Send this page address - CLICK HERE - to a friend !Friday 1st - Happy New Year! January 1st, 2010 Kalee Xronia! (The polite reply to a greeting such as this is "epeesees", which means literally "again" but is a polite form of "likewise".) Despite not getting to bed until 3am, we awoke fairly early, dressed and had breakfast. It had been a warm night and the strong morning breeze was decidedly warm. I had backache so I left Jenny to watch TV while I struggled up the hill and took a walk round the village. Not many people were around but I greeted a few with the usual "kalee xroniá" (literally "good year"). The two main tavernas in the square were packed with men, smoking and drinking coffee. I headed home and sat down at the computer for a lazy day. Saturday 2nd - Another warm, lazy day January 2nd, 2010 It remained warm overnight and it's still warm this morning, although the breeze is somewhat cooler. It seems to be "only" 20 degrees C. outside. My back was somewhat better overnight. I had a hot shower and did my back exercises on the bed, before dressing. We walked to the supermarket to buy bread and eggs. Aspaseea had a red nose and complained of a sore throat and headache. That's the second one in a fortnight, poor woman. Jenny made breakfast. 11:30am. The wind is much stronger now. It blew the washing stand over so Jenny moved it to a sheltered position next to the oil tank, where it's in the sun. |
| Greek Lesson If you are giving directions and want to say "keep right" the literal translation would be "krátete thekseeá". However, this is meaningless in Greek because, instead of "keep", they use the word that means "remain" or "stay". So you would say "meenete stee thekseeá". I mentioned, earlier, that you can add "aki" to a word if you want to refer to something small. For example "globos" (bulb) becomes "globaki" (small bulb). Well, some words also take "oulis" or "oula" with the same purpose. Eg. Anthropos (man) -> Anthropoulis (little man) Yineka (woman) -> Yinekoula (little woman) Sakos (sack) -> Sakoula (bag) In Greek, expressing a hope or a wish is formed with 'makari na' . Eg. Makari na prostatepsoun teen polee! (May they protect the town!) Makari na vreete ton theesavro. (May you find the treasure) In some cases in Greek we use the past tense of the verb 'to be' along with 'makari na' to express wishes. Eg. Makari na eetane aleetheia! (lit. May it were true!) Makari na eetane psemata! (lit. May it were a lie!) |
| 12:50pm. Jenny has just run outside to bring the washing in. There are raindrops on the window!  Evening: The rain didn't fall. It was just a few drops from a passing cloud. However, the temperature has fallen. We walked to the house of our friends, who live on the other side of the hill. (We face the sea and they face the mountains.) Several friends had arranged to meet there and have "nibbles". My lower back started to hurt again as we sat. We chatted till after 1am then walked home. It was still windy and not as warm as New Year's Eve. We wore coats! Sunday 3rd - A cold start January 3rd, 2010 My lower back bothered me during the night. The temperature was just 14 degrees C. as we set off for Georgioupolis at 9:30am. |
| We went to our favourite cafe "Naos" which does an excellent breakfast and where the friendly owners are happy to teach us new words. | 
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| We'll be returning on Wednesday for Epiphany, when the priest throws a cross into the river and local boys dive in to retrieve it. |
| We called in to see Eleni and Xreestos on our way home. Eleni mentioned that she needed some windscreen cleaner for her car and planned to use vinegar. I just happened to have a bottle of the proper stuff in the boot, so I shared it with her. We've invited them for lunch on Epiphany. As we stood outside the house, my upper back suddenly "clonked" and the muscles went into spasm. It didn't prevent me from driving home and I'm sitting with a hot water bottle against my upper back. The temperature outside in the shade is about 19'C but much hotter in direct sunlight. The sky is almost cloudless. |
| Greek lesson As we sat in the taverna, we listened to Greek TV and looked up a few words in the dictionary. It's very important to put the stress on the correct syllable. In English it can be difficult to understand if somebody says, for example, "archeetect" instead of "architect". It can even change the meaning if you say "envelope" instead of "envelope". (Remember the policeman in "Allo allo"?) Well Greek is even worse. For example "polee" means town but "polee" means "very" or "much". And "pseelos" is a flea but "pseelos" means "tall". (You can get into trouble if you mean to say "you are tall" but actually say "you are a flea"!) |
| We had a long walk around the village in the afternoon. This house belongs to our neighbour. We were shown around this house a few years ago when we first started to consider moving here. | 
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| The building work stopped for Christmas. Here are the partly-built wooden shutters. When they are fully enclosed, a lorry will arrive and pipe concrete inside. | 
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Monday 4th - A cooler day January 4th, 2010 We called at Aspaseea's shop to look for post. There was a package for Jenny. |
| We found a shaded spot in the car park at Vamos. By now it was warmer and I really didn't need my fleece. We walked to the post office to buy stamps. | 
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| We needed to get cash so we drove to the bank at Almereetha. On one corner, ahead, I saw the now-familiar "roadworks" sign (a plastic bottle and a plastic crate). Around the corner was a lorry dumping cement on the road. | 
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| The ATM wasn't working, so we'd had a wasted journey. On the way home, we stopped at the plumber's shop at Vamos and ordered a bath and washbasin. Fed up with being limited to a tiny, cramped shower cubicle! | 
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Tuesday 5th - Rather warm! January 5th, 2010 My back bothered me less during the night and it was almost 10 am when I awoke! We had breakfast, checked my email, forums and uploaded a web page then started the car while Jenny mopped the kitchen floor. It could dry while we were out. We called at Aspaseea's supermarket to collect mail (one letter from Rosemary in America - see notes, below). At Almereetha, the ATM was working today. |
| An English couple was sunbathing on the beach. We strolled over and chatted with them. It's uncomfortably hot in the sun so we were glad to get back in the car! | 
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| We drove to Vamos, where we bought two loaves of bread. Tomorrow (Epiphany) is a public holiday so there will be no fresh bread for sale. | 
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| Take a good look and eat your hearts out. You can keep your snow! | 
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| A friend of ours is stranded at Manchester Airport. | 
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| | Click HERE to see more of Manchester airport. |
| Rosemary's letter from America contained a number of interesting questions, which I'll attempt to answer here. 1. The place names which I mention are written phonetically, in order to get you to pronounce them correctly. I can't write them in Greek in the software program that I use for these pages. Note that my phonetic spelling is different from the English spelling used on some maps. The "s" at the end of names is often not pronounced and often not even written, for reasons that I still don't fully understand. 
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| 2. When it rains the roads are so roughly made that they don't normally become slippery. However, some tarmac roads may become slippery if they are located where traffic frequently squeals to a stop and leaves rubber! Of course marble is used here a lot for floors and steps and even pavements in places. This becomes lethal when wet so you have to be really careful to look for it when the ground is wet. I've taken a few dives already. 3. Our mail gets delivered from Athens (on mainland Greece) to Xaniá then to Vámos and (apart from large parcels) to our local supermarket. If there's a large parcel, the postman will leave a paper ticket at the supermarket and we have to drive to Vamos Post Office to collect it. We have to show our passport or other identification. If we want to post mail, we have to add a stamp and put it into a yellow post box in one of the towns. Apparently the post man would happily take it if we left it at the supermarket but we haven't tried that. If we don't know what the stamp will cost (72 cents for a letter to England) then we have no choice but to drive to a Post Office. Vamos is tiny and has just a few shops, cafeinios and two tavernas. Our nearest cities (Xaniá to the west and Réthymnon to the east) would be classed simply as large towns elsewhere. The largest city, Irákleon, is about two hours drive to the east. You can drive from one side of it to the other in ten minutes. The airports are at Xaniá and Irákleon (Don't be tempted to pronounce that first letter as an "aye" sound - it's Eerakleeon). |
| Greek has four alphabet letters pronounced as "ee". No letter is pronounced as "i" (like "pink"). That sound doesn't really exist in Greek. No single letter is pronounced as "I" (like "eye"). To get this sound you'd have to write "aï " which approximates to "a-ee". There is no letter "b"; to get that sound you write the equivalent of "mp". Likewise there is no letter with the sound of "d"; you would write the equivalent of "nt". So the common boy's Christian name that sounds like "Babees" is written like "Mpampis". The Greek letter "Veeta" (which we call "Beta") is symbolised by "B" and pronounced like "V". So the Greek name "Vangelis" is actually written with a "B". |
| Wednesday 6th - Epiphany January 6th, 2010 It's a public holiday so many shops are closed. We arose early because we have invited Eleni and Christos to lunch and we want to see the cross-throwing ceremony at Geogioupolis, which is due to take place some time after 9:30am. We had breakfast and Jenny made some meal preparations before we drove to Georgioupolis. It's very windy today, but not cold. We arrived in good time so we went to the Naos cafe and had a drink before wandering down to the river. We couldn't pay for the drinks - Jenny had forgotten her purse and I had only a 50 Euro note. However, Georgia (Youryeea) said she trusted us, so we'll pay when we go back for breakfast on Sunday. |
| People started to arrive after 10pm and the priest finally showed up just before 10:30am. | 
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| Preparing to swim. | 
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| The Priest threw the cross into the river. The lads jumped in and swam to retrieve it. We understand that the water was "not cold". Hmm. |
