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Archive for October, 2008

Sun and Rain

Posted in Places, tagged , , on October 30, 2008 | 32 Comments »

Skywatch
There are times on the island of Crete when you can take a picture that includes both sun and rain. In the picture below we have rain on the mountain and sun at the sea front. Part of the remarkable light that we have on this island.
Here is another shot

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My Little Cretan Owl

Posted in Life in Crete, tagged , , on October 28, 2008 | 38 Comments »

ABC Wednesday
Owls are lovely creatures. They fly at night and eat up rats and mice. You hardly see them in Crete although they can be heard hooting from time to time. But recently I met a baby owl near the road. Here he is:
I snapped this picture fast, almost before he knew I was there. [...]

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Recent Memories and Memorials

Posted in Memories, Places, tagged , , , on October 23, 2008 | 13 Comments »

Skywatch
Deep in the heart of Crete, in the forever wonderful Amari Valley high in the hills south of Rethymno there are five or six villages on the western side of the valley on the slopes of the Kedros mountains. These villages, in 1944, were attacked by the occupying Germans and each one was razed to [...]

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Sweet Chestnuts

Posted in Life in Crete, tagged , , on October 21, 2008 | 19 Comments »

ABC Wednesday
Today is the nutty season in Crete. Perhaps we are all nuts for living in such a beautiful island, but I would live nowhere else. But now nuts are the thing. The lovely chestnut trees are disgorging their wonderful nut for us all to go and pick up.
The nuts are wonderful, they appear in [...]

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A Quality of Light

Posted in Life in Crete, tagged , , , , , on October 16, 2008 | 27 Comments »

Skywatch Friday
Living on the island of Crete, you learn many things. One of them is the pleasure to sit outside near the end of the day and watch the sun go down. There is all the enjoyment of the magic of the evening, a sip from your frappe or glass of wine, and the certain [...]

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M is for Milking Sheep

Posted in Local Culture, Places, tagged , , , on October 14, 2008 | 22 Comments »

ABC Wednesday
On Saint George’s day in the village of Asigonia in Crete, the shepherds bring all of the herds down from the mountains to have them milked.
From the other side, it looks just like this:
Then, of course, the milk has to be pasteurised:
Then the milk is given freely to anyone who wants some. The village [...]

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Kazantzakis – The Grave

Posted in History, Local Culture, Places, tagged , , , on October 9, 2008 | 26 Comments »

Skywatch Friday
Nicos Kazantzakis was probably the greatest author to be born on the island of Crete. His books included Zorba the Greek to Freedom or Death. His book, The Last Temptation, was banned by the Pope and his writings in general led to him being excommunicated by the Greek Orthodox Church.  He thus was not [...]

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L is for Lassiti

Posted in Memories, Places, tagged , , on October 7, 2008 | 16 Comments »

ABC Wednesday
High in the mountains of Crete there is a plateau which once, some years ago, was famous for windmills. The scene of so many fluttering windmills was a sight to see. It used to look exactly like this.
In fact these were not so much windmills, but windpumps. Almost every field had one and it [...]

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Panagia Chrisoskalitissa Monastery, Elafonisi

Posted in Life in Crete, Memories, Places, tagged , , , , on October 2, 2008 | 18 Comments »

Skywatch Friday
The monastery of Panagia Chrisoskalitissa, Our Lady of the Golden Step in English, is in the remote south west of Crete just six Kilometres from the lovely lagoon beach of Elafonisi. And it is glorious.
This photograph was taken when the sunset happened and thank heavens I had my camera to hand for the amount [...]

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