Morning mountain

Monday 20th June - Hora, Serifos

So a lazy start to my time up in the Pano Hora, that’s is the lower main town of Serifos. The wind is still present, maybe it’s always windy here? Time will tell! It’s very peaceful and looking out the window I see this huge mountain with the sun on it. It’s makes you appreciate the textures, colours and the things that cling to its rock such as the trees. The moon is up there in the sky too. ( not in my photo ) The plan today is to walk up to the upper town, that is Kato Hora, do some food shopping and come back and have a lazy day. I am waiting for an estate agent to call me to arrange a time to visit property in Kato Hora that is available for long term rental. Turns out I was right about the Town Hall, after all, there is a good information site on the Horas, if you look at it, you might need to select the English version, press the hamburger sign on the top left of the page.

So I ventured out to the shops, with my list. First of all I had another wander where the walk was meant to start that I looked into yesterday. I found a multitude of signs, the path itself is not clear, I need to look more into it, to make sure I know what I am letting myself in for! As I turned around there is that classic panorama of the two Hora’s with Syros in the background. A lot of the vegetation has now died off, the flowers I saw last time I was here, a distant memory.  On my way to the bakers, I saw three small horses carrying bags containing some kind of building material. When I got to the bakers, they had no Spanakopita  but something similar in appearance was on sale called Manitaropita which I ate on  nearby steps. It was very nice. The bakers has a shop next door which is part of the same enterprise. I managed to buy some of the things from my list, I then repeated the exercise in the second shop. When you buy eggs,  you pay for them and are then given a paper bag to pop them into. I got  most of the remaining things  on my list. I then went to the coffee shop where I went before last time I was here. 

After the first coffee I wanted to practice a phrase I find hard to remember it’s “Thello allo enna” which means again, I popped a. “Parakello” on the end to be polite. I was understood, and my clothes peg ended up with another receipt for a coffee in its jaws. Outside one of the small horses appeared with its owner, he came in and helped himself to a glass of water, no such luck for the horse. I then walked back to the tiny house, this is an interesting test, for living here,  the shopping was quite heavy, but it’s not too far.  On my way I took a photo of the bus timetable to Livadi for future reference, walking down is not a problem, going  up is a different matter in these temperatures! Both this and the Hora map will stay on my phone for reference. Then out of the blue two butterflies appeared, some kind of mating ritual perhaps. Later I discovered they were some variant of the  Swallowtail.


Later on I saw this lovely sign for a Bouganville shrub. These are everywhere in the Mediterranean.


In the afternoon the estate agent called, I agreed I could look at the property, they then said they needed to contact the owner. So I stayed in and waited for the call. It’s now the hottest part of the day and I expect everybody is closed until later on. No matter, another aspect of living here you need to get used too. Things take time. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The wind returns…

Image
Monday 20st - Tuesday 21st,  Hora Serifos So while cooking my first meal in the house, the estate agent called again and asked if I could meet the owner of the property at seven thirty. Surely so I said. I was cooking kedgeree, two eggs were hard boiled, half an onion fried. I had a tin of tuna and what I thought was rice. With no scales it was a bit of an estimation job on how much to cook. I had  also bought this small jar of what was called  curry sauce to add a bit of a kick to the meal. So while checking the rice, it did not have the right texture I thought. I then realised it was a type of pasta! Anyhow I mixed it all up, added a dollop of the curry sauce, it was different, but it was quite edible! Moral of the story, find the Greek words for things you want to buy to make sure you get the groceries you want! While waiting for the owner I spotted this beautifully painted utility box So I met the owner of the property, and the builder who did the work. I had seen pho...
Read more

A day to remember…

Image
So my last full day on Paros and I took the car out again. This time to a village I had driven past, but needed to  explore properly. So I had a wander around the old part of Lefkes, I would have cheerfully bought a coffee or a candle in the church but everything was closed up. I did see an old lady wandering the streets, but no one else really. It’s gone cold again, that strong wind is back. Temperature single digits. I did hear the church  bells, that was largely the only sound coming out of the village. Here as elsewhere Montbretia is flowering, I think in the UK June would be when it flowers. I have no idea what the pretty yellow building is or was… My  next village was Marpissa, this was a village of windmills, except only one was intact, the others derelict. Like Lefkes everything was shut up, but I think I did see a couple of people to say hello to. There was an old lady here to, with a stick, and she was was finding every step extremely painful to take. But she go...
Read more

So my early morning duties

Image
  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...
Read more