Any one seen a tortoise?

 

This is Sandy our tortoise. However I think we should have named it Rambo. I say it because we are not sure whether it is male or female. Personally I think it is a she. So she is into everything, barging her way through. Boy has she got some determination. She only became active again after hibernation the end of April. Don't let anyone tell you that a tortoise as a pet is boring.  She climbs up places that you would think impossible, she can get up the first 3 steps up to our roof. We have seen her vertical against a wall and fall over onto her back and she doesn't take long to right herself. However she does get herself into some situations.

So last night I looked to see if she was tucked up in her house that my hubby made for her. NO SANDY!!!!  I looked high and low for her. Under her house, behind the blocks, in the pile of rubble, but to no avail. Then I remembered that hubby had been out to the car and left the gate open in the afternoon, but not for long. Now whatever you do don't let anyone tell you that tortoises are slow because, boy can she shift when she wants.

I went outside thinking "well if she's out here she has gone." I looked under the neighbours plants, all the nooks and crannies and nothing, not a trace.

When my hubby came in it was dark. I announced, "Sandy is gone". He got the torch and he looked everywhere that I had looked, nothing!    

"I was only out for a minute." he proclaimed, "she would not have had time and anyway she was asleep" So he started looking again.

And then we found her fast asleep under her house where we had already looked more than once, but she had climbed onto a spar of wood so we could not see her or her feet. The little so and so.

We both breathed a sigh of relief that she was safe. I was having visions of her been squashed on the road and that doesn't bear thinking about.

Oh no! Got to go just heard her falling over with a crack, Judith to the rescue again.

Mish Mash

My post today is a bit of this and a bit of that. Just to keep you in the picture as to what we have been up to in the last few weeks.

This is my kitchen that is in the making.

Wow!! Look I have a kitchen sink! Isn't that great!

Very small, compact I think they call it. It still needs the doors fitted yet, but at long last I have somewhere to put dishes and food stuff. That's some more boxes that I have emptied.

The door that Geoff (Jude's husband. cariad in crete)made for us complete with handles.

These next 5 photo's are from my walks with Lucky, just around the village.

Someone's lean-to built into the rocks.

This is the seed head of one of these flowers. They look so pretty and they are quite big.

My quilt that I hope to finish this year!!! Just about 40 cms to go so it will fit our kingsize bed.

Remember the walnut photo's I posted a while back? Well just look at the size of these walnuts now.

The tree is covered in them, as you can see from the above photo,but the fact still remains, the tree is just far to big for this small garden and it still has loads of growing to do yet. Think I can see the chainsaw coming out after the harvest!

These are pumpkin seedlings that I have just planted. Notice the sticks? Cat protection.

I am using black polythene to try and save the water from evaporating as much. The above are courgettes. I am not sure how things will grow in this garden but if I feed them well I am hoping for quite a good harvest.

Sorry about the quality of this photo, but these globe artichokes have very, very sharp spines. In fact the whole plant has spines all over. Definitely a case of using gardening gloves when doing anything near them.

Sadly the beaches are no longer like this, alas the tourists have arrived.

That's it, I think I have brought you all up to speed on what's been happening here. Got to go, have some more boxes to empty.

WILL IT EVER END???????????

So what do you do with .............

 

So what do you do with all the bits and pieces of tiles that you have left over from tiling?

 

We have a crate full and two buckets. You can't just throw them away can you?

Well I was not about to do that so......................

I thought up a cunning plan.

This is my outside sink. I have started to put these tile off-cuts to use. I've added a few sun glass nuggets and HEY PRESTO - modern art tiling at its best (free). The dark tiles cost 25 euro a square meter, can't throw them away.

Now that I can see what it is going to be like I will carry on and end up with something unique.

This is a patchwork song

Hooray, today I came across my hexagon quilt top. Now I can get to work on finishing it. It's got to be a king size so I had better get cracking. This quilt is way over due now. Can't wait to get it on to my bed. How long do you think it will take me.

Digging it.

 

I planted some courgettes, squash, pumpkin, cucumber and tomatoes a while ago. They are now eagerly awaiting planted out into the garden.

These will need potting on before they are ready for the garden.

So I thought that I had better get to it. Not an easy task, the garden is on a slope. Climbing onto it is a uphill struggle.

This is what it was like this morning.

So some terracing was in order and as we have loads and loads of old roof tiles, I thought that I would put them to good use. We will have to build a retaining wall along the front, but this time with cement.

I think there had been a dry stone wall to retain the soil from washing down onto the stable roof. However I was quite surprised that the soil seems quite good. It turned over very easily. I thought that it would be rock hard.

I plan to put the squash and pumpkin at the front so I can grow them across the stable roof.

Here are some tomatoes that I am growing in pots and my very first tomato has just set. I can nearly taste it now.

You had better believe me when I say that I need a soak in a hot bath tonight and I think I have caught the sun. See what I can get done tomorrow.

Away day in the rain.

 

It started raining on Sunday evening and it was still raining on Monday morning. In fact it rained all day yesterday and all night.

Today it was undecided as to what to do. So it rained a bit more. We do need it as the water levels are still rather low here.

My hubby has got himself a job at Subway too, so we had to go to Heraklion to sort out his health book. So off we set in the rain.

Heraklion is about an hours drive away. Some of the journey was in rain and some in sunshine. When we got to the office that we wanted we were very surprised that there was no one there, so we were in and out in 10 minutes. So that's him sorted.

I decided to take some photos of the capital to show you what it is like.

 

As you can see it was bumper to bumper. With double parking.

These are the old city walls.

This photo shows how these old walls were constructed. It reminds me of a patchwork quilt.

By this time it was throwing it down and it has rather spoilt the photos.

These ruins are not far from the port.

It was a shame that the rain spoilt our visit. I didn't get to go shopping or anything, it was so miserable. We just carried on home.

I do feel sorry for the holiday makers who are here this week as the weather has not been nice to them at all.

A bit of history about Heraklion.(Iraklion)

It was built in 824AD by the Arab Saracens and called Chandax

It was built where the old harbour of Knossos used to stand.

In the Byzantine period it was called Chandakas.

In the  venetian period it was called Candia, even the whole island was called Candia.

The walls that we see now were built in  1462. Well that is when they started them and it took 100yrs to complete. These walls at some points are 60meters thick. There perimeter is 4.5km. and there are 12 bastions and forts all around. However these walls fell to the Turks in 1669, after a siege that had lasted 22 years. 30,000 Christians were dead and 120,000 Turks.The Turks occupied Crete until 1897.

Crete was an independent state from 1897 to 1913 and then it was reunited with Greece.

Crete seems to have had a very turbulent past and there is plenty of history and plenty of sites to go and see.

Hey ho hey ho

 

Today I started weeding our overgrown garden. I know this might sound funny, but we have to go up our outside steps then onto the roof of the stable to get to this piece of garden. The wall at the back is actually the road. Yes the house is lower than the garden as it is built on the side of a mountain and the back road is higher again. So far I have got 5 big bin bags full of weeds.

See I have managed to get to the wall/road. The lumps of wood we collected last year. It should be seasoned enough for our fire this winter.

At the right side of the picture you can see a creamy ball shaped object, this is a seed head of the artichoke plant there and right on the edge of the picture is an artichoke head. Might get to eat some this year. I have never tried them and I don't even know how to cook them.

Caught this butterfly warming himself in the afternoon sun.

These snails are what we collected last year from the garden. A Greek friend of ours took them to eat. Think I will just collect them and see if anybody wants them. I just don't fancy them. My hubby reckons they taste like chicken only more chewy.

Once the garden is cleared I am hoping to grow squash and courgettes through black plastic and anything else that will grow in such stony ground.

Any offers on digging it? I have a spare spade, and I make a good cup of tea. Ha ha.

That dirty word WORK.

 

Last year, I worked the summer season in Mad Malia!!

Well, this year I am going to do it again. I will be starting work in a couple of weeks time. Last year my hubby was doing a lot of work on our house, so he didn't look for a job. Well this summer he is going to work as-well. We are both going to work at the same place as i did last year.

This is me with a couple of girls from England that I met last year. So if your in Malia come to Subway and say Hi.

Aquarium Visit

Yesterday we went with the gardening club to the aquarium. It was a

lovely experience.

Some of the photos didn't come out too good so I will show you the best.

This crabs pincers are what you can see they were held tight to it's body for protection.

Ohhh Sharks!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lobster.

This eel was showing off. Its mates were all hiding in the rocks.

A shy octopus.

Just look at the colours on this chap.

A five legged starfish. Now is it a leg or an arm or what?

The starfish in the background is a 9 legged one. I was told that if they lose a leg with a bit of the disc in the middle they will grow another. The dark one had lost half of its legs and was regrowing them. You can see the legs furthest away are a lot smaller that the ones at the front.

After our visit we went to a taverna and had a smashing meal. 10 euro each. Can't be bad.