Our Greek Odyssey

Deep and crisp and even

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:15:45 +0000

I took Junior to school yesterday, regardless of the snow, as I figured she’d be warmer there than she would be at home! Unfortunately not many parents had had the same idea and 2 hours’ later I got a phone call to tell me they were shutting the school because only about 30 children had turned up! Oh well we got a nice walk through the snow and Junior watched a film whilst at school.
This morning I woke up before 7 as usual but after one peek out of the bedroom window I knew they’d be no school. Junior wanted to get out into the snow so we took the dogs for a romp.

I love the way the snow muffles the sound of everything, it was like we were the only people around. Of course the dogs didn’t remain very quiet as they just found it all too exciting.

Junior insisted I take this picture as she thinks the tangerines look like they’re wearing hats.

Sean didn’t get to see any of this snow because, unfortunately, he was on his way to Switzerland by car and so got to see a whole lot more in Italy! After some treacherous driving conditions he’s now safely ensconced in Geneva for the next couple of days.

Winter’s here

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 09:49:54 +0000

I wish the heating was working

Dark days

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:03:02 +0000

People seem very interested in Greece right now. It used to be that when you mentioned Greece to someone they immediately thought of holidays, sun and beaches, nowadays people tend to ask more about the economic situation and the prospect of the country being able to recover from the mess it’s in at the moment. Well, I don’t have a crystal ball so I really don’t know how things will unfold for this country but I can’t see things getting any better any time soon.
Sunday marked 4 years’ in Greece for us and I remembered that our main factor in moving over here was for a better quality of life for Junior, for her to have more of a childhood. She does remain blissfully unaware of ‘celebrity culture’ and doesn’t long to be ‘famous’ when she grows up (unless it’s because she’s discovered a new species of animal) but her childhood should also include a decent education. She reads voraciously, is fiercely intelligent and is bored beyond words at school. What does this country hold for her future, for the future of any of the children at her school? Where will the jobs be? Will they have the skills to go abroad and search for work elsewhere?
We must hear every week of people who are leaving the country, who can’t cope anymore and don’t see things improving. We’ve also noticed that the supermarkets we visit aren’t as well stocked as usual, imported goods seem to be fewer on the shelves. Heating oil continues to rise in price and people are choosing instead to fit wood burners. We would if we had any room for one but we’re making do with electric heaters. Fortunately the weather has been warmer the past week or so, especially fortunate since electricity went up by 12.2% on 1st January.
The new property tax didn’t effect us as we rent and the tax is the responsibility of the landlord. What does effect us though is car tax. You pay your tax for the whole year and we’ve always done this at the beginning or middle of January. Sean went to pay the other week only to be told that because he didn’t pay at the end of the December for the following year, the price was now double!! It wasn’t the bloke in the tax office’s fault, he admitted that previously it had been fine to pay during January but because they’re so desperate to raise money wherever they can they’d enacted this little piece of legislation to drag in the euros. It seems to be take, take, take at the moment and no sign of any giving.

Wandering animals

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 10:41:19 +0000

Well it’s only the 9th day of the New Year but Greece has already had its first strikes and I’ve already found my first abandoned animal! Junior and I were out walking the dogs and we were followed the entire way by a very small, very cute puppy who obviously had no idea where he was or where he had come from. I had to tell Sean that we had been followed home (yet again) by a stray dog as Junior refused to tell him in case he shouted. Obviously another dog – no matter how cute – is not practical and so Sean phoned our friendly neighbourhood vet/pet shop and they said we could take it down to them and they’d look after it until it found a home. We went to get some pet food on Saturday and the little thing was still there but at least he’s being looked after and is not wandering the streets all alone.
I find the Greek way with animals very hard to stomach and the atrocities you hear about are enough to make your blood boil, but even the every day manner, not necessarily cruelty, is difficult to understand. A case in point is our next door neighbour. Colin, the dog that followed us home initially, has sort of adopted next door as her home and although she comes over to ours to play with the dogs and get treats, she chooses to sleep outside next doors. We told them that we had no problem with that as Colin was a bit of a free spirit anyway and would do as she liked. So far, so fine. However, we’ve been feeding a small cat for months, who we believed to be a stray. Turns out it ‘belongs’ to the neighbours. We know this because the said neighbour kept coming out and shouting for the kitten (this after we’ve been letting it in and feeding it for a good few months’) and giving our house dirty looks. He finally asked Sean not to feed the cat or let it in our house, to which Sean replied that we didn’t realise it was his cat and we’d stop looking after it. This seemed to sort things until before Christmas when he shouted across to Sean that we were practically kidnapping his cat and he was fed up with it. Well……..if you know Sean you’ll know that he seldom loses his temper, but when he does……..stand well back. He marched across to the blokes house, who on seeing Sean coming suddenly ceased to be all brave and shouty and instead hid behind his front door, and Sean practically dragged him over to our place and showed him that we leave a window open for our cats every night so that they can get in and out whilst we’re sleeping and that if ‘his’ cat was getting in then that was how she was doing it. Now, here’s the most ludicrous part, he accused us of ‘training’ his cat to jump up onto the boiler house roof and then through the window into the house!! I don’t think he’s ever had a cat before if he thinks you can train one. The annoying thing is that he won’t let the cat into his house, he expects it to sit on his doorstep come rain or shine so that he can come out and stroke it when he wants! The icing on the cake of this whole story is that just before New Year he went on holiday………for 8 days………..leaving the cat and Colin…………and not once did anyone call in to check on them or put any food whatsoever out for them. When an animal is used to getting their food from a particular place they’re not suddenly going to realise that they have to fend for themselves because that food source has gone on holiday! The lack of thought and compassion of some people just makes my mind boggle……….

Happy New Year

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 14:57:36 +0000

Christmas

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 11:27:12 +0000

Well I hope you’ve all had/are having a peaceful and stress free Christmas. I’m updating the blog now because Sean has gone to do a job and has taken Junior with him. She was quite happy to go because the people at the factory are friends of ours and they’ll play with her and spoil her for a couple of hours!
We had the usual Christmas although we didn’t have the normal Christmas Day walk because Junior didn’t want to change out of her pyjamas all day, she just wanted to stay in and play with her presents which is fair enough, she is only 8 after all.
We went quite minimal on the decorations this year, mainly because of Monty and his tendency towards madness! We knew that any tree we put up would be brought down on a daily basis and would probably result in lost and broken ornaments. Junior has all the tinsel and fairy lights in her room whilst we’ve gone Swedish in the living room with an Ikea tree.

The cats can’t reach it but Sean and I do keep banging our heads on it – oh, the joy of low ceilings!

The other main decorations consist of our wooden advent calendar from John Lewis which we got when Junior was 2 years old and which unfortunately just doesn’t cut it any more in the excitement stakes, hence the chocolate advent calendar. The tree shaped decoration is made from an Ikea catalogue and took ages to make but I really rather like it, and the small tree is made of lego and was a free gift given out at a lego activity session in Public in Volos.
It’s been quite cold lately, annoyingly colder than Britain which seems unfair. We had to bite the bullet and buy some heating oil because our electric heaters just weren’t taking the chill off the air. Concrete houses really retain their cold, especially ones with flat roofs, they just don’t build homes over here to keep you warm. The dogs have been less inclined to run around outside and have spent most of their time like this -

in fact they’re all sprawled out on the sofa at the moment. They know they’re supposed to sit on the rug but the minute my back’s turned, they’re on the furniture. Not as bad as the cats I suppose who are all curled up in bed!
We did manage a Christmas walk yesterday and it turned out to be surprisingly mild on the beach – in fact it was warmer than our house,

although there was snow not far away.

This last picture was Sean’s idea, as he is a rather overgrown child, but the toys are actually Junior’s.

She does love her Playmobil

Holiday food

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 15:38:41 +0000

Here, finally, are a few pics of the things I ate in England starting with the best vegan breakfast around.

I did manage to eat all that, washed down with a pot of tea and I didn’t need to eat again for another 8 hours! Good value for money at £5.00 and well worth a visit if you happen to be in Manchester www.eighth-day.co.uk
We visited again a few days later, for lunch this time, and I had a very hearty, warming soup.

Whilst out and about we dropped into a pub for lunch because it looked so lovely and welcoming from the outside www.vintageinn.co.uk/thehoneybeewilmslow It was just as cosy inside and best of all they had a vegan special on! It was even marked as suitable for vegans which gave them a big thumbs up in my book. It helped that it was delicious as well

It was mushroom and saffron curry with coconut milk, served with basmati. The portion was just the right size and the smell…mmmmmm……..delicious. Thumbs up for a brilliant vegan dish.
I’m still planning what to make for Christmas Day meal – it has to involve things Junior will eat…….so, that will be carrots I’ve made the Christmas cake but I’ve yet to decorate it and then we have to make gingerbread Santa’s. I’m also planning a chocolate log but not the large oak tree log I made last year that was just a touch too big!

Back again

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 09:48:15 +0000

Well we’re just back from our pre-Christmas visit to England and once again I felt very cold and was again amazed at the choice of food in the shops. We went to Tesco’s to get vegan essentials after we’d landed and got a bag of shopping costing £8.00 which would have cost at least €30 in Greece, if you could have found the stuff in the first place!
Junior loves all the different things she can find and was filling up at breakfast on bagels, crumpets and yogurts. I don’t think she’s eaten so much in the morning since she was about 3 years old when she used to manage 3 weetabix, toast and then my toast as well.
We vowed we weren’t going to take lots of food back with us but instead only buy things we couldn’t get in Greece yet we somehow ended up with an extra hold bag and 2 extra pieces of hand luggage! It wasn’t all food, there were books (mainly Junior’s of course) and presents for her as well.
We had quite an eventful journey back. First of all I forgot to take my watch off at security in Manchester Airport and it always sets the alarm off, so I had to wait to go through the full body scanner whilst Junior laughed at the stupid pose I had to strike! Once through there I found Sean waiting for 2 pieces of our hand luggage to be examined. My carefully packed bags were emptied and everything gone through – Junior was mortified to see her pyjamas being manhandled. After all the rooting and rummaging and intricate scanning of everything from my camera to an empty drink container they finally confiscated one item. Now, I’m really genned up on what can and cannot go into hand luggage so all liquids, toiletries and make up were in the main suitcases. So what was considered unacceptable? Well, unlikely as it seems it was a packet of basil flavoured tofu! I admit it’s squidgy but hardly liquid. Sean said it could have been mistaken for a vegan packet of semtex but I’m not convinced.
The flight was fine and we landed earlier than expected due to quite a strong tail wind. After collecting our bags we set off for the drive home. We’d been up since 3.30am and were extremely tired when we got home so I didn’t unpack the luggage straight away but waited a couple of hours. It was only then that I realised we had picked up the wrong suitcase, it looked like ours but was, on closer inspection, slightly smaller. After a phone call to Athens Airport we found that our case was still there and the poor person whose case we had was wondering where it was! Sean took the case down to the coach station in Volos and put it on a coach headed to Athens where it was to be collected and, in true Greek fashion, our bag was to be put on the coach headed back this way if, and this is the important bit, if the man collecting the bag found a 20 euro note in the front of the bag we sent back! Well, Sean put the 20 in and we collected our bag the following day. Next time we go away I think we’ll double check our suitcases before leaving the airport!

Slow vegan

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 08:56:17 +0000

I have been so slow in keeping this side of the blog updated. Blame it on the fact that once I’ve eaten, I forget everything!
Here then is a very belated synopsis of the food we enjoyed in Rome.
First of all it seems I should mention the fact that soya milk, margarine and ice cream seemed to be available in the vast majority of shops, even the small neighbourhood ones we visited. This made a very pleasant change to Greek shopping, especially the abundance of vegan cornettos. Not that we had to fall back on the shop bought ice cream because there were so many wonderful gelaterias dotted all around the city. We made a beeline for Il Gelatone on via dei Serpenti because I had read about the plethora of soya options they had. We were not disappointed, how could we be with all that ice cream in front of us?
I had chocolate and pistachio, Sean had coconut and something else and Junior’s ice cream can be seen in the background although she couldn’t keep off it long enough for me to take a picture!

We ate at two specifically vegetarian/vegan restaurants. The first one was Bibliothe near the Pantheon which serves indian inspired vegetarian food. As usual we ordered more than we could eat between us but everything was tasty and well prepared. The restaurant itself was very relaxing and cosy, a wonderful respite from the hordes of tourists in the city.
We had hummus, pakoras, puri and rice but as usual I only managed to get a picture of the first dish which was the hummus – oops!

The other restaurant was Il Margutta where we went for a buffet Sunday lunch. And what a buffet! For a set price you can visit the buffet bars as often as you like which, although good in principle, never works for me because I get full too quickly! However I’m more about the quality then the quantity and the quality was good. The place seemed very popular with locals and Sean and I agreed that if we lived in Rome we’d be in Il Margutta every Sunday afternoon.

I was full for quite a while after eating all that but it was worth it! We’re off to England next week for our pre-Christmas visit so I promise to try and remember to take pictures of food before I start eating

Still some money in Greece!

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 09:40:07 +0000

Just to show that Greece is not all poverty, doom and gloom, we went to a christening last Saturday. Now Greek christenings are unlike any I have ever been to in England, the amount of people invited for one is quite amazing. Having chosen one of the largest churches in the area, with a large outside space, approximately 1000 people were invited to the ceremony. That’s a lot of people I’m sure you’ll agree but in Greece you’re not expected to sit down (which is a good job as there were nowhere near enough seats) but instead to stand around the church and watch and listen to the proceedings. Junior got bored practically straight away of course and kept asking when it would be over!
The ceremony wasn’t very long in all fairness and on exiting the church, after leaving our gift piled up with the mountain of others in the corner of the church, Junior got gifts of a novelty wooden pencil sharpener and two wooden photo frames/pencil holders with sugared almonds inside. There was also a popcorn and candy floss truck in the corner of the courtyard providing free goodies to whoever wanted them. We shared an exceptionally large pink candy floss and tried to stop Junior getting it in her hair!
We then headed off in the car to the reception – much to Junior’s annoyance who wanted to go home. She soon changed her mind however when we got to the venue and she found balloons everywhere and a children’s entertainer. We’d never visited the place before and didn’t really know it was there because the only sign pointing to it from the main road is really old and looks like it belongs to a place that closed about 20 years ago. The setting was magnificent with great views and the inside was a real surprise as well www.comtesse.gr
They didn’t invite all 1000 from the church to the sit down meal but at least 200 which is still a lot of people to feed and the amount of food, Sean was amazed every time a new course arrived although he did manage to munch his way through practically all the five courses on offer. The cost must have been astronomical but we all had a good time and eventually had to drag Junior away clutching balloons and candy canes.