook. Or not that I've been told about anyway. Not much communication at the moment in our house. 

How the hell did I get the dreaded lurgy and not him. I hadn't been out for days. Whose evil eye poisoned me.