Bees

The previous owners of this house cut down three trees in its small garden to make room for a dish that would enable them to view the same programmes they watched in England. They took it when they left. One of the amputated trees recovered. Lefteris thinks it's an orange. We don’t know. It’s not blossomed since it was cut a few centimetres from the ground. Now its leaves reach over two metres and it bears, for the first time we’ve been here, a few blossoms. 

Five clusters of flowers, hidden amid spiky leaved branches. 

At last! Blossom on the recovered tree? Is it orange or lemon?

Will the tree bear fruit again? Right next to our wooden balcony is a fine orange tree, blood orange – one that fruits bi-annually. It's fulsome with blossom.

“Every two years. How do you know that?”

“Last year no blossom. This year, as two years ago, a proliferation” 

“Perhaps that’s because the blossom wasn’t pollinated”

“There was no blossom to be pollinated”

“How do you know?” repeats Lin

“I remember” 
Many bees have been visiting the tree. Their industrious mumble starts at first light. Continues into late afternoon.

"We just need those bees to spread some pollen on the recovered tree"

"But is it lemon or orange?"

I wade in ignorance, but dip a paint brush into the flowers of the fecund orange tree's blossom and with its pollen yellow from the stamens dab the pistils of the few blossoms on the smaller tree.

"Try the lemon tree too?"

I repeat the process - collecting the precious dust from one of our richly blossoming lemon tree stamens, so that the flowers on the recovered tree may be doubly fertilised.

Pollen from the fecund orange tree's blossom - the yellow at the tip of the brush

"So if this works; if the pistil I've dabbed with pollen..will it turn into fruit?"

"Should do"

A few days later I'm hanging out laundry to dry and hear a buzzing round the little tree and see bees searching. Then as I stare, one, and then, two bees are all over two of the blossoms, searching, probing, touching stamen and pistil with their bodies. 
I've been reading John Crompton's 1947 book The Hive about keeping bees - not, in the first place, for their honey. 

Crompton, though not anthropocentric, is the more readable for unashamedly attributing wisdom to bees, interpreting their actions as if they thought and planned like humans. The odd thing is that despite his admission that his interest in beekeeping began with wanting to ensure the fertility of his fruit trees, he does not at any point in his book describe how pollination actually occurs and what follows its success...The Orange blossom has a stamen (anther and filament), pistil (stigma, style,and ovary), sepals, ovules, and petals...
I do hope Gill has managed to obtain a new swarm to re-populate the hive on Plot 14. 

Building a surround for Gill's empty hive on Plot 14

*** ***
We watch the series Game of Thrones  – first two seasons, and want to know what happens next.
"We're on series 4" says a friend
Earlier we'd watched Breaking Bad – sometimes three episodes a night. Then for a break from that story-telling, a look at a Catherine Cookson yarn on DVD, her recognisable characters and familiar turns – the evil landowner, a self-made working class man, a fractured childhood love consummated at last. If it’s not film then I’ve my head in a book, perhaps two at a time. I embrace narrative.
"But you know these great stories, these assemblages of creative talent entertaining audiences across there world; their sucking my brain, leaching out imagination. Instead of inventing things out of words and thoughts on a page, all - music, sound effects, words, faces, places - are created for me to enjoy. Passively. These brilliant sagas use ingenious technologies to colonise what in a book I would be imagining."
"Oh yeah? Then why do you find it so exciting to see those bees cuddling the blossom recovered from the sat-dish placed over them?"
Scripts and above all coherent plots with beginnings and middles and ends, encompassed within a time-scale that fits my sense of the dramatic, stimulates me to excitement and fascination at ‘what’s going to happen now'. The Great War is anticipated; in minutes it’s upon our characters and then - wreaking havoc - it’s past, and the plot is picking up pieces on its route to a happy ending.
"Let's have coffee?"
“Isn’t it almost ironic” I said to Lin, after an especially gripping episode of Breaking Bad, “that we had to exercise will power not to go on to the next, even though it’s so late…yet here we’re living in a country in a crisis such as we’ve not seen in our lifetime. We struggle to grasp it’s drama. We’re like the crew of a vessel far out in the deep ocean that rides a tsunami unnoticed – except through our instruments -  because the wave that will wreak such harm on reaching land, raises us an imperceptible foot and it's a hundred miles wide.

A cold grey day in the village. Lin and I wait for a bus to town to see our accountant

Whatever's happening here is often easily ignored, though on the bus a Greek friend broke off a five way conversation between fellow passengers, one that was started by the young driver as he collected our fares for Ano Korakiana at the Green Bus Station in the town.
"We are discussing 'the situation'" she said
Our impression is of people weary; exhausted, most of the time showing a brave, even cheerful face. But one of the passengers, a neighbour, has a problem with her heart. the clinic here says she needs an operation in Athens.
"It's financially impossible for her. There's supposed to be money set aside for the poorest, but it's not getting to them"

Panos Kokkinias’s Yiorgis

A young man in traditional Greek garb – white pleated skirt, embroidered vest and red pompoms on the tip of his shoes – is floating, his arms outstretched, in the still, turquoise sea. It’s unclear whether he’s dead or just resting from earlier battles with the open water. This photograph, more than any other piece shown in the new exhibition No Country for Young Men in Brussels’ Bozar complex, captures the question that many are asking about Greece today: What is going on with Europe’s first bailout victim?...

*** *** ***
It seems as if we never let up on jobs to prepare the house for the family arriving in a matter of days - painting, joinery, stone laying, filling and drilling...

Take apart a well-used palette, removing nails, sanding smooth, varnishing. Prepare the space between wall and carpet in the room where Oliver will sleep - no longer in a cot. Glue and screw the boards to the wall; top them with a trim; itself sanded to fit the top of each board, and then fill any spaces left between skirting and wall.
"He's got a lovely view from his window"
"Sure he can't climb out?"
Grandparents, as we did for our children, scan every inch that way

No job seems too small.
"Can you recognise the leg on this plastic table that has been replaced" I asked Sally when she came to lunch yesterday.

"Four new legs, Simon!"
"Right"
Lin's been preparing the dining room as a temporary bedroom - a space for our friends and their baby.

"They need to be able open the stable door top without worry about mosquitoes and flies. I need to make a screen"

Getting that to fit the top of the curve exactly was tricky.

Getting DIY supplies from the ironmonger at Tzavros

Our shutters and several window frames are wooden. Their paintwork lifts under the Greek sun. Parts need sanding, undercoating and repainting.

Linda makes a neater step for the veranda door from pieces of recovered marble, bringing me pieces to trim with the angle grinder...

As Easter approaches young Lefteri and his father, Foti, paint asvesti - lime-wash - on the edges of steps to out two houses. That's being done all over the village; all over Greece.
"It's good if the rain holds for three hours!" says Foti
Which it does. The wet grey mix turns dazzling white in a sun burst through the chilly overcast.

Lin's applying her mix of blue paint to furniture - bedside drawers, chair, shelves, cupboard - for Oliver's room.

...and of course that unattractive of old men's attributes - nose hairs - must be plucked.

*** *** ***
Yesterday evening at Saint Athanasios at the bottom of the village...

Το Ευχέλαιο της Μεγάλης Τετάρτης

Γράφει ο/η Κβκ

17.04.14

Τη Μεγάλη Τετάρτη το απόγευμα, η Εξομολόγηση και στη συνέχεια το Ευχέλαιο, έφεραν αρκετό κόσμο στον Άη-Θανάση. Ο χώρος στην πίσω πλευρά του ναού (πίσω από τα στασίδια) είχε πλήρως ανακαινιστεί από τους Επιτρόπους και εκεί ο ιερέας δέχτηκε τους προς εξομολόγηση πιστούς. Στη συνέχεια τελέστηκε η Ακολουθία του Ευχελαίου, στο τέλος της οποίας οι πιστοί δέχτηκαν από τον ιερέα τη σταυροειδή χρίση με το αγιασμένο έλαιο, προς θεραπεία του εσωτερικού κόσμου και ακολούθως προμηθεύτηκαν για το σπίτι αγιασμένο έλαιο από την αναμμένη κανδήλα που είχε τοποθετηθεί σε τραπεζάκι μπροστά από το Ιερό. Και ενώ ο πολύς κόσμος είχε αποχωρήσει, ξεκίνησε όπως προβλεπόταν η Ακολουθία του Όρθρου της Μεγάλης Πέμπτης, πιο γνωστή ως τελετή του Νιπτήρος. Έξω, βαδίζοντας προς το σούρουπο, η πτώση της θερμοκρασίας είχει ήδη αρχίσει να γίνεται αισθητή...

Summer Song's ready to go back in the sea

A succession of clear skies and proliferating greenery and, with the heat, the steady increase of public voices up and down Democracy Street, among our neighbours and people walking by, sometimes stopping for conversation by the green railing at the top of our shared steps now, as everywhere over this late Easter across Greece, outlined with dazzling whitewash, asvesti, ασβεστή.

Dave has booked the crane to put Summersong back in the water for Saturday - tomorrow. He'd texted me ‘today finally finished the outside paintwork ….’ 

How I relish this sub-plot. It also makes me nervous. Dave got back from delivering a yacht to Trieste last week “a four day job that took a week. We had three separate forecasts from reliable sources predicting light headwinds all the way. We got into the straits opposite Saranda and it blew up force 6, gusting higher, and then steady headwinds for the next 600 miles. The Jeanneau has a broad hull for charter accommodation. Up she went. Down she went, crash, bang, crash, bang, No let up. And the porpoises. They’d come up alongside and look at you. You’d look back. Think they’d gone away and look in another direction. Whoosh it’s standing on its tail saying ‘boo’ and peering in your face eye to eye”

Dave works on Summer Song

Lin and I pursue a procession of jobs in and out of the house, Effi and Adoni next door continue to adorn their garden with more plants brought with them from Thrace before Easter. I’ve drilled holes in the base of make-shift flowerpots for her. Effi paints paint tins deep blue and concrete breezeblocks red before filling them with soil to make them into planters. Lin’s painting doors. 

I’ve helped sand them. I’ve shaved the edges of our wooden front door to make it open and close more freely, tidied the electric cables leading to the municipal light bolted into the side of our house, cleaned the windows of winter grime, transferred a heap of sorted thigh tiles from under our veranda to the apothiki, mended a puncture in the rear wheel of my Brompton...

...rebuilt the wooden carrier on the back of my larger bicycle, tidied out the porch locker and inserted a cut down palette to keep above damp the odd sacks of cement, plaster and the dusty dye that mixes with asvesti to give it a colour, and prepared, with sanding and paint scraper, one side of the house above the side balcony for painting, warning Vasiliki there might be some dust. Her carpets and rugs were coming in anyway, well sun-dried. 

Painting the house

I'm not a good handyman. As Lin, who is, says “You break things”, I’m unco-ordinated, slightly clumsy. My mother, ages ago, said my dad was “all fingers and thumbs” when it came to practical tasks involving building, joinery, electrics or plumbing. My stepfather was quite the opposite, able to drive a desk as well as a workbench, creative in advertising, broadcasting and during the war stripping down the gear box of a tank (I saw his diagrams in an old file) and, later when the war office discovered them, exercising his talents as a communicator, creating propaganda. I didn’t learn to be tidy until I sailed a small boat and was made forcefully aware, by waves, of the consequences of not being ‘shipshape’. 'Spick and span' is not my inclination – in clothes, hair, shoes or any other walk of life – like gardening. It can be done but I have to work at it, hence my struggle with digging and sowing, the essential precursors of growing anything in soil. How I admire and respect people with craft, who have artistry in their hands whether laying tiles, fiddling with circuitry, inserting stitches, turning a pot, tying a fly, making a dove-tail joint and all the myriad brilliances humans do with their hands. What I do succeed in - jobs others would hardly reckon on giving a second thought - gives me pride, though it takes ages, involves endless fiddling, and an inventory of tools that might or might not be needed. The other day I made a typical mistake. Having treated myself to a SDS drill to deal with drilling in stone and brick, I added a conventional chuck in my order so’s I could use my existing wood drills. I wanted to drill through the house wall to attach an outside electric socket. The only masonry drill long enough was a conventional one. I inserted it in the chuck adapted for the SDS; set the drill on hammer – and of course stripped the thread of the adaptor chuck. Later I spent a good few euros buying a sufficient length SDS drill. A craftsman would have known not to make such an expensive mistake. I tell myself I must have some practical abilities. I can change punctures on bicycles. I taught myself simple astral navigation long ago so’s I could use a sextant to find where we were in the Atlantic. I’ve taken down a small mast in the middle of the Bay of Biscay and replaced its broken halliard pulley. I’ve added a veranda to my allotment shed. I can change the inner tube on the back wheel of a Brompton – in the rain. 
And rain, with thunder, was what we got in abundance for one day earlier in the week, even as the village lost its water supply for twelve hours and I borrowed water for washing and flushing....

... from Effi's and Adoni's well just across the path between us.
After what seems like over a year of surface preparation Linda has started painting the outside of the house. I've been filling in small spaces she can't reach, handing up paint pots, and holding the stepladder steady for her.

*** *** ***
Around noon on Easter Sunday, Vasiliki brought around a plate of lamb meat, including delectable kokoretsi κοκορέτσι. Our other neighbours brought us more from their spit (squeaking away through the morning) plus two glasses of raki.

Κοκορέτσι και ρακί από την Μαρία και τον Ιωάννη

We were also given red dyed hard boiled eggs - the ones you have to try and crack by knocking them together with another, like conkers (sort of). In return Lin and I wrote Easter cards and she made chocolate eggs specially decorated and wrapped for our neighbours' children.
For our Easter Sunday supper we were invited to Paul and Cinty's house where, with his parents, Phil and Sheila, and his brother Mark and Sally we enjoyed a balmy evening, buzzed by swallows as dusk settled on us. No lamb on a spit but, instead, a succulent successon of meats off the barbecue - lamb chops, sausages, souvlaki, liver, pork belly draft, a delicately carved wood pigeon...salads and, later, all the strawberries and cream we could eat...

...and and I enjoyed my home made Margarita from a salt-rimed glass.

I'll especially recall a reflective chat about Golden Dawn, Χρυσή Αυγή; the worry that there's a generation in Greece who've not only forgotten the nature of authoritarian rule, but actually think it might be what's needed now. "It means" said C, reflecting her own experience of dictatorial rule even three years after the fall of the Junta, "that the police are in charge and the preferences and prejudices of a particular police officer will determine your case." I recalled that G.K. Chesterton, initially sympathetic to Fascism, in Italy and Spain, as a solution to democratic failure, issued a pre-war warning about Nazism in German; if it happened in England "imagine" he wrote "if in each street the man in charge of the rest of us, with legal authority to boss the rest of us about, is the school bully."

Golden Dawn office in Greece

From Jan D in York:

 …The latest Rich List has been published of the 1000 wealthiest people in Britain. They constitute 0.003% of the population. In the last year alone they have increased their wealth by £35billion, and since the crash four years ago they have increased their wealth by £190 billion (Remember the phrase “we are all in this together").

Their combined wealth is £449billion (the public sector deficit is approx. £120 billion). There are now 88 billionaires in Britain. During the same time there has been a 7% reduction in real wages. This year £19billion has been removed from welfare benefits and just now £320million (an insignificant figure to government finance) has been removed from the Independent Living Fund for 20,000 disabled people. The government has ‘transferred’ this duty to Local Authorities, but there is no money beyond 2015, so effectively they are closing the fund without ever having told anybody. There has been a legal challenge by disabled people which they lost. They are appealing. A good example of ideology triumphing over evidence or rationality let alone morality. Obviously the government sees many disabled people as ‘skivers’ (morally reprehensible) and not the ‘strivers’ (morally superior) the government wants to promote. To be disabled is therefore by definition being a ‘skiver’ in other words ‘undesirable’. They don't dare to say this of course, but the actions speak for themselves. This is getting uncomfortably close to what I read about in Professor Evans’ books on the Third Reich. 

Zoe Williams said the following about this: "What I mind the most is the readiness with which government will now lie. The prime minister lies about the national debt. The secretary of state will lie about immigration. The chancellor will lie about benefit claimants. They will be wrapped over the knuckles by Office of National Statistics or Office for Budget Responsibility, take their punishment and go straight out and lie again". Despite this the government’s ‘narrative’ resonates and is believed by large sections, in some cases, the majority of the population. This would make an interesting study! Surely this provides LAs with an opportunity to offer a different moral vision based on hard evidence – a localism based on transparency, accountability and honesty. Am I being naïve again? On a lighter note, just noticed that after twenty years of a failing austerity regime, Japan has decided to do a U-turn and pump money into the economy. Stock markets immediately shot up! Best Jan

*** ***
On Easter Monday we joined the long happy parade around the boundaries of Ano Korakiana:

Η επανεμφάνιση μετά από πολλές δεκαετίες της εικόνας της Παναγίας της «Δημοσιάνας» στη Λιτανεία της 2ης Μέρας του Πάσχα στο χωριό, επανέφερε στη μνήμη των παλαιοτέρων τα προβλήματα λειψυδρίας και τις σχετικές παρακλήσεις. Πραγματικά, με το πέρας της Λειτουργίας στον Άη-Θανάση και ενώ διαρκούσε η προετοιμασία των τμημάτων της Λιτανείας, ο ουρανός συννέφιασε και άρχισε να ψιχαλίζει για αρκετή ώρα. Το γεγονός ξάφνιασε αρκετούς, που προσέτρεξαν σε όποιο πρόσφορο καταφύγιο για την προστασία από τη βροχή, ακόμη δε και κάτω από το μπαρλακί. Λίγο αργότερα και ενώ η ψιλή βροχή συνεχιζόταν η Λιτανεία θα ξεκινήσει. Νέο στοιχείο της Λιτανείας, η διπρόσωπη εικόνα της Παναγίας, αφιερωμένη από την οικογένεια της Στάμως Αλεξίου Ιωνά, η οποία συντηρήθηκε πρόσφατα και από τη μια πλευρά εμφανίζει την Θεοτόκο με το Χριστό και από την άλλη τον Άγιο Αθανάσιο. Η εικόνα αυτή, που λιτανεύονταν μέχρι τις αρχές του περασμένου αιώνα και έφτανε έως την Παλαιοκαστρίτσα, βασταζόμενη από γυναίκες θα λάβει θέση κάτω από το μπαρλακί, ενώ η έτερη εικόνα, η γνωστή, της Αναστάσεως θα προηγηθεί, «ασκεπής». Η πομπή θα διαβεί τη Νεροσυρμή και από το γεφύρι του Βάρδα θα ανεβεί στη Βενετιά. Η πορεία στα στενά, στολισμένη με σκόρπια δαφνόφυλλα. Εκεί, στα σκαλιά του Άη-Γιάκωβου θα τελεστεί η πρώτη στάση για Δέηση. Στο δρόμο της Βενετιάς πλέον, η πομπή θα ανασυνταχθεί σε πλήρη ανάπτυξη. Στο γεφυράκι του Μούλου πρώτα θα μπουν τα παιδιά με το Σταυρό, τις λαμπάδες και τα εξαπτέρυγα και μετά οι σκόλες και τα φλάμπουρα. Θα ακολουθήσει τμήμα του Σχολικού Κέντρου Φαιάκων και μετά η Φιλαρμονική υπό τον Κώστα Ζερβόπουλο και η Χορωδία υπό τον Γιώργο Άνθη. Πιο πίσω το μπαρλακί και οι δύο εικόνες, συνοδευόμενες από άγημα του Ναυτικού (ύστερα από αρκετά χρόνια).Στις δε «γραμμές των επισήμων», ο Πρόεδρος και μέλη του Τοπικού Συμβουλίου, η εκπρόσωπος του Δήμου, κα Καποδίστρια, ο πολιτευτής κ. Γκίκας, ο τέως Αντινομάρχης Τάκης Μεταλληνός, ο Πρόεδρος των Άνω Κορακιανιτών Αθηνών Σπύρος Κένταρχος κ.ά. Μετά τη στροφή της Κέκας θα ψαλεί μία ακόμη δέηση προς τον Άη-Γιώργη, καθώς και το «Μεγαλυνάριο» του Αγίου, που ψελνόταν επί εποχής παπα-Κουρίνη. Η Τρίτη δέηση θα ψαλεί στον Άγιο, στην Αρκούδενα και η πομπή αφού φτάσει στην άκρη της Μουργάδας, θα κατηφορίσει για τον αποκάτω δρόμο και από εκεί για τον Άη-Θανάση. Εκεί, όπως πάντα, ένα δροσερό κέρασμα και άρτος θα περιμένουν τους πιστούς.

Η επανεμφάνιση μετά από πολλές δεκαετίες της εικόνας της Παναγίας της «Δημοσιάνας» στη Λιτανεία της 2^ης Μέρας του Πάσχα στο χωριό, επανέφερε στη μνήμη των παλαιοτέρων τα προβλήματα λειψυδρίας και τις σχετικές παρακλήσεις. Πραγματικά, με το πέρας της Λειτουργίας στον Άη-Θανάση και ενώ διαρκούσε η προετοιμασία των τμημάτων της Λιτανείας, ο ουρανός συννέφιασε και άρχισε να ψιχαλίζει για αρκετή ώρα.

Το γεγονός ξάφνιασε αρκετούς, που προσέτρεξαν σε όποιο πρόσφορο καταφύγιο για την προστασία από τη βροχή, ακόμη δε και κάτω από το μπαρλακί. Λίγο αργότερα και ενώ η ψιλή βροχή συνεχιζόταν η Λιτανεία θα ξεκινήσει.

Νέο στοιχείο της Λιτανείας, η διπρόσωπη εικόνα της Παναγίας, αφιερωμένη από την οικογένεια της Στάμως Αλεξίου Ιωνά, η οποία συντηρήθηκε πρόσφατα και από τη μια πλευρά εμφανίζει την Θεοτόκο με το Χριστό και από την άλλη τον Άγιο Αθανάσιο. Η εικόνα αυτή, που λιτανεύονταν μέχρι τις αρχές του περασμένου αιώνα και έφτανε έως την Παλαιοκαστρίτσα, βασταζόμενη από γυναίκες θα λάβει θέση κάτω από το μπαρλακί, ενώ η έτερη εικόνα, η γνωστή, της Αναστάσεως θα προηγηθεί, «ασκεπής».

Η πομπή θα διαβεί τη Νεροσυρμή και από το γεφύρι του Βάρδα θα ανεβεί στη Βενετιά. Η πορεία στα στενά, στολισμένη με σκόρπια δαφνόφυλλα. Εκεί, στα σκαλιά του Άη-Γιάκωβου θα τελεστεί η πρώτη στάση για Δέηση.

Στο δρόμο της Βενετιάς πλέον, η πομπή θα ανασυνταχθεί σε πλήρη ανάπτυξη. Στο γεφυράκι του Μούλου πρώτα θα μπουν τα παιδιά με το Σταυρό, τις λαμπάδες και τα εξαπτέρυγα και μετά οι σκόλες και τα φλάμπουρα. Θα ακολουθήσει τμήμα του Σχολικού Κέντρου Φαιάκων και μετά η Φιλαρμονική υπό τον Κώστα Ζερβόπουλο και η Χορωδία υπό τον Γιώργο Άνθη. Πιο πίσω το μπαρλακί και οι δύο εικόνες, συνοδευόμενες από άγημα του Ναυτικού (ύστερα από αρκετά χρόνια).Στις δε «γραμμές των επισήμων», ο Πρόεδρος και μέλη του Τοπικού Συμβουλίου, η εκπρόσωπος του Δήμου, κα Καποδίστρια, ο πολιτευτής κ. Γκίκας, ο τέως Αντινομάρχης Τάκης Μεταλληνός, ο Πρόεδρος των Άνω Κορακιανιτών Αθηνών Σπύρος Κένταρχος κ.ά.

Μετά τη στροφή της Κέκας θα ψαλεί μία ακόμη δέηση προς τον Άη-Γιώργη, καθώς και το «Μεγαλυνάριο» του Αγίου, που ψελνόταν επί εποχής παπα-Κουρίνη.

Η Τρίτη δέηση θα ψαλεί στον Άγιο, στην Αρκούδενα και η πομπή αφού φτάσει στην άκρη της Μουργάδας, θα κατηφορίσει για τον αποκάτω δρόμο και από εκεί για τον Άη-Θανάση.

Εκεί, όπως πάντα, ένα δροσερό κέρασμα και άρτος θα περιμένουν τους πιστούς.