When
we left you in the last blog on Friday
26th July we
were about to go to Kokylia to pay the bill for the anniversary supper the
previous Monday. When we got there it
was a bit early to eat so we went round to Kafeneo (Kokylia’s café) for a beer. Having practiced our
Greek on Cifis (Joseph), one of the bar staff, (Dud’s ‘Greek’ always makes him
laugh!) we eventually went through to the main taverna. It was very busy by now
so we took over one of the two ‘locals’ tables that sits about six people (it
was empty at the time). These tables are usually just for drinking but we
decided to stay and eat there. Whilst there an
elderly couple came and sat with us (at our invitation) to have a drink whilst awaiting a free table. Well, we
got talking to them (yes in Greek!!! – they didn’t speak a word of English - thank
goodness for Wi-Fi & Google translate on my phone!). They were Yiannis
& Yiorgina who live about half a mile down the road. We shared wine, raki and meze with them
and, we think (well, according to Yiorgo (of Kokylia)), we were invited to
their house on Sunday!! - what a lovely
end to the day!
 |
| Behind me you can see the 'locals' table in use by locals on another night! |
Saturday, 27th
July, we went on guided tour of
the new excavations at Gournia (see pics in previous blog when we went there
with W&B - we are not allowed to show pics of recent excavations until they
have been officially published). There were about 80 of us, but mainly American
students from INSTAP who have been digging there. It is always good to have the new excavations
explained by an expert as we don’t always know what we are looking at (but
don’t tell anyone that!!).
In the evening we
were invited to a small party at Cecile’s, a delightful French boutique in the
village. We had a very pleasant evening where we met Francois who runs an
International College in London. Had a chat with
the son of Cecile's partner who is half German but speaks good English, German
and Greek! Nico was also there (who had
been working at Kokylia's for our first couple of weeks) and he told Dud he
wanted to learn about the Minoans! Nico
had found the right chap!! Much wine,
raki and food later we staggered home up that long hill (the short cut - but it's rather steep!).
 |
| Cecile's boutique in the 'day time' |
Sunday 28th
July. Now although we had been invited to Yiannis’ & Yiorgina’s house,
in our raki’d state on the Friday, we didn’t know when or where!! Either that, or something had got lost in
translation. Anyway, after last night we thought a quiet day was in order. Dudley bravely grappled with an enormous
mosquito and defeated it.
 |
| the mosquito - it's certainly a big'un and if you look closely you can see 'love', 'hate' and 'mum' tattooed on its legs! |
On Monday, we went
into village for quick drink at lunch time and to thank Cecile for the party on
Saturday - we had made vague 'arrangement' to meet Francois, but Cecile said he
was still sleeping! So we went to
Kokylia’s for a beer anyway. I know we showed you the Roman fish tanks last year
but they were very clear today
 |
| one of the Roman fish tanks outside Kokylia's kafeneo |
Tuesday, after a run we stopped off at Mochlos Mare where Panayiotis brought out a water melon for us
and Sterie invited us for supper on Wednesday (tomorrow). Spent the day on a mixture of work and research for Southampton, it was quite a hot day but kept at it until early evening when had a much-needed drink on upstairs balcony before going off for
dinner at Dimitris. After supper, Dimitris gave us a drink of calvados, which was very nice (and quite
strong!) - made the walk home up the hill quite tough!
 |
| this is how you buy rice in the supermarket - by the handful (can't see British 'health & safety' agreeing with that!) |
Wednesday, we set
off for Anatoli to visit the site that Yiannis Papadatos is excavating this
year. Drove to Anatoli where we were met and taken up to the site at Gaidourophas, which was initially 'seen' by Sir Arthur Evans and then John Pendlebury
in the early 1900s but not excavated by either of them.
Yiannis gave us a tour of the ruins and pointed out what they had found
and it seems to be a very important site. It
is located 900m above sea level, which is much higher than usual for a
settlement, the highest being 400m (apart
from Karphi which is a refuge). We were
then taken to Stavromenos by Costas, where there is most likely a peak
sanctuary (religious site) - the views were stunning and you could see both north and south
coasts of the island! As with Gournia, we can't put any pictures of the excavation itself on the web, but here are some of the views.
 |
| view to the north from Stavromenos -in the far distance you can see the hills surrounding Mochlos |
 |
| view to the south and Ierapetra - the numerous white 'patches' are plastic 'greenhouses' for bananas and tomatoes |
 |
| the Stavromenos peak sanctuary site overlooks Gaidourophas, making both sites an important part of the Minoan world. |
We came back and went off for supper at Mochlos
Mare with Panayiotis, Sterie and their daughter, Maria. Maria is currently applying for a Masters in International Management in the UK and has several offers so we were talking to her about the various universities. After a lovely supper of
mousakka (me), rabbit (Dud), vleta, salad etc. we came back and went to
bed exhausted after our day in the hills !
Thursday, I was
thinking of running but Dud wasn’t, so we didn’t (I’m easily put off!). Quiet
day on computer …..
Friday 2nd
August, we did run. Went to see Tina at INSTAP around 3pm, really just to
touch base and see what she wants us to do next week - measuring metacarpals
(hand bones) - around 400 of them, each with 3 measurements to take!! I quickly said Hi to Flint (Dibble) and
arranged to speak with him next week about his bar-coding software (okay,
yawn!). On the way back we drove into
Ierapetra to try and find the 'House Store' where Rosa is having some cushions made
for downstairs balcony chairs. Finally found it (we had failed on a previous
visit) about 5.30pm, but it was closed
until 6pm. So we waited only to find that cushions were not quite finished so will have to go back
next week! Came back to Mochlos and got ready to go down to Kokylia as Friday
night is BBQ night. All very nice food plus a couple carafes of wine and then
Nicky brought us a large raki free of charge! Long hill home with short rest on seats on
the way up!!
 |
| the cushions - we knew you would want to see them - worth the wait! |
Saturday, Rested
– worn out! Sunday, again quiet day on computer. Decided go to Dimitris for
supper. Got home at 1.30 am – not sure how that happened ! Monday,
definitely no run! Nor did we make INSTAP for bone measuring. But we did get there on Tuesday and Wednesday,
and finished the measuring on Thursday. Dud
is metacarpaled out now – I think he will be happy if he never sees another hand bone
again!
 |
| Metacarpals - just to show you what we have been measuring so you can share in the thrill - 4 out of the 400 ! |
Friday, had a
problematic day with the computer – where are the IT boys when you need them?!
Eventually got it sorted. Off for Monastiraki (a village about 5km away) to meet Tina for supper and report to her on the bone measuring. We had a very pleasant evening with her and she paid
for our supper which was very nice as well.
Back home we decided to abstain from raki on the balcony!
Saturday 10 August, we decided to have bit
of a lazy day, some reading and sitting in the sun. Nick & Heather drove past to say they are
'back' from UK and we arranged to meet them in Kokylia for supper that
evening. Went out at around 7pm and had
nice supper in Kokylia and then on way back I decided I wanted late raki in
Dimitris! - N&H (sensibly!) declined and went home. We went home eventually, not sure when
(that hill was very long again …).
 |
| Nick and Heather are back ! |
Sunday, definitely a quiet
day - did some kindle reading – well, we are on holiday as well. Monday,
got quite a lot of work done and then spent the rest of day researching -
have an idea about using bone measurements to work out the sex of animals if it is not
known – sorry, am I boring you?
Tuesday, went down to
Nick and Heather’s around 7pm for a drink. Then to supper at Dimitris which was
very nice - we shared the mixed meze starter between us and then shared a
selection of meat afterwards. N&H
quite tired so left before us and we stayed quite late (there's a surprise) and had several free
rakis, including one from Mikalis (whom we have seen somewhere before but can't
place him!).
Wednesday, A
level results day so very busy on the computer. Both Dud’s A level Law students got
grade A’s which he was quite chuffed about (good teaching, he commented!) Dud
and Nick went off to Mochlos Mare to ask Panagiotis where Nick could buy some wood
for one of his BBQs. He has spent a lot of money on the equipment but can’t
find any wood to burn on it! Panayiotis ended up giving Nick a whole sack of wood,
refusing any payment, and also giving him some wine and some raki to , as he said, “make the BBQ
go better!” I don’t think he meant for
Nick to actually put the wine and raki on the BBQ, but I’m sure Nick understood! Having tasted the wine when he got home, Nick
sent us a text later to ask if there was a government health warning on it!
Thursday saw me doing some work on the A-Level statistics and generally keeping in touch via email. The folllowing day, Friday 16th
– Nick came past during the morning so Dud went off with him for a drive to
Sfaka, which ended up with a 'couple' of beers in Lastros and then at the
'Organic' taverna at the top of the Mochlos Road! According to Nick, they 'had' to go to the second taverna because they weren't given any meze (free food with the drinks) at the first one. Then Nick found out the reason there was no meze in Lastros - the waitress had asked, in Greek, if they wanted it and Dud had said no! In the evening N&H had
invited us for drinks & meze, which turned out to be quite
substantial food and all very nice it was - we also drank Welsh whisky!
 |
| Nick & Heather's pool by night |
Sat 17th
– Dud went off to help Nick with re-positioning and checking
speakers for the wall-mounted TV (surround sound stuff). However, it didn't go so well and Dud came back to get me to 'help' - eventually we got it working (although we're still
not quite sure how!). In the afternoon we went into village
to have a beer and small snacks and stayed all night! Well, N&H left around 5.30pm as they were
going out with Yiannis (architect) et. al. for supper next door at Bogazi's and we decided to stay in the Kafeneo. We then met Dominiq who had
done the paintings on display in Kokylia and we bought a picture of a boat in a box that
we had admired all summer. Nick had seen it for the first time that afternoon and also liked it and had asked Cifis to reserve it, but we 'over-ruled'
that after Nick had gone and bought it from the artist!! This could have caused an international incident between us and Nick - but we will give to N&H as 'house
warming' present.
 |
| boat pic - looks 3-D but it is definitely not! |
Sunday 18th – decided to go for a walk so set off towards Sfaka (about 5km away) and walked quite a way, but not as far as Sfaka! However, by the time we had turned round and got back we had been out for 2 hours! We stopped off at the 'beach' (very pebbly). In the early evening we went down to the Kafeneo to meet Dominiq (as arranged yesterday) who showed us his fabulous paintings of ladies-on-the-beach and we decided on the one we had first seen last year in the Art Gallery up the road, but had then been told it was not for sale! We had a couple of drinks and a chat with Dominiq and then he went home - so did we, but a bit later after more raki to celebrate our second art purchase!
 |
| the lady on the beach |
 |
| view from the pebble beach on our walk, the 'small' island in the middle of the picture is the island we see from our apartment |
Monday 19th – after lunch we decided to go for another walk and set off towards Sfaka again, but this time turned off in the direction of a Venetian tower, on the way to Myrsini (one of the villages you can see the lights of at night from Mochlos). Didn't go all the way to the tower, but did walk around 5 miles in just over 2 hours (well, we did stop off for some 'sight-seeing' of a lovely church!). Later in the day I was about to start cooking supper when we had a phone call from Panayiotis, inviting us down to have a drink with them as Sterie had made galaktekoboureka! Whilst there we met Carol and Dieter from the USA who had just arrived for a 2 week stay so we had a nice chat with them. Finally left quite late in the evening with Sterie chasing us up the hill as she wanted to give us some galaktekoboureka to bring home!!
 |
| this is the church we saw on our walk |
Tue 20th
– in the morning I went down to see Sterie as she had invited me to collect some produce from their garden. I ended up with 2 big bags of tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, courgettes, onions, garlic, melon, vleta (greens) and potatoes!!! Had a glass of raki with Panayiotis (for the 'hill' he said!) - also had a prickly pear fruit to eat (from their front garden - first time I had eaten this, it was strange, but nice). The reason I had the produce was because N&H were coming for supper and I was slow-cooking lamb, so apart from the meat all the other ingredients came from P&S's garden! N&H came round early evening and we gave them the boat picture as a house-warming present, then had a very nice supper (if I say so myself) !
On Wednesday (21st) Dud got up to find that his back had 'gone' and he was pretty immobile for the next three days! We stayed in for supper each night, but on Thursday Nick came round and drove Dud into the village (and back) so they could have a couple of beers! (medicinal I'm sure).
Sunday 25th – Willie (Nick's neighbour in Istron) had invited us to join him at Kokylia's for supper this evening and first of all we went round for early evening drinks at N&H's where as well as Willie and Liz, we met John & Eloise who live in Kalo Chorio (next village to Istron). When we got to Kokylia we discovered it was Willie's birthday! We had very nice supper and Yiorgos brought out an ice-cream cake for Willie at the end of the evening. Another long hill home !
 |
| another birthday party - Willie is sitting next to Dud |
