"Bright Lights - Big City - Bit Scary!"

Well.. in places not enough light at night, a resident population of 88 thousand as opposed to 2.6 in Paleo -, and deteriorating Covid numbers! We crossed our fingers and went to Chania!

They still hang up octopus on the
  Nea Hora but this time they
look a bit scary!

It had seemed a good idea at the time! Savio -a former neighbour in Balham - would be at a wedding in Athens and suggested "popping over" to see us for a couple of days. We had pointed out that Paleo was a further two hour bus ride , and invited him to be our guest in a simple hotel in Chania. We took the bus. This was the first time we had done so in two years but we thought it would not be busy. It was 100 percent full! We cleverly got off on the outskirts of town, walked to the hotel and then down to the Nea Hora for a much-needed beer!

Tasos at our 2015 party

Within minutes we heard a cry and it was Tasos -formerly of Seagull fame in Paleo - now retired and renting out tourist accommodation close to where we were. He was expecting a friend (also with a Palo record), so we spent a long time on reminiscence until close to the time for meeting Savio. (Tasos also appeared on our third and final evening walking back with us and his bicycle.)

We ended up rushing to the bus station as the timetable for the airport bus had changed the previous day and messages were being exchanged about arrival times; but it all worked, we recognised each other after all those years and so began our 48 hours as Chania tour guides. Ruth had helped Savio and a couple of his friends with statistics element of their osteopathy training straight after he left school. He has recently reached 50, moved over to work as a breathing coach and lives near Glasgow where he is very active in several community ventures. He is also now suffering from "long Covid". We had a lot to talk about!

Sixteen years is a bit long!

Bizarrely the first full day was the cloudiest we have ever experienced in summer in Chania, and we walked by the scenic route to the private clinic where he had arranged the PCR test needed for return to Gatwick. Otherwise it was the usual: Venetian harbour, old fortifications, Catholic church (for him!), arsenal, old town, mosques, indoor market, etc. and frequent beer stops!

After his departure we stayed a further night enabling us to go to Baotao for some duck, and have some time next day on the beach and in the warm sea, before returning on a bus that was much more reassuringly spaced! We survived and have no plans to move far until mid-September!

"The Lion shall lie down with the Horse and the Maiden - but not for long!!

 Sometime in mid-July it all started to happen, which was odd for Greyrocks as we were due to be missing for four days on a long-awaited jolly in Chania.

A welcome return was Hassan on the Beach. We went there - late as usual - to find him in the final stages of a beautiful sand sculpture of a young woman sunbathing on her front. We shared a few words and he said he would only be creating for five days before going to work in the hills. No rush, then, to capture the first oeuvre as more would join it! The next was this reclining lion, and then a horse, but that was it! By the time we next ventured to the beach all had been washed away by the high seas that were part of an ongoing period of "less than ideal" weather! (Hassan we learnt is not from Syria, but Pakistan, and has a rich back story)

Any tourist coming to Paleochora for a summer holiday should have been warned that there can be runs of days when the wind is too strong for settling on the beach, or when the beach is good, but the sea too rough (in combination with exposed rock and shifting sand) for bathing. The second half of July has seen both (and now another heatwave is on its way). One might even start to believe in climate change!!  

In contrast there have been the arrivals of old friends. Some had not come last year, and some are staying for less time than usual, but they bring very late nights and considerable consumption of alcohol. As usual the same theme recurs: "how many years have you been coming?", "Do you remember when.."! The first wave has comprised (in alphabetical order):

Barbara, Günter, John, Klaus, Mats, Philip, Sam, Sofia, Susanna.

match them to:

Sweden, Munich, Hamburg, Brittany, Wakefield and County Down!

Posts to come and round off the month: Why was Greyrocks in Chania?, Live music returns to Bars, the Chess Tournament and What's new on the Eateries front? 

More Fire and Fury in the Forties plus a Funeral, Fireworks and - of course - Football

 Two weeks into the stay and Greyrocks is firmly established, and has put the trauma of getting here behind! The heatwave that we had experienced in Cyprus also happened here but was largely over by the time we arrived late on 3rd, but was followed by a new one that is still with us, as shown in the data from the weather station.

It could have been the heat that caused beach-related incidents on two consecutive days. We arrived around midday to find a well-known Norwegian character hanging various items on the tree where our sunbeds have resided all summer for about ten seasons. We asked her to move her bag off of the sunbeds and she "went off on one", issuing nationalistic insults and threats. She occupied the shade so we went into the sea, returned and dried off and then went to the cantina from where we saw her walk off some hours later! She has has not repeated this ploy! Next morning Ruth's sandal fell apart as we prepared to leave for the beach A new pair was deployed. Later that afternoon the wind was getting a bit much so we went for a sandwich and alcohol-free beers at a famous beach bar. It was busy with locals, a newborn baby. friends of the staff and - in particular - two irritating dogs, of which all were making a huge fuss. We shooed away the larger of the two, and then saw it run off with one of the new sandals and start to chew it. Ruth went ballistic, immediately tried to pay whilst fuming and we left saying we would never be back!

On the evening of 13th we saw some smoke over the mountains, and whilst we were eating at The Seagull saw that there were now flames. We tried to deduce what habitations might be nearby, and sent a picture to  Chloë telling her that Anidri was under threat. By return came the news of exactly where it was: between the "crocodile" and Prodromi. She really does know more about Paleo than we do! The fire grew in width and height but fire vehicles got there and their lights could be discerned. At first light the special helicopter  dropped water to finally extinguish it. It was mostly low scrub and neither people nor homes were casualties. Within the last week there have been impressive fireworks in that direction, but at sea level. The suggestion is that these were bought in for festivals but could not be used for Covid reasons.

Another first for Greyrocks;- virtually attending a funeral! Last month we received the news that our old friend Josiane had passed away in tragic circumstances, Her funeral was to be conducted under Covid rules, so non-attenders were given the link to watch the Catholic funeral and burial, which we did on a very hot afternoon with a bottle of prosecco. In Kent we could see it began to rain and heavy overcoats were worn! A sad occasion, but technology made it possible to be a small part of it! RIP

And on a less sombre note we did decide to watch the Euro Finals! Location would be everything:- we wanted no English jingoism and to keep a low profile. Outside Zygos was suggested. We had our first Small Garden dinner in the run-up and set off to arrive at kick-off and not before. Misjudged! As we approached we heard the cheers for the England goal, and the viewing area was heaving with young locals. After a while we moved inside to a smaller screen, comfortable seats, AC and adult behaviour! There is nothing to add to the tributes to the team and management. We heard stories of much anti-English sentiment elsewhere in the village. Which brings us back to the opening of this post

Four near misses

 We are safely enjoying Paleochora and intend to continue to do so until our Schengen 90 days expire! Getting here was not quite the joyride we had hoped - but more of that later! Our obsessive news-grazing and our chats with old friends has led to the realisation that we have been lucky!

1. The horrific fire on Cyprus began as we left the island!

 

The previous post refers to the fires during the heatwave of our final week; but they were nothing compared to that declared the worst since 1974. Four Egyptian labourers lost their lives in this one as they abandoned their vehicle and ran in the wrong direction.

2. We also missed the fire in Kakodiki and the consequences!

Our taxi journey from the airport was at night so we didn't see much, but we did see a fire engine in a layby and this led to Giorgos telling us more about the fire that had happened a few days before. It was one of many on Crete during the heatwave, but the one that most affected Paleo with its damage to property, and resultant power cuts:- one of which was all day and evening on a "scorcher"!

3. We passed through Chania airport with ease!

After the Petri dish that was Paphos Airport, and a surprisingly full flight we got through Passport Control and received the necessary (gritted teeth!) stamp. We approached the health control point and were waved through without scanning of QR codes on either our Greek entry forms or our EU vaccination certificates. It was only in conversations over the next few days that we realised that we had been lucky not to be tested. Two British couples whom we have met here every year for a very long time (one of which is Sue and Brian Joicey) told us of their desperation to come despite the (then) rules that would catch them on return. Both had arrived on sparsely occupied flights from England and every passenger had been tested!

4. We are not on Fuerteventura! 

A lovely place we are proud to call "home", but the Covid data went "viral" almost as soon as we left!

It has been on Spanish Level 2 for a couple of weeks, and Tenerife is threatened with Level 4! There is no-one in the hospital with Covid and the number of deaths (13 in a population of 123 000) has not changed for months, but this is not good! As ever the blame is centring on our town of Corralejo and the young. Last night there was a gathering of around 300 in the Atlantico Centre and "goings-on" on Waikiki Beach!

Frustration, Folly, Fire and Fury as we hit the Forties (degrees C that is) !

We're having a heatwave! The yellow warnings for the island have kept coming for the past week, and everyone - locals included - is talking about it. Waiting staff, who are still required to wear masks when working, have been particularly frustrated!

 Last weekend for we non-workers was particularly worthy of note, starting with the frustration bit! We will be flying to Crete on Saturday and - with our shiny new EU vaccination certificates - there seemed no reason to wait in applying for our Passenger Location Forms (PLF) as required by Greece. We began on Thursday. We failed! Last year the technology had been new and the conditions different, but we had sailed through the application process and had no issues at either boarding in Madrid or landing in Athens. This time the site wanted passwords we hadn't got! We ran out of email addresses and had to open new ones, we cleared caches, turned ad-blockers and VPN on and off, restarted repeatedly and still by Saturday morning we had got nowhere and there was discord in the apartment! The bizarre way round this was to get Chloë to do it on her machine with an unused email address. We booked a time for WhatsApp and Bob took himself off to save his sanity with a beer and a read at the pub with the parrot that is a hot 15 minute walk away.

Ruth went for a swim and returned to sit in a wet swimsuit exchanging with Chloë. At one point she went from phone to laptop to look up a code and saw Bob's wallet sitting on the desk! Visions of him being forced to do the washing up prompted the still-wet Ruth to contact him and be persuaded to join him. The place was full of retired Brits - some of whom were complaining about other retired Brits! We had a great sandwich and some prosecco to celebrate that with the Greek bureaucracy now in action we could leave Cyprus!

We sat at a distance and it gave a full view - beyond the building sites - of the foothills of the mountains. There was a very large  and low cloud, which was slowly turning black from the earth upwards. The fire was the first and most serious of the week, and was attended by helicopters with dangling water tanks, Two houses were destroyed. 

That evening we went for an excellent Indian meal and then picked up a bus to take us to the harbour. It got stuck in an enormous tailback.  One factor was the re-routing of the bus station diversion and huge confusion over entrances and exits to the car park. Another seemed to be that the heat had brought out large numbers of locals for a super-volta.  Hordes of families straggled across the prom shouting at each other or on the phone, And not many masks about! We got into the backstreets as soon as possible avoiding illegally parked cars and headed for The Rose pub, where there was the promise of live music. "Whatever is it like in a normal summer?" was asked a few times!

Bliss and rapture! Greyrocks can't remember when we last saw rock being played by a band with drums! It might be eighteen months ago (Straight Ahead?) Here was The Real Thing and that is their name. Bulgarian and doing Clapton, B B King, Dire Straits and Pink Floyd. We sat at an airy table outside with a side view and good sound and loved it. Then around midnight they stopped playing mid-number! A Russian had marched in screaming about the noise, wanting an immediate end, and a heavy - but non-violent scene erupted. His partner sat on the other side of the road filming! The Bulgarians spoke some Russian and the fact that the music was due to finish in half an hour may have been conveyed! Somehow this was resolved and a few more numbers were played; but a nasty taste.... 

The rest of our time here has been less eventful, but there will be some sort of overview of the seven weeks here! This evening we start the summer in earnest as we fly to Chania! And the heatwave is forecast to abate!