Greece and Turkey(s)

Annamaria gets the girls mobile.

The eagle has landed. My travelling wife is returned from her mission to tie up those loose ends for our late friend Diane in the Greek island of Poros. Poros was Diane's favourite (and 'only' by the end) holiday destination and she went two or three times a year every year from when Mum took her, aged 27, around 30 years ago. She was well known and loved there by many locals and, indeed, many café owners there now, she bounced on her knee as babies of the café owners 30 years back. Liz went with her around a half dozen times in recent years and was there for the trip when Diane married John out there (remember the famously miss-spelled 'Happy Webbing" cake?). Latterly, Liz would go out on the Spring trip, and Diane took John in the autumn.

Annamaria, Liz's main guide, with her son
Andreas. Thank you Annamaria - we owe you
so much.

In these recent trips they would always use the same hotel, owned by a local lad but run by the two 'old dears' of the family, always affectionately known as the "Yia-Yiás" (pronounce it Ya-ya's, it is an affectionate term in Greek for Grandma). That was an obvious start point but Liz had a mental list of similar haunts - pavement and indoor cafés, restaurants, even a Taverna across the water up in the mountains surrounded by lemon groves. She wanted also to visit all these local contacts and friends to say a kind of 'Goodbye' on Diane's behalf, explain to them, if she can, how Diane died, sympathise with them and somehow share with them that there will be no more visits from their bubbly, happy, English 'regular'. I must hurriedly apologise if I am making a hash of this 'explanation'.

Liz gets a cuddle from superb old gent, Andreas Lazarou

Liz is fortunately helped in this task by there being some among the Greek (or long-term Poros visitor) mutual friends who speak good English, notable a lovely lady Annamaria who even suggested hiring a moped with pillion seat to help them get about. Liz has no Greek and is further hampered by the fact that Diane had the Greek so she used to guide and organise everything, but also used the local names for things which everyone on Poros would know but would not be in any guide book or on road signage. "The Yia-Yiás" is not the real name of the hotel (!) and a café which they all know as "The Bulgarians" because back in the day when there were a lot of Bulgarian economic migrants on Poros, that was the café where they all gathered at lunchtime or of an evening. One favourite haunt (known locally as Thanasis Café) had actually closed down in the intervening time; just a clear pavement and white-washed windows.

Beekeeping burger man.

So Lizzie was not much looking forward to this trip and wished it would go away, but knew that it wouldn't and that she must steel herself and do this last thing for our much missed friend. She knew she must go alone because to take me or any other 'third party' might make it look like she was really on holiday to the Poros folk, and if she went with widower John, there would be raised eyebrows at him, so recently bereaved, "swanning about" with another woman and former best friend of Diane. They are salt of the earth and genuine Greek Orthodox people with a keen eye for old traditional values. They deserve respect and so does Diane's memory and legacy. No, this had to be a single-handed journey, but she was sure she'd cope. She was only away from here 7 nights; time flew. Now it is done, it is done for good. 'We' may return to Poros, maybe in our later years, when we have a bit less livestock and a bit more time.

Burger bee-man's signs

But how to go about these very difficult 'meet and greets'? How do you address an old old mutual friend who (you hope) knows of Diane's passing and that you have come out to the island just to say a kind of goodbye to these valued loved ones? Liz had mentally put together a quick few sentences telling of Diane's last day, including the happy tea party with her London friend Stefan, husband John off on his dogwalk with Diane's request for 'posh cheese' the last words he heard, her quick, clean, painless end from the pulmonary embolism, that she died at home and on her own bed.

Gifts from Greece - brandy. Actually, to be more accurate,
"Greek alcohol drink of natural aromas and distils"

Many of the Greeks would openly weep there on the street where they met and hug Liz tight. One poor lady actually met Liz as she came out of a washroom, recognised Liz, guessed why she was there, burst into floods of tears and had to be ushered back into the washroom by Liz while she got herself back together. Some of the greetings were a bit less harrowing, one (Angelo) they caught up with as he was out on his boat in the harbour and Liz ended up yelling friendly abuse across the water to him about why he never had his phone turned on or charged up, before heading for a café. Two other favourite old boys in Diane's crowd, she met while they were taking their regular walk along the sea front (Captain George (fisherman) and Eleftherios (fishmonger)). To a man/woman, they were very concerned about Husband John, was he coping? Was he eating OK? Greek men apparently will often go to pieces when first bereaved.

Greek sweets - they are (phonetically)
"ah-mee-gda-lo-ta" - don't ask me to
spell that in the Greek alphabet!

The old boy, Andreas (now quite elderly) who owned the Taverna up in the lemon groves was just awake from his nap, being looked after by his lovely carer, was still a bit befuddled from sleep and has no English, but he was happy to sit by Liz patting her knee and smiling - he seemed to know that he'd seen Liz before and that she was here for a good reason, but the carer explained that he had not taken in Diane's death and that she would explain it to him in due course when he was more with it. There, inevitably also one lady who had not heard of Diane's passing, so Liz had to actually break the news, and there other people who over heard Liz talking to the 'ones on the list' and chipped in with "I knew Diana too...." (They all called her Diana out there).

On the right a hard Greek sheep's milk cheese (nice enough)
but on the left, the freshest, most gorgeous feta I ever had
the pleasure of tasting.

In this way Liz worked her way round the town and completed the task. She was very much ably assisted by our good friend Annamaria who scared Liz half to death by suggesting that rather than walk, they hire a moped and zoom around like proper Greeks, dicing with the traffic. Liz took her first pillion ride with eyes tight shut, head down and both hands gripping Annamaria's waist hard enough to bruise the poor girl. By the end, though, she was apparently sitting back, hand by her sides, big silly grin and "I'm on a BIKE" in her head!

Newly hatched turkey chick, still damp from the egg.

With the job done, Annamaria decided they both needed some rest, relaxation and recouperation. Annamaria had taken time off work (in Athens) to shepherd Liz round Poros (we are so so grateful, Annamaria - thank you so much) but now needed to go home so that she could return to work, but she suggested that Liz come with her, stay in her house in Athens and relax till the time came for the flight home. Just what the doctor ordered. We also need to thank the bro-in-law, Sparks, who did the airport and railway station taxi-runs in Dublin and put Liz up overnight at either end of the Poros mission, cooking a nice line in breakfasts. Thank you Sparks.

In one final amusing aside, Liz managed to meet 2 more beekeepers while she was out there and even enjoy some bilingual conversation about bees, where she'd have only minimal vocabulary and the Greek guy maybe a tiny bit more English. One was just a man with a burger van where Annamaria stopped in the car for some light snacks; Liz spotted a pic on the van of the burger seller in a beekeeper-suit and realised that he was also selling honey. The other, a guy named Costas (Annamaria is his daughter's Godmother) had been minding the Annamaria's son (also called Andreas) while Annamaria was looking after Liz on Poros. Liz and Costas were also found showing each other pictures of their and our animals, and letting Liz photo their geese. In Greece, though, honey quality is judged on darkness of colour, with the real burnt-umber colours being the best, so Liz did not show them pics of our straw-coloured product. They would not have been impressed.

Finally a bit of nice, surprise, good news from home - we woke up the the cheepings of just-hatched turkeys. We have 8 eggs in the incubator and were not expecting any hatches till day 28 (June 8th) so these little ones are 2 days early. We have 2 out so far and a third well on the way to cracking the top off the shell, so watch this space for a final score.

Finish Holidays!

"Finish Holidays!" is the rather sad cry put up by Diamond's great Poros Islander friend Captain George as yet another of her stays on the Greek Island draws to a close and he is sorry to see her packed and waiting for the ferry back to reality. We are the same today as the miniature horses come to the end of their little stay here, mowing our lawns and the East Field and helping owner Carolyn out of a fodder-shortage crisis.

They were a new and exciting first experience of "owning" horses for both of us. They are great characters, each with their own personalities. Maybe we did 'spoil' them a bit with the Silver-Mints and Carrots but we bonded well with them and loved watching them grazing, rolling on the grass, chasing into full gallops for the pure joy of it. But now we need the grass for the sheep arriving at the end of August so they have gone back 'home' where Carolyn has now got the home field organised (and, in fact, cut for hay).

We will miss them and as the girls took them away we were joking around making sure they "looked after them properly" and would I be allowed to visit them and bring them mints  if I was missing them too badly!

As the 2CV (my own "two horses"?) reaches the expiry date of the old NCT and we try to sort out whether to keep it on the road, I have been out again with the trailer gathering up another water tank which will act as a reservoir for the sheep drinker but I was hoping to use the car for a much more entertaining job - Carolyn's hay is cut and being turned daily as it dries, but is not yet baled. This was suggested for today and we were going to go down and haul it back to the house (about 200 yards, maximum!) on combinations of my 2CV and trailer and an assortment of carts slung behind the various mini-horses. We even had Liz laid on offering to bring the hay-carters out a picnic of sausage pie and salad, but the baler did not show and it's all postponed till tomorrow. I hope to bring you some fun pictures of us all in action. I wonder how many bales I can fit in and on the trailer.

Meanwhile, after a slow start the garden is now starting to crop nicely on all manner of veg, many of which fall into the two categories of "First time I've grown it....." (such as this calabrese) and/or "Best I've ever grown". We are happy , then, to get hints and tips from Mentor Anne and Simon who are not only experienced growers outdoors, having once been in (their own) business of growing organics commercially, but also having used poly tunnels widely.

Anne, for example, told me that if you cut calabrese carefully and high up under the heads, it will keep coming back from side buds á la "purple sprouting", Also to blanch it you plunge very quickly into boiling water (just long enough to make it wet!) and then straight into cold water. You can spin off the excess water in a salad spinner, then freeze on trays before bagging.

 Our garlic is also proving to be a delight - huge bulbs - and the shallots are finished in the poly tunnel and ready to lift. I planted a row of marigolds and nasturtiums alongside the raspberry canes to attract insects to the allotment and they have done so well they have rather swamped the raspberries which were struggling to get established in the dry July. In the picture here (top left) you can also see a very sturdy, healthy looking row of spuds - these are the Hungarian, blight resistant variety Sarpo Mira. If they are anything like as strong under ground as these tops, then we should do OK. My new/salad potato plants are hidden behind them, doing very well but quite dwarfed by the Mira top growth!

As well as collecting their horses, our Rabbit-Mentor Charlotte checked over our batches of baby bunnies and declared that Ginny's and Padfoot's were now old enough to be taken off their Mums. This we did by moving all the babies from one run to the other, and the Mum in the opposite direction. We now have 12 baby bunnies in one run, which is a riot to watch especially as they run and jump about in circles quickly sorting out a dominance order. Charlotte also took the chance to sex them and show me how to sex them. There are 8 does and 4 bucks. My notes are quite funny as we basically have mainly black and white babies, so the descriptions read such as "wide black spine and dots" (a buck, that one) or "2 black dots on nose, black spreads from eyes to ears" (a doe). I am trying to get a photo of all 12 in the run but have so far only managed these 7 in one place long enough to focus on!

Goldie's babies are too young yet to be taken off Mum but she has 3 boys and a girl remaining. We have not done so well with her in terms of survival and have had a few unexplained 'infant deaths'. These things happen, we are told and there are all manner of reasons, but every so often we have checked them in the morning and found another still, sad little corpse lying on the grass. No injuries or obvious problems, but stiff and cold. Ah well, we still have the 4 and we have 12 from the Silverwood Mums, so we can't complain.

Hay cart tomorrow then, all being well.