The Lighthouse

September 24th - Hora and Livadi 

I  had a lovely dinner next door last night. I had my usual Greek Salad and Mythos beer, for my main I had the Chick Pea Stew, which I plan to try and make myself sometime. I actually had one of my warmer tops on and if I am honest a pair of trousers might have been a better choice than shorts. It was windy, but the last couple of days have been colder and therefore nighttime temperatures drop more. Even the thermometer in the house is hovering around twenty during the day.  After walking to the house I watched on YouTube, the film The Suspect It’s a very accomplished film, with actors I recognised from films of that era. It’s a dark film, at the end you can’t help but feel sorry for the hero (IMHO)

 

This morning it feels cold so I am staying inside, outside there are cotton wool clouds floating in the sky above the mountains and Hora. The house needed a clean, it’s not dirty but I want to keep the habit of doing it every week. I am going to make spaghetti carbonara, I popped to our local shop  to get the hairdressers number and a couple of things. I managed to tell the lady owner that I saw a terrapin on my walk the other day. 

Unfortunately I woke very early this morning. One problem when I do,  is my mind starts thinking. Not worrying but thinking. So my thoughts were about when my friends come next week, having a holiday on the mainland in a Serifos sandwich, I am going to pop into the second bedroom. I thought that I might stay in the smaller bedroom longer term and it will be easier to wash the smaller sheets in the autumn and winter. If I don’t find it comfortable I can revert easily. 

My other unwanted thought was about money. I am not worried about it, but I thought come October I might keep a log of expenditures just to see what life over here really costs. I am not going to be too strict about my amateur book keeping, but just get a general idea. While at the Taverna I found the young girl who serves there, she will return to Athens and one of the men will go back to being an electrician. That’s an observation I have heard before, Greeks are very good at switching from job to job, as conditions prevail, and often have multiple jobs to make ends meet. I know one of the guys who works at the Real Estate place also works in a cafe. I must pop in and see him. 

So I decided to take the bus and walk to the lighthouse which is on a peninsula near a beach I visited last time I was here. The walk headed out of Livadi, I saw a white horse in a field that I remember from last time. I then turned off into a village where there was this classic Greek pretty church

I could see a Zante ferry that was leaving the port and around me were not just views of Sifnos, but Anti Paros and Kimolas. There are two tracks to the lighthouse, if you like a high road and a low one. I was on the latter. There was a big brand new house which had a super view so I took a photo, I am sure they did not mind. Then I hit a surprise. In a bay was what looked like a fish farm of some sort. It was very pretty but there was a sign that I translated which basically said keep out!

I then turned around and carried on. There were lovely views and the ground cover did look fairly green. I can’t wait until we get a lot of rain and it all grows and the streams run again. It’s not going to be like Andros but it is going to look amazing in the Spring. According to my map there should have been a path linking my track to the higher one. But it wasn’t there. I managed to get up the higher track quite easily, nothing like the dramas of the other day. 

The path to the lighthouse went downhill quite steeply, I do remember the local dump is close by, I could see it. Beyond the lighthouse there is a strange plateau of rock which looks like it has been eaten away by stone worm. 

I had a careful walk on the plateau from the sea it must have looked amazing, there was this huge rectangular separate monolith but from the land you could not really see it properly. There was this line of jagged rocks, which was one of the reasons the lighthouse was there perhaps. 

So I had to walk up the steep hill away from the lighthouse, I was soon walking along a road I remember when I went to the lovely beach of Kalo Ambeli. Thankfully from here the road went downhill all the way into Livadi where I had a much needed pit stop.