Photos of Poros Visit

The second lot of visitors have come and gone.  The weather stayed mainly fine, we enjoyed many morning coffees either gossiping down on the harbour or on our balcony catching up on family and reviewing the years gone by.

My brother and wife came through europe carrying heavy cases and have left with much the same weight I should think.  What did they drag all the way through Europe this time?  4 kilos of Raro drink mix and a kilo of marmite.  Oh aren't they wonderful.

What's Raro?  For us its the taste of NZ.  It comes as a powder in rather heavy bags, just add water and dream of home.  All kiwis know of it of course.  The drinks come in a myriad of flavours, orange, mandarin, mango, pineapple and mixes thereof. My girls love it.  

And what did they replace the weight with?  Good Greek olive oil.

On one of our farewell nights we went up to the taverna up the road.  Its under the grapevines and is perfect for small children.  They must have had a few rowdy greek children because there was a new sign up.  Only in Greek

Attention Parents

While enjoying our space please make sure your children do NOT -

- throw stones in the fountain

- steal the table numbers

- destroy the garden or pick the flowers

- smash the garden lights

- break the playground equipment

 

Our active kids did none of that!  They played hide and seek and had their photo taken on the hammock.  The hammock?  Yeh, the weight of 7 kids was too much and they did break that but it was end of season and it was at the end of it's life anyway.  Plus the owners are family!  Always helps

We all had our photos taken on my daughters rooftop as the sun went down.  

Contemplating Poros

And they all met up again with my greek sister in law

Here they are, my two sisters in law with hardly a word in common just enjoying each other's company

The obligatory family BBQ at our house

All organised and cooked by our traditional Greek

I think, I know, a good time was had by all

And they're coming back really soon

Touch wood

Family!

September and October we are finally embracing our Downunder Family

The Australians eating Greek

Cousins drinking greek

The morning after

Dark glasses hide a lot

🤣🤣

 

Cousins reunited again

A few years have passed but family just clicks back in

The kiwis arrive!!

My little bro and sis-in-law

Kiwis girls eat Greek

It's usually men surrounded by food, but they were all gathered at the other end with their beer and wine

Nephew learns from the Greek mastora how to grill offal, pork and chicken. He was a great pupil. Got his hands in there cleaning intestines, chasing off wasps, layering the meat on the spit and enjoying an Alpha or two.

Zito

Poros/Perth/NZ

Poros Holiday

October holiday on Poros Island

No words needed

One Down

Not for vegans or the faint hearted!

We were invited for a roast dinner today

 

The meat was surprisingly tender and there was no 'ripe goat' smell.

It slow cooked in the oven for 3 or 4 hours with olive oil, lemon juice and oregano. No salt or pepper. Lots of potatoes too.

It was only 17 kilos so it wasn't one of the bigguns.

Neighbour says he won't shoot at anything unless it's on his land. The herd got under the wire a few days ago. Fair game. They'd damaged quite a few olive trees . 

One down, the rest scarpered and haven't returned ....yet.

The leaks were patched up but K just told me there's now water bubbling up from the road right outside our gate

Visiting Day

 Visiting day at the Naval Base.  The new recruits have had a week of confinement at the Base here, plus another week or so at the main marshelling station in Athens.  They used to spend 6 weeks here but now it's more like 3.  Learning to march, handle guns, peel potatoes, garden.  Basic training.

Every greek male is supposed to do time in the armed forces once they reach 18, with very basic pay. Time in the Navy was 2 years but it's down to something like 9 months now.  Not too much time to spend away from Mama but a nuisance if you're studying or starting a new job.  It can be delayed until after your studies and those escaping overseas can now get some sort of exemption.  They used to be nabbed as they re-entered the country and sent into the army.

Our oldest grandson has put his conscription off till he ends his studies in a couple of years time. 

The 2 Sundays here at the base they are allowed out till 4pm.  A few hundred young sailors are joined by several hundred mothers, grandmothers, girlfriends and a few Dads all eager to fuss over their young boys.  

We hadn't realised it was visiting day when we went for coffee and arrived at the lower gate of the Base to find young lads dressed in white flocking out into the parking lot, heading for the cafes and tavernas in town.  

From experience we knew it was touch and go whether we found an empty table at our favourite cafe.  While K parked up I dashed for our cafe which is first in the line of harbour cafes.  I grabbed a table, not our usual one, but with a view of goings on and out of the sun.

The regulars were noticeably absent, either by choice or because 'their' tables were already occupied

Mamas and Grandmamas bring tupperware containers of meatballs and dolmathes to feed up their sons who are fading away without their homecooking

Sailors, sailors everywhere

Goats

Our herd of wild goats have returned.  They have found a water source.  The leaky water mains.

The pipe was fixed last week and a few days later it burst again.

Happy goats.

The piping all the way down the road will have to be replaced.  Sometime.  Sometime never.

Here are just a portion of them having a drink.  The herd must be well over 20, from huge billy goats to frisky youngsters.  The latter are in danger of being wiped out.  Our neighbour just bought a new gun

We hear them most nights now, rearing up and bringing down the lower olive branches, chewing up any branches from our lemon trees and bougainvillia that hang over the fence.  That's fair game, I don't mind them trimming the overhang.

The house on the other side which has been vacant for a few years has just yesterday been rented out to a dutch couple.  They arrived while I was watering the garden. I naturally came out to see what all the fuss was about.  We don't do 'fuss' around here normally.

There they were, the nieces of the aged aunt who once owned the house, our local estate agent and the foreign couple.  They all came over to tell me what was going on and the dutch, or maybe  it was Austrian, woman introduced herself. I was taken rather by surprise, thought they hadn't spotted me having a snoop and didn't quite take it all in. 

They obviously weren't told to keep their big garden gates shut because we could hear the goats having a feast in their garden last night.  I hope the olive trees aren't too badly damaged.  It will be olive season in a month or so.

This neighbourhood is becoming quite cosmopolitan.  We already have english neighbours, who only usually come for the summer, then there's me from NZ and now we have Dutch/Austrian.  They have rented for all the year but from what I understand they will only be here for a month.  A year long holiday rental.

The last few days we have heard a few rifle shots from next door. Neighbour says he's 'trying out' the new gun. On what?

And yesterday there was a huge explosion which rocked the house. I don't know where that came from. Maybe a fisherman was dynamiting fish down in the bay.

Or the navy was detonating depth charges.

This morning I was woken by the sound of a shotgun going off very close, six times. It was another neighbour, across the valley. Though the shots were so loud I thought they were outside our front gate.

K phoned him straight away. He was scaring the goats from his land.

Then tonight I really did hear a kerfuffle outside our gate. A large smelly billy goat had managed to grab one of our rose bushes and was munching away and another was breaking down Vaso's fence to eat her carob tree. 

They've survived and multiplied for several years now.  

No shotgun is going to scare this lot off. They roam over kilometres of forest and  ancient rocks, feasting on olives and occasionally destroying vineyards and vegetable gardens, eating roses and trimming lemon trees. 

Grape Harvest

 Elderly neighbour Vaso was due to start her grape picking on Monday, red and white. But it rained. So she will have to wait a few days for the vines to dry out.

Most years they would be picking only the white grapes now and leave the red for a couple of weeks. But they're ready early this year. The sugar content, which son Vangelis checks on with a little gadget, is spot on 

This is some of our harvest. We haven't had such a good crop for years.

The red has been very well watered but the white, at the end of the garden, got no water . The white is sweet and the skins not too tough for once. They both have seeds but are still ok for eating. 

The red grapes especially have been tough and sour in years gone by. 

I wonder what made this year different.

July was quite cool but August was the norm. One heatwave after another.

We had so many bunches we gave a lot of them away to neighbours.

Last year the bunches turned to dried up raisins on the vine. This year they're full of juice

Vaso doesn't pick anymore. She's the supervisor. It will be her son, daughter and son in law who do all the hard work. They're a hard working family, following the example of their tough old Mama. When it comes to harvesting their grapes, olives, lemons or oranges the family pulls together and does the work, even though the daughter and son in law live in Athens and are retired professionals, teacher and engineer.

The volume of their grape Harvest has gone right down in recent years. They juice the grapes themselves, and put it in barrels.  Once upon a time they nurtured 5 hundred litres, or more, of wine

Not anymore. They'll probably manage to process just enough for the family. 100-150 litres. 

The son says he will pull out most of the vines next year and keep just enough for the 'house'. It's too much trouble. Though they have their own wine press , machines, barrels and paraphernalia.