So here we are on Crete, or perhaps in Crete – I start to wonder about the distinctions when learning Greek since, the tourist phrase book tells me ‘sto, stin, stis’ translate respectively as ‘to the, at the, in the’ and in that respect is definitely a rough guide. Anyway, the house, though showing signs of damp with paint bubbling on some walls, at least hasn’t been leaking. This time we didn’t have to spend hours mopping dried mud from the floors – washed from the old internal stonework of the house because that’s how they built houses in Eastern Crete until the 1950s when, so I am told by a local, they actually started using a wonderful new invention called concrete.

However, as the previous picture I put up here showed, we did have plenty to do in the garden. It took us about two days to clear the jungle, and we were pleasantly surprised to find that as well as the nigh indestructible geraniums and yukkas, other plants had survived, including strawberries, one nasturtium and broad beans. We’ve now planted masses of seeds and eagerly await the first radishes, rocket, and other salad veg. I’ve squashed my first scorpion too – one of the joys of Cretan gardening.

Yesterday we ventured into Sitia to make enquiries about getting Internet up here at the house. We went to OTE, which is the Cretan equivalent of BT, since as yet we don’t even have a phone line. Having heard stories from others about them being sold a dial-up ‘package’ (the set-up is different here) because broadband was not possible, then later being sold broadband and unable to get the money back on that dial-up package, we were determined we would only have a phone line put in if we could get broadband too. No way did we want to end up paying the 15 Euros a month line rental without it.

As usual enquiries were hampered by the language barrier, my Greek being enough to make simple requests and understand simple replies, and the guy’s English being good, but just not quite enough. So, OTE could not provide broadband, but maybe Cosmote could at 30 Euros a month. Does Cosmote work up there? Um, I don’t know – we don’t have a phone line – if you can’t provide broadband, how is it some other company can? And why is it that you can’t provide it up in our village when people we know, in an even remoter village in the mountains, can get it (after having to pay for that dial-up package)?

I’m still none the wiser. Is it the case that Cosmote provide wireless broadband in certain areas? Is it the case that OTE just don’t deal with broadband, that you have to go to another company, and that they are like BT before they started providing broadband? Did the guy in the OTE office want to screw me for a dial-up package first (paranoia is very easy here)? Time to make further enquiries and our first port of call must be Stelios, the Cretan who sold us our house, speaks very good English, and knows the system here.

I really need that Internet. Working here, like this, using the Gecko Bar’s Internet connection is not enough to keep me on top of things.

Another place we visit at least once a year, ever since being introduced to it by Peter Lavery ten years ago, is St. Leonards-on-Sea and, by foot from there, Hastings itself. In the winter time it is a little bit dreary, but there’s still some excellent stuff to see, and to do. The latter of these usually involve fish and chips and red wine, which we always find we need after first installing ourselves in a fifth floor flat and then tramping for miles up and down various slopes. You have to remember we come from flatland Essex, and we live in a bungalow. My calves are still aching.

Here’s one of the typically Victorian (Edwardian?) streets:

The Jain technology died in this park many years ago, but this remnant remains:

Nobody told Caroline it was a Whomping Willow:

Hastings Pier, a wonderful place where once you could play silly games, buy sickly sweets, stroll out over the sea or sup wine out at a table in the sunshine. Now being left to fall to ruin while the arseholes in the council instead blow money on a modern art gallery no one will visit. The sea air may clear ones head, but doesn’t clear stupidity from the heads of council bureaucrats:

I nice little pub whose name I can’t remember right now. It has everything a pub should have, except cigarette smoke and customers (there’s a connection):

These are from Walker of Worlds (I’ll sort out how to get one of these on here, Mark).

I small colony of prador was discovered in a Victorian apartment block in St. Leonards on Sea. The owner of the flat in which they were found, one Peter Lavery, said, “Ah, they’re just a bit of fun,” but failed to explain why so many neighbouring flats now seem to be vacant.