Litterpicking day



 Monday 21st November 


It’s litter picking day. It might not seem the most exciting thing to do on a Greek island, but it’s my humble way of repaying the island for making me welcome and it has raised my profile! It’s down the road for the first stretch, most of the stuff I removed was historical, the ground is turning green, with  grass and clover. Every so often the sun reflects back, from the ground and there is usually a bottle or tin there. The good news is the bag does not fill up and I did not empty it much. I am using an old canvas type bag I found, this is better than the bucket as it’s windy and the wind will whip out things from the bucket. The sack actually holds more too. I got plenty of waves, friendly beeps on peoples horns and a few hellos.There was some electric work going on, on the overheard wires, I said hello in Greek, they knew I was English and replied with a “Good morning”, oh well. When I got to the end of the slip road, the sea has come in! This road does flood after lots of rain, but this is the sea, a spring tide? I took a by pass over a small field.


I had the ham, cheese and tomato round pie from Grans, I asked them what it’s name was and it’s a mouthful. But it makes sense, it’s on google translate so I can practice it. One of the young girls who serves there, lives somewhere in Hora, I saw her Sunday and when I got back to Hora today, she was driving to the car park and waved. A friend met me at Grans and we had our coffees together. The shop believe is a butchers, but like the other one, you don’t see meat out to buy, you have to ask them for what you want. But you can see cured meats hanging up near the entrance.


I took the path back up to Hora, filling the bag up,  by the time I got to the top. I did some shopping, and then went to help my friend in the shop. As a side comment, the courgettes are getting blown to bits. I actually think if I am to grow anything like that, it needs to be in Livadi, as today it was calm and warm and Hora was blowing a gale. I have a cunning plan about that! Tonight we are off to Livadi for dinner, one of my friends is leaving tomorrow unfortunately, but will be back next year.  A final photo of clouds over the mountains behind the house.







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Last Post for now

Image
 Saturday 11th February 2023 I have been thinking about this blog for a while now, even after changing the time recently, that I send each post out there. The main problem is the amount of time it takes to produce each post. It’s not just the time it takes to write it, but during each day, as I have a bad memory, I am constantly having to make little memos of things that are happening, what I see, do, what experiences I share with the people on this island.  Other problems or effects on writing these blogs are many and I don’t want to list them one by one, because that’s a negative thing to do and not useful at all. The main thing I do want to say, is I don’t want people to read anything into this, I would, if I was the reader of this post, but that’s just the way I mind works! I am fine, all is well out here and I look forward to seeing many of my friends when I come back to the UK for two weeks in March and more of you in July and August, when o I will be pet sitting. I do w...
Read more

Reflections

Image
Apart from keeping friends up to date with my Greek goings on, I have realised that this blog has been a good record  of my time here in Greece. I am a bit of an over thinker and often will spend a lot of time coming up with lots of what ifs and also brooding on bad things that have happened to me. So the point was to record the good things that happened here, as my brain will be good enough to recall the bad! Not that there has been a lot of bad to dwell on, it has to be said. The rat in the house was the low point but  I have been blessed with lots of encouragement from people here and abroad, for which I will be forever grateful for. I have met so many people here, who are now my friends, and I feel very accepted here, with all my quirks like picking up litter and walking everywhere.  So many things have been amazing here, in no particular order here are a few of them. The Dog Palace. It is likely one or more of the dogs there won’t be alive in September when I  r...
Read more

Two patients

Image
 It seems that one patient gets better and another gets worse at the Dog Palace today. On the phone to them last night it seemed Mavro was not long for this world, and the folks at the Palace did not know what to do, stay with him or come down to their house. As I was heading to Livadi via the ferry, I got a take away and took it up there, as they had no dinner up in the Palace. Mavro was pleased to see me, I felt good to see him, for maybe the last time. After dinner I stayed with him a bit longer but I then decided to leave him to rest. Here is a rose up at the Palace, the fragrance is amazing. The next day, I decided to go back up there, the other helper was doing the walking, so there would be time to spend with the dogs relaxing. Mavro was there at the gate and looking a lot chipper. I spent several hours up there and drove down to do some chores. I went to the dentist, had a check up, I need a filling. I had some lunch and then drove to the new house, I had wire, to tie back ...
Read more