Living Next Door To ----Zeus

A number of years ago we had a small place on the Mediterranean island of Crete. It was in the largest village on Crete about 800 meters above sea level and looking down into the “Mirabella Bay” and went by the name of “Kritsa”. A beautiful place that lived from tourism in the season from April to the end of October.
Many years ago when tourism came to Kritsa the village folk sold hand made articles. Table covers, pillow cases, net curtains of the quality one finds in Belgium. They made flower pots, Dutch ovens, and almost anything that can be made out of clay.
As we all know Greece along with a few other countries in Europe are having money problems. The cost of a holiday on Crete these days is not cheap. But when we fell in love with this island paradise it was affordable.

Naturally there are a lot of memories and one memory in particularly that comes to mind is of one of our many barbeque's we used to have up in the mountain range of “Lasithi” in a very small village call “Katharo”
The weather on this day was normal, a nice 30 degrees in the shade and all where glad of the one olive tree where we made our fire. For the fire someone had to go and find wood and twigs to get it going. That was my gob.
I've got to say that being about 1600 meters up in the mountains gave us a bit of a wind which helped to keep us cool but the sun was still fierce.

Every one got on with their little jobs like getting the salads prepared and sorting the rest of the food out. All went well until someone asked for the bread. Silence could be heard for many miles, John had left the bread on the kitchen table. Manolis said malakas which is the same as saying arsehole and then disappeared for half an hour.
In the mean time I'd wandered off looking for firewood. The wood was easy to find and was bone dry, needless to say. I was making my way back with my third armful and bent down to pick up a twig when I thought I’d stood on a thorn or something the same that gave me a prick. As I looked down I saw what I thought was a wasp or something similar crawl out from between my big toe and it's neighbour and fly away. It only took me 5 minutes to get back to the other and my toe was already soar and red. We where trying to cool my foot down with cold water as Manolis arrived back and wanted to know what had happen.
He just laughed and called me a lot of funny names which I never did find out what they meant but I suppose we have the same words in English. When you think about it he had every right to call me names as I was walking about the mountain side in flip-flops.

It's a wonder I never broke a leg. Still it taught me a lesson.
Anyway Manolis asked had we any vinegar with us and when not to get a big tomato and cut it in half after which he proceeded to rub it into the wasp sting. It looked damn stupid, but after 15 min's the pain and most of the redness had gone.
There was a loud scream and as we turned round we saw Elizabeth picking tomato out of the salad. After Manolis had finish rubbing my foot with the tomato he threw it into the salad bowl. I'm not to curtain if he would have eaten it or not, but we from England and Germany certainly would not after it had been round my smelly foot.

When we had all stopped laughing at that manoeuvre from Manolis we got another shock as he filled a bucket up with water and threw what seemed to be a rock the size of a soccer/football into the water. We all looked at each another in bewilderment.
He then started to explain to us that the shepherds spend three quarters of the year up here on the plateau with the sheep as the grassing in the mountains on Crete is far better than down near sea level.
Getting back to this extraordinary thing with the stone like object. It's actually bread, but a special bread that can be kept for up to 6 months and all they need to do is soak it in water for half an hour then squeeze the water out and lay it over a fire or in the sun. When it's finished it's like freshly baked bread, well almost. Even the donkey in the next field ate it.

The stakes where wonderful and really tasty and the salad and potato salad went down a treat. The donkey was also very great full for the tomato, but he must have had a cold not to have smelt my sweaty foot. Then again may be with all his he-hawing he was doing may be he was also saying Malakas to me.
All in all it was a great day out and afterwards back down in Kritsa, we all had a drink in our local bar that stood right in the middle of local inhabitance. We had a good laugh at Lizzy over the tomato.

For those of you that are wondering about Zeus in the hub title, well Zeus the Greek God was born and grew up in a cave which was only a few miles away from our barbecue. Why he was born and grew up in this cave is another story.

© Copyright J. S. White. January2012 (Ghaelach)