BIRTHDAY GIRL -Again
The company we travelled with normally only organise one event: a boat or truck trip and picnic. On Alonissos it was a boat trip on the 27 year old Skyros-built 54foot traditional wooden Gorgona whose captain Paniotis "Pakis" Athanassiou was educated at LSE, is a passionate ecologist, founded the local fisherman's cooperative, was the main mover of the Sporades marine park and advocate of low key ecotourism. As Sheila was having a birthday on the day of the trip she checked with the rep. how many people would be coming so she could make sure we'd got enough sweeties for them (local almond biscuits made by the local Women's Cooperative). Half way on the trip (we visited offshore island, Patitiri, looked for monk seals & falcons etc) the rep. ( Samos-born Eirini) produced a chocolate birthday cake and candle and sang the Greek equivalent of "Happy Birthday"! The captain had the biggest slice, I noticed, and also 3 helpings of rizogalo when we stopped for coffee at Steni Vala on the way back. I took the opportunity to have one of Katina's rizogalos myself , remembering them from when we stayed in Steni Vala about 4 years ago.

The other boat trip we did, also with Pakis, was to Aghia Panaghia to see the 1000 year old monastery, walk across the island in company with Dutch Astrid who described the wild flora and its uses in food and medicine. The monk was "out", allegedly buying a donkey, so Pakis told us about the history of the islands and the marine park and showed us the outside of the monastery. Pakis is a fount of entertaining information and stories, many at the expense of rich Athenian tourists, like the ones who complained they should have been warned about the sea having fish in which had scared their child! On the other side of this otherwise uninhabited island is a farm, staffed by an Albanian family who supply the monk and export olives the parent monastery on Mt Athos. On one of the sheds was the international heart and arrow love symbol! Perhaps that's where they take a favourite goat…

FOOD & DRINK –again
Some travel writers say: "you don't go to Greece for the food". Eh? Do they only patronise urban "gyro me pitta" places?
We ate very well as usual. At the Women's Co-operative we bought "neratzi" jam. No-one could tell us what it was in English except a sort of bitter orange. My Greek dictionaries and Sheila's Greek cookbooks have confirmed it is …bitter orange! Apparently it grows in Athens and other towns and cannot be picked, but windfalls are fair game and though too bitter to be eaten makes great jam. There was a lot of local fruits ripening and ladies buying up jars and industrial quantities of sugar in the shops. Another thing we bought from the Co-op was a liqueur "karythaki" which we could get no more detailed info than "small nuts". Our books here give it as either a generic word for nuts or "walnut". A real mystery was a free starter we were given in a taverna in Rousoum Gialos. I think it was on the menu, untranslated, as "klimata" but I've not found it anywhere. It seems to have something to do with "air" so may just mean "free" just as horta is wild greens. This was nice and crunchy, not soggy like horta. We were told (largely in pantomime!) it was blanched and pickled and then lasted for a couple of years.
        I had the nicest galaktobouriko I've ever had at the Halati café in the Old Town. I had hoped for loukoumades but they were "off". The waitress apologised that the galaktobouriko was "too fresh" ! It was still warm and delicious.
        I was impressed that we were several times steered to different things: fresh local horta rather than the more expensive but largely imported Greek salad, for example. At another time I was dissuaded from having the last piece of baklava in a café as it was stale and offered the fresh kataifi instead. Sheila had an ice-cream and was offered the lady's home-made fruit syrup to go on it.

TSIPOURO!
The local barrel wine was very good (and only 4€ a litre!) but the local speciality was tsipourou, like ouzo but stronger (I think- though I'm understandably hazy about this- 43%!) and without aniseed. We were part of a group who went to the best ouzerie in the port (Kamaki)to try the ouzo & mezedes. I'm not too fond of ouzo(though, worryingly, after 2 or 3 I begin to like it!) though I usually have it to be polite- sometimes I'm as polite as a gecko, and Sheila doesn't like aniseed so we tried the tsipouropu. Others in the group stuck to ouzo and one couple wimped out and stuck to wine- and by the bottle. The mezes kept coming…and coming. I counted 12 plus a crème caramel to finish and a farewell metaxa. No, we didn't have 12 tsipouro or I wouldn't be here to tell the tale! I don't know whether is was that or the metaxa but we beat our personal best walk back to our accommodation by 5 minutes- and in the dark, up steps and along rough roads and stone donkey tracks – 25 minutes.
        The full list was: anchovy; dips (aubergine and cheese & pepper); 3 types of fritter including saganaki; kalamari fried; marinaded klaamari chunks; marinaded octopus; cuttlefish with spinach; greek salad;aubergine balls deep fried; green beans; mussels in curry sauce; dolmades; crème caramel- and bread of course.
        No ill effect the next day either, and all for 20€ per head.

MORE FOOD
There wasn't a bakery in the village but the local shop, about 2 minutes from our accommodation, got a delivery of fresh warm bread, pies, sweet pastries etc by 9am every morning, including brown bread. He had a well designed bakery room next to the shop but served alone in both, so having got your bread etc. you went next door to get the rest of your shopping (in my case often, embarrassingly just bread, crisps and wine!) and to pay. When he had a lull in serving bread he'd come and deal with the "queue" –I jest of course! The local ladies would have already packed their shopping in carrier bags and either unpacked them or told him what they'd got. One just tipped out her purse of small change on to the counter for him to sort through, another just threw a note at him across the counter (don't try this in Tesco's, children!) while we Brits waited patiently to pay!
Needless to say this was a slow start to a relaxing day.

SCHOOL'S OUT
After a day with a picnic on a deserted beach we spent a day at Rousoum Gialos, our nearest beach with one or two tavernas ( two more reopened during our stay) which was popular with locals. It turned out it was the last day of the school term and about 11.30 the juniors were let out for the day clutching their school reports, some of which looked unlikely to reach home in legible form! The all hit the beach and spent a happy day the same as Greek children throughout the islands, jumping or pushing each other off the jetty and local fishing boats, climbing the chalk cliffs barefoot and diving off, swimming and snorkelling. In the UK, of course, a risk assessment would have been carried out, parental consent forms obtained, qualified lifeguards and first aiders of both sexes would have been on duty….After a couple of hours a smart young woman in a sundress and unsuitable high heels came down to where they were and went for a paddle. "Miss, Miss" went up the cry (actually, Mrs , Mrs!) and they showed their teacher their dives and swimming strokes. After half an hour of this she went off in a car with a fellow teacher and returned with ice lollies for all, including a couple of mums who'd turned up by then. Later we saw the whole teaching staff at their end of term lunch in a taverna which went on till 5.30. My teachers never looked, dressed or treated us like that!
        One of the tavernas had a toddler dashing about in the nominal charge of granddad (who wasn't so nimble!) . He had to intervene when the child went to play in the traffic (fortunately a dead end so no through traffic, except motorcyclists who regarded steps as a challenge, not a barrier!) and on to the quay where he tried to pull in fishing boats like the big boys did, straining on the mooring line! Both granddad and father (in between waiting tables) would indulge him in this, finally "helping" him to pull a boat in, carry him on board and let him run around the deck and play with the fenders etc. for a while…and all without the intervention of Social Services!


CULTURE
One of the beaches we walked to, Tsoukalia, was across the other side of the island. The donkey tracks, stone paved, which we saw being restored when we stayed at Steni Vala a few years ago are now more extensive. There was a good one down from the old Town (we took bus or tax UP!) and our accommodation was along one. Cars couldn't turn around so had to drive down and back up or vice versa. Taxis wouldn't try but motorbikes did! Anyway, we got to Tsoukalia in about 40 minutes, allowing for admiring the view, "discussing" the route, resting Sheila' dodgy knee etc. There was only a windmill there which had been restored beautifully as a holiday home by someone with a lot of cash, and an archaeological site. The site, the beach and the hinterland was covered in millions of pottery shards, including recognisable handles, rims etc. It must have been a colossal industry to produce so much waste. The site was fenced off but outside it the road was made of crushed pottery, unfortunately the prevailing wind meant the beach was also covered in plastic waste along the tide line, a mystery for future archaeologists.
When we went on our boat picnic, the first time this season Pakis had landed at that spot on offshore islet Patitiri, he & crew lead the way to the beach cutting the path clear with secateurs and then filled three plastic sacks with plastic waste off the beach. When we were in Steni Vala , Costas, whose local family owned most of the businesses there, told us about the museum his family were building in Patoitiri, the port, to house their collection of tools and artifacts. It is now open, a smart stoneclad building on 4 floors. Entrance is 3€ with a free drink thrown in! Not all the labels are yet bilingual but it is a fascinating mish-mash of finds from the sea, "pirate" loot and tools of traditional crafts. There is also a lot of stuff from the seemingly endless Balkan Wars. Not entirely impartial captions paint the Bulgarians, Albanians, Turks, Italians and Germans as the Bad Guys, and, for once, England as on the side of the angels (ie Greece).
The Old Town had been evacuated after an earthquake in the 1960s and the Colonels (spit!) wouldn't allow the locals to rebuild. Now Germans and Scandinavians are buying up and restoring the ruins and there is life there again, in the Summer at least while the Greek population is in architecturally unexciting Patitiri and Votsi. That said, our apartment was new and very well appointed (except for the traditional Greek loo-roll holder that leapt off the wall if you looked at it ) with a nice patio with pots of flowers everywhere.

OUR APARTMENT

There were two apartments with side views from the balcony of the fishing harbour at Votsi and facing the garden opposite of a larger complex. Very mature pine trees and lots of flowers and birds. Or owner downstairs was a primary school teacher with two children about 8-9. She was very shy, we only saw her to speak to once, and they kept indoors, unusually, and were VERY quiet. The rest of the village, of course, shouted screamed, crowed, barked, revved up, in the traditional way. Hollyhocks seemed a favourite flower, a lot escaped into the wild in ruins and neglected land. As there is a lot of fiercely protected pine forest on the island it is very green and lots of wild flowers and butterflies and birds as a result. Pine trees are still tapped for resin for retsina, but there are fewer trained tappers around now.The collared doves outside our window were a bit monotonous but we believed we heard a blue rock thrush (not confirmed by sighting, where is Bill Oddie when you need him?). The only snake we saw was a dead grass snake, but there was a profusion of lizards every few feet on our walks, and the traditional house gecko eating moths by the outside light.
        The accommodation had aircon, which we didn't need, and a tv which, I'm proud to say, we never switched on. There was also an ironing board we didn't touch either! Another Greek tradition was observed: the only bank on the island was on strike the whole time we were there! The bus service was good, and increased in frequency while we were there, to get to the old town. No chats with the driver, he was always on his mobile phone.
Next to the harbourside taverna in Votsi was a little stone house occupied by a little old lady (in the Sporades they wear pale blue with white headscarves rather than black) whose stockings outwrinkled Norah Batty's. She used to come out in the evening and stand , or sit on the nearby steps and stare at the tourists in the tavern! Staring cats are unnerving enough…but am I that strange? (Answers on a postcard…).There were a lot of dogs and a shop in the port selling only animal feed and pet food. Not many donkeys in evidence, though.

Sadly, there was no live music, the season was really only just starting, some businesses still not open. Partly caused by the loss of the daily ferry from Volos. Mainland Greeks need their cars on holiday and so local traffic was down, only we foreigners lugging our stuff on and off hydrofoils and catmarans. The local businesses also suffered with only one weekly ferry having to bring anything large in or out. We phoned our friends in Kalymnos: they had no empty tables, much better season than last year! Mind you, it was good for us. If all the vacant rooms had been occupied, we wouldn't have had empty beaches and room and time to chat to locals in tavernas.
        Now we have Lemnos to look forward to in September. Sheila is going to a conference in Pretoria, SA in the interim!

RtS