Sunday 22nd October 2017 07:36

Sunrise – 07:41   Sunset – 18:38   Moon – Day 3
Extras
08:05   09:17   10:27
11:18   12:22   16:59
17:55   18:42   19:04

It has taken me 295 days to realise that my Sunday Blip has become something of an Omnibus edition. Normally for extras I select four of the best, or more latterly six of the best, but today, the last before the clocks change, I'm showing everything I took. Partly this is because there is more variation over the course of the day than has been known, and partly it's because I didn't take nearly as many as usual because we were working down at the cottage making the most of the decent weather while it hangs in there. Spousie is improving grouting details in the pool since he re-tiled it in April and we have had a whole Summer to find out how it performs. I am performing support tasks.

Throughout the Summer, as one set of guests departs and another set arrives, there is the ritual 'fridge harvest' which normally includes some left over milk and/or butter but sometimes, and far harder to understand, it might include half-a-cucumber, half-an-onion, half-a-tomato or half-a-bottle of wine. Neither of us can imagine being unable to get through a whole one of any of those.

Ioannis, who runs our favourite taverna, is contracted to cater for the flotilla sailing holidays, so when they are in the vicinity he is obliged to host them should they request him to do so. During the week he called us to let us know that the final flotilla would be in, the taverna would be open for its closing night of the season and if we didn't come along then there wouldn't be another opportunity until May 2018. So we went along.

Some tavernas might wind down gradually, but Ioannis always has the full menu available for the flotilla. If he thought there was a chance of some more business locally after they had left, or if he wasn't exhausted after six months of fourteen hour days, he might choose to stay open for a few nights just to empty the fridges, but he's knackered, we all are. He just wants to close up and go fishing.

During the summer we always recommend his place to our guests, and he knows it. We also drop off huge sacks of excess vegetables when we have more than we can cope with, and in 2016 we gave him a whole lamb for Easter. In return he takes Spousie out fishing when the opportunity arises and gives us first refusal at his end-of-season fridge harvest. His wife, who is also the chef, has no problem using up remaining meat and vegetables for family dishes, but it is the remaining fresh fish and boxed wine that they are unable to consume by themselves, and so those are offered to us. Spousie has cleaned, gutted packed and frozen the fresh fish (Greeks would never do that! Fish should always be fresh!) and I have made space on the kitchen worksurfaces for several random boxes of wine which should help to tide us through the time ours takes to clear.