Although today, Friday 20th, is Blog day and I am sitting here starting this, there will be a Blogging hiatus as, due to a fault by OTE, the Greek telephone company, now owned by Germans I believe, we cannot get on line so I can’t publish it. ‘We’ll have it fixed in a couple of days!’ was the response to an enquiring phone call. As we are now into the weekend and this is Greece I wonder how many days constitute a couple. Could it be due to the weather? It has been pretty chilly with rain and howling winds although the forecast snow thank goodness hasn’t appeared and the night temperature hasn’t gone below 5 degrees. Yesterday was the equivalent of Shrove Tuesday only in Greece it happens to fall on a Thursday. Carnival is nearly upon us and the Greeks really love their carnival. The shops have been displaying costumes for hire for ages now. It’s a weird phenomenon but the men, usually very hairy, camping themselves silly on floats in the parades love getting into drag; nurses uniforms are a great favourite, and small boys have a penchant for Zorro. (I thought that was spelt with one r but the spell check reckons it’s two so we’ll leave it at that).
The almond trees have been in bloom for weeks and spring flowers are appearing despite the chill. There is one particular plant in the garden, low to the ground with shiny waxy leaves and bright yellow flowers that I am particularly fond of although, not being a botanist, I don’t know what it is. As we have books on Greece’s flora and fauna I suppose I could look it up. They seem to be more in abundance this year than ever before. There are orchids too and the wild gladioli are appearing everywhere. It’s a pity though that the garden has had to be so neglected for such a long while. Mowgli would be in his element.
Saturday – Still off-line. After three consecutive nights of Almodóvar we went back to Greek television and a film called ‘V for Vengeance’ which was a total load of crap. I only lasted five minutes but the others sat it out and informed me afterwards that it was a total load of crap to which my reply was, why did they think I walked out after five minutes? So last night there was a choice of three movies on TV. We started off with ‘Caravaggio’ but, although it looked as if it was going to be good, as it was in Italian we gave up on it and moved to the second. Gave up on that and moved to the third. Gave up on that and put on one of the old all-time favourites not played for a while, ‘Thoroughly Modern Millie’ and enjoyed it once more.
Sunday – Cold and wet. Have already lit the fire in the breakfast room. Will spend the rest of the day racking and bottling wines. There are twelve demi-johns waiting, some have been waiting for a couple of years or more. Twelve demi-johns mean 12x6 = 72x.75 litre bottles. Actually, if they haven’t improved since the last racking, a couple of them are so poisonous, if I emptied them down the sink they would kill the noonoos in the cesspit. Maybe I could use them for weed killers! Another film last night to walk out on after a few minutes. Another one the others stayed with. They have a lot more patience than I.
Monday – Last night selected six tapes out of our vast collection from which to choose one to watch. This turned out to be (is it les or la?) ‘Soufflé au Coeur’, one of those French films of a certain period that, like ‘The Four Hundred Blows’ is a gentle delight. Also on the tape but unmarked was the BBC documentary on the Japanese writer Mishima and part two of ‘The House Of Elliot.’ Whoever thought this would make for riveting television and commissioned it should have had their head examined.
Someone from OTE phoned at eight this morning to ask if we had a problem and assured us it would be fixed. We are now back on line.