syros – Page 3 – In the Greek Garden

Saints and celebrations

In Kini there is an annual festival of Agios Petros (Saint Peter) which takes place every year on June 29^th on his Saints Day. St Peter was an Apostle who was a fisherman so it makes sense that a tiny Greek Orthodox Chapel was built for him, perched above the rows of boats to keep a watchful eye on the local fishermen.

It was certainly a hot day and evening for such a festival, the temperature yesterday peaked at around 36c Although we went swimming late yesterday, people stayed on the beach late to watch the festival procession and cool off in the sea. It is forecast to be 44c in Athens this weekend – impossible to imagine but this heatwave is seeing some of the highest temps in Greece for over 10 years. I have to be thankful that we are luckier here in the islands, but this heat is really unusual. Even the garden is melting, tomatoes wilt in the sun and I have seen locals laying sheets out to shade their vegetables from the heat! We have had a few internet outages and the power also went off the other night, a click and the air-con went off which prompted me to wander outside to see utter darkness across the hills. But wow the star-lit sky looked incredible. Everyone seems to be blaming these powercuts on the humidity and heat, so fingers crossed they don’t continue.

Yesterday’s event started at a stiflingly hot 7pm with the Orthodox service in the Chapel. I’m sure less than 20 people can actually fit inside, so many people gathered outside and on the steps below fanning themselves and cramming into areas of shade. The harbour had been decorated with bunting, flags, tables and chairs laid out while the band was setting up. After the ceremony, the Orthodox Priest blesses the icon of St Peter and it is walked in a procession down the hill led by local dignitaries and some of the children we recognised from the village. After it reaches the port the fun really started, when the Priest and his helpers carry the icon onto a decorated fishing boat and sail around the bay to bless the waters. One boat led with the revered icon and another six or so decorated fishing boats followed until there was a little flotilla of vessels circling the bay, they were followed by youngsters in little sail boats from a local sailing club. Flares were set off and whistles blowed in celebration. I captured a few pics of the event below.

After the blessing and serious bit, it was time for the Greek feasting and frivolity. If one thing is for sure, it is that locals and visitors alike love to share in the jubilant dancing and feasting that comes with Greek village traditions. As the sun set over the bay, the temperature cooled slightly, the grills fired up cooking sardines and souvlaki, stalls selling Loukamades (deep fried donuts), wine and beers flowed. There was a live band, fireworks and a display of traditional dancing from the local cultural organisation.

It seemed like everyone came down to see what was happening, regardless of faith, to meet people they know and catch up. Local families came to celebrate and enjoy the feast, while tourists wandered through the crowds to soak up the culture,from babies to the elderly, these sorts of events bring everyone together, and this was especially true with the dancing that went on late. The music just brought everyone up to dance- holding hands, learning the steps, from teenagers to the older generation, who I must say really do know how to move! I even was bravely coaxed into joining in, which was so much fun, even though the steps are always confusing.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/144180115@N07/34819774563/in/dateposted-public/

Plus, I finally discovered that everyone DOES know all the words to Markos Vamvakaris’s classic “Frankosyriani“; the love song was sang by an older man who got up from the crowd, everyone joined in and a few older dancers struck out the leg-slapping, slow floor sweeping moves of the Rembetiko masters. We snuck away just before 1am, sweat glistening on our faces and mosquito bites on our legs. Still the music was nowhere near stopping and people still had energy to dance wildly into the hot night.

I hope Agios Petros was impressed.

A week of being a tourist

I’ve had a lovely week – that word lovely is so English isn’t it? Lovely, not just great, but something that sits straddling somewhere between ‘good’, ‘nice’ and ‘charming’. Anyway I don’t believe there is a Greek equivalent for lovely so we can just stick with ‘Poli oreas’ (very nice)! My parents visited Kini and it was great to show them around, especially to hear their take on observing the place we call home for the summer and the different things they noticed. They enjoyed eating in the local taverna’s and cafe’s, having a walk around the area and stopping for espresso freddo became a daily treat. I am now on cracker rations after eating so much delicious food and partaking in far too many rounds of ‘miso kilo aspro krasi, parakelo’ (that’s half a litre of local wine). But it was fun to visit Ermoupoli with them as well and not to be there on a vegetable shopping expedition as is usually the case when I pop into town. Even through I had promised a direct bus there from Kini, it was okay once I had got over my mini-tantrum at the change of bus schedule from direct (15mins) to circular all-village loop which takes 50mins. After all it’s Greece and things change at the drop of a kolomboli bead, I hope they appreciated the scenic bus tour round the Island; like a freebie tour of all the villages thrown in! Once in Ermoupoli we had a quick wander round the shops for gifts, after all it is named after Hermes the God of Trade and Commerce. At my Dad’s impatient request a visit to Miaouli Square was called for, after watching it on the Webcam and waving at us more than a few times, my Dad was thrilled to have achieved his ‘dream’ of visiting the platiea in real life!

It’s a great place to get a feel for how Syros was and grew as the centre of the shipping industry in the 19th Century with its impressive neoclassical buildings and town hall, which remains the administrative centre of the Cyclades Islands. We enjoyed a lovely lunch in the sunshine at Ελληνικό Καφενείο (Elliniko Kafenio) just on the square, an excellent chicken salad with figs and manouri cheese, some small bites of delicious olives and cheese. This was a perfect place for people watching on the square accompanied by another miso kilo of krasi. Afterwards we wandered past the Apollon Theatre to Vaporia, which is the area where many rich sea-captains and traders built neoclassical mansions in the 19th Century to demonstrate wealth and prowess; expanding the town as a vast trading centre and shipbuilding empire from its original Medieval and Frankish settlement of Ano Syros.

Vaporia is a beautiful sight to behold and I loved showing my parents the place G and I sat when we arrived in back April, the place with the perfect view that made the journey, the suitcase incident and the stress of the months past just disappear. This view is framed by the blue domed roof of St Nicholas Church, the orange and pink hued buildings perched on the azure aegean sea. In recent decades the area has been developing slowly since most of the mansions were left abandoned after shipping fortunes halted in the late 19th Century when Pireaus overtook as the major shipbuilding port. Recently some buildings have been restored into small hotels, some apartments are now inhabited, but others lay in waiting.

But overall there is a sense that this is beauty yet to be discovered, not showy or flashy but just at its own pace, like the swimmers and sunbathers dotted on the bathing platforms relaxing in the late afternoon light, they were in no rush to be anywhere else. I understand that Vaporia is where locals swim at sunrise and sunset – I couldn’t imagine anything more wonderful to frame the day than diving in and seeing the grand architecture around them. My mum even said she’d love to spend a holiday in Ermoupoli wandering the streets and shops, a perfect city break. I think that’s why I love Syros, because it has the full contrast of wild barren trails in the north, pretty beaches and villages, as well as this enticing town full of cobbled streets to get lost in and cultural treasures to discover.

While I was playing badly at being the tour guide this week, we also went to Ano Syros for the evening and enjoyed a little wander around the whitewashed , stopping for a drink in the Markos Vamvakaris square, next to the museum dedicated to the island’s most famous musician. Vamvakaris, simply known as ‘Markos’ was a Rembetiko musician made famous in the 1930s for incorporating the bouzouki instrument into this Greek underground music which speaks of lost love, rebellion and is called the ‘blues’ of Greece. He was born in Ano Syros and his most famous song ‘Frankosyriani’ in which he sings of a Catholic Girl from Syros. (Apparently most people on the island will know this song off by heart and sing along…I’ll let you know). After drinks that night, we headed to the only Taverna we could find open and ate a deliciously hearty meal of veal, pork and chicken dishes overlooking the town as the sunset and dusk turned into twinkling streetlights.

This time last week we walked to Delfini beach in the drizzling rain and jumpers, luckily after the rain the weather started heating back up again in time to enjoy afternoons on the beach before they left!

As we took my parents to the port to say goodbye on Friday, we have been started feeling the heatwave that has hit Greece and I am pleased to say unlike most sun-worshipers I won’t be hitting the beach until late afternoon or evening. I sit here inside at 3pm in the cool luxury of air conditioning as the mercury soars outside to 31c in the shade. It’s so hot I only managed a walk this morning instead of a run (mainly to work of all the holiday-food and drink!) Even yoga on the ‘shaded’ terrace has become Bikram-like. So yesterday we had gardening and ‘crafternoon’ which was more like see-what-we-can-do-with-all-this-driftwood-we-keep-collecting. Rest assured, from yesterday’s results we won’t be opening an Etsy craft store anytime soon! But I am pleased to celebrate that today has seen the first ripe cucumber to be picked from the veg bed. Cooling cucumber salad is on our menu tonight and G has ‘invented’ chamomile iced-tea (it’s delicious!). With this I think we are ready to tackle the first summer heatwave!

Small island manners

It struck me on Sunday as I went on a little walk to Delfini beach how people are a little kinder and helpful on a small island. It was a little walk – it takes less than 25 minutes from to spiti mas (our house) to the paralia (the beach). Yet in that short amount of time 2 cars stopped to offer me a lift. I know what you’re thinking “stranger danger” and accepting lifts is so unheard of these days. This isn’t just because we have lost trust in our fellow humans and been programmed that everyone out there is set to rob or murder us, its endemic of how we fear things we don’t know. I was a woman alone walking in the heat of the sun. I mean the path is hilly, there’s a couple of steep climbs as you near to the bend before reaching the bay – but I like to think in my sporty trainers and hiking backpack, I totally looked like a typical thing for me to do. But I think it comes down to the fact that it isn’t common to see people walking to the beach here – so a nice thing to do would be to stop and offer them a lift as it’s a dirt road that ends at the beach, you know anyone going in this direction is heading to the same place. When the first car stopped, I said a simple “oxi, efharisto” and he waved and went on his way. But when the second car stopped merely a few minutes later on the ridge of the steepest hill, I started saying no and he waved and smiled, then his slightly worse for wear car started struggling to keep going and started to splutter and stall. I thought, now if I have to help him push the car up the hill that will be just brilliant timing! Man stops to give woman lift on midday sun – and she ends up pushing his slightly worn out car up a hill like a superwoman. His ego would probably never survive!

But that’s just a more chivalrous way of life here. I’m not saying I like it – it is just different and something you notice in the older generation more often. I was in the post office last week when an older man ahead of me offered to swap tickets. It has the same system as back home where draw a ticket from the machine and ait to be called. He probably made a judgement at my blonde hair and flip flops, realising my need at the counter would likely be a swift transaction to buy stamps, rather than his complicated pension forms or some other administrative red-tape that would take time to get stamped and approved. It was very kind of him and I thanked him in my best formal Greek.

Not that this happens everywhere, but it does happen more when I am without G, evidencing the lone female theory, but I certainly don’t have a free pass to universal kindness! But I’ll certainly try to reciprocate it. On ferries, busses and ticket counters I have been shoved, pushed in front of and tutted at for being too orderly and well, darn-British for following a sense of THE QUEUING SYSTEM. The hallowed order doesn’t work here, it has no currency.

Anyway there is a sense of neighbourly kindness and community in Greece – I won’t make a sweeping statement and say it just so much better here, but it is different from what I have been accustomed to. At home having an elbow shoved into the ribs and overhearing the swearing pent up anger of fellow commuters was a good day in London. Here it’s old ladies pushing to the front of transport and traffic jams caused by runaway mules. But I can forgive all of this – when I’m 70+ I want to be first on the bus too. It’s just mellower and friendly, it seems customary to speak to strangers, offer words of kindness or give welcoming gifts.

Our landlord stops by with fresh eggs, an assortment of veg from his plot. He brought beetroot over and I made a delicious panzarasalata (beetroot salad with garlic and yogurt) I met the lovely Jacky and Flora who run the Syros Cat charity last week and somehow left with a box full of ripe strawberries. Well, at least fruit requires less responsibility than a cat! Our neighbours have left us bags of lemons which G made into Lemon Curd. I’m starting to worry that I need to return the favour but haven’t got anything to give! (well let’s hope the garden gets productive soon – the pressure is on!)

We are on the wonderful island Tinos at the moment. G has been here all week volunteering with Paths of Greece. He is walking an average of 20k+ a day to map out the paths. He’s having a great time. I arrived yesterday and have been taking it easy. Guiltily of course.

I spent a while wandering the picturesque streets of Pyrgos in the north of the island while they were off hiking a trail. This is one of the well preserved and pristine examples of a traditional village whose main industry is marble. It has a great museum of marble crafts, which was sadly closed. But I managed to peek in to one of the workshops the students from the college were sculpting marble in.

The main square is entirely made from marble slabs and has statues, hand carved adornments above windows and doorways everywhere and even the bus stop is made of marble.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/144180115@N07/34711899145/in/datetaken-public/

It is quite honestly the most picturesque little place to while away the hours – hardly any tourists around at all.

After lunch I was pointed in the direction of a nice easy trail from Vlakos through the ancient boulders to Koumaros and back to the rural village we are staying in, Skalados.

After admiring the old abandoned houses in Vlakos, which have hand written memorials, poems and stories about their inhabitants, I set off along the road to the boulders.

All of a sudden I heard an old lady calling me, from the churchyard I’d just passed. She was waving a broom at me and I was scared! What had I done, offended someone on a holy afternoon? After a few minutes of shouting Greek words at me, none of which I could fathom, all I could say was ‘then katalaveno – signomi’ (sorry I don’t understand). She then took the broom in her left hand and made a waving movement with her right arm and said in a French accent (most Greeks here seem to also have a grasp of French too as plenty of tourists visit from there) “Serpent, l ‘attenzione, serpent!” Now the penny dropped, she was warning me about snakes, that hand movement was a snake not a ‘rollin’ with the homies dance‘ which had thrown me! I replied, “Nai, Nai! Efharosto para poli” (yes, thank you very much) and I mimed back a gesture of keeping my eyes on the path. Phew! The lady was just being kind to me and letting me know there are snakes around. Yes, snakes. Another thing to add to my fears; heights, rabid dogs, spiders.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/144180115@N07/34550308612/in/datetaken-public/

Well at least I was warned, now I could be fully prepared. Well I’m pleased to say I enjoyed the walk and wasn’t victim of a snakebite (only very few are poisonous and they are the patterned vipers). I made it through Kamouros, admiring the sweet little honesty café they have there where people can help themselves to drinks and leave the correct change.

That’s a nice neighbourly thing to do – creating a little place people can drop in and have a space for the community of 20 or so houses of the village.

These reminders of the kindness of strangers and trust are all things I am finding different here but certainly are welcome views of Greek life.

The weekly shop and meeting goats

Life has started to form a routine here, not just work, but also the domesticity of living in a little house and doing all the regular things in a highly modern way (read: back to basics) So we don’t have a washing machine, a microwave, a heater or TV. Life without TV is actually blissful given the current state of global news and politics– (don’t get me started on the election palaver). Although we obviously consume most of our news online, so we aren’t totally living in a bubble. But we agreed not to have Netflix or watch TV shows and stuff online. A good break from entertainment overload. Which is the best excuse to have a packed kindle reading list and various books to get through. (Please send recommendations!)

Our two ‘luxury’ purchases were a battery operated FM/AM radio to listen to local radio (6.99e– looks like it was made in the late 80s). I love Greek music, like Rembetiko and just having it in the background when cooking is my little piece of heaven. The second item was a cafetiere – such a common item back home actually took a while to track down here. Mainly because, the Greeks are fond of making their traditional ‘Ellinko Café’ in a briki (which is a small pan to boil the sandy fine coffee grounds in). But I was overjoyed when I finally found a ‘French Press’ in a cookshop as the lady described it. Here we are drinking fine coffee and scrubbing our clothes by hand.

Luckily Graeme loves washing so he has dutifully taken a lead on this. Hand washing takes exactly the same amount of time as using a washing machine, the only snag is that it is you that shoulders all the hard work. Equipment needed: 2 large buckets, a pair of washing up gloves, and hand detergent. We now have it down, which is exactly what happened to the washing line in the middle of hanging white sheets on…an almighty PING and the whole load went down. Everything had to be rinsed as they were covered in pine needles and dust! The rinsing and wringing is the real physical labour. Guns of steel in the making!

The other big differences here are felt in the buying food. Kini has a mini-market which gets bread delivered every morning and stocks the basics. In Ermoupoli, which is a short bus ride away, there are 3 big-ish supermarkets, one of them being a Lidl. None of them huge hypermarkets like Tesco. But they stock most things, but you do need to also go to the butcher shop (kreopoleio) and the greengrocer (manavis), as well as the bakery (forno). The real beauty is seeing how everyone shops around, and gets the best price, buying everything under one roof just isn’t possible here unless you ignore what everything costs! So when I get the bus in to do a ‘big shop’ it is at least 5 shops to get the basics and many ins and outs to get other stuff. Yesterday, after waving Graeme off on the Blue Star to Tinos, I hunted down blue tack (3 shops to find it) and a trip to the post office to get stamps, then butchers to get meat and then the greengrocer, with whom I had a hilarious Greek-lish conversation when he asked me whether I was here on holiday, he soon twigged he’s spoken to Graeme the week before. “Oh you must know the man with the moustache” i replied “Yep that’s Graeme, andros mou (my husband)”. “Ah send him my regards, he likes the football”. Then proceeded to ask if we had children and why not, “you make great babies”…yep, no subject out of bounds while buying red onions and a melon.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/144180115@N07/33707528734/in/datetaken-public/

We also have a close-ish AB Supermarket in walking distance from the house, it’s a hilly 35 minute walk there as its half way between Galissas and Kini. I am sure we get a few looks of humour at us walking there (you see it is rather weird for us not to have a car or moped, but hey, we are walkers and like it that way!). But what a walk it is! Once out of Kini, the road ascends high up the hill to Danakos and through pastures of farmland, passing green fields of cows, sheep and my favourite, goats. On a walk there on Monday morning to get milk and bread, we passed by a lady Goat-Herder walking her flock of 10 or so goats from one field to another. She just sat there peacefully serene in the morning haze. She waved and we waved back, a cheerful “Kalimera”. After a quick whizz-round the supermarket, and loading up our rucksacks with goodies we set off again. As we neared the turn down into the village, the lady was crossing the road with her goats, two kids bouncing around and not following her orders! We waved again and I said “mou resi katsiki” (I like goats). She beckoned us over and picked up one of the little ones so I could say hello. There I was stroking a baby goat on a Monday morning, life dream achieved! He was so cute and happy to see us. We passed a few words in Greek and then went on our merry way home to log-on and start work.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/144180115@N07/34481939111/in/datetaken-public/

I can honestly say the food shopping used to be such chore back home, but here you never know what you’ll run into and how it might just brighten up your day.

My love of goats. To be continued….

Gardening in a new climate

With the six tomato plants from the landlord and a whole lot of seeds brought over in my bag (perfectly legal while we are in the EU, Officer) – I have started the real ‘Greek Garden’. This is actually really exiting – just to see how plants respond and thrive (I hope!) in a totally different climate. Now in our second week in the house, the first set of cosmos seeds I planted on day 1 have actually germinated which cheered me up no end while the weather took a grey dive and we shivered in bed! Now the weather seems to have decided it is summer so it’s a steady 21c in the day and 15c at night.

In the past 10 days I have potted up: some Tomato Radana seeds, aubergine (from a Greek packet purchased in Patmos last year), courgette, cucumber and broad beans. Having seen some local gardens on my walks around, I know their broad beans and courgettes are weeks ahead, but I will persevere regardless. I think most of the veg will be done in containers – I’m keeping my eyes peeled for any discarded feta/ olive oil cans. This is in fact the most recycling/resourceful gardening attempt I’ve made. I am also researching into reusing grey water from washing up, to help ease our usage when the drier weather starts.

Yet, I only recently purchased an implement almost like a trowel for 2 euros after a comedic expressive conversation with a man in hardware shop in my limited Greek ‘kipourikí’ (gardening) – fyto (plants) while miming the act of trowelling soil! That is likely to be my most technical purchase. I have a bag of compost (found at the Euroshop) and loads of old plant pots thanks to the landlord’s generosity. All the germination pods are made from either yogurt pots or plastic trays with cling film as a lid or smaller pots with a water bottle cut in half acting as mini greenhouses. Nothing goes to waste here!

In terms of flowers I have the fore-mentioned cosmos which are collected from the white and pink ones from my uk garden last year, french marigolds, sunflowers of dwarf and tall variety. I also picked up packets of cottage garden mix and nasturtiums from a supermarket trip. All are potted and some are starting to pop up… I also threw a handful on the soil of the bed next to the steps – some have started to shoot. So perhaps the soil isn’t all bad.

Given that we are cooking at home most nights I wanted to make sure I had access to fresh herbs so am attempting to grow coriander, chives, parsley, dill and oregano, both staples of the Greek kitchen, from seed as well. I have cheated with the pot of mint given to us and the Greek basil plant bought in town. By the way the tiny fragrant basil leaves of the Greek variety are amazing, sprinkled on salads and in pasts – knocks the socks of the huge leafed monsters in pots you find back in the UK. In an attempt to turn the gardening into an educational exercise I wrote my plant labels in Greek too – you know for chats with any local gardeners!

When in the big town last week I couldn’t resist buying a couple of petunias as well. They are dazzling pinks and purple, alongside the existing red geranium, which I have taken cuttings from too. I am already envisioning a riot of colour! There is also a flowering aloe plant which looked hastily replanted and isn’t faring to well. I will need to keep an eye on that.

Graeme has pitched in as the architect and has built a veg bed, cordoned off with stones collected from the beach, which hopefully with some compost can be a good place for salad leaves and spinach too. This won’t be a Chelsea showgarden but it will be pots everywhere and clashing colour, with bits of flotsam and jetsom to decorate. Could this be next year’s big gardening trend?

In terms of the old pests, I have noticed snails here and am prepared to do battle organically with beer traps. It hasn’t rained for over a week now and might only see a few minor showers now we are into May. Water will be the big challenge.

Noting the proliferation of cats in the neighbourhood, many people seem to put bamboo kebab sticks in their plant pots as a barrier to cats digging in them I imagine. As if I needed another reason to eat more souvlaki!

With big plans ahead and the weather warming up it all feels like this is the right place to spend the summer watching things grow and creating a garden.