ISSUE NUMBER TWENTY ONE – SPECIAL OLYMPIC EDITION

Due to public demand the E Mess reappears - a special commemorative Olympic edition (I think the games gets a mention somewhere).

TRAVEL ADVISORY
Len does not take dogs on his boat, so Fido has to come in a "doggie bag." Quote from Len, as the boys are sorting the boat out, "You are not bringing that in my boat". "In a bag" said Sue and Daniela in unison. Unfortunately Len hates Fido and Fido loves Len. All the way to Koufonissi Fido is trying to get to Len who is driving the boat, but hey, Len kept grinning at Fido. We sailed round to the beautiful south beach of Koufonissi and its one kilometre of stunning deserted white beach. Sue and Daniela stroll along it with Fido and what do we find; a dead turtle (anyone know how good rotting turtle meat tastes to a dog?). Worse to come. "Lets take it back" said Len, so Nikolara and Len, with our picnic bread knife, tried to remove the rotting meat from said dead turtle. Result, knife destroyed. Eventually, they dragged it through the water down to the boat.

OLYMPICS

For security reasons Heraklion Airport will be closed for several hours on several days during the games. That should be fun, especially as we know that some flights are being re-directed to Hania instead.

WHEN YOU VISIT

Do take a drive into the mountains to visit Lapithos (where they have the most beautiful donkeys on Crete) and Kato Kria, which is, as we can attest, the last bastion of the Drachma. We don't think many outsiders visit Kato Kria. The taverna (I use the word loosely) had fruit on offer (some never seen by Ed before; Plum cousins, cherry cousins - very tasty) raki, water and Greek coffee. We were greeted cheerfully by the waiter who must have been ninety at least (See pic of us in said "taverna"). When we asked for the bill the answer was Drx2500. The Euro has only been the currency here for two and a half years.

NOTE TO VISITORS

When you visit some of these out of the way little villages - it is always a good idea to leave a large tip. The Cretan hospitality clearly merits this, but in some cases it is obvious they have not seen a tourist in nearly three years.

QUOTES OF THE WEEK
CULTURE - The Olympic flame passed through Makrigialos and the guys marking the route with green paint were observed by Sue and Mikle from the Beer Garden - thus Mikle gets a quote of the week "If I get some paint like that we can send the flame via the Pool Bar".

SNORKELLING

The other Sunday from Diaskari beach. What fantastic snorkelling! Amazing amounts of stuff to be seen. It was so busy down there underneath the waves and we saw hundreds of fish within one hundred metres of the shore, including Parrot fish - amazing colours.

SNIPPETS OF IRRELEVENT THINGS

Chris just happened to be standing by the pool and saw a bird behaving in what he thought was a strange/unusual manner . "Well" he said, "I have never seen a bird behave like that." It turned out he had never seen a baby sparrow drowning before. Finally the poor little sparrow was "netted" from the pool and Chris said "shall I throw it over the wall or would you like to save it for Mittens?"

New game received from the US of A - Wineopoly - great fun - Mikle managed to get fined 50 dollars twice for serving red wine with a twist of lemon in a plastic cup.

Mikle celebrated his birthday here at Villea - what a splendid do - afternoon party by the pool. Amazing gifts from the ex pats down here included a "bubble gun." Vassilis was particularly horrified as one of the specialities on the bbq was Lidl sausages, plus of course lashings and lashings of mashed potatoes!

We celebrated Lord and Lady Farnsworth's wedding anniversary in a local taverna (see pic). What a fantastic night. It was, of course, followed by "skinny dipping" in the pool hence a rather blurry pic of Big Eddie is attached. During the course of Lord Farnsworth's speech we were (unusually, we thought) invited to his funeral. Apparently it will be a really smashing "do" as he has arranged it all himself.

Just before the Olympics there was a major power cut in Athens (well the whole of mainland Greece actually). Some cynic in our village said "What? Practicing for the Olympics?"

- Busy as ever at Villea. This was particularly shown when Ed was washing up behind the pool bar and was told that her washing up gloves did not match her bikini.

AWARDS

For the longest drive. From Makrigialos to Plakia in SW Crete it took about 4 hours. The return from Plakias to Makrigialos - about eight hours - including a diversion via unmapped parts of Crete caused by the Olympic flame procession - anyone heard of Akrogiali Sidero?

GREEK IN 35 FIVE YEARS When we started we really thought thirty five years was adequate. Judging, however, by the progress of some of the ex pats down here this is not true. This weeks word is Poleitai - meaning for sale and it is from this we had to invent the shopping god. The Greeks have a God or Saint for everything except it seems "shopping." The nearest of relevance is Hermes who is the God of Commerce/communications. So taking the word "poleitai" we arrived, of course, at Pollyanna and who is now the official Goddess of Shopping who is now regularly worshipped by all the girls on Monday,Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

DOGWATCH. Surely Pointy Head is a control freak - Ed joined the aforementioned with little Ratso for long dog walking with his dogs, Martha and Roly. After fifteen minutes the dogs had strayed too far. I shout "Ratso." Mark shouts [loudly] "Martha, Roly." Who gets back first?. Well it was little Fido (see pic). After half an hour its total change as all dogs look directly to Mark. That explains why Daniela is shouting for Fido (or trying to) like a Cretan shepherd.

There have as usual been the odd cases of "caught for wrongful cultivation" in the area - if you have read previous issues of this sad little missive you will know that this occurs in the mountains in bamboo groves where goats like to forage, hence the phrase used locally, "as high as a goat."

CAMERIS DIGITALIS
This must be a new disease since Ed is so keen on taking pictures of stuff that no notes are properly taken.

MORE PARTIES - Celebrating Lady F's birthday. One of life's special moments was sailing back into Makrigialos Harbour on Fegari holding a glass of champagne singing Yellow Submarine (played live by Lee and Lefteris). Do we know how to live or what!!!

Visit the Villea Village Website at www.villeavillage.com where you can also read back issues of this sad little missive.

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