Living on a Greek island

  I start with a three legged cat. A kind lady is looking after it in Kato Hora but this is not a long term situation. Ideally we want to find a home for her. She is wonderfully affectionate and very agile, despite loosing the bottom bit of her leg. I don’t know how old she is. The only other three legged cat I have been involved with, was one I fed a couple of times and my efforts to make friends, despite going slowly slowly, resulted in it trying to paw my hand, so I left it alone from then on. On the sides of the tracks and paths are these huge dandelion clocks. You can see there are more to open soon, for us to see. Some are already been blown apart by the wind. I bought two treats today, for us at the Dog Palace. The first I knew, are like a whole meal big bread stick covered in sunflower seeds. When I went to the Coffee Place I offered them around to the people inside. They are very nice indeed. The other ones, well they were like a yellow biscuit, covered in sesame seeds. My...

  Friday had me having a longer visit to the Coffee Shop. It had been raining, not auspicious for my laundry day, oh well, after rain comes good weather they say. The place was quite busy, I was keen to do more Greek if I could muster up the courage.. Marinos sat next to me and I showed him the Apricots at the Dog Palace, I managed to tell him where they were. I then also managed to ask if he had any, and yes he did. Then I decided to see what Google Translate made of the sentence “can we go and look at your garden one day”. There was only one word in the resulting sentence that I did not know. So I tried it. He pointed in the air and I think he said the word rain. So rain put paid to that idea for today then. He then asked me what I was going to do, I did say I was going to Livadi, then said the Greek word for nothing. I must remember when they say things,  that I can’t decider to say the Greek word for understand, and before it put the negative word, which is ‘then’, in othe...

  I had my second day at the Dog Palace yesterday. It was still windy but at least more sun and less clouds, so it felt warmer. Record breaking Rita was straight out of the blocks on the first walk. I was thinking, even though there are still lots of flowers about and some still to come, there are some beautiful seed arrangements, where once the flowers have been, tennis ball sized dandelion clocks ( might have mentioned them before), and much smaller  delicate ones of all sorts of different shapes, all chancing their luck with the wind, on wether they get carried away to a place that they can germinate in, when the rains arrive next year. I saw an iris type plant, which has a bud on it, it’s the only one I have seen here so far. I have a collection of flowers I have  photographed as they have appeared, I will send details of the album, when the season finishes.  I have seen  Cuckoo spit  here, it’s the secretion of an insect apparently, nothing to do with ...

There wasn’t much time, to spend in the Coffee Shop before my friend arrived in their truck to take me to the Dog Palace, but enough time using Google Translate  to tell them that yesterday, I had my first dip in the Aegean Sea and another first, my first swimming lesson. The next one is Tuesday. This looks like it might be a regular event. They said it must have been chilly, but Mad Dogs and Englishmen.. Rita and Choca At the Dog Palace everyone was keen to see me, my popularity continues undiminished it appears. Although I haven’t worked on counting above ten in Greek, I have in my notes the numbers as they march  beyond it, it seems that once you get into the twenties and beyond you only need to remember the twenty, thirty and forty bit and say the one, two, three bit after it. I am at the revision section of the Michel Thomas course, after looking at some Masculine words and how they change depending on their stature in the sentence and also for example the word for ‘the’ ...

  Tuesday started less windy, and an early start meant no Coffee Shop visit, I went with my friend who runs the Dog Palace at their invitation to Agios Sostis to see how warm the sea was and take it from there. On the way over the reservoir dam, the water was amazingly still, creating a lovely reflection in the water.  After a stroll on the beach, picking a bit of litter up, including a broken plastic kettle, we paddled into the sea. It felt a bit cool to me. I had stashed my phone and bits safely away in case of accidents! The sand under my feet became a bit like quicksand and SPLOOSH! I fell over and ended up sitting in the water. My friend was swimming about now and starting teaching me to float on my back. I have no fear of water, but I could not master it. My legs were not floating properly, when I tried and pushed my head back. Eventually I twigged, my body was not straight. As soon as I straightened my back, I floated. It was amazing. I kept this up for quite a long tim...

When I went into the Coffee Shop today, it was empty. The reason? Everyone was outside. So it’s officially Greek Summertime then. I stayed in a bit, to collect my thoughts, sometimes it’s just nice to be with Marinos as the conversation, if I could call it that, is easier with one person. He asked me when I was going with the Dog Palace’s owner, I said Wednesday and Thursday this week in Greek ( he only speaks Greek) I stumbled on the last word, but he knew what it was, and kindly put me out of my misery. I have been making a note of the months of the year, they seem relatively easy, ours must come from theirs. I need to be ready for May the first, they wish each other Good Month on that day, or when you  see the person later on in the month. I am also trying to capture food names like milk and eggs, which I should know by now! Livadi His wife popped in, she wished me good week, as it’s the first time I have seen her this week, but in English, so I returned it in Greek, she correct...

There used to be a photo slide of my dad, in the garden growing onions. Which is odd as I don’t remember him having particularly green fingers. I used to have allotments in the UK and I used to grow onions. We would store them up and use them during the winter. It was for fun, trying them here, I did not expect huge successes. I had hoped for better things with the Spring Onions, but it was too windy and they don’t like being dried out. I only got a couple to maturity as you can see. I pulled the onions up early, as they were going to seed. They were in a plant trough, not ideal, but it was worth a try. They are about one third of how big they should been.  Saturday night, I decided to go to what I call the locals bar. A kind friendly Greek guy runs it. It’s named after himself. Vasileas. He kept it open when all the trendy places closed for the season. I suppose you can liken it to a spit and sawdust UK pub. You get a good welcome, you don’t always get these goodies, but tonight w...

I was super organised this morning. I had the sheets on my line, before I started off to feed the cats and get a coffee on the go at the Coffee Shop. I usually am heading to the Dog Palace when I present my reusable mug at the shop, but no I said in Greek, I was going to the St George church for the service. It started at seven thirty, I better get a move on.  I started on the path, which gradually improves as you climb up it, they had been strimming and burning the rubbish to clear it for the summer tourists. It is  meant to take thirty minutes to get to the church, I did it in under that. I was in the shade to start with, but as I climbed up, the sun was on my back. There were a couple of flowers on the track I had never seen, so I photographed them. When I got to the church, the Greek flag was out there in the breeze and I could hear singing. Being in shorts, I did not want to offend anyone, so I sat outside. But I was beckoned in, for the first bit, by one of the Coffee Sh...

  At the Coffee shop, I showed them my photos of yesterdays walks, in particular the church photos. I have sort of mastered the word for drive and walk, so I could explain I drove and walked yesterday. I told them I was going start a walk from the Monastery today. I was told and showed an announcement on the Shop window about a service at the church you can see from my house, at the end of the miners track. It starts at seven thirty, I will go but not to the whole service I think. I drove to the Monastery and the church opposite had flags out. Odd, as Easter has passed. But they were having a service. I decided to stay a bit and I was rewarded, one of the guys from the Coffee Shop came out with a basket of bread. It just turned out I was offered it last, and was told to take it all. Todays walk was a new one for me, a sort of triangular shaped walk, the first part a bit of a zig zag, with a gap in the track ... There was a series of different paths to join the two ends up, so I was...

  I seem to have got into writing the days blog at the end of the day it documents, and posting it on the following day. I have posted on an alternative site a Greek language version, this is on  https://livingonserifosgreek.blogspot.com/ . However my Greek isn’t up to standard, so it’s using google translate. I was meant to be cooking a lunch for a couple of friends Friday, but one of them was whisked off on the helicopter to get treatment, I hope they recover soon. After Grans for an early lunch I went to Agios Sostis to have a lay in the sun, and do some Greek. There wasn’t much rubbish, but I did have to share the beach ( not my bit exactly ) with three other couples. I tend to use the less used bit. I saw Sifnos, with a cloud over it, which looked a bit odd. I then drove around the island to visit two churches, both I am sure I have seen before. The first was being painted last time I was there, it’s not finished yet, but has lovely views over to Platys Gialos. It was loc...

Yesterday on the way to the dog palace in my friends truck, there was sweeping clouds touching the the mountain that we were about to go up. It was quite memorable. It was going to be a hot day, but only the last walk was it so hot, that I cut the walk short. On all but one of the walks, we took small tracks off the main track and were walking through vast swaves of flowers, almost like a carpet on the ground. But summer is nearby and in areas baked by the midday sun, the flowers are wilting and are making one last effort to turn the pollinated flower heads into viable seeds for next year. Later on a walk had us looking out towards Kithnos, with two types of clouds, streaky ones slightly covering from our view the white fluffy ones, sorry I have no knowledge of cloud names! Rita is doing marathons. She did three out of my four walks today. But the dog Palace’s Diva dog Jabba, as she is known decided for a second day not to walk with me. On one of her walks Rita sniffed out a lizard and...

Yesterday at the dog palace things were changing. I often think it’s perfect, but the people who run it are constantly trying to improve it. Warmer summers are a nightmare for dogs and the windows in the dogs quarters are being opened but covered in mesh to keep the insects out. One dog Victor is having a pergola built with canes atop for shelter from the sun. The flowers which are providing so much colour, will be cut down when their seeds are dispersed and be taken away to remove the combustible material. So how is my Greek? It’s still moving forward with Duolingo and the Michel Thomas course. At the moment, I am learning the words you use with the word you use with  like, for example I like your house or you like my house and so on. This being done I am now about to start  Part Eight, a lot of which covers the letters and so on. There is a Part Nine  that has appeared, it’s doesn’t have a pdf so I don’t know what is in it exactly. I imagine if I finish these before I g...