FLOWERS AND VEG

Went shopping for vegetables and treated myself to some lovely Freesia. They smell divine.

These are some of the vegetables that I got. Tomatoes and peppers

These greens on the right of the photo. The ones on the left were given to me by our next-door neighbour. Do you know what they are?

I made some chutney today as well. It is supposed to be Green Tomato Chutney but as you can see there is red in there too.

And this is what it turned out like. Looks yummy to me, thing is, you are supposed to wait 2 weeks till it matures before you eat it. Think this will be quite hard to do. I got the recipe from the internet and it turned out to be a blogger that I follow. http://greenforks.com

On the Wander

 

We moved into our house in Vrisses last Friday and today was the first time that I had time to take Lucky exploring the area.

We  walked through the olive groves and when we came to a clearing I looked up and could see our house in the distance. Had I walked that far?It was well worth it though, just look what I saw, even if it was uphill all the way back.

These pretty white camomile and hiding amongst them anemones and this splendid plant

I,m not sure what it is called but there are a lot of them about reaching about 2ft or more tall.

 

There where trees loaded with blossom not sure if this is almond or a cherry.

A Walk On The Beach

After spending all morning packing boxes for our move on Friday, we went to Malia to get somethings my husband needed for the house. We took our little dog Lucky with us, as we like to take her for a walk on the beach. She hates the water but loves the sand. Thought you might like to share some of the things that we saw there.



The rocks here are very jagged and sharp. Just look how they are formed.















There are small ridges. I think it was caused by volcanic action many millions of years ago.














A strange feature out in the water.

















This looks like a fossilised tree root.












A rock pool. There is lots of life in there and some pretty colours too.















There are a lot of round holes in the rocks. I think this was formed by molten lava.















Pretty flowers blooming away to themselves.















Its well seen that the sun has been shining for the last few days
















Everything is bursting out.












I know this one, it is a century agave, it is about 30 to 36 inches high. They supposedly live for about a hundred years then flower and die. The flower spike rises over 10ft in the air. There was a lot of small plantlets around the base of this plant as they send up offsets.

When they are fully mature they are really wide. On the leaves there are sharp spikes so beware. Well we enjoyed our walk and thank you for coming along with us.

Don't forget you can click on the pictures to get a full sized version so you can see the detail more clearly.

Knock Knock.

At long last we have a door to our upstairs bedroom. This door leads out onto the roof from which we have lovely veiws. You really got to see this door, it's great and I'm very thankfull to the person that made it for us.




































Look at the workmanship on that lock. I love it!

















These are the veiws from our roof. It will be lovely waking up in the morning and just walking out onto the roof.

Thanks Geoff.
(Jude's husband.)

I'm Back!

Well I have had a forced break from my blog, the telephone has been dead for over a week. I was as if someone had cut off my right arm. But I'm back now, thank goodness. It took me ages to catch up with everyone, you all have been so busy in blogland. So this is what I have been doing.















This is my living room floor that I memtioned in an earlier post. Its coming along very nicely. In fact it is nearly finished only needs a bit more grouting done.
































We have curtain rails up, hooray! Its starting to look like a house now and not like a bomb site.


We still have snow on the mountain, in fact there is more snow than you see here. The weather has been cold, wet and thundery. Its been horrible, definitely long john weather. Must get our solar panel and the central heating connected!

A work in progress! Understatement or what?

As you know we are renovating a house in mountain village in Crete, well I am packing things in boxes in the house we are renting and look what I came across today. This quilt started off life many, many years ago. There are pieces of my favourite dresses, the kids shirts and rompers, its full of memories.

I think that this needs to be finished after all these years, dare I tell you how many?



Well my eldest son is 38 and my youngest is 34 and I think that I started it after my youngest was born. It was going to be a cot quilt then a single bed size now its about a double beds size. Only thing is our bed is a king size! Watch this space for future developements.

What is this? Snow!!!

Last night the weather was really cold and wet. This morning the sun was shining feebley. Looking up to the village where our house is and the mountain behind was covered in snow. Yes snow! As long as it stays up there we will be ok. Last year we had snow on the 17th Feb, it didn't last long but it caused some chaos on the roads. The Cretans don't know how to drive in snow as they don't get much practice.

Rainbows

Today has been sunny with scattered showers and a bit on the cold side. However I caught this lovely rainbow in the valley. I took this photo from the roof of our house. The rainbow was eyelevel with me.

What have I been doing this week.

On Sunday I went with Jude cariad in crete to two bazaars. I bought some lovely woollen jumpers, not to wear but to unpick and rework the wool. To see a tutorial on how to do this go to laughingpurplegoldfish. It is not difficult. I also bought some cotton shirts which will get cut up for some project or other.




I have been working hard up at the house we are renovating. I have been laying tiles in the living room. Not just straight forward laying tiles but in a pattern. I want to get this finished soon as we hope to be moving in by the 7th March. When this room is finished the whole of the lower floor will be tiled. Will let you all see the finished article very soon.
















My DH has been fitting the pipeworks to the central heating system and doing a bit of concreting.

Modes of Transport

I see these everyday, but today I thought that you might like to see them. The Greeks have these mechanical donkeys, so to speak, they really are very handy.


This one is a rotorvator

This one must be a deluxe model!

A Smashing New Year

Oh dear, whatever is the matter with my hubby and I? At the beginning of the week I broke a wine glass, then he broke one. Yesterday he broke another and yes you have guessed it, I broke one this evening. They always seem to have something in, spilling the contents all over as they shatter.
Looks like I will be on the look out for some new ones. Hope this run of bad luck will soon go away.

My Mug of the Day

Everyone is showing photos of there cups and mugs, well this is mine. I bought this mug as a jokey present for my dad and he kept it in his china cabinet. Sadly my dad passed away in 2000 when he was 79. I got my mug back and have been using it all the time.

I drink only tea with milk no sugar.

Did the earth move for you this morning???

Well, did the earth move for you this morning? Well it sure did for us. At presisely 8.13 am we had an earthquake, which measured 5.3 on the richter scale. The quake was in the Aegean Sea northeast of Crete, and about 211 miles from Athens. Luckily there where no reports of damage or injuries. Its quite scary when your lying in bed asleep and the room starts shaking.

Winter?

Yesterday I told you that it is winter!

Well today I took my camera on Lucky's morning walk

Geramiuns






Holly Hocks making an early appearance
















Lemons just ripening















Bougainvilleas putting on a good show















Hibiscus

You can just make out the red flowers













This village in the distance is where our house that we are renovating is.

Greek Epiphany

The 6th January brings an end to Christmas, so it's time to take down all our decorations and store them safely till next year.

Here in Greece they celebrate with the blessing of the water. The priest blesses a large crucifix and hurls it into the water, then young men dive into the cold water to retrieve it. They throw the cross into the water three times.The first person to retrieve it gets gift and good luck for the rest of the year. Orthodox belief says it's the day that Jesus was baptised. There may be other references to the Three wise men too.

Hope you enjoy this little video that I took of the proceedings. As you can see its a beautiful day, only to be followed by a thunder storm, but what the heck it is winter after all.