Checking up on the reservoir

 Tuesday 8th November 

I had to do a bit of shopping in Hora today, and it’s very windy, but sunny. I realised that I haven’t seen this huge water cistern before. It’s not far from Marinos coffee shop ( which is still closed ) it has three taps, so you would not have to wait to get your water container filled up. Before I left the carpet salesman in his white van as doing his hard sell again, in case anyone missed him the first time. Ironically I have thought about getting a rug for the living/dining area to soften it up a little bit here.

I am thinking a lot about the Greek at the moment. We are starting to put together small sentences in the course,  as I know a lot more words now. What I am thinking about is that I am taught a word, then asked to use it in a small saying like “I want a sandwich”. So far so good. But because this is a recording, am I just learning the Greek parrot fashion and if I had to listen to someone speaking Greek would I understand what was being said, if I knew the words but it was a sentence I had not heard before? So what I think I might try and do when I am walking about, is try and make sentences of my own up, I know enough to do this I think. 

Amazingly the hot water was really hot yesterday, even though we had that rain, and it was cloudy. It will be interesting how soon I need to turn the water heater on. The tank is outside and is part of the solar panel technology on the roof. It’s not very big, it’s not as large as an immersion tank you might have in the UK. if there was a family of four here, there might have to be a bit of coordination in the showering! The other thing I saw in the square today was this plant. Unfortunately it looks dead, but somebody has given it a nice lot of horse manure. 

I decided to do the regular reservoir walk, the one that goes past Flevariatisa and then up and down across the reservoir dam wall. After this you meet the main road, which we would call a B road in the UK,  eventually you turn down, towards the football pitch, to then reach the beach in Livadi. It’s then a nice walk along the beach towards the town. I don’t expect the reservoir to have miraculously filled up, and I want to try other walks that go near sources of water, like the Wash house to see if the rain has changed things in any way. When I got to Flevariatisa I remembered I had done a walk that came out at the back of the church where there was a dried up river bed, which goes under a bridge, the other side is where the terrapins are live. After all the rain I was hoping the  river bed would be gurgling away, as small streams do, as they tumble over the rocks that make up the river bed. Sure enough it was alive! It was really magical, there was a couple of plops, frogs or terrapins getting back in the water after hearing me.

 

I saw a couple of Jackdaws, well that’s what we call them in the UK. I haven’t really mentioned birds here, I have seen sparrows, they are often round the bakeries and cafes looking for crumbs. There is also very often Wagtails by the harbour, often just running across the concrete. Unfortunately I haven’t seen anything else, but now and then I have heard a bird, that I don’t recognise the song of, but I am hardly any expert! 

Back to the walk, before the reservoir became in view, there was a huge flock of goats, they were heading down the ravine to it. Although it’s windy, it’s easily in the twenties. The reservoir did not look as if it was hugely different from last time, it’s not miraculously filled up after two storms. The road before it, is more like an A road, you are not meant to use it unless you have a 4x4. There were lots of deep ruts in it, where it had been partly washed away.

The first bit of the road over the dam was very muddy, so it probably flooded during the heavy rain. A car had just parked on the other side, two people got out, going for a walk. I went along the B road after turning  right and walked down to the beach at Livadi. There is a beach cafe at the far end, it’s closed now, but they had left all their paraphernalia, so maybe they are opening at weekends. 

It’s a pity, but shops have stopped selling ice creams, I would dearly love one! I went to Grans, no one has claimed the money yet, I have told them if they don’t, it should go in the Xmas tip box.

Photo footnote, lovely little flowers on the way to the reservoir. A lookup says it’s a kind of autumn crocus.