Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition

With thanks to Monty Python for the reference (You Tube). So although we knew about 'the Virus' when we left, we still hadn't grasped what it would mean for our stay in Crete.  I had expected this to be a blog about our search for a building plot and subsequent negotiations (with each other, the vendor, the builder etc.). Now I find it is about somethong else entirely.  We had also hoped to expand our social life here - maybe that is happening, but not quite in the way we envisaged.  

I also thought I would start more or less on day one, but it is now approximately day 19.  I think that demonstrates how fast things have changed from day to day, as much inside our heads as outside.  It is a brush with a dark cloak at the supermarket, a vision of a chance meeting with death, for us, our friends and relatives.

Back to the reality I had expected, a sort of show and tell of the story so far:

DAY ONE: recovery from a ghastly day
when we missed our flight, and a second very long day when we caught one, arriving in Marediana on March 4th. But here we are!
 
The Spring was a little late in arriving - some cold North winds:
there is still snow on the 'white mountains' but not so much as when we arrived.  This was taken from an olive grove walk just opposite the house. There's some zoom in there, but we really can see them. I love seeing the flowers and trees changing here almost day to day.  This year the weather has also been changing from day to day, from cold enough to need the heating on, to warm enough to swim. Here's Al at Falasana beach. It looked so good, I swam too.

Our neighbour, Shehina was probably a botnist in another life - or maybe that's coming. She can tell us the exotic from the common.
Below are red anemonies, and I haven't a clue what the white ones are except that they look common and sort of cheerful.  Not a bad thing!

We have managed to do a few things before the curfew came down.  We ate at our favourite restaurant with our neighbours - roughly Translated as the Angel At My Table.  It's in the countryside, Cretan cooking by staff who usually work elsewhere in the season.  Needless to say, the season has looks to completely go missing this year. We've also managed a visit to the huge and wild Elafonsi beach, a lunch at 'Argentina' on Kolimbari market day, a walk up to the chapel on Polyrinia - a Minoan settlement on a hill we can see from our bedroom (below). Now our days will take on a different shape.  More about this next time.

 
I'm not quite sure where this blog will go, but I'd like feedback and I will try to find ways of making it more interactive.  Please subscribe, then you will know when I publish a new one.  Also open to suggestions - what you might want to know.
That's it, making supper now.