Living on a Greek island

 Saturday December 31st Last night. It’s a long time since I sipped champagne, ate nibbles and looked into a lovely open fire. In fact I don’t think I have ever done that! We were guests of a lovely gentleman who owns this house that he had erected on a plot of land, truly in the sticks on the island of Sifnos. One of my friends, carefully navigated a very dodgy single track towards this magnificent property. We could not really see it, as it was dark, but the insides were amazing. It wasn’t super flashy or kitsch, it was just really well designed and built. The furnishing were good too, a mixture of period furniture from France and new from Greece, like the beautiful Greek dining table. After our champagne and nibbles, we had a tasty pasta followed by a velvety chocolate mousse and then a glass or two of Hennessy brandy. On the walls were a few paintings done by our hosts mother, but the eye catcher was one of him as a young man, leaning on a chest of drawers. Below the panting wa...

 Friday 30th December  Another lovely meal last night at my friends. The pie was truly excellent, and we had a few games of the card game we played at Camaron the other night. It’s a bit like Monopoly, as the card you lay down can have a devastating effect on the next player, making them miss a go, or pick up extra cards and so on.   A challenge I face every day is crossing the gravel, that is in front of this and other houses near me. It probably seemed like a good idea, nice stones glistening in the sun. But the gravel is gradually being invaded by weeds and being used by the stray cats. It’s deep enough to let them dig a hole in it and sort of bury you know what. Sometimes they don’t bother to do the burying bit. I try and avoid walking on it if I can.  This morning, my friends had some chores to do, so I decided to walk the complete path that I started on with the dog and see where it went. Firstly I had a chore of my own, to buy my favourite pie, eat it and leav...

 Thursday 28th December  Last night we had another super meal at Camaron. I have spelt it right this time, apologies guys. We got there at seven and suddenly it filled up, all locals. It had a really lovely feel to it, large groups of people all having fun. My friends knew a lot of them. It was all over too soon. We had a quick look at the port before we went our separate ways home.  In the morning after picking up a couple of bits of litter off the beach by one of the closed bars, I noticed the potter had some freshly made earthenware drying outside his shop. He is one of the many potters on the island, clay being quite abundant here. I went to the bakers. Bravo, they had my favourite pie!  I thought it was five Euros, so I offered a twenty Euro note, but it’s only two Euros eighty cents for the pie. I also got a free cookie thrown in for good measure. The port is  now quiet they must have finished moving the aggregate last night. At my friends house the dog en...

 Wednesday 28th December  While occupying my usual position of stroking the dog, while typing this section in.. On the way to picking him up, for todays walk, I noticed two ships in port,  that I have seen on Serifos supplying aggregate and fuel for us and now they are  doing the same here.  While I was looking, the Artemis rolled in. Just by where my friends house is, I met one of the owners of the  Margado  hotel, which I stayed in the first time I came here, and we had a chat. Todays walk was with a friend, to the famous Catherine church the other side of the bay from here.  This is the view of St Catherine, which was a lovely walk, in the sun, it shining on that side of the bay. Unfortunately I had forgotten the flask of coffee I was meant to bring, so only the dog had a drink today. My friend bought some panettone with them, which was a nice treat after the walk. While we were there, the fuel ship left port, the aggregate one, was still being...

 Tuesday 27th December  Another nice meal with my friends and their dog last night, using left overs from Christmas Day. A bit of UK TV, then a gentle amble home and sleep. In the morning, I went out before we were all to meet on the beach,  and on the way, I went to the bakers and got one of my favourite pies. Before litter picking in the sun, I ate all but one piece of it  and popped that in my pocket in its paper bag. I then went litterpicking on the dunes behind the beach. If you are lucky you will often find a carrier bag, cast aside, which you can use to put the rubbish in. Mine was super sized, the type you buy for those big kitchen bins. I managed to get rid of most of the big stuff, there are just those annoying bottle tops left. Near the end I found three full bags of rubbish and some old fishing net just left lying about. Luckily there was one of those dumpsters nearby.  I then took this photo, which I thought was quite nice, the shower only stayed on...

 Monday December 26th So after a busy morning I am sitting on the other side of the bay from our houses, in the sun, twenty degrees? It’s so peaceful, the only sounds I can hear are dogs  barking, a few faint voices and the sea lapping up against the walls here.   Very very occasionally there will be the sound. of a motorised vehicle.  This morning I walked to my friends house and picked up the dog, he is getting used to these Paul turns up and I get a walk now, so as soon as I fished his lead out, he was running around like a crazy half Spaniel that he is. We headed to the house of one person  who was with us last night, as we had agreed to walk to Apollonia by way of the road today. It’s a walk of about five kilometres. It was sunny but for parts of the walk, the sun was not high  enough to escape the sun block of the mountains. There wasn’t much traffic about, the dog again being half Spaniel always wanted to be on the part of the road, he wasn’t current...

Sunday December 25th Last night, we had an amazing four course dinner at another friends house. Beautiful presentation and tasty food. The food was punctuated by yet another card game, this game was called Phase Eight. It’s highly competitive, but I think the other card game was more fun. I am hopelessly uncompetitive! I got back home just before midnight. I have had more Christmas greetings from various people, which is great. After getting up, I had a phone call with my friend from Singapore. He was working. After this, I wandered to my friends house and took their dog out for a fairly  short walk compared to yesterdays wanderings. We did a slightly modified version of the loop walk, as it’s called. There were not many people about. I went back to my house and changed into something more respectable and walked the dog back to his house. There was a friend was visiting with some presents. The Artemis ferry came in, I am not sure how many people would have got on our off. My next j...

 Saturday December 24th Yesterday afternoon, one of my friends here got my little Vodaphone router working again. It’s handy to have it, as there is no Wi-Fi in this house, and it’s a good as a back up if the Wi-Fi fails in the house on Serifos. In the end, the set to defaults trick did the business, it’s often successful if you can brave doing it, hopefully knowing the relevant settings to put back! In this case, we had something similar to compare the settings.  Photo interlude - Sifnos harbour near sunset time I have been sending emails and messages to my friends around the world and it’s great getting replies back with news and Christmas greetings. I like Christmas cards but they really aren’t practical in my current situation! When I in the port area, I spotted a neat Sifnos walking map, that might be useful in the future. It showed the path that I went on and the Apollonia walk we did yesterday. I took my friends rubbish away with me yesterday afternoon, but I did not wa...

Friday 24th December  Had another lovely night with my friends, yesterday and a nice walk under the stars back home. In the morning, I had breakfast and while my friends went out and got the last minute things for Christmas, I took charge of their dog, and decided to do a walk I had spotted when looking at an online map earlier. The path goes to a lighthouse, it follows the coastline starting just by the church we visited the other day. I must admit I had not seen the start of the path, but I knew roughly where it would appear. While I was waiting for my friends, I saw one of the members of staff were in Cameron, where we will eat tonight, and I had a chat with them. After I met my friends, and picked up their dog, there was the small matter of an early lunch, I popped my head into the bakers and asked in Greek if they had my favourite pie. She replied in Greek, that they did and was one enough? Probably I said. To be honest, these are words I learnt at the beginning, easy stuff! W...