Spider- Catcher Extraordinaire

What would I do without my daughter, Sophia 'Spider-Catcher'? I was just putting Leo to bed: “Pick up your dirty clothes and put them in the washing pile, and take that”, I pointed to a towel that lurked damply in a corner, “and put it in the bathroom.”

Leo did as he was told and a large grey tarantula (or 'migal', I think they're called here – anyway it was a couple of inches across and all legs and hair) landed from the towel with an almost audible 'plop' on the floor.

I don't like big spiders. Unable to stop, I once drove the pot-holed dual carriageway from the Golan Heights to Damascus in the dark, a large spider patrolling the van's windscreen in front of me. Ducking my head, I managed to keep it in sight, backlit by the headlights of oncoming vehicles, and only when we arrived at the Damascus campground could Barbie, my travelling companion, and I try and catch it. No way were we going to sleep with that monster. We lost it in the van's bookshelves, and ate dinner with a weather eye cocked. Only as we were about to sleep did it reveal itself, an inch or two from Barbie's nose. She, fortunately, was made of sterner stuff than I, and managed to corner it in a glass, slide stiff paper underneath it, and fling it out of the van's sliding door – only to have it jump on her and run up her arm before it disappeared forever.

Sophia is also made of sterner stuff than I and has several times come to my rescue when a big spider has found itself near me. They seem to like damp laundry, especially towels. More than once, while picking up the laundry by the back door, I have had a big migal fall out of the pile. Early one school morning two years ago, it happened just before everyone was supposed to get up. I screamed from surprise and pain (it was the period when my hip was giving me real gip, and the sideways twisting leap that I performed in the pre-dawn gloom was guaranteed to hurt). Sophia heard my yell and turned over sleepily thinking 'Alex will sort it out, he's nearer!' When evidentally no help came from the gallant Alex, Sophia dashed outside to find me crouched and groaning, pointing at the offending arachnid. She promptly dropped a laundry basket on it, earning a reprimand from me... From then on, like Barbie, she scoops them up tenderly with a glass and a sheet of card and carries them far from the house.

Last winter, while taking a shower when the kids were at school, I reached for the soap and thought 'That's odd: one of the kids has left one of the plastic spiders from the Early Learning Centre in the soap dish...' only when I touched it and it moved did I realise that the creature under my hand was, in fact, real. I continued my shower, gaze fixed on the soap dish, but when I returned to remove it, the spider had vanished. For the next week I conducted myself with great trepidation in the bathroom – carefully inspecting all towels, face cloths, soap, and such. But it never revealed itself again.

So this evening, when Leo and I froze staring at the creature on the floor, I yelled for Sophia and she came, glass and card in hand. This spider did not go gently, however. S/he seemed to fancy Leo's room and only after much persuasion with the card and a wand from a box of magic tricks would consent to be lured into a position where Sophia could lower the glass over her/his body without trapping the great hairy legs.

Sophia's language was colourful -- a steady stream of epithets mixed with cajoling encouragement. Study of Shakespeare seems to be paying off.

Visit to Crete

Despite how much I love my family, and despite the fact that I do enjoy my life, sometimes it's great to get away...

I just spent three days in the Cretan town, Chania, sitting in on Part of Stella Johnson's Documentary Photography workshop. The workshop ran for five days, but I only managed three -- driving to Larnaca, boarding Aegean's flight for Heraklion, landing to find two bus loads of riot police outside the airport (expecting me, were they?), taking the three hour bus trip to Chania and finally checking in to the wonderful Porto del Colombo hotel in the old city.

My mornings were spent shooting, editing, and in class seeing the other students' work and sharing critiques. All together there were five American students and between three and five local teaching assistants who helped with translations and introductions and organised locations for the students to shoot -- a leather factory, the gypsy encampment, the market.

This was Stella's fourth Crete workshop: I first met her four years ago when I took a Magic Moment class with Costa Manos, and last year I was also able to attend part of her workshop. She is a wonderful teacher -- warm and encouraging, positive and constructive. I feel that I made some good progress in my work.

The most important place that I photographed was the cemetary. Stella and I had been together last year, but both of us had felt intimidated by the loaded situation there. This year I was determined to get something from it, and was rewarded. As I wandered the aisles, photographing the different graves, their inscriptions, their mementoes, I wondered how to discreetly include the black-clad relatives who came to clean and sweep their loved-one's tomb. I stopped at the memorial to one young man and was exploring different visual ideas when his mother arrived with fresh flowers and candles. Mortified, I asked if she minded my photography, and she said not at all, and to continue... The experience was a gift.

The whole workshop was a gift -- of learning, of cameraderie, of good food and raki, of intense concentration... Thank-you to all who combined your energies to make it all possible.

Bottling

In the beginning... there was the winery: ready for the bottling, older vintages 'wracked and stacked...'

Production line in progress...

Yesterday we bottled the 2010 vintage of 'Chateau de Petit Ane Blanc'. It was a rather special event: unlike other years, when Best Beloved has used grapes from others' vinyards to make up barrel quantity, last year's harvest was all our own certified organic grapes. It was a smaller harvest – only 100 litres: fifty litres 'A' -quality, fifty litres 'B'- which had been patiently waiting in their stainless steel tanks in the basement winery for their descent into glass.

The night before, Le Sommelier arrived from Nicosia with wife and Littles-Aged son in tow. A good dinner was had by all, including my brother-in-law and his Intended over from Continental Europe (one lives in Vienna, one lives in Brussles). I baked salmon in foil and served it with dill butter, steamed baby potatoes, a tabbouleh and a green salad and followed that up with a pannacotta with forest-fruit sauce, and we were all tucked into bed by twelve.

We started at about eleven the next morning, LS filling bottles, BB corking them, Alex wiping them off and putting them in their appointed spots. Then friend Charis arrived with wife and Toddler son in tow and began filling bottles from the other tank, ably assisted by Toddler. Wives and I were fluid elements in the production line variously collecting bottles, rinsing them, opening packets and photographing the proceedings. Toward the end we ran out of bottles and I made a frantic circuit of the house rounding up the empty wine bottles that we have stashed in the bedrooms as water containers.

By one we had finished and cleaned up. Lunch was the remains of the salmon mashed with cream cheese, capers, lemon juice and pepper on brown toast, fresh asparagus, and for the non-pescavores cold roast beef sliced 'waffer-theen'.

'I think the wine is good', BB said to me last night. 'And LS thinks so, too. You can usually tell when he thinks its good because he doesn't say much...'

Best Beloved has put so much work into this -- hours of planting, weeding, pruning, tying up, harvesting, pressing... fiddling! Endless thought and research, endless consideration of the whys, hows, and wherefores of the making of good wine. The 2008 wine was lovely: complex and spicy -- and it received good reviews from People Who Know About Wine. Two thousand nine I liked less and I think BB liked it less, too.

I can't wait to see how this one turns out.

New vintages A- and B- qualities, and time to rest and enjoy the view... (why did this caption turn blue???)

Easter Prep

Flaouna baking time is here again! Except for last year, when Marios was too little to really participate, Kay has always made flaounes with me. First with Alex and Sophia 'helping', lately with Zenon and Leo helping. So it seemed perfectly natural, now that Marios is a little bigger, to give her a call last week and suggest a morning's baking followed by egg tree making and a dog walk.

She arrived at just after nine and by ten we had a production line going: making the dough, leaving it to rise while we made the filling, then rolling each flaouna, filling it, painting with egg, and finally cooking tray after tray.

Time constraints mean that the egg tree is for another day, but we made several dozen flaounes (hers with raisins, mine with hash seeds) and walked Lucky along the dam.

The Turning of the Seasons, the Turning of the Years

We are leaving spring behind and roaring, full throttle, into summer.

Every year the change in seasons happens this way: for the first half of April we cruise through a beautiful honeymoon spring, green grass, bright flowers, air crisp enough morning and evening to make long sleeves and a sweatshirt neccessary. The butter can stay out of the fridge in its butterdish, and retain the perfect consistency for spreading. Then around the middle of the month, the season shifts into higher gear. Overnight the grain ripens and the flowers die. Shorts and sandals come out of the closets, doors and windows stay open all day. One starts to avoid the sunshine. The butter sags into a golden pool and, if not refrigerated during the day, gets a rancid tang very quickly.

Yesterday we celebrated Zenon's birthday. He invited a crowd of friends and most of their parents joined us as well. Best Beloved did a simple meal of pork, lamb, and chicken souvla. There were hummous and grilled halloumi for the vegetarian contingent, and a massive salad. Cake and jelly followed the games, then the children dispersed to bike races, lego building, and table tennis – which the adults soon joined. Everyone left by dark, and BB and I cleaned up then sat sipping white wine on the verandah.

I guess I've been doing birthday parties – an average of two or three a year – for seventeen years now. And as I looked around the gathered well-wishers, I saw some of the same faces that appear in pictures taken more than a decade ago. Stelios is about to finish his army service now. Yioti is about to do his A-Levels. I have pictures of Yiotis's fifth birthday party, with several of the same characters gathered around his chocolate cake as were gathered around Zenon's yesterday. Maybe that's because Lisa's and my kids grew up side-by-side... But it's been a while since all her big boys were here, and as she said yesterday, as we watched them scoffing cake and jelly with the same enthusiasm that they showed twelve years ago “They don't get any smaller, and they take up So Much Space!”

Little People parties are dominated by Pass the Parcel and Pin the Tail on the Donkey, Sophia's last one – when she turned fourteen (she couldn't decide what to do last year, so opted for nothing) – was a tea party, complete with crustless sandwiches, elegant cups and saucers, and trifle... and head banging rock and roll or heavy metal rumbling from the nether regions both before and after the meal. Leo's is a winter birthday, and the weather is often too bad to spend it outdoors, but Zenon's is the perfect opportunity for outdoor games. Last year we had water ballon wars with washable dye. All the invitations included the admonition to 'wear old clothes' – not a usual warning on a Cypriot invite.

Next weekend belongs to Easter, and the spate of parties and feasting that accompany the major festival of the Orthodox year. I'll shun the bangers and bonfire of Saturday night: custom is that the whole village goes for the Midnight Service, shares a light from the Paschal Candle, and witnesses the celebration of the Risen Christ. The Pagan side of me enjoys the fire and the concept of the gathering, but in practice I usually avoid it – I hate the firecrackers, and don't enjoy the religion.

The Big Ones have friends in the village now to hang out with, and will surely go. BB or his parents may take the Littles.

Then it's back to school – revising and GCSE's for Alex, end of term exams for Sophia, the Three R's for the Littles. After that? The long, glorious ten weeks of summer holidays.

Roll on!

On Making Dogs and Small Boys Happy

Another Facebook-inspired note today...

A friend posted the other day something like 'forget the gym, get a dog', and that caused me to reflect on our current situation.

We have been dogless since late last summer when our dear stray, Lizzie, who had found a home with us but a few brief months, ate poison probably spread on our land by a hunter jealous of another hunter's dogs. But Mili has a dog... Her pet Lucky died after a twelve-year innings, and was replaced in short order by a spirited puppy late last October. I had my doubts about this Lucky. I knew that it would grow into a big dog – she has, and she's still growing. I feel that it's desperately unfair to fit a big dog into a small pen. And, Mili is no spring chicken (she'll be seventy next month) and is neither as spry nor as strong as she used to be. The combination was not promising.

Sure enough, Milli tries to take Lucky II for walks twice a day, but they are pitifully short for an energetic, long-legged youngster. And seeing Lucky shut up, hour after hour, day after day does my heart and my temper no good at all.

So I take Lucky for walks. Not every day, but at least five times a week I take her out for an hour or so over the dam, down to the – thankfullly defunct – motorcycle piste, along the valley, or through the fields. Usually I can get one of the boys to come with me: Leo came the other day, and we walked the edge of the plateau – Lucky porpoising through the weeds, wheat, barley and flowers in the fallow pastureland, only the points of her ears and the tips of her waving tail visible above the green, yellow, purple and scarlet all around. Even Leo found some of the greenery head-high, and plunged with small-boy abandon after the dog and the ball that she was alternately clutching and tossing into the air.

Today was Zenon's eleventh birthday and his gift from his father and me was a bike. This is a honey of a bike – his first with gears – and he was desperate to try it. So this evening, with all other chores and driving jobs dispensed with, I suggested that he come with me and Lucky down to the dam. “We'll go along the wall this time, not over the tracks and the fields, and you can try the new bike properly.”

His face lit immediately, and he hurried to find his shoes, collect the dog from her pen, and help me get the bike into the Landrover. It's so big that we had to take the wheel off, and we fussed and pushed, and all the while Lucky II panted her excited doggy breath into the back of the car. Job done, Zenon climbed into the back beside the dog and we set off on the short journey.

By the time we got to our usual parking place, the light was golden and the shadows long. We unloaded bike and dog and set off. There and back, I walked a mile, the silver and light blue water, it's level almost to full (I remember so well two years ago when the high-water mark showed livid, way above the stagnant ooze that lapped the hillsides and damwall) meeting the green and dappled hillsides; EasyJet landing from Gatwick; the windmills turning against the sky. Boy and dog must have covered five miles: I was only a quarter of the way across when they reached the end and started back towards me. Then circling me, they headed back the way they had come – Zenon feeling his way up and down the gears and bouncing over the speed bumps and Lucky running alongside, tongue hanging, eyes laughing, tail wagging 'This-beats-those-sedate-promenades-with Mili-hands-down!' written all over her face. Mutt that she is, her chassis is a little crooked and she can't run a straight line to save her life.

By the time we returned, dusk had fallen and Zenon took Lucky back to her cage for her dinner.

Best Beloved turned our spare room into a gym last month, with the purchase of a treadmill, an elliptical machine, a rower, and a set of weights. Most weekday mornings, I do 15 minutes on the elliptical (it tells me that I have covered something over a mile with a resistance of 9 – whatever that means), and about 50 sit-ups. I simply do not have time to take Lucky out, so I resort to the gym.

But evenings are a different matter. Evenings now, for a while I forget the chores, forget the hassle, just get a boy, get the dog, and get outside.

What I was Thinking About While Planting This Morning

Something happened yesterday that made me sad.

I was doing my skim through Facebook and came on the following, posted by one of my friends from High School: “Apparently, Glenn Beck says that only hookers use Planned Parenthood. Guess that makes me and all the other people who have ever used PPs vast array of services hookers. Cross post if you are a hooker according to Beck too.” I had used PP – gratefully -- in my youth, thought 'What a ridiculous thing to say!' and without too much thought, posted it to my status bar. Over the next 24 hours, that comment generated more responses than any that I have ever made.

A friend in Maine explained some of the background to the quotation (which I will not post here. It's easy enough to find on the Net if you want to listen), and suggested that GB doesn't necessarily believe what he says, but thrives on OTT controversial statements, and I accept that that maybe true. I don't know him or his background from Adam. (Note to readers: I have not lived in the USA for two decades, plus. I am not familiar with talk show hosts or other popular personalities, and know that commenting on another culture whose nuances are unfamiliar, is done at the commenter's peril. There be Dragons! But I digress.) I replied that I was unfamiliar with the man in question and had probably passed on the equivalent of a Chinese Whisper. Within minutes, a friend in Florida posted the link to the comment, and I listened to what was actually said.

I felt ill almost immediately. It was so full of negativity and toxic energy. So belittle-ing of others who don't share his views. Maybe that's how 'entertainment' works these days, and I am so isolated on my Mediterranean seaside plateau that the world has left me behind... 'Hookers' are only ones that will miss Planned Parenthood should it be cut from existence.... Abortions are treated as a joke... Fundamental women's health services are ridiculed...

I've never hooked. And I'm pretty sure that none of the women who stepped up and posted beside me have, either. I see nothing wrong with the job itself, but deplore the misery and exploitation that so often serve as prostitution's hand-maidens. I have had an abortion. I lived in a country where contraception was illegal, a doctor who mentioned abortion as an option could be prosecuted, and women who found themselves in the 'family way' were forced abroad, into 'unwed mothers' homes', or gave birth alone in fields -- and died. It was not a joke, and I will bet a fortune on the notion that no-one who has had an abortion and no-one who provides them treats them as a joke. For me it was a time of misery, pain, and depression – and I was fortunate to have the support of my family. How infinitely awful for those who must endure them alone or under a cloud of disapproval.

What struck me most about that little soundbite was the lack of compassion. Maybe he really is a cuddly grandpa who puts all that callousness on for effect. That idea in itself led me to two further images: I, after using natural cleaners for so long, can no longer walk the the supermarket's chemical detergent aisles without developing a headache and sensitive eyes – yet other shoppers have no problem, and a frog can allegedly stay happily in slowly heating water until it boils to death. What's the cumulative cultural effect of that aural toxicity on those who hear it daily?

A dog-eared copy on the following was posted on the door on the Big One's nursery school fifteen years ago. I have never forgotten it.

Children Learn What They Live

By Dorothy Law Nolte, PhD

Copyright 1972

If a child lives with criticism,

A child learns to condemn

If a child lives with hostility,

A child learns to fight

If a child lives with ridicule,

A child learns to be shy

If a child lives with shame,

A child learns to feel guilty

If a child lives with tolerance,

A child learns to be patient.

If a child lives with encouragement,

A child learns confidence.

If a child lives with praise,

A child learns to appreciate.

If a child lives with fairness,

A child learns justice.

If a child lives with security,

A child learns to have faith.

If a child lives with approval,

A child learns self-esteem.

If a child lives with acceptance and friendship,

A child learns to find love in the world.