Heatwave and the fire engine.

We have had a heatwave here now for over a week, with temperatures well into the mid 40's but also a wind from the south. Those of you in England will be familiar with a wind chill factor. This is the same in reverse. The temperature is 44 but it feels more like 54!!! This has a number of drawbacks:-
1) Its too hot and sticky to do ANYTHING!
2) The amount of extra electricity to power the air conditioning in the resorts blacks out the whole island as the grid cannot cope.
3) We get fires.....sometimes caused by idiots discarding fag ends without realising the risks at this time of year.....
Yesterday there were a number of local fires, the worst being in Elounda, consuming 700 Stremma (a Stremma is 1000 square metres) of land and houses, and taking two days to put out. Very scary! The photo above is of the local fire engine flying over my house on its way to deal with the fire. There are a number of planes and just the one helicopter, they pick up water from the sea and drop it on fires.
Well done all the men who worked so hard.....

End of Term

Well it is end of term at the local schools and to celebrate they held a competition for art and poetry on the theme of Peace. Prizes were given for the best in each age group at a party in the square. Traditional Cretan music and dancing was provided and went on until around 12 o'clock (very early night here!)

Bored !!!!

Well I just got back after a long day, to and fro from the hospital where my poor mum has ended up while she is here on holiday to find that sweet little Jessica obviously got bored while I was out. She managed to shred an entire toilet roll over the floor and looked really pleased with herself when I opened the door and found her !!!! I wonder if Andrex will pay me for the photo :-)

Back Home

Well Ginger has had the op and is back home safe and well. She has also been re-united with Jessica, her lookalike kitten. At least now she has stopped crying and looking behind all the furniture for the babies!!! The only problem is she appears to have reverted to kitten herself and is leaping around playing as if she is Jessica's sister not her mum.......why can't Mums grow up and act their age eh? ;-)

May Day

Well its May day and we all go picking flowers....Margarita's to be exact and as they have my name, all my neighbours made sure I knew what to do. Bunches appeared on the car, under the pipe from the electric meter and a garland of flower heads sown together has pride of place above the door to give good luck throughout the year. Chronia Polla !!!!!

Empty Nest !!!

Well it is so quiet here, its wierd! The babies have all left home now. Gilly has taken the three coloured one and the tiny one (still waiting for an update on names for these two), Alan and Kath have taken the Pale ginger boy (Ozzie) and the dark grey girl (Jezebella or Bella), they have also taken Jessica (the one who looks like Ginger) for a holiday until Sunday as Ginger has to go into hospital to make sure we dont get babies every three months. Its good to be able to walk without looking what might be under your feet, but to be honest I am really missing them. Ginger is too, she is alternating between crying for them and looking under the kitchen cupboards, behind the wardrobe and bookself etc and tramping it with the guys all night.....good job the Op is on Thursday I think ;-)

Oh Yes what a match !!!!!

The boys did it in style today. The annual grudge match between Mochos FC and Archanes took place and this time it was more critical than ever. If Mochos won they move up a league, lose and its all over for another year.......
In the 1st half Mochos did not play at their best and went in for the break 1 - 0 down.
In the 2nd half Mochos got a penalty in after 15 minutes...now it was 1 - 1 and you could feel and hear the tension. The noise from the football ground could be heard all over the village so no-one was in any doubt what was happening. 10 minutes later Archanes scored an own goal, which it is said would have been the best goal of the match if it had been at the other end! Now it was 2 - 1 to Mochos. At this point Mochos found their normal good form and scored another goal, 3 - 1 to Mochos. The noise was incredible and Manthos knew it was all over so went back to the taverna to get ready for the invasion......
Needless to say, car horns, air horns, goat bells, bangers, bombs, gun fire, chanting........what appeared to be around five hundred cars and pickup trucks full of men through the square....and big, big celebrations......Mochos will now be promoted from "A" local league to "D" National league......we ARE the champions!!!!!!!!!