A few photos from the night

This is the gang from left to right at the back, Alan, Kath, Penny, Peter, Liz and Bob front row Sigrid and me (the fairy godmother in white)



This is Jackie....



The Raki drip stand. It has IV drips full of Raki for people to drink from.

For some strange reason I didnt manage to get many photos on the night, but Liz has some so I will try to get copies and post them later. (what do you mean...was I drunk?....how could you think that?)

More from the carnival

Just one or two speakers.....

The childrens entertainers had everyone enthralled.....






Celia, her daughter and twin grandsons.

I am not sure of the names of two of the guys on the slovaki stall but second left is Yiannis (remember him from the olive picking?) and far right is his friend Dimitris.
This is Volande and Rafael from my local taverna - Rodamanthis.


Just a few twigs to keep us warm!

One of my neighbours and his granchild.
Peace for a while at least until it all starts.

Waiting for the bouncy slide....

Its Carnival day

Well it is Carnival (Apokreas) day at last and the preparations are under way. There is a lot of work to do to convert the village square into a party venue. Here are some photos of the start of the work, which will continue until this afternoon. The childrens evens start at somewhere around 4pm (well it is Greece!) and then the Cretan music and dancing from 7 - 9 followed by music from the DJ until around 5 or 6 in the morning. I will take as many pictures as I can so that you can get a flavour of the events, but may not get too many tonight (I wonder why?)


The Raki stand and the hut which will be part of the carnival soup stand.


Manolis is helping as usual (remember him from the olive picking?)

The slovaki (kebab) stands start to go up. They will serve around 2000 tonight!


The sound system went in last night and was thoroughly tested (and is so loud you can probably hear it on the coast) before being wrapped up to protect it until this afternoon.
Look out for more later......

And it snowed!

Well it does happen sometimes, and boy did it yesterday.....we had thunder and lightning, and then the heavens opened...with hail stones.....the sun came out.....then more thunder and lightning and BLIZZARD....lots and lots of snow.....force 10 winds........Oh Dear! Luckily the tavernas were open and we could get some Raki to keep us warm :-) And in the morning, what did this intelligent (!), organised and sometimes sensible woman do???? She locked herself out of the house for 2 hours in nothing but her dressing gown! Cold or what???? Its a good job I have friends who are good at breaking and entering and who will remain nameless...Alan....Ooops. I will leave you with just a few pictures so that you know I havent made it up.

Olive picking

Its Olive harvest time here and everyone is working really hard to collect them in. It is a very heavy manual process still and so they are all very tired at the end of the day. The photographs show the Kritsotakis family collecting their olives.



All sorted and ready to start...









If only the generator would fire up......













At last...













Where did Manolis go? Oh...he's in the tree now! (look hard!)

















Now there's a surprise, the woman has to do the tidying up....





The happy family, left to right - Manolis, Yiannis and Elleni.





The trees being harvested are some of the oldest in the village and the big one behind the family portrait estimated to be at least 400 years old. Yiannis tells me he has around 400 trees some of which he has had for about 25 years since his father gave him them. The average yield per tree is 30 to 40 kilos of olives, but in a good year could be as much as 100 kilos. 10 kilos of olives makes 1 kilo of olive oil.

Thanks to the family for their help.

Keep watching for the report from the olive oil factory.

And on the way home......

On the way home from the Raki factory I bumped into two of my neighbours cooking the potato for their dinner on the little fire at the side of the road. It is normal for Maria - the lady on the right to cook here - usually with Katina who I think may be her mother (she wasn't there last night)

Its Raki time....

This is my first experience of the Raki making, yes, I know I drink quite a bit of it, but that is very different to watching it being made! It was fascinating. They bring the leftovers from the winemaking and put them in a big vat with a dome shaped lid. The fire is lit and the Raki then comes out of the bottom of the still through a little spout. Everyone sits around eating raw green beans and jacket potatos cooked on the top of the fire box whilst tasting the Raki fresh from the still. I must admit the stuff they made was some of the nicest I have tasted. (for any interested brewers the specific gravity was 22) I wobbled home around 5.30 to try and cook my dinner.....