A few observations from the weekend
Neil was covering the bar all day on Friday, and so I spent a couple of hours there in the afternoon. (No camera on me, so today’s photos are actually from Saturday.) So much was going on in the one short lane opposite my table that I was kept well entertained. Neighbour #2 had washed her courtyard, and the run-off had been swept out onto the street through the hole beneath the doors. Many courtyard entrances have these small holes bored through the stonework to allow water to escape. In this case, there was a stream of it heading down the lane towards the top of the steps. A sparrow took advantage of this and had a quick bath between the pairs of passing feet.
Neighbour #1 came out of her house and put a small blue plastic bag on her outside sink. No doubt there was something interesting in this rubbish bag as it attracted the attention of a passing cat. When Neighbour #1 was back inside her house, the cat sneaked up onto the stone sink and grabbed the bag in its teeth. It dragged it down to the lane and then began creeping up off the lane as if it was taking its shopping home. It ran into trouble when it found three children playing at the end, outside Neighbour #4’s house. It was forced to abandon its prize and head for home empty-mouthed, and the children’s grandmother came out to see what this blue bag was that had appeared on her doorstep. She later removed it, presumably to the bins.
A while later, while I was turning on the television for some of the children who wanted to take a rest from their games by watching Sponge Bob Surrealist Pants (or whatever it’s called), Neil was called to the house of Neighbour #1 to assist with a broken chair incident. This left its owner on the floor, the back two legs of the plastic chair having given up the struggle for life after several years in the sun. He managed to get the elderly neighbour to his feet, no harm done, and return to work. No sooner was he back inside dealing with a customer than Neighbour #1 was at the bar offering to buy him a drink for his pains. No need, Neil explained, just doing his neighbourly duty.
Friday afternoon drifted into evening and, when Yiannis returned at nine, we went to the taverna for dinner. Georgio’s has been redecorated inside and out and is now bright and fresh with white and blue paint. The photos that have lined the walls for so many years have gone, replaced by clean walls and smart paintings, with only a few images of the family now framed and placed there. The old photos, fascinating though they were, had seen better days. I reckon some had been there for at least 20 years, probably much longer. Some were nearly white with faded age, while some were peeling, some splashed with the spills of one retsina too many, and the display had become something of a fascinating eyesore. The ambience and food were still as friendly and tasty as ever, though, but no longer can you lean across fellow diners to see if there is still that photo of you taken in the 1980s when your hair was unbelievably as big as your spectacles. Time moves on.
Time moves on, and things change. Many return visitors will find a few changes in the village this year; a few closures. Taverna Zoi and Georgio’s taverna will, as far as I heard and understood, be the two places to eat dinner in the village this year. The Olive Tree is ready to go, serving breakfasts and lunch until three in the afternoon every day; the Sunrise Kafeneion has been open all winter, ditto the Secret Garden where Friday night is blues and western music night and Mondays will be Greek music nights – I assume. Georgio’s will also have live music on certain nights of the week. Lefteris’ Kafeneion has new outside lights on a dimmer switch and has been painted up. The new pie shop, bakeries, supermarkets, herb shop and others are all open and waiting for you.
That was Friday, Saturday brought a visit to the harbour, and that’s a story for tomorrow.
