Church hunt

 Monday October 10th - Hora and Livadi

So Mike’s VPN idea works a treat. I brought our Mac Mini with me in case I needed it and a cable so any tv can be used as a monitor for it. All I needed to do was load the VPN software on the Mac, point the web browser  to the iplayer website and I was able to watch the last bit of the Crossfire series on the tv. Perfect. I was also able to update the usb thumb drive from the Mac which has all the dog photos on it, to include all the ones I took or Ronnie when he was here. This I use with my Nix display.

Unfortunately I appear to have a washing machine leak. Not gallons, but enough to make it a nuisance. As it’s brand new, I just hope something has worked loose. I am going to do a last test when I am in the house and report back to the landlord. 

I was thinking that a lot of the things I needed to get sorted are, there isn’t much else of great importance to do. I need to get this AFMEE number, get a bank account opened, everything else is done or I am waiting to be contacted like the covid booster. I am going to try and arrange a few calls with friends in the UK. After the fairly long walk yesterday, I am just going to walk down to Livadi today.  

( photo interlude, pretty flowers by petrol station )

I have changed yet again my idea in learning Greek. Every day  I am going to listen to a chapter of the course, but I am going to concentrate on one word a day. My thinking is, to get myself to remember my new  Greek mobile number, I just kept repeating it in my head during one day. So that’s the theory. Yesterdays word was den, pronounced then, which means not. So I was trying to repeat sentences like these yesterday

No I don’t want an ouzo - ochi den thelo enna ouzo

Ochi which sounds like ok, means no, neh coincidently is yes! 

 So after a quick visit to the local supermarket I walked down to  Livadi. But about halfway down I took a alternative set of steps that go past a pretty church. It’s called Panagia Xekourastra. Around it there are the usual Serifos wild rock formations. There is meant to be another church nearby but I could not see it. 

The path continues past the church then rejoins the mountain road. Another mystery to solve was another church. This time, I could see the little arch of it and it’s bell. By the side of a house, there were some steps and bingo there it was. It was surrounded by olive trees, fennel and grape vines. I think it’s called Aghia Paraskevi. There was meant to be a way out the other side of the church, but I could not find it, so I retreated and carried on to the road. Where the road flattens out there is an industrial area and small fields that are growing wild with grass and fennel. There is no attempt to cut it,  it is left and a horse will be tethered in the field and gradually munch its way across the field. 

Next stop the garden centre. I have decide to try garlic in one of the troughs and onion sets in the the other two, but I needed to buy one, so I had three. The centre was selling onion sets and I asked her for ten. Of course she sells them by the Kilo. So there was to be no charge for them, but she made a sale for the trough. I asked her when rains should appear and she said it should be now. She said the forecast was for not much rain.

As I continued into Livadi, I met Flora, she was walking to work. So I followed her in and bought one of the ham, tomato and cheese pies and a drink, which I ate outside. The oil tanker is in the port, I was wondering how often it visits the island.  After a rest I wanted to get to another church. This one is Aghia Irini. It’s quite high up and I had to follow a climbing road up to it. There were some new houses being built, the Greeks do reuse the wood they use to shutter the concrete. There were some lovely views of Livadi and it’s huge beach. I continued along and where the road ended there was a gate, noisy dogs nearby. A path continued but soon disappeared in a load of shrubs that I wasn’t going to walk through.

I retraced my steps and walked back to Hora. I went past another building I had not looked into before, it’s a government building and apparently is for land registration. I carried along the road and then up the steps. About half way up, I met this guy, he had two loaves of bread in an bag, I said hello and got a friendly reply. I also saw Marco at number 507, but he was on the phone. 

Now at the house, I am going to plants the garlic and shallots, and make up my washing line pole from the canes. It’s a lovely day, a gentle breeze.