Four hundred steps

Saturday 8th October - Hora and Livadi 

I have managed to join a Serifos Facebook group, it looks like most of the posts are photos, I added some of my own, I got some likes and a comment. I reacted to a comment, saying how much I liked the island, and was hoping to meet a few people, the responder said he did not speak English but a Father Daniel would be good to talk too. Anyway I have been in contact with him and will have a chat with him soon. As it turns out he was the musician playing in the guitar concert I missed during August. 

I got some instructions on getting VPN working here, it’s funny because the other end of the tunnel which allows me to watch iplayer etc, is in our house in Twyford. I finished off a series I had started before leaving for here in September. 

The chilli I made was good, it made four portions, so I froze three. 

On the way down to Livadi, I met a young English lady with her puppy, she was staying in a relatives place in Hora, not permanently but she said she and her boyfriend will be back. She was going to Mega Livadi today  and said you can go into parts of the mine. I will have to check that out next time. I had been counting the steps before I met her, I then forgot how far I got, so had to repeat the counting exercise on the way back. It did spit with rain a little bit, then stopped. When I got to the flat bit, just before Livadi itself I saw this horse in a field.

I walked to Gran’s where we met Zoi yesterday, ordered a coffee and a ham, tomato and cheese pie. There was a guy I have seen in Marinos, who waved to me in his car the other day and everyone else said hello.  I ordered my coffee and pie, I took them to a table, then the lady owner shouted at me. Her English accent was so thick, I could not understand her, eventually she got through to me, my hot latte was a cold one, she wanted to swap it, her assistant had made a mistake! The car hire guy was there too, and he said I looked happy on Serifos!

Zoi turned up with the two vets who do the neutering. She had her dog with her, and she told me more about how they manage things. The municipality pays her hotel, food etc, and for the vets. People on the island come in with cats and deliver them to this old shop building they have taken over. She showed me a photo of a place at home that she has where she rescues animals, she has a goat, that has an amazing place to live, the cats have a very interesting place with a bridge they can hang out on. She got the idea for that from the internet. Anyway she got a call about a cat stuck in a fisherman’s net. We tried to find it, no luck. So we went to the shop where they do the neutering. 

Not surprisingly there were a lot of cats there! It is a bit like a production line. Each cage is numbered, there is a log entry of each cat, where it was found and so on.  The operating area, there were cats at each stage of the procedure. The first is where they are injected, to put them asleep, they don’t try and touch the animals until they are under, these are wild animals. But they can inject them from outside the cage. Once under, they have a label attached, are operated on and then cleaned up, and put back in their original cage. The operation is done with key hole surgery, to do this the cats are held on a table at an angle to make the procedure easy for the vets. 

Meanwhile we got another call, about the cat and this time we found it.

The cat was in a real mess. Zoi said that if she wasn’t on the island, she could not bear to think what solution the fishermen would find.. the vet injected the cat, so it went asleep and the fisherman tried to untangle the mess. In the end he had to cut the net. The cat released, was taken to the shop to be neutered. Serifos is lucky, they have an efficient team of locals who work with Zoi’s people. Other islands are not so good. They try and solve the problem by feeding stray cats, which is kind, but you just end up with even more hungry cats.  On a more cheerful note, Zoi said she wanted to talk to me when she comes next time, so she has better weather! She knows the American and a English lady who live on the island and said she was going to propose to them that we meet. I said don’t push it too hard, I don’t want these ladies to feel they are being hounded!

After saying goodbye to Zoi, I walked to the pharmacy and picked up my pills. I had to pay for the prescription, it was hand written by the doctor who I saw the other day. They actually give the script back to you! Meanwhile here is Zoi’s dog. It’s a rescue.

One more dog photo. The dog below lives in one of the tavernas. It very often goes trotting up and down the seafront road, introducing itself to anyone or any dog. It’s a lovely Labrador, I am not sure Ronnie would be keen on it.  So later on I am still trying to sort Vodaphone out and chatting with the good Father! The sheets I washed yesterday and dried in the house are dry now, so I am doing the other ones. Finally there are four hundred steps to go on the Hora - Livadi path. The actual steps are wide and each one is sloped so it’s not like walking on a staircase. There is also the road and the track you have to go on once you reach Kato Hora. That is a steep incline. But each time I am going on it, I am finding I am getting less affected, and my recovery time is quicker, which is important. I can do it much faster than google maps suggests, which is fifty minutes.