The End of Summer

Enjoying late summer sun at Limnaki cantina

Greyrocks is now in Lattes, near Montpellier - again!
We left Paleo on 19th September and not a great deal happened between Chloë leaving us and our own uprooting!

 September started during her stay and the consensus was that it was "October weather", but it still made for a pleasant ten days for her in her new gainfully-employed but holiday-deprived state. There were several days with serious wind so we drove to Grammenon or Gialaskari beaches. The former was a pleasant surprise. We had heard that the fairly new taverna there was giving the highly-rated one across the road a run for its money, and having had some time on their sunbeds - run by Albanian Arnesti, who used to do those on Limnaki - we took lunch there. It now a has a name - "Homous" - and it is very similar in style to Methixis in Paleo. Ruth may well give it its first Trip Advisor entry. As an escape from Paleo wind and for shallow sandy bathing it is a winner - plus the food!

And on that subject Greyrocks worked its way round Chloe's favourite restaurants and tavernas doing no good at all for Ruth's diet! On less windy (but sometimes cloudy) days she joined us under "our" tree with a hired sunbed, we played tavli and listened to live music at the cantina, and she joined a Friday Scrabble game. We put her in a shared taxi one evening and by the next morning Ruth was confined to bed -with a filthy cold thus missing a trip up to Kandanos for dinner, and Bob followed on a few days later. Thus our final ten days were not quite as planned.

It was also Paleochora Art Week (all 16 days of it!) This year's event was bigger than last but just as well-organised. On the prom and at the Sandy Beach statue there was a large and impressive collection of sculptures. We went to the opening at the "Town Hall" which was crammed, and were particularly charmed by photographs by Carolina - who works in Cosmogonia. They show poseable figures in key locations in Paleo and around.

As before there was further artwork at points around the village, although in fewer tavernas.

Once we had both recovered we embarked on the big closedown - aiming to dispose of stuff we would no longer need in Paleo. Greyrocks is now committed to the "block rental of tourist accommodation" solution for the summer. It has a few drawbacks as a plan, but is very much better than the annual rental of second-rate flats, which is all there is available now. (Our 2012 and -13 flat has remained unoccupied since our departure!) Hence we have set up the arrangement with Mary for next year's 100 days.

There has been less live music than usual this year in the village's bars and tavernas, but a procession of street entertainers. The depressing Romanian children have done their thing, and the Greek guys who dance came back, and in the early weeks we enjoyed the stilt-walker/fire-eater whom we believe to be Mexican but would only say he came from "Clownland"! Our favourite was, however the modern lyra player from Sitia who played outside Stavros one evening keeping us there for many hours.

How do you choose?

In the final week it was "touch and go" for the beach, and there was rain too (of sorts), but in contrast with past recent years we were able to both sunbathe and enter the sea on our last full day. The card school got back together for a session and Ruth came last, but at Scrabble she had two dramatic wins. We took Yvette for a wash and she got stuck.

We organised supper for nine at The Small Garden and there was a loud and not entirely friendly row about the Scottish Referendum. We set off in Yvette more or less as the polls opened and the rest is history. How would we learn the result? Watch this space!