Busmen’s holiday on the beach

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 his claws on a pallet. A friend of mine who has an Apple phone like me sent me an email last night about plant identification. Anyway if you look at the details of the photo of a plant, you can look it up, it uses the internet and your photos. The results are quite impressive. Some flowers and plants can be similar looking so you have to look at your results,  as I did for the yellow flower. On the food side, I have got a good selection of ingredients in the cupboard, and the freezer is full of cooked and frozen ingredients.

It’s good I have a freezer, but it’s quite small. The fridge section is huge and I have hardly anything in it. The paper bag has frozen bread, which I have with cheese for example as a change for the pie you saw yesterday. I made the squash and chick pea curry, I could not find fresh chillies up here, I might get some in Livadi and freeze them. 

The men are still working up at the top of the track, one man and his pony were up their moving rocks, presumably to be tipped over the ravine. The small motorcycle still struggles up the track, with its two riders on it. A van speedily reverses up the track, backwards, with the potential to fall over into the ravine or hit one of the buildings. They never do of course.

So we went down to the beach Livadakia, which is next to the one I usually use for ourr joint litter picking session. There is a bit more of a wind, and this may have disturbed the litter. It wasn’t  bad, my friend filled a big bag of rubbish, I fillled my bucket and I got a smaller one off the beach and filled that too. I was thinking  the sandy area by the beach with its undergrowth should spring back into life and behold I saw an autumn crocus in it. There were only two, but that’s  good. How they survive in the sand no one knows. The trees that grow in these beaches are salt tolerant, they have to be, that’s the only moisture they are going to get. 

We carried on towards the camping area and walked back towards the way we came. We both took a photo of our haul, not bad, but it’s done now. A pair of shoes and a beach mat added to our collection of plastic bags and the usual rubbish. 

We then went to Gran’s and had a coffee and a chat. This was difficult at times as there was a tribe of children making a lot of noise, but that’s kids for you! After we had our coffee I noticed they had chocolate ice cream and lemon sorbet so we shared one of each. We then drove back up to Hora. I also got to see my friends house, which is very different to my modern one, it’s a real Cycladian delight. So it’s been a different but lovely day. Tomorrow it’s hunt the marching children and hopefully get a photo or two of them. The wind is definitely picking up and it’s going to be cooler tomorrow which will be better for the children. I met my neighbour when I went on the roof briefly, he lives here in the summer, works in facilities management.