Highland Trip into the Past

Imagine leaving your family and remote Highland/island home at the age of twelve, or in some cases fifteen, to go and live in a hostel for the duration of each school term. That was what many of us had to endure in order to complete our high school education. Being uprooted from the quiet and the familiar, having to adapt to living together with over forty strange girls (and they didn’t get stranger than the hostel girls!) was for many a daunting prospect.

Looking back on our living conditions I realize that today’s youth would find such a scenario barely credible:
• Locked in every week night at around 5.30
• Two hours’ supervised study after tea
• Dormitory lights out at 10.30
• Compulsory church attendance every Sunday morning
• Moving one place daily round the vast refectory table so that each hostelite had the pleasure and privilege of sitting next to Matron, or Fousty, as she was endearingly called. (Woe betide you if such placement fell on a Sunday for you were interrogated as to which church you had attended, who of her acquaintances was in the congregation- and what hat she’d been sporting. The data thus obtained were, of course, double-checked. I guess, if triangulated, then that would make it…..a hat-trick!)

This all seems as of another existence, distant, to the point of perhaps seeming a figment of one’s imagination. But live there I did for three years. Last November I was intrigued to learn that two ex-Craigard Hostel ‘girls’ – and I quote the delightful Highland parlance – ‘had the notion’ to plan a get-together in Oban. Definitely not to be missed.

And so on the morning of Saturday 21st April I found myself waving goodbye to cousin, Fred, and Derek in Glasgow, and setting off in my Citylink-Tardis ready to draw back the mists of time and face the elements (Fousty would have said much precipitation was expected!). However, Loch Lomond was green and splendid in bright sunshine, Loch Fyne with spectacular reflections on its water as we sailed over the bridge and admired Inverary castle – flagstaff empty, so no family in residence, then. Loch Awe’s rugged terrain was offset by a more suffused sunlight as cloud cover accumulated. It was then I realised why H, though thoroughly enjoying our last September’s trip to Inverness, had not been so enthused by Loch Ness itself – there is little to compare with the Beauties of Argyll.

And here they are – courtesy of the Oban Times whose reporter honoured our get-together by reporting it and time-encapsulating our happy band who had travelled from London, Inverness, Islay, Fife, Spain…and Greece for our reunion.
Before meeting up I confess I had reservations – would there be a reversion to the retiring, teenage lass who had had to battle against her nature and background to become the more outgoing person she longed to be? Then the next, very natural question: would we remember each other? Hilda had anticipated that last query and had us all sporting ‘I survived Craigard’ name tags – an inspiration and a great help! I learned, too, that I was not alone in experiencing qualms as to what to expect. One or two had such bad memories of the hostel they declined to join us at the ‘crime-scene’, now made into residential flats. It remains the beautiful building it was, commanding a magnificent view of the bay and beyond. Some of us even did the walk to Oban High School – now no longer the impressive classical building, a stout metaphor for the inspiring grandeur of the old-school education offered there. The carbuncle that stands on its site deserves neither comment nor picture.
Meeting up initially at the well-named Tryst Lounge, we had dinner and returned to our private function room to party the night away. There was lots of reminiscing, renewing ties, catching up. I even presented a poem I penned for the occasion ….which shows how silly our ensemble got. But before we drifted off, the final event of that special evening was a spontaneous one – where several former members of the school choir began to sing traditional songs in Gaelic – totally beautiful, moving, eye-moistening. One of my regrets is that my grandmother’s native tongue did not pass down to our generation- but the sound of it still makes me feel at home! So here’s the poem and do, please, excuse what masquerades as Gaelic!


Craigard Ode
Eleanor asked for pictures and memories from the past
So here’s my contribution: ‘The Profile of a Craigard Lass’.
She lived far from home and family in conditions of extreme cohabitation
With 40-odd Highland/Islanders – the cost of higher education!


She bore a bag of heavy tomes so her biceps were not slight
From cross-country and Highland dancing she had calf-muscles of might….
….And from walking up Craigard Brae every single night!


Once a week on bath-night we’d troop off with our towels
Sometimes to break the monotony we’d arrange mass outbreaks
Of feigned looseness of the bowels!


Margaret MacLeod and Sandra Fjortoft, our own home-grown sopranos,
To the loos would go without fail
The acoustics there being just right to practise their portabhail
They’d gargle with Islay whisky to keep their vocal tones true
And sometimes the Laphroaig had a delicate blend of shampoo.


Just after five the bolts were drawn- a trial for anybody
No access either in or out then two hours’ supervised study
But the Craigard Lass sought opportunities to develop her proclivities
So she threw herself wholeheartedly into lots of extracurricular activities
Far beyond the Craigard locked door lay both excitement and dangers
Like shinty matches, operatic societies and the doughty Oban Sea Rangers
I remembering us feathering our oars and getting soaked to the skin
And the night Ethel McLachlan misconstrued the order to fall in!


On the way to school I learned Gaelic from Mary Macdonald of Coll
Now that all I recall is Hai fluch agus Hai dhialie fur is not her fault at all
Nor is it the case that my memory is in remission
The truth of the matter lies in the dreich meteorological conditions.


Those were the grand old days of yore and the memories they continue to send
When Katie rocked us with her buns and the extra pie was up Miss McLean’s end
So charge your glasses to the Craigard Gals from every Highland croft and howie
Let’s not wait another forty-five years and next time – why not invite the boys of Kilbowie?


To record our reunion in Oban, Saturday 21st April.

 

Next morning, still on Greek time, I was up and about before most had begun to stir. The waiter at dinner had had Sheena, Maime, Irene (thanks for the great company, girls!) and me in stitches with his antics. At breakfast he seemed to read I’m not a morning person and restricted communication to a sniff and a slightly disparaging, ‘No stilettos today, I see’. I smiled wanly, biting back my, ‘You wish!’ retort. Later I went to take a shot of ‘old muckers’, Margaret and Graham at breakfast – as you do! -and thanks, guys, for blog-following! And then it was that our waiter came into his own: behind their table assuming this amazing part-Nureyev- leap / part-Streisand-finale pose, a spontaneous response of his to a photo-op. And….I missed it. By the time my shutter had clicked, he’d flash-flitted off to another table. Shame!




 
So thank you, Eleanor and Jean for being the ace-organisers and making that entire event actually happen. Marion and Margaret, too, with their invaluable net-working skills, helped bring us all together.

Thank you, Alfie and Alec for joining us briefly and renewing some …. old school ties !!! And to Miss McGregor who fed us inmates in the past and whose joining us that evening came as a lovely surprise.



A few days were left in Glasgow: chilling out, catching up, going out with Fred to see her horses and enjoy the company of Lewis, her grandson – doesn’t he look cute?

Looking back on our reunion I can’t remember talking and laughing so much in a long time. I think three things stand out for me:

• that the sands of time may have eroded our skin textures, puffed out our profiles and slightly impaired our visual perception but the light in the eye of a smile and the laughter in good company cannot be dimmed

• that the mind is a highly selective mechanism: each one holds her own individual memory traces of shared experience; Hilda’s booklet, my poem, our delving together into our recollections of time spent together all constituted a means to creating a marvellous, mental mosaic - one we all hold dear

• that in the face of homesickness and what were sometimes alien, adverse conditions that band of 30+ individuals who reunited had forged strong bonds of friendship that still endure.
In fact, we’ve already been talking about our next reunion.

And with that thought, I leave you with Craigard …….… and a smile!

                                                                              : )))

Post-Easter celebrations and pre-Highland reunion

Here we are : lamb-sated and just a little chubbier than we were ten or so days ago.
But we were so lucky : mid a spate of stormy, blustery weather Easter Sunday was a little overcast to begin with then opened up into a glorious sunny day. The brave and optimistic assembled spit, tied the carcass, set up the ouzo-meze stand and got down to the serious work of roasting that thing and welcoming family, friends and neighbours to the table. So, after all the metaphoric dark clouds, Greeks got the Easter they deserved.

As did Akis Tsochatzopoulos, the previous Minister of Defence, who has been taken into custody pending trial for salting away millions from the state purse and backhanders from elsewhere. In pure Orwellian speak he really was the Minister of Protection.... of his own interests.May he really get exactly what he deserves.

Today we lay to rest Dimitris Mitropanos, a wonderful singer whose works will long be remembered. Kalo tou taxidi! Sadly it is exactly a year ago when we attended the funeral of Nikos Papazoglou, another singer with his own unique style, one held particularly dear in the hearts of all from Thessaloniki, his home town.

On the home-front we have news : we have acquired a new family member. may I introduce Leon(daris).

His name expresses his singular similarity with another species, though at one point it was touch and go between 'Ela" - the Greek 'come here' command- and 'Little Bugger' as his puppy teeth are razor sharp and in his enthusiasm he has caused untold damage to clothes and skin! Initially his ears cutely folded above his forehead like a big brown bow ; now he greets us in the morning with at least one ear vertical, albeit briefly. We live in hope that his natural exuberance will settle into a less dangerous expression of affection.

The weather has not settled but the atmosphere is trying to warm up whenever the cold winds abate. We have seen a stork arrive recently - they don't usually nest around here as we don't have a constant supply of water in the local stream but it would be glorious if s/he decided to stay. The first flock of swallows have arrived and fed well off our fields before heading further north. Our local swallows and martins will migrate a little later. we look forward to their arrival as they are such a joyful presence, swooping for insects and playing in the air currents, they even dive for water while I am in the pool!

And on that note this little bird is about to fly off to the Highlands. A real flying trip to attend an Oban High School Reunion- we haven't met up for many, many, many, many and a half moons so you can just imagine the excitement I feel on meeting up with pals of yore. Highlands , here I come......!

Carnival, Easter and a Canine Acquaintance

Today’s posting marks 29th February, our Leap Year Day- and it’s about time we had a new posting as my previous one still sports a Christmas tree! We have just celebrated Kathara Devtera - Clean Monday - the Orthodox equivalent of Shrove Tuesday, or Mardi Gras, marking the beginning of the Sarakosti - Orthodox Lent. This is the period of fasting , commemorating Christ’s fast in the wilderness, a period which extends beyond the proscribed 40 days, running, as it does, into the Holy Week, immediately prior to Orthodox Easter.

How do we account for the different Easters: the ‘Western’ and the Orthodox? Essentially we follow the mode of calculating the Passover according to the Jewish calendar, traditionally celebrated on the first full moon following the vernal equinox. Thus Easter Sunday was the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox. So far, so clear, but the Easter date differentiation depends mainly on astronomical issues rather than spiritual ones. Calculation had traditionally been done according to the Julian calendar, established in 46 BC, which added a leap day every four years to reconcile the calendar year with the astronomical one, which is actually 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds! Though this introduction improved things, it meant that every 128 days we would be a day out in calendar terms. The Gregorian calendar was introduced in the 16th century to reduce this variance by amending the Julian leap year rule so that years whose number could be divided by 100 but not by 400 were not afforded leap days. This reduction in the number of leap years brought calendars closer to the astronomical reality – it now takes 3,600 years to be a day behind!

Without going into the Meletian calendar and further complications of concepts such as the ecclesiastical full moon and the paschal full moon; the astronomical equinox and the fixed equinox; in practical terms we can say that the Julian calendar is currently 13 days behind the Gregorian one, a fact that has little relevance for the daily lives of most of us. However, there are still those who follow the Julian calendar for church festivities and so, for example, some residents of our local village, Vasilika, who are ‘of the old calendar’, celebrate Christmas on January 7th. Orthodox Easter calculations follow the Julian calendar, plotting the equinox on April 3rd, 13 days after the established 21st March. This year, with the first post-equinox full moon being on Friday April 6th, we should really be sharing Easter on the same week-end. Ah, but we must also consider the Council of Nicaea in 325 whose ruling has been interpreted as stating that Orthodox Easter cannot fall on the same day as the Jewish Passover …. and so it falls one week later. Just for the record, Western and Orthodox Easters have recently coincided in 2001, 2004, 2007, 2010 and 2011. They will be shared in 2014 and in 2017, but plan your Easter holidays carefully : their next coincidence will not be until 2034!
So there we are – Clean Monday, marking the end of Carnival, which has an interesting etymology: Carne : meat, flesh , as in Chilli con Carne where the dish is so spicy that the seasoning takes precedence over the meat; carnivore : a meat-eater.
Now we can have two interpretations for the Vale : according to Chambers Dictionary it could be from the Latin ‘levare’ to put away; my preference is from the Latin leave-taking ‘Vale’ , so we say farewell to meat – Carnevale!


This year the huge, annual carnival in Moschato, Athens was not celebrated because of the economic crisis. Vera, we miss your compatriots who used to whizz over from Rio to lead the procession of decorated floats and costumed revellers. How, fresh from the Brazilian summer, they endured our cold climes in their scanty costumes, I’ll never know. But I imagine their constant, rapid, rhythmic steps, rather than being an expression of celebration and excitement, were more of a circulatory necessity! Here we had biting winds and snow on the ground and we didn’t venture out to see local celebrations. Dressed very demurely (!!) and with muted revelry, we ate indoors.

Our main focus is on food; fasting food rather than fast food : lettuce, broccoli, spring onions and olives – all our own produce ! – along with squid, mushrooms a la Jamie Oliver, beans – home-baked, not tinned ones, all sorts of pickles,roasted aubergine,taramasalata and laghana, the traditional unleavened bread. So in the bread and in Pascha, the Greek name for Easter, we see Passover parallels, Pesach being the Hebrew word for Passover.

Just over two months ago H and I saw an apparition! From the road-side rose this spectre, whose shocking image truly haunted me for days. It was a being – barely recognizable as a dog and of indeterminate sex - covered as it was by a very dirty, long coat, covered in dried mud, dust and faeces. It was a ‘bag-dog’, doomed to constantly carry around all its ‘possessions’, like it or not. It had risen up from the dried grasses a few days before Christmas, and so its grey, ghostly appearance immediately made me dub it Marley, the ghost in Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’. Apparently this character was based on a real person, a Jacob Marley, born in 1785, who was to become an insensitive, immoral banker …..Can that be……? His ghost was weighed down by great lengths of chain, each link of which represented an unrepented sin. Our creature was weighed down by matted mop of such length and hemp-like texture that I decided that his nomenclature was doubly fitting, similar as his dreadlocks were to those of the Rastafarian songsmith, Bob Marley. Marley taught me the full semantic force of the term ‘hang-dog’. As we regularly made food-delivery stops at his ‘spot’, he gradually learned to gingerly approach us, but always with an awkward gait and a cowed, dejected expression that could eat at your heart.

Marley was ‘adopted’ by workers at a nearby warehouse who made sure he had water, shared some of their food with him and locked him in the yard at nights and at week-ends, thus protecting him from nearby speeding traffic, the sound of which still makes him jump in fright.
But one day in January, H could bear his predicament no longer and resolved that Marley’s coat was for the chop. That was when a minor miracle happened: not only did he accept H’s coming close and wielding scissors, but the dog welcomed his clipper, tugging at his tangle with his teeth as if to assist in the process! He also licked H’s hand to express appreciation. To see the mound of clippings was unbelievable ....as was the change in his demeanour: after being cropped he stood more erect and with a definite degree of dignity!

Marley wags his tail as he spies our now-familiar car and readily comes to us, extending a paw, requesting attention. He will leave food untasted while we are there for his preference is that we pet and pat him. What he doesn’t know is that once the weather warms up, H is planning a new experience for him- a good wash! We haven’t worked out exactly how that will happen but I really look forward to clapping a fragrant, immaculate Marley.


May we all enjoy this, our ‘extra’, day and may the month of March hold all manner of good things for us : Kalo mas mena!

Greece : tragic times

We had a great time over the Christmas season entertaining and being entertained by family and friends, even enjoying a delightfully unexpected reunion – Melina and Manoli, that was such fun!! But at Hogmanay as the bells pealed, fireworks crackled, ships sirens went off, and the first-footer having smashed the dried pomegranate outside to bring the household good luck, we all clinked glasses and wondered what this New Year would bring for us in Greece.
Here’s a further picture of what life in Greece is like and what we have to look forward to, given the application of the austerity measures. This is all happening on a background of increasing taxes, food prices, fuel costs, electricity bills and unemployment figures while public sector salaries are being constantly cut, and public sector employers follow suit. Politicians themselves say the following payments are not fair measures, but if they do not suffice then even more drastic steps will have to be taken.

Additional Payment 1
In December 2011 the first of two instalments was added to our electricity bill. This additional property tax is known as the ‘Haratsi’- which my dictionary defines as : poll tax, fine, heavy tax, extortion. I believe the term originally referred to a per capita household tax levied on the Greeks under the Turkish dictatorship - certainly, an equally unpopular levy.
The amount one has to pay under the present regime depends on the size of the property you own and on the area it is in. In January/February property owners will pay the second instalment – our total came to 646 euros. Refusal to pay this results in your power supply being cut off even though you may have paid for these utility services.

Additional Payment 2
This sum is levied through the Income Tax Department and is income related. Depending on their total income - be it from salary, pension, rental income, whatever - declared in the tax declaration for 2010, by the end of 2011 most people have had to pay a lump sum allegedly to support the unemployed. I say ‘most people’ for some, like us, have still not had their 2010 tax declarations processed.

Additional Payment 3
This third measure most decidedly falls within the extortion semantic range and is what I call the ‘dishonesty tax’. This was essentially designed to compensate for private sector owners’/employers’ tax evasion – a firmly rooted practice where, for example, private medical practitioners would regularly declare ridiculously low annual incomes for taxation purposes but were never challenged or inspected.

People like H and myself, former public sector and private sector employees, respectively, have our salaries declared by our public organization/ employers and so are verifiable, yet we are still considered eligible for the dishonesty tax which is where the gross unfairness comes into play.
Essentially what happens is that the Ministry of Finance looks at your property, car, land, pool, etc. - and says ‘Ah – to have all these you would have to have an annual income of x,ooo euros - so we are going to tax you on that amount’ – regardless of what you have actually earned, regardless of how long it may have taken you to accumulate these assets. Nor do we know yet what rate of taxation will be set on this ‘state-inflated income’. We do know it will have to be paid some time in 2012 after the 2011 tax declaration has been processed. In essence, making out your declaration is a rather pointless exercise since they are going to ignore what you have stated as your actual income, anyway.

Now here’s the real anomaly as far as we are concerned: we have never been big spenders, we are not plate-smashing, table-overturning, bouzouki night-club frequenters, we don’t go on expensive trips, don’t do designer. Our money we have spent on home-improvement, on two nice cars and on our pool and garden – our own home-grown holiday resort! H has estimated that the state-inflated income to be imposed on us will amount to a sum that our combined salaries have never ever approached. And we are expected to cough up tax on that sum now when I am drawing a pension, so on a greatly reduced income, while H who applied for his pension last September will have to wait for at least a year before receiving any payment whatsoever. At least they haven’t – as yet - imposed a tax on shirts and shoes, for that would really have us cleaned out!!

In the past couple of years one could see the face of the city change radically as even large businesses folded and commercial properties were vacated permanently. The enormity of the situation is becoming more evident. Just this week it was announced that those who are unemployed and pensioners now outnumber those in employment in Greece. Further figures showed a pronounced increase in the number of suicide attempts over the last three years. People in our circle of acquaintances are losing their jobs: middle-aged people with little hope of finding other employment, young people with mortgages to pay and families to support. We hear of people moving abroad in search of work, replicating patterns of emigration of around 50 years ago to the USA, Australia and Germany.

Trade unionists and politicians, who have promoted and maintained the mismanagement, ineptitude and corruption rife in the system over the last 30 years, continue to make grandiose pronouncements in pseudo-Communist jargon and political cant, reminiscent of Orwell’s Newspeak from ‘1984’. In such critical times the fact that they insist on calling strikes and planning elections clearly demonstrates that their chief interest is in retaining positions and power rather than exercising the responsibilities they have to those who elected them and getting the country out of the mire.
Joseph de Maistre is generally credited with having written, in 1851 in his ‘Lettres et Opuscules Inedits’, that every country has the government it deserves. What this people have done to deserve such governance beats me!
The Greek ‘ti na kanoume?’response is generally a spontaneous, non-considered response. It is one, nevertheless, that left me without an adequate answer…..‘What can we do?’ Two recent events got me thinking and helped me arrive at what is perhaps part-answer, part modus-operandi.

I watched the You-tube recording of Peter Economides’ ’Rebranding Greece’ presentation at the Hellenic Management Association’s 11th Aristoteli Conference in Thessaloniki in November 2011. His talk is not all doom and gloom but has an upbeat tone, stressing that it is not Greece that requires rebranding, but Greeks themselves. We need all the positive vibes there are!
Then came the Bus Incident. A bus driver, furious at another driver having cut in on him, stopped the bus, blocking the roadway, and gave vent to a barrage of foul invective aimed at the second driver, but with us, all the passengers, an unwilling, uncomfortable audience. An elderly gentleman sitting right in front of me spoke up and chastised him for subjecting us to such expletives and for not behaving in a professional manner. Our driver took this in less than good grace (!) but my fellow-passenger continued firmly and politely asserting his position. It takes courage to speak up and afterwards I regretted I hadn’t supported him in his bid to improve our immediate environment, if you like, against an arrogant, offensive uniform-wearer.

On my first-of-the-year meeting with my students preparing for the SAT exams, we talked of what they thought 2012 held and how they felt about it. There was a wide range of very articulate responses and informed opinions Together we decided to devise a New Year Resolution, a 'ti tha kanoume'campaign: that we make a point of behaving towards others with dignity, respect and kindness and of expecting the same from others. And if that means simply speaking up for old gentlemen on the bus, then so be it. In so doing, we are trying to manage and improve our own world, acting on sets of values we hold important, setting an example for others. Albeit a tiny step, it may just go towards changing perceptions in rebranding ourselves and those around us; in sowing seeds to show that there really is something we can do.
We have lost the way ethically and Greece is not alone in this: corruption and injustice are commodities no one holds the monopoly on. So I am sending you all a pomegranate image to wish you a Happy New Year with health, happiness and the moral courage to change what we can.

Olive-picking in the Cotton Fields!

I had to squeeze in a quick blog posting to mark my first one just about a year ago.
The winter solstice has just passed so the longer days are on their way – yay! With Christmas coming up, and after the year 2011 has been for most of us, everyone is ready to relax and take time out for enjoyment. We are heading off to a ‘boutique hotel’ in Halkidiki. It’s by the beach, but since our local mountain, Hortiatis, is now snow-capped, it will be heavy clothes and not beach-wear that we’ll be packing.

In my last post I ended with a pic of cats-in-olive-tree so how about this for a lovely piece of textual cohesion? My focus today is on olives as our recent activities have also focused on them.
Years ago I remember seeing a cartoon : a despondent hulk sitting in a corner being asked “Why do you look so glum, Genghis?” Response: “How many men do you need to make a horde?” So my parallel question is “How many olive trees do you need to make a grove?” We have 24 trees on our land and this year the ‘babies’ came on tap for the first time. Initially they caused us concern as the olives they had borne were strangely puckered – perhaps some disease? But the particularly wet phase we had late summer plumped them out and our young trees bore a fine first harvest.

Our first collection was of ‘eating’ olives – those to be preserved for eating with salads and savoury dishes. Firm fruit are separated into green and black batches, split with a knife, then put in containers of fresh water. These are kept there for a week, the water being changed daily. By this time they have lost much of their very bitter taste and are now put in brine for around five weeks. These pickled olives go to the final phase of marinating: after being drained, they are put into smaller glass containers with oil, garlic slices, lemon wedges and sprigs of fresh dill. They are ready to eat after about two weeks in the oil mixture and will keep good … for as long as they last! There are, of course, lots of variations depending on olive-types and texture-preferences – these instructions are not set…on olive stones! So next time you sit down to enjoy a ‘choriatiki salata’ – a village salad, spare a thought for the process that went into preparing your olives, starting from: first plant your tree!

Actually I came across a recipe for olive bread which used mortadella, not my favourite ingredient as I find it has too much fat, so I made some adaptations and here is the outcome:
Ingredients :
150 gr self-raising flour
100 gr mixed cheese – I used gouda and parmesan
160 gr pitted and chopped olives
3 eggs lightly beaten
80 gr melted butter
Chopped fresh mint to taste, season with pepper
Method :
• Preheat oven to 200oC
• Lightly grease a regular loaf tin(8cmx26cm ) and line with baking parchment
• Sift flour into bowl and add cheese, olives, mint and pepper
• Stir in eggs and butter and combine well
• Spread mixture into the loaf tin and bake, without covering, for about 30 minutes, until lightly browned and cooked through.
• Remove carefully and cool on a wire rack
This is particularly good served with salads and meze as a light lunch. More on olives to come…….

Given the time of year, however, light lunches are probably not on the cards!
We’re packing a very small suitcase this time, travelling light and light-hearted.
Have a wonderful Christmas shared with friends and family, enjoying gastronomic goodiesand traditional treats.

Daily Life in Greece - November 2011

Firstly I’d like to thank all those who hospitalised us, as one of my students once said, over our holidays - and Highland hospitality being what it is, that’s not too far out! That is, thanks to Marina and John, Anne, Susan and Ian, Diana and Ian – and, of course, Freda and Derek and Jacqui and Ali for the grand wedding reception-spreads you offered. You helped us lay down wonderful memories to look back on now the going has got tough here. 

 Susan wrote recently from Mull, saying it was hard to get a true picture of what was happening here – you and me, babe! We seem to hear nothing but rumours, then responses to rumours, leaving us in that category psychologists fondly term ‘the perpetual know-nothings’ – often by choice as the ‘news’ that is served up is not informative, just frustrating  and distressing. 

 What is life like here? -  time to give you a picture of our daily life under the current politico-economic  conditions, for I suspect that some blog readers plug in with an expectation of reading something of that. 

Recently we were invited for a family lunch: the hostess who has had her monthly income cut by about 500 euros, (this includes permanent cuts now in place,  as well as retrospective deductions over the next few months) is helping support the family – her husband has been waiting for his pension to come on line since last December, which is par for the course. She supports her son, whose wife is unemployed, and whose salary is not enough for them to live on, while her self-employed daughter often works till 10pm just to catch the odd customer.  Daughter is fortunate because both she and her husband are fairly securely employed but they need mum’s help to look after their young son in the afternoons.  Our hostess is generous and an excellent cook; we all enjoy family-get-togethers with news-updates and, of course, the droll antics of her young grandchild. But this time the atmosphere was heavy. These are young people who are fortunate in having their own homes and a strong family support system; they should be full of fun, enjoying youth and life to the full - instead what is palpably present is their fatigue and, the worst, a sense of hopelessness. That’s the heritage that has been left for them. 

 We are invited to supper by friends – we are very fortunate in our friends and family! – the lady of the house has made pitta - pie -  and is famous for her excellent ‘politikh kouzina’ traditional fare from Constantinople, the polis or city.  They are both retired teachers and their pensions and superannuation allowances between them have been cut by about 600 euros per month. We talk of oil prices and the cost of wood, as we both have central-heating systems and open fires. Fortunately up to now our autumn has been mild and mellow so we can save on that outlay.

 On the bus into town an unknown fellow-passenger suddenly begins to offload, uninvited, her perception of current events - mainly that a prominent politician is an American agent. When hard data and real information is lacking or things are non-comprehendible, often imagination takes over; where critical analysis is lacking…. Conspiracy Theory readily steps in to fill the gap. Certainly, everyone seems  focused on the crisis and in a permanent state of not-knowing.

 Our SAT classes happened to fall on Guy Fawkes Day last week and so during the lesson we took a little cultural detour. Some of the students had already heard of Mr Fawkes  and thought intriguing the idea of wanting to blow up the Houses of Parliament, as he along with 12 others conspired to do in 1605 to replace the reigning monarch, James 1^st, , by  a Catholic  one. Now far be it from me to condone or encourage such treasonous acts but doesn’t it seem natural that children look forward to Guy Fawkes Night with its great bonfires and firework displays. So, strange to say, we view November 5^th as an enjoyable event. We may be called upon to

”Remember, remember the 5^th of November – gunpowder, treason and plot’

 but even if you did plot against your king and parliament and lost your life because of it, to be commemorated centuries down the line by happy children is the kind of celebrity many crave and strive for today! 

 I have since done my ‘homework’ and learned that on November 5^th, by very Act of Parliament, the populace were encouraged to celebrate the safety of King James by lighting bonfires, so that’s all right, then. But I do love the description of Guy Fawkes, quoted in J A Sharpe’s “Remember Remember, A Cultural History of Guy Fawkes Day’ as being

‘…the only man ever to enter Parliament with honest intentions…’. 

  For some reason, perhaps our recent visit to Glasgow, I keep thinking on the bell, the book and the ring, the symbols of Saint Mungo or Kentigern, the city’s patron saint. Now, reading up on this seems to indicate it was, in fact, the bell, the fish and the ring that were the symbols- I wonder where my ‘book’ came from?

  In a nutshell: here, the warning BELL is certainly ringing. We have been lurching from one crisis to another, waiting for the decision from Brussels, that came, then the mooted plebiscite, which was then decided against - or was that plebicide? as this is really killing us!! At any rate, the EU decided they would BAIL us out, which fairly and squarely puts the BALL in our court. We know that it is us, the plebs, who are footing the BILL, so let’s just get on with it and have some action instead of gassing. We are weary of hearing what measures will be taken, without any change in the system being effected, the deductions from our salaries and pensions going ….we know not where. Now we have had a vote of confidence passed, but a defecting Prime Minister, and now the formulation of some kind of Coalition. We’ve been waiting for what seems like ages for the outcome, but black smoke is still being emitted on that, indicating no final decisions have been made yet.(The papal election metaphor seems apposite as Mr Berlusconi is now taking some of the heat!)  So all we can do is wait for the next ……news BULLetin!  

In the meantime, we carry on with our own routine. H has been pruning non-fruit-bearing olive branches with a little help. They say that cats adopt you and this is certainly true of our neighbours’ cats who see our two adjacent plots as their entire domain. They accompany us both at work and at rest. I realize we have had no pictures so far so here you are :  one  entitled ‘at work’; the other ‘retirement’! 

 

                                                                    C’est la vie!

Holiday then home-coming

Contrary to all evidence, we are still not on holiday!!
We touched down in Durham briefly, just enough time to catch up with family and to meet Moya from Santa Barbara for a quick Swan and Cygnet lunch.

Then… ahhhhh…off to Scotland -  first stop: Glasgow. We were staying at a hotel right in the centre, young, buzzy and a triumph of design over space. I was delighted to see they stock Island Bakery biscuits made on Mull – scrumptious! Met up with Fred and Derek and had that visit to the Burrell Collection I’ve been promising myself for years. Incredible that one person was able to amass such a vast, global collection in his lifetime. The setting in the Pollock Country Park is spectacular, made even more so by the friendly resident Highland coos!

We had a grand time in Glasgow – awash with kilts for the Scottish/Czech Republic International that day. At the wedding we were piped down from the church to the hotel reception- absolutely grand stuff! Turned a little Kintyre-sick and emotionally incontinent as the piper skirled away with ‘Campbeltown Loch’. Another form of incontinence struck us down while we were in Inverness as a virus wreaked havoc with our innards. We thought it was down to a bad kurma on our last night there – but it turned out it was our karma that was bad, instead! Anne drove us all the way round the renowned Loch Ness (Nessie, the local monster, was too modest to make an appearance) but we spent time fascinated, watching the locks operate on the Caledonian Canal, as boats moved on through to Loch Oich, Loch Lochy and Loch Linnhe to the west coast.

By the time we reached Oban the weather was dire; blustery storms had the ferries on amber alert. Still we made a bid for a crossing to Mull. Full marks for Highland humour to Donald, Callie MacBrayne employee, who batted nary an eyelid as rainwater from my hat cascaded onto his desk and who welcomed me with : ‘If I were a gentleman I’d get you a towel ………… but I’m not!’ Drenched as I was to the very bone and with a cold, unsettled tummy, but now with tickets for our crossing, a smile crossed my lips – well done, Donald! Susan and Ian served hot tea on arrival at Loch Don – a real welcome! The weather improved, Fiona and Ronnie arrived, and we all made for the Sea Food Festival where we enjoyed mussels, salmon and oysters, all served up with smiles from our Inner Hebridean volunteer hosts.

 

                                                         

 Then it was time to head south to prepare for Jen and Mark’s wedding in Harrogate. The wedding itself was a cosy registry office affair. Unexpectedly, I was called to present a reading which I just about carried off, what with croaky voice and a lump in my throat on realizing the text was Robert Burn’s “My luve is like a red, red rose”! The reception was a great get-together, even though the viral effects did not allow us to fully do justice to the buffet with lots of starters, (my mind’s eye still dwells longingly on the mounds of pork pies and tablet) before the lavish grill and salad spread. All the couple’s friends had played a significant part in the event : from organising children’s gift bags, putting up bunting, setting tables, the lot. My brother, resplendent in tartan waistcoat, executed a fine father-of-the-bride speech, formalities over it was time to party. Three of the Arctic Monkeys were among the guests – the bride introduced me to them as a ‘wayward aunt’! - and they did us proud by ‘ jammin’ ’ later on. Everyone up bopping : John Legbelos – eat your heart out!!

The next day we visited Diana and Ian on their Yorkshire farm, then, having admired their fine farmstead, her great art work and impressive veggie patch, we made a quick departure as storms were apparently blowing in to the west from Stateside.

It wasn’t quite time to get back to old clothes and porridge yet: some nice dinners to go, a visit to Durham to relish her green finery , then time to fill Apollo for our departure.





During our entire, happy holiday we had been blissfully cut off from media reports on the ‘The Greek Situation’, so we knew not what lay ahead. All I know was that when we landed at Macedonia airport, and I felt that balmy late-summer-evening air embrace my skin, I had a wonderful sense of home-coming, exactly as I had had when I first set foot on Greek soil many, many moons ago.