Living on a Greek island

 Monday 31st October - Hora and Livadi The good news is my friend from Sifnos got the ferry and is probably on her way to the UK on a plane now. It’s a long journey and unless you get your timing exact, you have to have a stop over in Piraeus. Thankfully I will not have to make that journey until the Spring. I had a nice chat with our neighbours last night, they have been keeping an eye on the house, and making sure it’s ready.  I decided to do another one of my reservoir walks, although this one you don’t really see it. You head down the track to our familiar church, Flevariatisa and this time turning right when you get to it. Here in the distance I saw two  cars which had stopped, the occupants were having a chat. I thought I recognised one of the vehicles and soon that car went past me and it had one of the guys, I have seen at Marinos and said hello, I got a wave.  The track doesn’t go all the way to Livadi but it rejoins the switch back road from Hora, that the ...

Sunday 30th October - Hora and Livadi  I accidentally found a good guitar resource while looking for specific chords. What I wanted to do is find a web page with two finger chords that I can learn. The trouble with the YouTube stuff is you have to watch a video, in which adverts are maybe inserted and it’s a lot of fluff for not much. I am also aware that there is some music theory I am  going to have to learn. Anyway I found  this  site and it has the chords, and loads of theory,  it does have some videos which is good. The adverts which pay for the site, are product placements, so when they give advice on buying something, they recommend something on Amazon. They are very upfront about this.  My only criticism so far is the unhelpful comment that if you have fingers that aren’t straight, you might end up having the nasty buzzing noise as you straddle other strings. Maybe people with wonky fingers should not play guitar! The thing I need to start doing is ...

 Saturday 29th October Hora and Livadi It’s still windy this morning, but doesn’t seem so bad. So I think I will do a Livadi walk, one of my made up ones. Today the builders have made their morning up the track journey, after a well deserved day off yesterday. I did some shopping beforehand, just a few things like bread and milk needed. I have been eating a few frozen meals the last couple of days and just cooking rice and pasta. I bought one of those Pataks Indian style sauces in a jar and will be using some of the frozen chicken pieces and a tin of sweetcorn for a meal, that I will eat one portion and freeze the rest. I think I have enough tubs!  Here is part of Den’s and Markela’s store. There was a lovely crescent moon over the mountains just after dark last night, I tried  using the super zoom camera to take a photo of it, but it was hard in the wind and dark! I have a potato peeler now, which is better than using a knife, and I bought what they would call rusks, lit...

 28th October - Hora and Livadi One of the things they have here, is  actually more common in other countries than you might realise. Name days. So this is like a second birthday, except here, the birth day is not celebrated so much.  You can look them up a bit more  here , but there are plenty of other resources of course. You might have to find the Greek version of your name too, like John is Ionassis. Last night I had a thoroughly enjoyable chat with my friend in the US, he used to be a work colleague, but we don’t talk about work, he is recovering from an emergency operation and it’s good to hear he is on good form. So after a bit of a dodgy nights sleep, I did a bit of guitar practice before I walked down for the march.  The main problem I have apart from the coordination of my two hands, is the two biggest fingers on my left hand fouling another string, when holding one string down. That causes the fouled string to sound bad. I am also not sure about how I...

27th October - Hora and Livadi  I popped into the local supermarket to ask a couple of questions and buy some more  milk. I asked Markela would she be closed this Friday? Ochi. Which means no of course. 25th December, Neh. Yes. 1st January Neh again. My next question was about the marching children on Friday. She says they start at ten by the school I think. That’s the one I walk past on my walk down to Livadi. They should be wearing blue and white and be carrying flags. That’s all I need to know! In the shop is a big fridge of big chocolates. I asked Markela what they were, and she invited me to try one. It had a super sweet honeycomb centre and was very nice. Meanwhile back to the march, I seem to remember on one of my trips back to the Athens airport I saw a huge group of children, dressed so.  Here is the cat feeding station in the car park just outside Hora. As I walked out of the car park, I saw Ziggy stardust, he ran off when he saw me, I then saw him sharpening hi...

26th October - Hora and Livadi I walked down to Livadi, with compost in mind again. I should have bought more when I had Mike’s car. I have courgette and squash seeds, I also should have sowed some of those seeds a month ago. Never mind. I will just sow one of each, in each of the bags, let’s see how far they get. I walked down the slip road and then along the beach. When I got to to the bakers, they had my favourite pie, and I sat down to eat one in full view of the port and harbour. This is the view from the bakers and the pie. As I ate my lunch, there was a commotion. The yellow lab, that I am sure comes from the other Real Estate shop was barking at a dog in a van. It was really going for it. Eventually it gave up and wandered off with its  tail in the air, like, it was top dog, which it probably is! As the next bus was twelve, I had plenty of time to wander around the harbour and take in the scene. There was no ferry due in. Here is the dog when it came to say hello to me late...

 Tuesday 25th October - Hora  So last night, I walked down to Livadi and before eating my meal, I took some photos of the harbour area. The meal was really good, it was a slow roasted pork which I had with a Greek salad. The taverna is a new one to me, had been recommended and is open until the end of December! It’sThat’s good news! It’s called Marina. I could see the Dionisios Solomos was coming in again and the port became temporarily busy with road traffic. I could also heard  the ferry arrive. .  After my meal, I walked back up to Hora and had a drink in Vasileas bar, it’s was really empty, and when the supermarket closed opposite, Hora seemed very quiet too. I think they are closing at nine now, instead of ten. I have been looking for coconut milk for ages now and I got the last tin on the island last night from there. This is for the Butternut Squash and chick pea curry. It’s kedgeree tonight.   After sitting out in the sun, I then did a walk down the path...

 Monday 24th October - Hora I had a bit of late night last night. I went down to Livadi after a lovely chat with two neighbours who live next door in Twyford.  It was chucking it down with rain for them, for me it was heading to a nice mid twenties sunny day. On my walk down,  I did go past a house with a large garden with loads of trees with oranges and lemons hanging on the branches, in various stages of changing colour. The lemons were huge, like the ones you get in Amalfi. Once in Livadi, I went to that little cove by the port, keeping an eye on incoming ferries, I did not want a drenching again.  I could see a ferry was coming in, as there were several lorries that were parked at the port. Sure enough the Marine Tracker, showed the Dionisios Solomos was heading from Sifnos. As it was manoeuvring I looked at the Greek letters forming it’s name, I haven’t attempted to learn the alphabet yet. I videoed a Timelapse of the ferry approaching the island and reversing i...

 22nd October (evening) and 23rd October (morning) - Hora  So I had my spaghetti Carbonara last night, half an onion, mushrooms and bacon, fried off, spaghetti boiled to just al dente, mix it all together, pour the egg in and stir in until the egg is warmed through, not so it’s like scrambled egg. Oh don’t forget pepper, and a pinch of salt. As I walked down to Vasileas bar last night, I reflected on the reduced number of lights on in buildings in Hora and Livadi. It doesn’t make a lot of difference to the night sky up here, it’s was always amazing, I was treated to a rich tapestry of stars when I walked back. Meanwhile when I walked in the bar, the lady who, I thought was called Anna was there. When the guy who was sitting next to her left, I asked if I could sit next to her. It did not take long to realise she can’t speak much English! I know she works in some kind of property management, as I have seen her wizzing around in a van with something that alludes to that in its s...

Saturday 22nd October - Hora and Livadi  So last nights sausage in red wine worked well, I forgot to defrost some bacon but with the red wine, mushrooms, onions and herbs it was ok.. There was so much of it, I froze one portion. I had it with potato mash, first time I have eaten them here. Tonight is spaghetti carbonara.  I had an eight am call with my old work colleague from Singapore, I think I said before his son is in London doing his masters. I hope when I go to the UK in Spring I will see his son, maybe go and visit Battersea Power station. I know his dad who was over with  him settling him in, in September would have loved to have gone, as he used to work in one, but Battersea wasn’t open then. While I was talking to Anthony the guy with the two horses went past the house a couple of times, moving something with them.  After the call I did my Greek and Guitar, I am still making mistakes in chapter three annoyingly. When they want something because they have di...

Friday October 21st - Hora and Livadi  I ran out of time yesterday. By the time I did most the things I planned and had my chat with a friend in Twyford, it was time to make dinner and relax. I have decided to change my day, so that I do the guitar and Greek in the morning, after I get up. This means there is a better chance I get around to do them ( I didn’t yesterday) and if I do them in the morning before I go out, I should be more awake, unlike the afternoons, when I can be  a bit tired after a walk.  This photo was taken in the morning of course. The windmills that are rented out, are empty now, so I felt comfortable taking photos from their gardens. Before we get the mid twenties, we have a day or two of strong winds, but dry still.  I did my Greek, a couple of mistakes on Chapter two and three. I then tuned the guitar using the magic tuner, it is such a clever device. I have found two sources of beginner information that I am going to use. The first  is a...