Paleochora A Day in the Life

“The wind is in from Africa,

 Last night I couldn’t sleep”.

One day in Paleochora is never quite the same as another. But there is one parameter which governs how we live more than any other – that’s wind! OK, Joni Mitchell wrote songs about it saying how she couldn’t sleep, poor thing, but it can even stop us cooling off in a sea that it too rough to enter, mainly because of newly exposed rocks and surf hiding them. It can sandblast your car and you. It can stop the ferry going to Gavdos. And it really can stop you sleeping!

My small studio has a properly vented kitchen and bathroom. Great! But, when the wind blows across the ends of the pipes, I hear a chorus of bass saxophones and double bassoons all night. The wind is not steady but varies a lot and sometimes even comes and goes. So I hear continuous windsong, a sonata of serendip, a hell of a din, whatever you call it!

My studio, along with a number of others was designed and built by an artist called Manto. Now I’m not even going to try to explain many Greek words. Any Greek I know is learned by sound. But I’ll try a little with Manto. Firstly the “t” is sounded as an English “d” and the “o” is sounded almost halfway between the “o” in lot and the word “or”. Oh, I nearly forgot .. my name in Greek has only three letters .. kappa .. eta .. theta. (I will be very annoyed if there’s a fraternity somewhere which uses these letters. They’re mine!!)

The studios are new so everything works except … yes, there’s always one thing .. the Wi-Fi. For me this is awful as I like to book things on the internet and generally search for “late deals”. But, for my trip to Gavdos, Manto rang some places and sweettalked the price down ten euros, so I wasn’t too annoyed. She also brings me regular supplies, in huge bottles, of the freshest olive oil and raki

So I took an intense interest in the activities of the internet tech’ who was trying to instal the Wi-Fi. I had told Manto that the ferro in the building would inhibit the signal but apparently there was also a fault in the line. I didn’t believe this so I gave the tech such a hard time that he gave me the passwords for all the Wi-Fis in Paleohora.

So, even before I partake of my morning coffee, I try to connect with one of two nearby Wi-Fis. I normally get an IP address from the first one but I fear that I have been “discovered” so I cannot do anything there. Then I attempt to connect with another Wi-Fi which has a “very poor” signal strength. This is the one I normally use for email if I actually manage to get any bandwidth, which unfortunately is not very often.

All kitchens east of Italy seem to have a tiny hotplate for making what we, in England, normally call “Turkish coffee”. I heat my coffee water on this and use a French coffee plunger to make some slightly inferior Italian coffee. Manto keeps bringing me delicious six month old olive oil so I sometimes have this with various types of salad for breakfast. But I always have fresh fruit handy for a nice conclusion to whatever weird meal I decide to have.

My hat has recently begun to give off a rather unpleasant odour. Last night I washed it. Although it is made of leather, it seemed to be drying OK so I pinned it up on a line outside on the balcony of my room. I look outside and see that it has gone! The wind has blown it away. I rush downstairs into the street and I am nearly blown away myself! The wind is whipping around all the streets so my hat is probably miles away by now.

I pop into the police station to tell them about my hat and the older policemen look at me with disbelief. They motion me into an office where there is a smiling young sergeant greeting me. He is wearing a beautifully fitting uniform with gleaming metal attachments, razor sharp creases on his trousers, bright shining shoes doubtless polished with the proverbial yellow duster. The carabiniere would love him. He looks like a “fast track baby’ around the age of sixteen.

“You value your hat, right?”, he says and I nod vigorously. “It has emotional value!”, he affirms strongly. I can’t help feeling for this chap. He’s on my wavelength! “We’ll keep a lookout for your hat (on its way to Libya by now, I think) so come and see us before you leave Paleohora!”. I leave the police staion comforted by the knowledge that all the Paleochora police (rather a large number for some reason) will be looking out for my hat today.

Everybody smiles as I leave the police station. Greek people even including policemen are really happy when you are happy. Only then does it occur to me that not many people will report the loss of a hat with no value. They will simply go and buy another, which is exactly what I am about to do.

I have a big head. I trawl through some shops and find not one single hat which fits me. Then I find one in the shop next to the place where people are playing chess. But one of the metal airholes is missing. I approach the lady who runs the shop and ask her if she could sew the hole up to prevent the material ripping. She is charmed that I am considering giving her money for this hat and spends about five minutes threading a needle before executing a marvellous job on the airhole. The hat has huge brims and is a pleasant cream colour. I am happy but I still miss my hat with a band of Florentine leather around it.

If I decide to stay in Paleochora, I normally try to inhabit the sandy beach for the morning. My route, even when I am not looking for a new hat, goes through the high street where the international chess competition is taking place, I gaze at the points table and notice that there are people from almost every country in the world including a lot from India and Russia. I sometimes go into the hall where the chess “games” take place. It’s interesting to see little kids – some must be less than seven years old – taking the whole thing very seriously indeed. But the older men they are playing try all the tricks in the trade. They go for walks. They spend a lot of time writing their life story in a notebook. They seem incredibly interested in the game next to them. And they can do this or not even turn up for almost an hour!!! But the kids they are playing are unperturbed. The table is about their nose level and they patiently await any action and carefully write the moves down on their sheet then “click!”.

In the high street, there is the usual plethora of Mercedes cars, the traditional sign of ‘arrival’ for the average Greek. But I see other cars such Hummers, Saabs, Rangerovers, and the full range of other large four wheel drives. There are also a few tiny cars, including Smartcars similar to those that abound in Florence. But, although the temperature today is 38 degrees, I have the idea that global warming is not a prime concern here in Crete.

When the wind is blowing, I walk along the harbour front and meet people like Phil from Australia, Gudrun the soap lady from Hamburg, Shakti Christa from Glastonbury escaping from the festival( “it’s dirty!!!!”), Rick and Maureen from Anidri, and other colourful people.

Further on is a shop full of nice cards and books including some in English. But the great thing about this shop is that they actually sell Greek birthday cards. While I’m there, an English couple come in to pay for their copy of the “Daily Telegraph” acknowledging my presence by saying, “We live here, you know” in a manner only possessed by the English expats of a certain type. Perhaps old money Bostonians who quoted Nietsch to me on Paleohora beach and then corrected my ascription, saying, “It’s Stallone!”, come somewhere near. But who cares? They’re a different race completely. “They’re always like that!”, says the nice lady from Aachen who runs the shop, when she sees my glazed look at the receding couple.

To get to the beach I usually walk through a beach restaurant where people are busily eating buffet breakfast complete with the customary Brazilian orange juice and other abominations. The reason I take this route is to avoid some of the extremely hot sand between here and the water, a distance of over a hundred metres.

Usually the sand is extremely hot but a gentle morning wind, coming across the sea can be cooling. But, when I am hot, the water seems incredibly cold. Like many others, I can simply paddle up and down the shore to avoid having to get out of the water. There are usually a lot of people from Denmark and Czechoslovakia here as there are apparently direct flights to Chania from their local airports. Most Czechs tell me that they don’t speak English but they respond to my minimal German. Some Austrians are delighted that I have visited their part of the country at the edge which adjoins Germany and Switzerland near Liechtenstein on Lake Constance. The Germans and Danes speak better English than me but we get on extremely well.

As soon as my leg muscles start to sieze up because of the cold water, I normally approach the shower with caution. The water is nearly boiling!! By arranging for the water to descend in tiny droplets, it’s possible to get rid of the salt and walk off the beach in relative comfort.

But, when that wind blows, I can do none of that. This is when many expats are driven to drink. I’m no good at drinking beer. I’ve got away with drinking no beer for a week now so normally I cautiously approach the beach bar, which has changed from buffet breakfast to bar service, and I am happy that I do not see any English expats sinking “brown ones” (that’s expat for Amstells although the labels are red?). Having given them the slip, I might go over the road to get a half litre of freshly squeezed West Cretan orange juice for the cheapest price in Paleochora.

On the way back to my studio, I pop into one of the supermarkets and buy fruit, bread, milk and some yummies to go with Manto’s olive oil. Lunch is normally very oily with fried eggplant, tomatos, red onions, olives, and that sort of thing. I dutifully drink a thimble full of Manto’s deadly spirit, as directed, and enjoy a Cretan siesta until the ‘afternoon’ begins at six o’clock.

I sometimes cook a most delicious chick pea casserole. I buy the chick peas the day before and soak them overnight in the fridge as Jennie, the vegetable chef in Calypso, had instructed me. But when I cook them, they blow up to the size of marbles. Amazing!! I normally curry chick peas but these taste so nice that I have made a casserole with all the vegetables I have but including my favourite roasted eggplants. Wonderful!!! Chick Peas Immam?

There are two sets of street signs in Paleochora. One set directs Chania traffic through the High Street. The other set applies after seven o’clock until two in the morning and directs traffic along the two narrow lanes either side of the High Street, while the High Street and the harbourside are filled with restaurant chairs. Even restaurant owners can be fined if they leave their cars in front of their premises during this time. The lanes are dangerous to walk along during this period. so I pick my way through the chairs and tables in the High Street or the harbour. Then I may take a walk around the end of the peninsula while it is still light.

If I eat out I can order something the day before and they will cook it specially. And with the average price of an enormous plate about six euros, Wow!!. Oh, and an enormous plate of baked vegetable salad comes for two euros fifty. Even if a particular baked vegetable salad is not on the menu, they will make it for me. It doesn’t get better than that!!!

Elsewhere in Europe, it is high season. I am really taking refuge from all that entails. And the cost of living here is a fraction of the cost almost anywhere else. Even in the Greek high season, Paleohora can cope very easily, especially after seven o’clock!!