Living on a Greek island

Monday 30th January 2023 I went to Vasileas last night and had a few beers. I showed him the photo of the cake. It was quiet there, two guys came in, Vasileas told me that one of them ran Tavernas in Koutalas and Sykamia. I said I would go, but they don’t open until May. I tried to use a few more of my new words, I left wishing Vasileas Good Week, that word finally seems to have lodged itself in my mind. A friend of me texted to say I should be ready to wish them Good Month on Wednesday. Vasileas had some books by his side and I asked him in Greek if he was reading them, no he said that were for customers to take and read and return. It was a nice evening and I came back home, watched a bit of TV and went to bed. I had put the heater on! Photo Interlude - Pretty pot with succulent growing, by a house in Livadi. I have been listening to the  The Archers  before I came here and since arriving I have kept listening, although the time difference makes it a bit late. I am quite awa...

Sunday 29th January 2023 It seems this place is still constantly full of surprises. It’s more obvious to me here between the differences in the dawn and dusk times with the panoramic views I get of Hora and the mountains behind me. They provide a wonderful backdrop to the seemingly endless changes in the clouds, the sea and sunlight and how the interact with each other. When I fed the stray cats for the person who called me yesterday afternoon, I took a photo of a window in their house, where the shutters weren’t closed and the clouds, sea and landscape where in reflection in it. Wonderful. When I came back from feeding the other cats, I saw a door I had seen many times before. But this time I really looked at it. It’s carved, old and has a small goat bell to its right hand side.  There is a group called  Serifos Friends  , I joined their newsletter last year, and later on they were looking for stewards for an event, but it was when I was back in the UK. Anyway they annou...

 Saturday 28th January 2023 Today inexplicably, as if Hora knew I wanted to wash a lot of items, the wind is just a gentle breeze. So the sheets have been in the sun and wind and I have taken advantage to do my regular stuff as well. It’s bizarre as last night it was blowing a gale. On the way back from feeding the juveniles I went into Markelas and bought a bit more fruit. I thought it would be an idea to learn the counting, so as I bought two apples and two pears, her husband took me through it. He is a stickler for pronunciation and rightly so. There was a sort of delivery note on the pin board and he took me through the name, the locals here really want me to be able to understand them. The fruit came to something like two Euros eighty cents, the two Euros bit was easy but the eighty bit is much more complicated! I went into Marinos for a coffee, there were several people there, I sat next to one of the guys. I used google translate to tell him the hardware store story, and he ...

 Friday 27th January 2023 As the day moved into the afternoon, the rain just did not appear. I fed the cats early, but I could have done it at the normal time. I bought a few things at Marcela’s, she and her husband were both there, he predicted the rain would start at eight. It got dark, still no rain. But at eight there was a thunderclap and then it started. It was hard to tell how hard the rain  was, but it did not really last long I don’t think. When I fed the cats this morning, the side of the track which can often shown signs of a river going down it in heavy downpours, wasn’t really evident. The cat food hoods, haven’t been blown away, so there wasn’t much wet cat food waste. I gave the juveniles some wet food today, as a treat as it can’t have been nice out there last night. Continuing on the weather front, Sunday week, the temperatures are going down to single figures and a wintry mix is forecast! But let’s see. Photo Interlude- The start of the day. The Guitar book i...

 Thursday 26th January 2023 So all this covert stuff is about my birthday. I am sixty three today. I did tell Marinos and the folks at Grans. I have bought a cake from the local bakers. I don’t have any other plans, it’s not going to be nice out there, so I will go about in the car. Photo Interlude - The Cake    I like the guitar book. It’s very well structured, he takes you from the basics, how to hold the instrument, the pick and so on. He seems to have chords that are even simpler than the ones I have been trying. The strumming is important and he has a good section on that. He then builds lessons, based on the content of the book, a bit like you would have if you had a face to face experience. He even offers an online tutorial which is good. I have bought a metal nail file, to keep my nails on my chord hand really short, as the shape of my fingers mean the nail can cause problems.   I did get a fairly good moon shot, but I did not manage to change the exposure se...

 Wednesday 24th January 2023 Today feels a lot colder. Checking the wind direction, it’s Northern instead of Southern. The rain is coming tomorrow but it’s not as much as was predicted before. Here are the three juveniles feeding with the rain covers in position. I am a little concerned that being light, they might blow about, and being round, I can’t put a rock on the top. A larger squarer shaped one would be better. For one of the Amazon parcels to be delivered, I have had a text about its delivery, saying it could not be delivered and so on. The text says it’s going to be put in an Amazon locker, but there isn’t one here! My friend from yesterday, said this can happen, they suggested I go to the Post Office and sure enough my guitar book was there! Is James Bond in town? You might think so with this monster boat in the harbour. It has three V6 four litre engines on the back. We can’t find any identifying names on it and Marine Watch doesn’t help. I showed Marinos the photo and h...

 Tuesday 24th January 2023 As I went out to feed the cats this morning there was an amazing pink sky. It’s a shame but even modern cameras on phones can’t make it look as good as my eyes do. Of course, if I spent thousands on a proper SLR camera it might, but that’s a pipe dream. Last night there was a gorgeous crescent moon above the mountain by me. Amazingly maybe because of the lack of light pollution, I could actually see the rest of the moon’s shape. I tried a photo with my super zoom camera, but all I got was the crescent. If it’s there tonight, I will try so more more shots. Here is the sunrise shot after the sun came up. The sea had a lovely streak of sunlight over it. This morning I tried to recall the “Good Week” remark. I nearly got it without referring to my crib, so there is hope I will be ready for next week. Today, it’s time to head to vision things in my course, the Greek words for  the television etc. I drove down to Livadi, popped into the hardware store to g...

Monday 23rd January 2023 I went up to feed the juveniles on a lovely blue sunny day and no wind. There was a lovely smell of fresh bread as I walked past the bakery. On the way back, I looked up and tried practicing the Greek for Good  Week, which they do at over here on Mondays. I had to pop into Markela’s store and said that to her husband. I think he was pleased. I got some fruit and the washing solution my friend recommended. While I paid for my items I told the husband, the other new words I had learnt, that I have mentioned here before. He was impressed. He said something  about my good Greek language expertise! I said “no” in Greek and we both laughed. I decided to go in Marinos for a coffee, and did the Good Week again,  all his customers replied, and one of them helped me with my pronunciation which was good! I  ordered my coffee, and I tried to listen to them all talking. Loads of words I knew, but lots of words I don’t, but it’s improving. The News was on ...

Sunday 21nd January 2023 Just as a reminder, from now on, the blog will about  the previous day, the day indicted in the blog will indicate the day it about. Our telephone contract ends in the UK soon, and as we don’t want to sign up for a new one until we know more about what we are doing with house, we are letting it lapse ( well we need to cancel it ) this includes our internet as well. We are using the house to host our VPN solution for here, so we have had to relocate this. The new service is going to be faster, hopefully easier to fix too. I spent a bit of time setting up, VPN on the two devices I use it on, with the kind help of one of my friends on Sifnos. We are also looking into getting one of those dongle devices to use when we are in the UK for the house, as we won’t want to use data roaming over there.  Photo Interlude - nice photo near the second set of cats I am feeding I used my notes from the Greek course that I am following to do some revision on words I lear...