Typically Village

I’ve had a few typically village days this week, by which I mean I’ve seen things which are what I’d call typical of the village. These are sights such as a donkey carrying shopping across the village square and a stray goat wandering the lanes in the middle of the village nowhere near the rural boundary. You get used to these kinds of sights as you smile at them and carry on with your day. I’ve had some typically village-style afternoons at the kafenion too, where Manolis told his story of being in Rhodes and ordering a pizza from a large pizza delivery firm only to still be waiting two hours later. Eventually, he rang the number on the flyer and spoke to someone only to find out they couldn’t find his address and his pizza was still in Athens. In Athens, malaka? A mix up of some sort and a humorous story that took a long time to tell and longer to laugh about.

Another couple of typically village incidents happened on Tuesday. The first is just something you have to get used to; people stopping to chat outside your window when you’re trying to have a siesta. This was compounded by an accompanying screaming child. Later, Sotiris wandered by the bar with his usually cheery wave, but unusually, he wasn’t delivering from his supermarket. He wandered off up the lane and returned a while later, carrying something in the front of his t-shirt. After stopping for a chat with the neighbours, he wandered back past us, and we had to ask what he was carrying. Turned out to be a clutch of chicks someone had reported abandoned on the lane. There was no sign of the mother (or it had been run over or something), so he was asked to rescue them. I imagine they are now being brought up by a broody hen up at his farm, and in time, he’ll sell their eggs in his free-range bucket in his shop.

All typically village, which is still rather quiet in the afternoons, and where everyone is wondering when the Brits we usually see at this time of year will be let out for good behaviour and be able to travel without being locked up on their return. Hopefully, by September, and although I doubt that will rescue many from the quiet season, it will certainly help see a few families through the winter. Meanwhile, temperatures are climbing towards 40 and above, the air is still, and the humidity is rising. We’ll soon have to open all windows and switch on all fans, and the men will be wearing vests beneath their shirts, tucked into their jeans, but, in summer, that’s typically village too.

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The Children of the Night

‘Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make.’ Dracula was talking about the wolves beyond his castle walls. My children of the night yesterday was actually only one, so a child of the night, or rather, early morning. Picture it:

I’m sitting there on the sofa with a cup of tea at 3.30 when I hear what sounds like a moth caught in a paper lampshade. Except the only light that was on was the one bulb in the sitting room ‘chandelier’, and there was no moth buffeting anything up there. The sound stopped, and I carried on reading the newspaper… and the sound started again. It then became a light buzzing noise, and a dark smudge weaved across the middle distance. It was a smudge because I have to take my glasses off to read, and without them, anything beyond a foot away might as well be a painting by Turner. Glasses on, and smudge becomes a cockroach flying about the room without so much as a by your leave. Well, we don’t want him moving in, and he’s quite big enough to carry his own luggage, so when he landed on the arm of the sofa, I approached, intending to give him a Subbuteo flick straight out through the open balcony doors, from whence he must have come as they’d been open all night. He must have sensed me coming because he took off on a journey to another part of the room, leaving me no choice but euthanasia. I do love the smell of Teza in the morning. Later, I shrouded him in kitchen paper and sent him to recycling.

Dawn happened not that long after and brought with it the pleasanter sounds of the children of the dawn. Not a horror film title as it might sound, but the blackbirds, sparrows and Tweety. That’s the name we’ve given to our personal swallow, who sits two feet away from the balcony on the telegraph cable. She pops back regularly to keep us up to date with neighbourhood news, someone of which is so far-fetched it’s hard to swallow. Get it?

Never mind. Here are some random photos, none of which feature roaches or, sadly, Tweety.

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Bits and Pieces

Hello, and here’s wishing you a good week ahead, happy solstice and all that. Or, happy Witchling Day if you happen to live in the imaginary village of Saddling, down on Romney Marsh. Not sure what I’m talking about? Click here. (Note, that’s book two of a series, but it’s set around the summer solstice.)

Other news… The photos today are from Neil, as you can tell by the quality and style. He’s currently arranging to have a one-day diving course with the new Symi diving school, Blue Lagoon Divers. A friend did this the other day and had an amazing experience. There are longer courses and various ways to arrange them as everything is tailor-made to suit you. If Neil gets on with the introductory morning course (during which you do all your safety training and your first dive, one-on-one with an instructor), then he may go on to do the longer one so he can dive deeper.

We’ve had some traffic police from Rhodes on the island of late; different uniforms and everything. Apparently, and this is café chatter, they came over following the complaints about the biker-boys* and the way they make up for lack of manhood by removing the baffles from their exhausts, so they have the noisiest moped on the island or some other childish thing. Many people who live along the main road have been disturbed by their curfew-breaking antics, and enough was clearly enough. Hopefully, they’ve been put in their quieter place. Things are certainly a lot quieter than they were.
(* Or biker girls. Definitely biker men who should know better, ’cos I’ve seen one doing a wheely up the main road. I’d say he was 40 going on 12.)

Another thing I’ve noticed in groups on Facebook is more and more people asking for advice about how to stay longer than 90 days. These are Brits who want to come to Greece for a full summer or who want to move out here for a year and try it out. I can’t believe I am still seeing this kind of question, and I can’t believe how calmly and kindly most people are answering it. Did the yUK government not make it clear? After Brexit, if you want to have an extended stay in Greece (or another EU country), then, basically, you’re stuffed. You can’t. End of. You can’t extend your 90 days while you are here. Sorry. Well, you can arrange a certain visa before you leave if you’ve got a place to go and a job etc., but you can’t do it on a whim like you used to. There are other ways around it, like buy a property for a quarter of a million or have an income of more than 2K per month, a large amount of savings in a Greek bank, private health insurance and so on. But the good old days of being able to come for six months, or even four, or even 91 days (in a rolling 180) are over. Brexit, the gift that keeps giving.

Oh, finally, talking of gifts. Another friend recently had a parcel from UK Amazon which only took eight weeks to get here and only cost an extra €45.00 in customs duty and so on, and that, by post-Brexit standards, is not bad. I ordered a book from Amazon Germany last Monday, and the tracking told me it was delivered on Thursday. Delivered being, left Athens, so probably on a Blue Star or a flight to Rhodes, but still, an excellent service. It was ordered via Germany, sent from Italy, arrived in Greece and was probably in my PO box last Friday. Nice. Must go now and pick it up.

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