Paying Bills and Super-Fresh Lamb

CRETE POST BOXES

Going about your daily business whilst living a Greek Island Life can throw up a few surprises - pleasant ones though.

We don't have a letter box (or proper address for that matter - it's just "that house with the pool just off the road to Vamos"), so we collect our mail from the post office in the village. Some people are lucky enough to have a post box. Not us. We have to rummage through two boxes, sifting through each item of mail to find ours.

Why not sort the mail alphabetically in the boxes making it easy to find yours? I hear you ask.

A good point. However, the Greek alphabet complicates things.

My name is Yates. This is a "Y" in our alphabet, and comes next to last. Simple - just look towards the end of the 2nd box.

In Greek "Y" is Gamma, and looks like this: "Γ". Gamma comes third in the Greek alphabet.

To further complicate matters, the mail might often be filed under your first name. Mine's Graham, and there is no "G" in the Greek alphabet!

POST OFFICE IN KALYVES

To further further complicate matters, some official mail will come with your father's name incorporated into your name. My Dad was Robert. "R looks like "P" in Greek.

What this actually means is that you have to trawl through every piece of mail in both boxes to find yours, amongst piles of scruffy tatty, stuff not picked up by people for months on end, if at all.

So it's no surprise that you miss some things - and we missed the electricity bill.

We had thoughts of being cut off, and anyway, didn't relish the trip to the main office in Chania to pay it. Normally you can pay your bill at the Post Office - but not if it's overdue.

However, the postal chap in the Post Office told us not to bother paying it. We didn't need to because we could pay it when the next bill arrived.

I asked him would we be cut off if we didn't pay our bill.

He just couldn't understand the concept of being "cut off", and told us not to worry.

So we won't.

CRETAN DIET - LAMB

Next, a trip to the butchers.

We wanted a leg of lamb, but the butcher lady was apologetic.

"I am so sorry, but the farmer has not killed the lambs yet. Please come back at 4 o'clock".

That lamb was delicious!

NEWS FROM CRETE AND GREECE

This news report appeared in the Kathimerini newspaper.

Make sure your shooting partner knows what a wild boar looks like...

Hunting accident

"A 31-year-old man who went hunting yesterday in the northern prefecture of Pella accidentally shot dead his 30-year-old friend after mistaking him for a wild boar, police said. The two men had been out shooting wild duck when the 31-year-old heard a rustle, turned to fire at the prey but ended up shooting his friend in the head."