Washing day

 Monday 16th January 2023

My mother always used to do her washing on Mondays, using a single tub machine with a wringer. She then got a small spin dryer thing that you spun the clothes in, until no more water came out of the spout. The clothes weren’t dry, but it got a lot more water out than the wringer. Anyway last night I washed the sheets, knowing the wind would be quite calm today until later on. On household things, I tend to cover myself with a blanket when watching the tv at night now, I am not using the heater, but I am using the heated blanket in the bed. I have a thermometer in the house, and it seems the temperature is about fifteen degrees, it’s not changing much. I know that’s a lot warmer than an unheated house in the UK.

Photo interlude - Morning in Hora

I have fed all the cats, they were all there, Souvlaki the adult male, had been a bit miffed about the diet of wet food being taken away apparently, this was before I started helping my friend. He was tucking in like crazy this morning. He did not take time to get used to me again. The others are feeding I am sure of that. There were a couple of pretenders, I know they will eat the food I have put out, but I kept them at bay while I was there.

On the vegetable front, I checked my onion sets the other day, as they are buried a bit too deep to see how they are swelling up. The answer is I think the biggest is at least golf ball in size. If we get high teens they must be growing in the full sun. I forgot to say last night I saved a huge cyclamen out of the rubbish dumpster, it had finished flowering, but if kept will flower next year. I also found a big segment of a huge cactus, I have popped it in one of my tulip pots, the tulips have not appeared, I think they have rotted.

Here is my first game of patience on the island. As it turned out after dealing the rest of the cards, in threes, none of them could be layed down! So that was a quick game. I tried a few more games, but never managed to get out, the cards are from Sifnos, I ought to check the photos as they should be interesting, as I know the island well.

Today is going to be a strange day, in that the thing I did not want to talk about is happening today.  One of our friends is going to be the guest cook at the taverna I have been going to going to with my other friend, which is on the beach. The interesting thing is the guest cook friend is Italian! I apologise about all these friends who have no names. It has been suggested I give them false names, I have seen this in a book on Sifnos. The trouble with doing this, is it leads, I think into a false sense of security, and you end up putting in extra detail about these people, that you wouldn’t have done otherwise. Anyway the point is our friend was walking along the beach when we were eating, we called them over, and arranged this guest cookery experience. As it happens and this is quite funny, one of the friends eating with us, had given one of the hand cranked pasta rollers to the Taverna. They still had it, and produced it to show our Italian friend! We are sitting down to eat at two pm. Before leaving the house, I have it a good clean, and got my laundry in, which was dry.

On my way down to Livadi, I saw a couple of people, the lady and her husband cleaning their car, not something you see happen here much. I was going down the road, these are the couple who thank me for litter picking. I also saw the escaped chicken, it’s still out there. There wasn’t much rubbish to pick up thankfully.  I then went to Grans which was open! I had in my mind, to wish them in Greek, Good Year and to say “Grans is not closed it’s open”, a “now” at the end would have been the icing on the cake, but that bit did not make it. But they understood it. I asked where the older lady was in Greek , she is in Athens of course. I even remembered to bring my reusable cup thing. The nice thing is they both said that when they try English, they often get tongue tied like I always seem to. That’s very kind of them for saying that. It was then time to walk to the Taverna and have my Italian meal.

The gnocchi was very nice, I think another meal might be made by our friend at the weekend, they have my number to let us know. On the way back to the town, I walked along Livadakia beach.

Before dropping down to the town, I stopped for a photo by the church overlooking the port.

After getting to the town, I went into the Captains bar and refilled my cup again, saw the delivery guy from Grans and had a chat with him. I then had a call with one of Sifnos friends. 

Meanwhile I have now walked back up to the house. I am glad I got my washing on, it’s blowing a gale up here and my sheets, well they would not be on the line anymore.