Tuesday, March 10, 2009

When the other day I described the colours of the DVDs hanging beneath the grape vine I should have prefixed the description with the word flashing. At the moment, in quite a high wind, they are flashing their messages fit to reach as far as Mount Ida if the house, like the old music hall song, wasn’t in the way.
Yesterday was a sparkling spring day so it was work in the garden time. We could have wished for that weather on Sunday when we decided to take Wolf to our favourite restaurant for lunch at the wells, Agriopoli, the ancient town of Lappa. Unfortunately, even as we were heading towards the mountains we could see the black cloud building up and by the time we got there it was raining the proverbial Greek chair legs. We were a little surprised that the sons of the establishment were nowhere in sight as usually they are busy serving customers but their mother informed us without any prompting that Spiros, the eldest, is in Athens training to be a fireman, and Jannis is doing his stint in the army. I didn’t catch what the baby of the family was up to. He must be into his teens by now. What was he when we last saw him? Eleven? Twelve? It’s a while since we were there. On the way back because of the weather we didn’t stop as is usual for coffee at the lake (Kournos) but gave Wolf time to take a couple of photographs before moving on and had coffee at Titos’ Bar in Georgopoli instead. Tito’s done very well over the years as improvements to the roof, furniture, snazzy windbreak and three enormous TV screens testify. Not surprising really; two cappuccinos, a Greek coffee and a gazoza (Cretan soft drink a little like cream soda) came with tip to ten euro!
We have to register for the new Greek resident’s permit which last a lifetime instead of having to renew it every five years so we all three went to the police station nine or ten days ago and spoke to our local police woman, high heels and gun on hip, who informed us that the man dealing with this was away and to phone yesterday which Douglas duly did, only to be informed he, the polieman, wasn’t in the mood for work so call again Wednesday and he’d let us know when to come around. That’s the way it goes here.
Many many years ago when I was still working at The Sunday Times and acting in plays with an amateur group called The Taverners, from which you can guess the plays were performed in pubs, and one of the plays, of which I have absolutely no memory, was called “The Fifty Mark” so presumably it was about a guy depressed at reaching that venerable age. Well, today, my nephew Mark Wiercx celebrates his forty-ninth birthday and so enters his fiftieth year but I hope he isn’t depressed about it, he’s got a long way to go yet to catch up with his uncle, so a very happy birthday, Mark, and may your fiftieth year be a glorious one as they said of Victoria’s Jubilee.

1 comment:

markw said...

Baie dankie, Oom Glyn!