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JUNE
WEATHER ...
In a word - HOT! Well quite hot anyway..
By June 31st the authorities were recommending that builders stop work when
temperatures reached 32oC(!) and recommended caution among the
elderly. Sunbathing needed precautions. _____________________________
Bird Watching with Paul Smith
Paul Smith: Fighting back.
Recent life-saving major surgery, but his page continued its unbroken sequence
with a little help... (Bottom left column below). Click here
for related page.
Astratigos Village Life...
On my recent travels around Europe - Athens; Naples, Rome; Milan; Venice;
Luzern; Basle; Epinal; Lille; Brussels; London; Lincoln; Luton and Nottingham
- to name but a few places we trod, one thing stood out. A serious lack
of Astratigonians!
There is nowhere on this earth quite like Crete, and nowhere on Crete
quite like Astratigos. Unless of course... Well yes, Rodopos Village!!
Rodopodians!!
'Kalimera' (Good Morning). A huge Grin from Sophia - Dimitri's wife
at a village taverna. Before I had declared us very well Dimitri himself
appeared. A very real Cretan and a good friend, although we visit him
rarely. It took not the twinkle of an eye for a second beer to follow
the first. 'On the house'. There is a Cretan tradition that the
first friend in the taverna buys the next friend to arrive a beer. But
wasn't it going just a little far for the owner to include himself? I
wondered....
But not for long. Dimitri sat himself down beside me and - not realizing that I had but one good
ear for any language, especially Greek language, and that this good one was on the
opposite side of my head to the one he had chosen! He launched into a very
rapid (very colloquial) and very quiet dialogue of obvious importance concerning his grandson.
An extremely important point...
Grand-children are seriously beloved the world over by their grand-parents -
but in Crete they are positively revered, especially the boys. My anxiety levels
rose alarmingly - if I got this wrong... Well, I suppose the church yard
was only across the road... I snatched at straws - rapidly passing
phrases - 'grandson' - 'problem' - 'exams' - 'Cambridge' - 'failed' - 'next
time' - 'you know' - 'pass'....
'Ah, easy', I thought. Thank the lord for that. I could handle
it. It was, I thought, like this - his grandson was taking the Cambridge English Language exams.
Dimitri obviously wanted me, his good friend and expert English speaker, who had worked at an
English university and was, therefore, (in Greek) a professor, to teach him - so
as to ensure a pass. Sensible, I thought smugly. Easy peasy! Push over! I
repeated my translation aloud in English....
Pam, my wife, is well used to my habit of misunderstanding of even simple
things which to others are blindingly obvious. 'No', she said, 'I don't
think that you have that right. What Dimitri said was that his grandson
had just failed his exams - and that because you 'know' people in England
- when he re-sits he will pass'! My heart skipped a beat (or two). The
church yard seemed much closer...
The implication was clear - a matter of honour.
It was catch 22! An attempt on the impossible!.. And not to achieve it could mean far worse. Still, the
churchyard looked very peaceful. Cool, shaded, dappled with sunlight...
Then reality burst into my dilemma.
Dimitri's grandson appeared, awake and very aware. "I know that
this is not possible" - his English was perfect - "please do not
try".
'Do not' was not an option. Even if I wanted to. The English
examination system hides the names of candidates more effectively than the
differences between the beans in a tin of Heinz. Even without the sauce!
'Don't worry' I said, 'nothing we can do anyway, but I am sure that you
will pass. Try very hard - for me'. I spent several weeks with my
fingers crossed not daring to ask. The matter was never again broached.
At least, not
directly... The grandson passed and we are all very happy, except that...
Well, Dimitri put the success of his grandson
undisputedly
down to me. Had we not helped win the war
too?.. His friendship continues unabated. The beer superbly cold. So maybe you will be thinking that all
is well that ended well. Only - well, is it just possible that
Dimitri will one day say that
his favourite grandson has another problem, that he has some exams, that he
wants to become a neuro-surgeon?.... And that I 'know' people!... |
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Site
News
Here we are again....
In spite of the unfounded fears of Ann &
Richard, their 'babysitting' of our news page was not nearly the disaster they
had envisaged. As for their 'blunders' - well the only thing I noticed is that
someone ate all my Pontefract cakes. Not easy to get here in
Astratigos! On second thoughts it couldn't have been them - they were
working from another village. Long arms maybe?...
Reading my own news page without having to write it first was very enjoyable -
I feel certain that everyone else enjoyed it too - very many thanks. Just
to remind you ......
Don't forget you
can access this website via several different spellings of our site name. So
if your typing skills are a bit 'iffy' you can still find us. We also use different ISP's and domain endings to ensure continuous
access. Try it: www.cretanvistas.co.uk
really is no different to www.cretanvista.gr
- except that you receive them from different parts of the world.
Books & Good Reading
"Excuses, excuses" said Richard last month, Ann had not got
around to completing her book reviews - The Cretan Runner by George Psychoundrakis
and The Cool Guide to Living
in Crete (Carol Palioudaki). Both
are more or less complete and the 'Cool Guide' pages already on-site in the
background. Just as soon as we have it all together we will open the
links.
The people behind the books:
Every book review has an
introductory paragraph about the author/s. We have decided to go a little
further and where possible, include profiles of not only these talented
authors but also, where we can, of people behind them. Good examples are
'Patouchas' - Ioannis Kondylakis (Read the review)
and 'Who Pays The Ferryman' - Michael J. Bird (Read the review)
These profiles will be attached to relevant book reviews. Watch this
space...
Photo Galleries
Wild Flowers: 96 different wild flowers. 99% have been taken right
here at the base of the Rodopos peninsula. We are continually working on
these galleries and will soon been adding further pages including detailed reference pages and more
photos of each specimen. There are now more than 3,600 flower photographs in our
databases.
Bird Galleries. Athanasios Sakoulis, who contributed the
magnificent gallery from his book on Cretan wildlife has now contributed
xx pictures of birds for addition to a gallery which we will attach to Paul
Smiths bird-watching page in the near future. Something worth waiting
for..
Insects..
We have built up an extensive collection of photographs from which
we are producing galleries for our wild life page. The next of these
will be insects - about which we have received few queries, but many of which
are supremely photogenic. We have some beautiful reptiles too...
There are now 13 galleries featuring aspects of Cretan life, including sunrise and sunset pictures;
Souda Bay War Cemetery; and a gallery of magnificent wild-life pictures by Anastasios Sakoulis, author of "Stigmotipa Tis Kritikis Freesis"
(Moments of Cretan Nature) - (Links below - bottom right column); our infant gallery about house renovation; and of course our annual calendar galleries
containing 60 or so pictures of north western Crete.
There are of course many other areas being developed all the time - including new ones
in the pipeline.... Our weaving page for example, is now being
progressed to match the practice which has taken place since the page was
first added.
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Are we listening, do we hear?
We are and we do. The continuously increasing numbers of visitors and complimentary e-mails seem to show that our visitors - 21,000 plus individual visits in our best month last year - appreciate our efforts.
GUEST BOOK LINK
NB. Please don't use the Guest Book to place website links - any URLs - or contact style messages, are automatically disabled/removed in the interests of minors. Questions can be sent to us privately at:
cretanvista.gr
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