In Crete

 The quandary over holiday v. living continues… We are experiencing some “survivor guilt” combined with some separation anxiety in regard to family back in England not to mention friends – we feel blessed to be somewhere so paradisial (mosquitos excepted) whilst family and friends must fight through an English winter made worse not just by the counter-Covid measures themselves, but by the stress of watching an inept, misguided and venally self-serving government bluff and badger their way through the crisis. At present, the local governments of the North of England have been demanding more money to help the afflicted if they must go into stricter measures again and the government are ploughing ahead anyway. This is really a battle against the “power-grabbing to the centre” of the Dominic Cummings led government and quite rightly so – nor is this dilemma solely being enacted in Britain but in many countries around the world including here in Greece…

On the “living in Greece” side – we have attended a wedding of our next-door neighbours – him Greek her Russian, their baby so was baptized following the wedding- a beautiful church whose interior was completely covered in paintings of saints, bishops, and disciples. Followed by dancing at the wedding feast – limited to 50 attendees – so more than thrilled to have been invited. My partner’s sister’s partner was doing the catering for the event.


Furthermore, we have begun to learn the language in the contemporary manner – using the app Duolingo! Whilst choosing a suitable app  – came across Busuu which is named for a language whose native speakers had dwindled to a mere eight before the app (which unfortunately doesn’t cover Greek) offers the chance to learn Busuu as well as a small selection of other languages – so now there are presumably more speakers – who knows, perhaps like the native American tribe used for communications during WW2, there is a society of surreptitious Busuu speakers defying the eavesdroppers on the internet, whispering sweet nothings to one another or who knows what!!!

On the “going home eventually” side of the coin, our funds are finite and life is not cheap here and of course, Brexit still looms…

Nevertheless, we have been here over a week now and some sort of “new normal” begins to emerge.


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