"Beware the Ides of September!"

Greyrocks has commented frequently on the fact that September in Paleochora is different - and in many ways welcome! However, it is also a fact that the weather record is patchy, with some shockingly "bad" days. Ruth's records show that these are usually around the middle of the month!

The view of the Nea Chora from Portes

Our month started started with the last few days of Chloë and Jack's stay, and our travelling with them as far as Chania when they moved on. As previously reported we visited the Charma brewery on the way! We were to stay two nights on the Nea Chora, and began with the late lunch with Chloë  and Jack. They remembered the restaurant Portes as being in the old town. We remembered it as on the Nea Chora. Their website was unclear, so some confusion happened, but it was so good that Greyrocks went back there two days later just before leaving Chania. We had a delightful stay, taking advantage of very easy entry into a warm sea, absence of wind and a Chinese restaurant. When we came to take the afternoon back there was a very small rain shower at the highest point.

We returned to find that a handful of old friends had arrived, and a new social whirl began - and Ruth was out of action for a day with a throat problem, and shortly thereafter most tourists were stopped in their beach-ward tracks by three days of  extreme wind. Numerous beach umbrellas were blown into the sea, bits of the primary school roof came off and restaurants with indoor tables did very well! Greyrocks made a short escape by going with Olga to Houmas for a sheltered beach, short bathe in a calm sea, and - of course - a superb lunch! High winds did return for a few days later in the month, but as sunbathing conditions resumed the September sunbed crisis loomed, with tales of bad-tempered exchanges between naturist tourists and Yiannis the Sunbed of his son Manolis - now helping out. Once again September meant sharing "our tree", and Manolis was heard explaining to a couple that we were "good people" who had lived in his house and had been using the tree thus for many years!

More recently on the climatic front we had the events of 24th. There was the threat of rain throughout the preceding week, and the humidity crept up, and in the morning the sky was a very nasty colour. By the evening it hadn't happened, but folk carried umbrellas as they went out to eat, and once more the places with indoor tables had a good night, but still no rain! We  chose to revisit Pasefaei, where we would have had cover if necessary. (Most of the gigantic and delicious pork shank was taken away to form sandwiches!) The impact of the looming storm turned out to be an evening with around thirty tiny power cuts of a few seconds - caused by the humidity shorting in the village and up in the mountains where it was definitely raining!

After all the excitement of this - and the Thomas Cook debacle - there is now calm and serenity. This was the sunset on 27th as viewed whilst we were waiting to eat at Finikas.

Goodbye, September!