As we are coming into what seems to be the coldest winter for many years, according to the predictions, let us see the last two winters here in Crete.
Cars Washed Out To Sea
Two years ago in October we had terrific storms that often ended up as the picture above.
Snow Hits Crete
Last year we had snow, a lot of it. Many olive trees were damaged and the orange trees were hit by frost. I guess we have to wait and see what will happen this winter. Let us hope that the elements are kinder to us.
I was very pleased to get our olive harvest in and pressed when I did because this last cold snap just beggars belief. This morning the cat’s water that we leave outside was frozen solid. Two inches of ice in a place where we never hardly ever approach zero centigrade never mind get to minus four or five as we did last night. Yesterday it was snowing heavily and not only snow but largeish white pellets of ice were falling with some speed. Truly a horrible day and Sunday was no better.
The snow you see falling around our olive trees was just the beginning. Later it got worse. Cars were being buried and the ice crystals were all over the roads. Most people got their wood burning fires going and stayed indoors.
You can see here the result of the chaos with the buried cars and the icicles hanging from the building behind.
So they got to work with huge bulldozers, snowploughs and JCBs to clear the roads. Some however, like the one above that curves off to the left up the hill, were beyond them. It was hard and very cold work for the road clearers but I do admire the way that they stuck at what they were doing for very long hours indeed.
Here is one of the big JCBs clearing the road in front of us. Quite a job. Thank God for raki – or tsikoudia as they call it round here. So to all those of you campaigning to prevent global warming, check out ‘this’ island in the sun.
Crete 