STEPPING INTO 2023…

The whole town was sparkling with festive lights, quivering in anticipation of the New Year. Even the sailing boats and creaky fishing boats in the old port were strung up with twinkling lights right up to the top of their masts, shimmering in the dark waters. The Old Market building, the Agora that was supposed to be ready for Christmas, was still under renovation but…HURRAY!!!…the crane standing next to the unfinished building, with its yellow boom reaching for the sky…was draped with fairy lights. The scene was set to oust out the old year.

And there I was, a few days before the New Year, rubbing my palms and waiting for a better year… waiting for the year of the rabbit, for the bunny to hop in with glad tidings and wash away all the old nasties, when… the harbingers of woe rushed in … `You think Covid’s fizzling out? Noooo you unsuspecting pudding-head! It’s now become the hound of Hades, teaming up with the flu and other viruses and has sprouted several heads and is out to get you!!!!’…This is the latest horror story. Yiannis spent most of his holidays talking on the phone with his friends and clients, checking out their symptoms and diagnosing them with…` That’s exactly what Viola had when we got back from Brussels! The GP ran tests on her and it wasn’t Covid, it wasn’t the flu and so what the hell was it????’… YES!!! THE HOUND OF HADES!!! I did mention in the last blogpost that I had a hacking cough for three days and a temperature for four days and on the fifth day I stood up on trembling legs and emerged from the bedroom like Lazarus from the tomb. But now Yiannis has made it more dramatic…` It was more than a week.’…or…` It lasted forever.’ And when people see me out and about they appear shocked, keep a safe distance and bellow out…` ARE YOU SURE YOU’RE OK?’… and I know who they’d been talking to.

Anyway, on the Friday before New Year, he suddenly announced that we had to attend a church wedding at 5 in the evening. He knows how I feel about sitting in a dimly lit church, inhaling candle smoke and incense. But he insisted because the son of one of his workers was getting married and we had to show our faces. But he warned…` We’ll have to wear masks because you don’t know what germs they’ll be carrying!’ When we got there we stood outside the church with groups of people waiting for the bride to arrive. It was getting dark and the groom was shifting his weight from one leg to the other and the trees outside were dripping with moisture and we were beginning to feel the damp and cold seep through our bones. Then we heard some sort of commotion outside. A musician playing the Greek lyre was singing a `mandinatha’…a Cretan love poem recited to music. He was leading the bridal party of… little skipping flower girls in pretty white frocks, handsome young men in smart suits and lovely young ladies, like water nymphs in off shoulder blue satin dresses, oblivious to the cold and the bride, ample and resplendent in a sleeveless wedding dress, plunging at the neck and…totally immune to the cold. Caught up in the festivity, the rest of us followed behind and entered the church and forgot about the masks and inhaled all the smoke and germs.

The next day was Saturday, New Year’s eve and Yiannis wanted to me to watch a video with him. He seemed all fired up and kept saying…`This is really interesting!!!’… So on it went and God forbid!!! It drummed up a breaking news introduction about a digital currency that would suck money out of existence, control our purchasing power, our eating habits and lock us up in our homes…` Another conspiracy theory for goodness sake!!!’… He seemed disappointed at my outburst. He actually thought I would get excited by all the fear mongering. About 2600 years ago the serpent in the biblical garden started a master conspiracy theory and whispered it in Eve’s ear and… WHERE ARE WE NOW???…still there hatching out more theories and horror stories… I remember in primary school one year, when there was this rumour that whipped around and caught us children by the throat..THE END OF THE WORLD WAS AT OUR DOORSTEP! They gave us the exact date and I was terrified because I thought that on this judgement day, the ground would crack open and the demons with the flames of hell licking their bodies, would clutch me with their gnarled bony fingers with nails long and unfurled and drag me down…Why?…Because Sister Pauline said that if you had too many little venial sins, the sinful dots would join and…she left it hanging in the air…and my little child’s mind imagined…they would become one big blob of a mortal sin. Anyway we woke up on the morning of the END OF THE WORLD and the birds were singing and the sky was blue and we went to school and…I was free to commit more venial sins.

So since Yiannis didn’t have an accomplice in me to put our pulpy brains together and embellish his conspiracy tales, he did a volte face and suggested we live in the present and enjoy that sunny Saturday on New Year’s Eve with lunch at our regular fish tavern at the old port. But we had forgotten that Saturdays were street market days when vendors from the surrounding farms would set up stalls and sell their fresh produce of citrusy oranges and lemons and gleaming rosy apples, all piled up high on their wooden benches like pyramids and bunches of spinach and bell peppers and wedges and wheels of cheeses and chestnuts ready to be roasted and eaten piping hot with a swig of tsikoudia [ Greek whisky ] and whatever else that took root under our lovely Cretan skies. So the roads were blocked and the streets were packed and we inched our way around in circles before we found a parking space which was a ten minute walk to the tavern.

As we were walking towards the port, it was lunchtime and the vendors were dismantling their tents and benches and loading their unsold wares in their pickups. The street was littered with oranges and tomatoes that had rolled off and squashed underfoot. A little further down some vendors who had packed up and had finished for the day, were sitting at a souvlaki [kebab] stall. The sun was splashing on their shoulders and ruddy faces but it was cold…`ilios me dhondia’…a sun with teeth…as the Cretans call it…brilliant sunshine with a cold that bites into you. But these vendors, men and women, most of them farmers with leathery weather-beaten skins have no fear of the elements. They were lounging around tables, their exhaustion draining from their limbs after a hard day’s work. But such was the joy on their faces as they tore off the roasted meat, scented with herbs, from the wooden skewers and washed it down with glass after glass of barrel wine, strong and alcoholic and pierced their forks into mounds of fried potatoes and dipped grilled bread into tzajiki [a yoghurt dip]. The air was ringing with good cheer and camaraderie and Yiannis and I couldn’t tear our eyes from such robust enjoyment and neither could we turn our noses from the rich aroma of meat roasting on hot coals and sprinkled with oregano.

We however, sat down to seafood and it was just as wonderful. We scooped out sea urchins spiked with lemon with chunks of grilled bread and then turned our attention to the juicy pink prawns cooked in fresh tomatoes and feta cheese and the cook threw in some green chillies to take us to a new high and finally we had grilled seabream, the white flesh so fresh and wobbly that it fell off the bones and we drenched it with olive oil and lemon and sprinkled it with onions and parsley…and let’s not forget the white wine we gulped between mouthfuls.

So my friends, what is the essence of life really? It is but in the simple pleasures of relishing good food, good wine to slake our throats or whatever else is your preference and good company with lots of heady laughter. All the unpleasant stuff is just background noise.

So cheers and have wonderful year!