Ramblings from Greece

So it’s time to go home tomorrow, on the ferry, then the plane. They are having a sending off impromptu party at the only cafe open in Kamares before the ferry leaves. A lady who lives near Chrysopigi monastery, is going to be on the ferry with me. I have learnt a lot more about this island and it’s people, a different season where nature is waking up, at home where she is still asleep. I am a bit disappointed but not surprised at my feeble progress on using the Greek language. I think a lot more preconceptions about Greece have been blown away, the public toilets at Apollonia like the ones at Kamares are if nothing better than what we would find in the UK. The wine in its plastic bottles is very good, forgot those retsina memories! Most of all, the people are super friendly and I look forward to coming back, in another season, in what is becoming another life for me.  On the ferry to Piraeus, I sat with the lady from Chrysopigi on the boat and we had a nice chat together, the six ...

So on my last full day, I decided to do the walk from Kamares to Apollonia and back. I think it should have been about three miles each way. You start along the so called loop walk, I saw several farmers and I got a friendly wave and a Kalamara, which is the limit of my Greek! Unfortunately I managed to miss a sign on the outward route and got lost. This ended up with me scrambling along, luckily the phone gave me some good directions and I got to Apollonia after a long diversion. I had a super lunch in an open cafe, we are going there tomorrow, it’s happy to accept well behaved dogs! On the way back I managed to spot where I had gone wrong, the Greeks, helpfully mark a Red Cross where the path does not go, I had missed that. I will know next time I do the walk. An olive tree had fallen on the path, so I had to find my way past that. There are several pipes serving water on my route, the plastic ones are ugly, the old steel ones are leaking in places causing my path to become a stream....

One of the things that I have heard about, but not done yet is what they call the Loop walk. You basically walk out of Kamares following what was an old river bed years ago. Unlike the hills where it is mostly rocks, the old river bed has very fertile soil and this probably the best time to start to grow things, as it’s moist. So we saw several farmers tilling the ground ready for planting or sowing seeds. They are known for their onions, courgettes and tomatoes. The herbs are now growing back too and other plants. Hazel picked some herbs for the kitchen, they had a very strong aroma! My friends have a nuisance shrub growing in their balcony wall and it was great to remove it for them today. One thing that divides this family is the noise the ferries make, tooting to advertise their arrival and departure. It is very loud and I agree with the side that considers it a nuisance! Tonight we are back having dinner with our Dutch friend.  Photos, Around the loop walk, old community oven ...

So it’s New Year’s Eve and it’s very windy, as it was last night. We go to our Dutch friend and do some     meringue making in her house. I pop into the church in Kamares which is very decorative inside. I then follow the front to the little cove where we visited in the autumn where Mike and Ronnie swam in.     I now     have my ferry ticket to take me back to the mainland. As I am walking around, the car hire guy wizzes by on a scooter and says hello and gives me a wave. With Hazel we pop into a shop and buy a bottle of wine, that’s decanted into a plastic bottle, it’s a pity it’s not like a pop up shop where you can supply your own bottles, it would not take much to encourage people to do this… I also feed the white duck and fill his water bowl up, he doesn’t realise this, but he is getting a new mate today! Had a taste of the Lemon curd made by our Dutch friend     and Hazel the other day. It was really nice.  

  Another lovely evening at the tiny house last night, with our friend Kim and the waitress in the Cameron restaurant. It’s interesting to meet someone who is a local, hear    tales of the island    and colourful characters in the past and present! At the end of the evening we had a snifter of the local drink tsipouro, which is a spirit, best described as fire water. I think it’s part of the initiation of living on the island, if so I failed, I only had one small glass! The lady also brought in some home made cake, which was lovely and moist, the Greek work for cake is the same as ours, the easiest word to learn! Ronnie also got a tub of treats which he liked the look of. So my last day with the car and the rain would curtail my trip out as when I got to Fassolou beach near Faros, it just chucked it down and did not seem to want to clear. A lot of the churches I went in were also locked up. I first booked my covid test at a pharmacy in Apollonia, but I bumped in...

At the back of the apartment is a balcony and little garden area in which there is a tree. In fact it’s two in one, if you look at the trunk you can see where a second citrus wood has been grafted on, so it has lemons and clementines on the single root stock. We had a nice dinner last night, three of us enjoyed a chicken and leek pie made by Mike, and cooked in the log burner and a cake bought for them by our friend Kim. My understanding is that their dog will get the left overs tonight, unless Mike gets in there first…. Ronnie definitely enjoyed the piece of spanakopita I gave him last night. I have bought another for my lunch today.  So my first visit of today had me go to St Simeon, which is on top of a mountain, that can see from Kamares. It’s lit up at night.    Luckily you can drive up there. It’s a very lonesome place and as soon as I had wandered around it, the rain came down. Luckily all these churches seem to be open. There were lots of rabbit droppings around, ...

  So my early morning duties are to turn the heating on which ignites an oil boiler outside the apartment. Turning on the hot water is my second job, in the winter you can’t rely on the sun to heat your morning shower. The boiler is quite an antiquated beast and reminds me of boilers in houses when I was a child. The fact this place has central heating is quite unusual on the island.     On the way to getting the car I pop into the bakery and buy myself a spanakopita a sort of pasty with cheese and spinach in it for lunch. My Greek is rubbish but I manage to buy one and pass on a few Kalamera to people I bump into along my way, including the local shop. I have a flask full of coffee as there are not likely to be any places open for drinks on the way. My first port of call in the car is Vathi, I have the roads to myself, I have driven on the right side of roads before so it’s ok for me. On my journey I meet a flock of sheep, the shepherd being pretty good at getting the tr...

  It’s still a windy day with light cloud, today we are off to our friend from the UK who is cooking us a full breakfast. It will be interesting to see what’s on our plates, the Greeks don’t really do sausages like we do, I don’t expect to find black pudding! As usual I feed the cats in the morning, scattering food near my door. There seem to be two dominant residents, another comes to take a look, I scatter a bit of food for him away from the pile for the other two. We had a great breakfast at Kim’s, the sausages he gave us were very good, they tend to taste a bit like frankfurters. He has a few stray cats he feeds, one a lovely tabby, called Fly, because it used to catch flies when he first met Kim. Ronnie food tested the sausages too. Afterwards it was on the beach to stock up Mike’s log supply with the trimmings off the trees, which have been pruned, nothing like that goes to waste here. After a quick coffee back at the apartment, I head off to the beach to do a litter pick on ...

  Before I go and see Mike and Hazel for Christmas Day I walk up a hill, which is probably designated a mountain. It’s a lovely day again and the ground is moist and nature is responding with plants growing again, after the heat of the summer. The path is marked by red and white paint every so often. It’s probably not a good idea to walk on your own on these mountain path, and I get told off afterwards.     I see a goat and it’s kid ahead of me and wisely they don’t let me get close to them. On my way I make a little pile of stones by the path, I have seen others similar ones on my way. There are a few plants I recognise, cyclamen for example. There is another that is coming out of a bulb that is just below the ground, an allium perhaps. I turn around when the path gets a bit dodgy. There were amazing views of Kamares as I climbed up.   We have the meal in the afternoon and our Dutch friend joins us with an English guy I met last time I was here. We are having chicke...

  The weather is much better and after feeding the stray cats who have taken up home outside the apartment, I walk down to the beach and go to Church of St Catherine, I have been before but it’s nice to go there and be the only one visiting it. I light a candle in the church, I am not religious, but it seems a nice thing to do. One of the things that I find troubling about Greece are the recycling levels, especially on the island. For sure they recycle glass, but a lot of people buy wine in plastic bottles or boxes,     all the household rubbish gets chucked in communal bins. I imagine it’s not economic to recycle on small islands but with burgeoning tourist numbers it must surely be so? An opportunity would be to offer an incentive for people to bring back their empty plastic wine bottles..   Off my soap box I try skimming some lumps of pottery I find on the beach, it’s worth looking at the video, I count three bounces, quite impressive I thought. In the evening we ...

    I  am staying in an apartment in the centre of Kamares town, it’s the place Hazel and Mike lived in before they moved to the tiny house. I open the curtains and it’s a bit cloudy, but I have a lovely view. After getting up, I have a wander on the beach, the Old Captains bar, is empty and seems a bit sad, but I have the beach to myself. I find the only cafe open and have a coffee and a cheese and spinach pie for breakfast. As soon as I tell them I am a friend of Michael and Hazel and that I am living in their old place, it’s like a door Is opened, I am not a local, but it’s good! I then get picked up to go shopping, it’s the last shop before Christmas. A lot of things not made on the island are at least the same price as home. Wine is cheaper, you can buy a five litre box for the same price as an average 2.5 litre one over here…   Afterwards we    have a coffee in a very old fashioned coffee shop in Apollonia, it has a lovely old sideboard in it, festoon...