Yet again, this week the weather has been warmer in the UK than here. We’ve had low cloud and light showers – good for the garden, but not the soul! Then came strong westerly winds, but only on the ground. Up there at 39,000 feet, these jetstreams criss-crossing the sky were motionless.

Happy Birthday, dear Milo

This week was our neighbours’ pug’s birthday, which we celebrated with a strawberry cocktail, named “Bloody Minded” as he’s a rather stubborn dog! It was yummy, and definitely to be recreated on a warmer evening, as the evening suddenly went chilly.

We followed Bloody Minded with last year’s cocktail, called “Short, Brown and Ugly” – say no more! Kahlua, with Baileys slowly dribbled on top, and then whoomph, down in one. Delicious! (A shot of vodka makes it a mudslide, for you cocktail connoisseurs out there!)

“We can rid the land of filth”

… is the slogan of the (more) Nazi party, Golden Dawn, who now hold 21 seats in parliament. (I say “more” Nazi, as there’s another far right group who want war reparations from Germany for Nazi war crimes – ironic, eh?!) Our village was involved in the war, and suffered as many villages did on Crete. There are still old guys around who fought the Germans, and even one woman who was sent to a concentration camp to punish her parents for not divulging the whereabouts of Allied soldiers. Amazingly, she survived and returned home at the end of war to her parents who thought she was dead. I mention this because – according to a guy who runs a taverna – four people in the village voted Nazi. Unbelievable.

Read the other day that Pasok and ND were only formed after military rule ended here in 1974. They’re younger than me! Each has been led and heavily influenced (controlled?) by one family over these years – a bit like the Republican Bushes and Democrat Clintons in the States, but more so. All very nepotistic and unhealthy. Here’s the Pasok leader, Venizelos. Sorry, but doesn’t he just look like a greasy, slimy, crook?

Well, the polls didn’t lie! Support for the main parties of Pasok (Labour) and New Democracy (the Conservatives) had plummeted, with voters choosing to go further left and, sadly, further right too. (There’s a legal attempt to get the Nazi party banned, now they have seats in parliament. Bit late now.) The historic results were not just a rejection of the austerity measures necessary (?) to keep us in the euro, but a wholesale rejection of the political system that got us here. More on some of the 30 or so parties that stood here. Think we’re heading for another election, but what happens after that, who knows?

Here’s the little girl in her favourite place – at the top of the steps up to the roof. It’s sheltered from the wind, gets the sun all day, and she can keep an eye on what’s happening in the village. Currently, they seem to be doing big work on one of our churches. Must go and have a nosey…

After five years, our bird of paradise plant has finally flowered. No idea why, as we haven’t been any nicer or nastier to it recently. Linda’s put a lot of work into all the pots on the roof, and we’re growing tons of different veg as well as strawberries. More piccies to follow!

An excellent Gardening Club meeting this month. One topic was “medicinal herbs” with many herbs being able to tackle flatulence. Needless to say, toilet humour ruled supreme! They had a lovely house, generating all their own electricity with a wind turbine and photo- voltaic panels, and a lovely garden too, including a pond with mosquito-eating fish. Should have asked what this funky flower was – stunning, eh?

The traveller returned, welcomed by a hysterically happy Jessie, weaving in and out of other passengers, running in large circles round the airport car park. (Would have taken a video, but our airports are military, so no photography permitted.) How did we manage before suitcases on wheels? The shopping and packing queen rolled out of the terminal with a 20kg suitcase and 12kg of hand luggage – we love ya’, easyjet! We can get most things here, but many products are (often bizarrely) hugely expensive. Saving us about £100 in this category were: a countersink, 4 x tubes toothpaste, 3 x floss, 6 x t-shirts, 3kg porridge, mountains of paracetamol and antihistamine, big bottle sunscreen, material for a sofa cover (3kg), and the luxuries of HP sauce, Branston Pickle, and a Guardian. Things we can’t get here included: 4 packs smoked mackerel, wooden clothes pegs, little hooks & eyes, bottle of Turkish (ah, that explains its absence!) pomegranate sauce, horseradish sauce, sausages for nice neighbours, Vietnamese moonshine from Casper, and a wonderful Argos catalogue (1.5kg.) Feels good to offset the cost of the trip with shopping – next trip’s list is already on the fridge! (Here’s Jessie in wonky-eared bliss from Casper’s tummy love.)

Just realised – wine here is cheaper than petrol! These not-so-little beauties are from Lidl. Perfectly nice, not too acid, red, white and rose Italian wines costing about 2 euros for a 1.5 litre carton. (Cartons used to be less than 1.50 euros, about 60p a 70cl bottle, sigh…) Petrol is now slightly under 2 euros for just a litre. Crete has some of the most expensive petrol on Greece, even dearer than tiny, remote, sparsely inhabited islands. We should have cheap fuel here, as there’s a petrol refinery in Heraklion down the road, the only other one being on the mainland. Literally, it's criminal. Still, half an hour down the road the other way, the garages are (even more) in cahoots, and fuel there is 5 cents higher still. The moral clearly is to stay home ‘n drink…