After The Rain

One morning after the rain (this is from a few months ago - maybe Feb). It's nostalgic on occasions like this when our corner of the Aegean has a very Scottish-looking sky.

The Plateia

Up towards Agios Savvas.

Back streets.

Not As Easy As Last Week

So, the Easy Cruise boat has been showing up at Kalymnos every Sunday.

The boat also goes to Kos, Siros, Samos, Mykonos and Paros, plus Bodrum in Turkey.

When we heard the ship was going to be coming weekly we feared being submerged by waves of lager louts but it looks like the clientele of Easy Cruise are slightly more mature than that and so far Sundays have been pretty calm and our local restaurants are feeling the benefit.

Ola Kala - all good.

Yesterday was a problem though. It was so windy that the Easy Cruise Life (the name of the ship) could not safely enter the harbour and had to anchor outside, ferrying the passengers to and from the shore in tenders, just like the old days.

One day Stelios might have enough money to stop the wind...

Good To Be Back

It's good to be back in Kalymnos. The hills are suprisingly lush and green. Lush is a relevant term, but still.

And the flowers are awesome and birds are chirping

Its not yet too hot for Nicole but Paul has stopped moaning and shivering. Is 18 degrees the best temperature ever?

Day 38 - Sacrifice

As detailed yesterday, we have no warm clothes. When we moved from Scotland, these were all left behind in the belief that Greece would be warmer than it actually is. Now it turns out that we can’t sleep because we’re so cold.
In fact, falling asleep would be easy if it wasn’t for the fear that our dormant bodies’ temperatures might drop to cryogenic levels and we might never wake up again.


The only solution: break some funds and buy warm pyjamas. Things are not cheap here and, owing to our budget, we need maximum warmth for minimum dollar. This means compromising on style.


Nicole ends up with ill-matched fleecy pyjamas, dressing gown and slippers, of various patterns and colours. The catwalks of Paris can wait.


Paul, as you can see, winds up in the kind of costume preferred by alcoholic wife-beaters from British housing estates, circa 1984. The only things missing are the accessories: sovereign rings, can of Kestrel lager and the Kensitas Club cigarettes. Terrifying.


OLIVE HARVEST UPDATE
By the way – today was day 5 of picking olives. We started at noon and picked 38 kilos in 5 hours. We have now completed 27 trees out of 44 and the novelty is wearing thin. We decide on an earlier start tomorrow – let’s get started at 8.30am and get this finished in two days.

Day 37 - Freezing

We wake up beside each other, Nicole shivering to keep warm, Paul already horrifyingly frozen inside a solid block of ice, a silent scream forever etched on his face.

The temperature drops and we are re-learning the meaning of winter. Our first floor flat is made from concrete and has no ground floor – it’s effectively on stilts - so when the North wind blows, it gets right under our floor and turns the flat into a fridge.

All of the fleeces, jumpers and thermal underwear that we accumulated in Scotland failed to make the final cut when we packed to come here. They were too bulky and, hey, Greece is hot! Now we suffer.

The key factor we failed to consider was that nearly our entire winters in Scotland were lived indoors under the spell of central-heating. The only time those bulky, woolly items came into play were for the odd walk in the country or once-a-year snowball fight in Kelvingrove Park. How jolly.

The shops, cafes, cars, pubs and houses where we really spent our time were all heated to a comfortable, uniform twenty-one degrees. It is entirely possible that living in the city made us forget what seasons are.

Now we have moved to Greece, where there is plenty of air-con but no central heating. Its understandable: it was so hot here this summer that the country literally went on fire. But that was August and this is November so, for the next few months, we’d better put a jumper on.

What’s it like living in a hot country? We don’t know – ask someone from Scotland.

OLIVES UPDATE

Number of olives picked: millions

Number of olives still to pick: billions