After rain, comes good weather

Saturday  21st January 2023

I had a great video call with my neighbour last night, who is looking after our house. He is also dealing with the post, he kindly opens it during the call, most of it is simple notifications, nothing to do usually. It was nice to catch up on their news. Last night, I heard rain on the roof, not a lot, just showers. I fed the cats, but it rained heavily afterwards, which was expected, I did not put much food out, as it was going to get wet and go to waste. There was an unknown cat there and two of the kittens, they are juveniles now really. The rain will finish by mid morning, then I will have a think about what to do. Tomorrow’s rain is looking to happen over lunchtime.

So in addition to the Duolingo work, I am looking at the accompanying pdf for the Michel Thomas course I am doing. The pdf covers all the Introductory sections, of which I am on Part four. The last section has a glossary and introduces the alphabet. ( this maybe on the audio course ) The Greek alphabet has twenty four letters, some of which people will recognise and some that only people who did maths at school or university will know I think. I am only showing three letters here. What I did yesterday was transcribe the section onto the notes on my iCloud, so I can see them easily on all my Apple devices. It was good practice writing this all out and hopefully over time will be obvious to me as my abc is!  The phone and iPad now have the Greek keyboard enabled, don’t worry, I will  still be typing this blog in English!

Α α   Αλλά.           alla a but

Β β    Βιβλίο τεβερνα.      vivlio taverna v book, tavern

Ψ ψ διψάω thipsao ps I am thirsty

The first two columns are the letter, uppercase and lower. Next is a Greek word using the letter. Then there is an English lettered version of the word with the used letter underlined. The letter in its English lettered version comes next and then the definition of the word. The first letter shown is the easiest. The next letter looks like a b but you can see it’s pronounced a bit like a “ v”.  The final entry helps you understand why they only have twenty four letters and not twenty six like us. Essentially to my language challenged mind, it’s like two letters in one. So it’s a bit like the “bogof” of the language world. There is another letter that has this handyness too. 

Photo Interlude - monster flower head I saw yesterday 

After a nice call my one of my friends on Sifnos, this morning, whose weather is about an hour behind mine, so I could report better weather was heading their way. We had a look at the tax breakdown, so we understand the thinking behind my due payment. I decided to go down to Livadi, get some items in including lunch for the next two days and have a coffee of course. On my way out of the car park, I met one of the medical staff here, who I know, one of my last Good Years this year I expect.  I did my shopping and got my lunch, which I ate while looking over the port. One of the roads out of Livadi, which I don’t go down  on my way in from Hora, goes up a steep hill, no surprise the road was a river, then.

Photo Interlude - a shopper brought their dog along, I saw them both later on walking back up to Hora

 

I walked into Grans and had my coffee. I had in mind to check if they were opening on Sundays in Greek, I did check the “are you” in Greek with Google translate, it looked different from a word I know that means “you are”. I know for example the words for  

I want, you want and he/she wants. There are other situations like “they want”, that I am not aware of yet. They will look a bit like these words, but will have a different ending. ( I think! )

I know the word for open and tomorrow. I checked with the delivery guy, he said the “ you are “ word was right, anyway they aren’t open on Sundays, that’s good. I have sent him a link to Waking the Dead, he and his wife might like that. He had seen the monster carrot photo I sent him, I don’t think he is a gardener! I walked back to the car, there looked like a group of cars by the port, waiting for a ferry maybe? I checked the Marine Watch app, there was one in the right place, heading here,   but the  ferry was called “Adamantios Korias”. That’s not the normal Zante Ferry boat then. So I decided to wait and see, It was quite nice in the sun after all. Eventually it appeared, there were kids playing by the terminal, wondering what I was doing I imagine, doing my Greek course, now doing the words, reading, book, newspaper and periodical. The ferry berthed at the port side as the sea was still quite choppy.

The ferry was in tip top shape, it looked like it had just had a paint job, I wonder if the normal ferry is being refurbished? We will see. I then did see a lot more of the Medical Team at the Captains bar, having lunch, a final Good Year, to the rest of them, and I then left them in peace. Then I had a text about a parcel having arrived. I thought it might be where I got my last parcel from, I went in, but he told me, it’s at the post office, which is now closed for the day. Back to the house to unload my shopping.

The walk I wanted to do, was to walk out of Hora on the road, up towards Panagia but before then, head down a series of tracks and see two, possibly three churches on the way. I took my coat, but had my shorts on, I also had a bottle ( my metal dog one ) full of water. It is a steady climb up to my track, but not really steep. I got to the track and went down it. It’s a zig zag down into the valley. This valley ends up at the reservoir where I saw that stream the other day. I saw the first church fairly quickly, but I carried on taking a track to the left heading to the second. This track had some lovely views. I saw a lone sheep by the ravine, munching something tasty I assume. 

The track was then quite level, it was sunny and sheltered from the wind. This track then divided itself, I took the right track, as it looked like it might head me to a stream, there seemed to be a bridge. It was very peaceful, but the stream bed did not show any water , maybe it’s running underground here. I turned around and then joined the second branch to the church. This little church is called Panagia Miliani and was in a lovely spot and I could hear water. 

After dropping my map and water bottle off in the seating area, I went for an exploration on the rocks, where I could hear the water. There were little streams, pools of water and huge rocks. It was delightful.

I walked back up the track and then went to see the other church. This one is Aghios Konstantinos. The other church isn’t there now, maybe the map is wrong. 

I had a look at my map and I was quite close to the second path, that  my friend and myself were looking for the other day. From the map, it looked like the track would lead to it. So I carried on instead of going back up to the road.  I went along quite a way, thought, I found the path, but it petered out, I wasn’t sure I was really in the right place, I think I might have had to go down the zig zag further. I decided to look into this another day. The sun was starting to get low, I don’t want to be on this mountain in the dark! So I headed back up to the church and then the road

. 

The map shows where I have been, they key and pen show the churches. I think  I will do this walk after we get the rain on Friday, if it is as much as the claim. The track now needs colouring in with my pink pen. On the way back, I got a toot from a passing driver and Vasileas was heading towards me, so I got flashing headlights and a wave. I  think I will pop in and see him tonight, tomorrow is house cleaning, lazy morning, then might go out in the afternoon if it brightens up!