LEADING UP TO CHRISTMAS

Whilst I picture you all rushing around buying the last of the presents and food in the days before the 25^th  we are enjoying a laid back approach. There is not the hype here, other than all the 15 minute advert breaks on TV appear to be advertising toys for the children, and the village has one or two lights in the street.  The weather has been rainy so I have spent time with Maria preparing the various Christmas biscuits which take time to prepare, but are soon cooked, and then more time to finish off once cooked and cool.  The taste of the melomakarona, an orange brandy cinnamon and clove biscuit dipped in a honey syrup and sprinkled with finely chopped walnuts and roasted sesame seeds, is great and gets even better in the following days.  Then  we made the Christmas shortbreads, known locally as Kourambiedes, which contained chopped roasted almonds, and when cold brushed with rose water and absolutely drenched in icing sugar, and according to my cookery book are best served with a glass or two of Greek brandy!  We had hoped to make some special chocolate ones too, but beetroot took priority! 

We have had a few thunderstorms and one in particular brought down a large tree in the 'Souda Bay Hotel' above us causing damage to one set of metal railings.  A large rock was also deposited from somewhere in the road close to the entrance to 'Creta Spirit' which still remains in the way of traffic. 

I had left decorating our house until nearer the day not wanting fallen pine needles all over the tiles.  Lambros had said we should buy a Christmas tree instead of going out looking for suitable branches in the forest. In the supermarket I gave in a bought a small fibre optic one, only 12 inches high so Maria will not have a problem storing it for next year!  And so the perfect day came to go out searching for our greenery.  On our previous outings I had seen some suitable trees between the villages of Aghios Ioanis and Agouseliana and with tracks leading off the main road we were able to search without being seen. In an overgrown area Keith found a small tree but having no spade we were unable to get it out of the damp ground so he cut the top out instead.  I still wanted a few branches that had tight round cones on and once again we found suitable pieces. We also found a lot of myrtle which Maria would like to have growing in her garden but as usual we don’t seem to be able to find a root.  I am persevering with some cuttings for her. When it came to returning to the car it seemed a car rally was in progress as one after the other drove past.  Keith eventually returned to the car and called out for me to come out from behind the large bush when the coast was clear. Why do I always feel guilty at my selective pruning?! 

Before returning home I needed to go to the beach to collect more stones to put into my ‘vases’ (cut down plastic bottles) to support the greenery.  This year I am colour coding the materials and so I wanted some with green veins, and some with orange/brown veins, but mostly white.  It’s not too much to ask here as the variety of colourful stones is vast.  Some years ago we spoke to geologists staying with Theo and Maria who say the island is very strange as there are rocks on the top of the mountains that should be down at sea level, and then there are rocks at sea level that should be on top of mountains.  I didn’t dare say it was people like me who find a rock somewhere on our travels and then find a better one somewhere else so dispose of the first rock where the second one has been found.

Christmas Day arrived and the weather turned out to be so much better than forecast.  The down side was I was helping Maria for most of the day.  Keith decided to go for a drive inviting Theo and Lambros to join him but they wished to stay at home so he went on his own.  He came back saying there was such a lot of snow on top of the mountains but had not taken any cameras with him.  For the rest of the afternoon he sat out on the balcony until almost sunset and our meal nearly ready. We had seen the fishing boats go out and the schooner make its weekly run around the bay taking longer today though.

I was helping Maria make a lemon meringue pie, something they have never sampled before, and preparing a chicken.  She had found a recipe for stuffing it with minced beef, onion, rice, pine kernels, chopped walnuts, halved chestnuts, prunes, raisins, orange zest, half a cup of chicken stock and half a glass of brandy. Then we basted it with melted butter to which we had added the juice of a lemon and orange.  We served it with garlic roast potatoes and a green salad. (Whatever was in our meal made us sleep until 11am the next day and we were in bed by midnight!)  Sorry all you vegetarians out there!

After exchanging presents we spent the rest of the evening playing a board game with Lambros, who naturally won although we did our best to try and stop him! Lots of laughs, and we had a lovely time with the family.

Boxing Day and village life was back to normal with workmen removing the roof of the ‘Siroko taverna’ and Theo building his walls.  We walked into the village and had a drink at the ‘Smyrna’ which was busy with both Greeks and foreigners.  The cormorant had returned to his normal resting place on the large rock by the old harbour.  7 fishing boats are now moored in the new port, even though it is not finished, and one is still on the back of a wagon waiting to be lowered into the water.  

 We skipped lunch seeing as how it was nearly dinner time before we were up and went for a run to see the snow.  Through the small gorge the sky was clearer and the sun was shining but cloud hanging around the mountain tops prevented us from getting a good view of the snow, although we did catch a glimpse of some on the lower slopes close to Spilli.

 

 View of Kourtalioti Gorge as we came down the road from Frati