Right, I am vindicated. Chris and Douglas have categorically denied my contention that okra is slimy but on at least two recipe sites sliminess is mentioned and, more important suggests ways of getting rid of it, if possible. Strikes me the best way to eat okra is to smother it with spices, the hotter the better.
The heat these last few days has been fearsome. That is the only word for it and once again I ask the $64000 question that has no answer- why do little girls scream at the top of their voices in and around a swimming pool? They’re creating more noise than the cicadas outside my window. The height of summer of course sees the height of the holiday season and in the last few years Vamos has grown to cater more and more for the holiday maker though just why is beyond me. It’s a delightful enough town to live in but what does it have to offer the holiday maker in amenities, apart from those houses that have their own swimming pool? The beaches, Kalyves, Almerida, Georgopoli are all a distance away and the bus service, mainly to Kalyves, sometimes to Almerida, is minimal and not at all to Georgopoli. The nearest large town, Xania, is 24 kilometres away so unless you hire a car you’re pretty much stranded. The one good thing about this influx of tourists is that many a falling down house, sometimes hardly more than two and a half crumbling walls, has been saved from complete ruin and turned into an attractive dwelling. We do have three good restaurants apart from kafenias and a number of quick food outlets but, if you’re not out dining of an evening, what do you do? You cater for yourself at home no doubt and then have to find your own amusement.
As with a number of Greek towns and villagers there came a time when there was no work to be had and youngsters drifted away for the big city so that a fairly large population was diminished into virtually nothing hence the abandoned houses falling into ruin. But again, with the increase in tourists and expats building new homes, the trend has been reversed and one can say it is quite a flourishing small town rather than a village.
Our current guest was invited to choose something to watch from the myriad DVDs we have and what did she choose? Caligula! That feeble excuse for the most expensive porno movie ever made and, believe me, if you haven’t seen it, it is sheer pornography. How artistes like John Gielgud, Peter O’Toole and Helen Mirren got mixed up in it is a mystery. Maybe they just needed the money. Maybe they just didn’t know what they were letting themselves in for. It is trumpeted as ‘Gore Vidal’s Caligula’ but Gore Vidal has evidently distanced himself from the final product and refused to have anything to do with it and who can blame him? Nice use of music though: the ballets Spartacus and Romeo and Juliet.