OXI

This is the Greek word for "No", pronounced OCHI. "Yes", just to confuse you, is NAI , pronounced NE. I am writing this not to teach you Greek, but because 28th October is "OXI" day, celebrated very much like Poppy day in the UK.

For the Greeks it is a day both to remember those who died in WWII, and to celebrate a famous victory. Bands and schoolchildren parade in each town throughout the country.

In October 1940 Mussolini demanded the surrender of Greece. The Greeks responded with an emphatic "No", and then soundly trounced the invading Italian army. It was only after the intervention of a much superior German army that the Greeks, supported, by then, by a British expeditionary force, were defeated.

This, the first Allied victory in the war, has taken on nearly mythical proportions and was eulogised by no less than Winston Churchill -“Until now, we knew that Greeks were fighting like heroes; from now on we shall say that heroes fight like Greeks.”

The letters OXI have even been painted 5 metres high on the walls of an old Venetian castle nearby, and can still be seen today from miles away. A short slightly irreverent poem on the conflict.

What's in a name?

One of the things I often have to explain to visitors is how to read and spell the name of the island- it is written EUBOIA in Greek and similarly EUBOEA on many old European maps, but is pronounced EVIA and is often written on new maps (or on the internet) as EVVOIA or EVVIA. This makes it nearly impossible to google - everyone spells it differently!

The same is true of our local town....but in an even more extreme form. On official current Greek documents it is written XALKIDA - pronounced HALKEETHA in English, although the H is mor like the CH in "loch". It is normally written HALKIDA or CHALKIDA. Older maps use CHALKIS, the original classical name. But this was only re-installed in the 19th century when the Greeks won independence from the Ottoman empire.

The town has gone through multiple names over the last three millenia as each passing invader renamed it. The Romans called it Euripus (the name actually of the straits separating it from the mainland).

The Latin invaders ( known in Western Europe as the Crusaders! ) dubbed it Negroponte, an apparent description of its black bridge, while the Turks in another variation on "Euripus" call it Egripos.

So don't be phased when asking directions somewhere in Evia and your Greek friend calls it something completely different - place names like the no-smoking laws in Greece are in the eyes of the beholder!

Fylla Castle

Meteora - Home of the Gods?

Fried peppers

This summer my wife persuaded me to plant a whole range of vegetables in the summer. Apart from the absolute necessity - tomatoes, which we eat throughout the summer - I also planted aubergines, courgettes, onions and peppers. I thought I had put in the round salad peppers but found that actually I had a mix of the long tear drop shaped variety and a few tiny hot pepper plants. Suddenly in August they started producing and just kept on going - I still have some left and it is now November!

I remembered a recipe my mother-in law had and, after a quick consultation with my wife, we decided to make fried peppers. They are amazingly easy: just drop into a hot frying pan with olive oil, flattening them as they are cooked. Add a little sugar to taste, taking them out when they are soft and start to blacken at the edges. Serve hot (my preference) or cold with a little vinegar, salt and parsley sprinkled over.

I have just finished picking my olives. I say "picking" but it was more like combing my own hair - very little to do these days! Whilst in most years we collect over a ton of olives, which gives us about 150 litres of oil, this year I had a mere 100 kilos! It was the same throughout our neighbourhood and appeared to be due to the unusually mild winter we had last year.

I have done a complete weed of all the flower beds. Remember that in Greece EVERYTHING grows in the winter and Spring months. Today, for example is a lovely 22 C and we expect some rain this afternoon - perfect growing conditions, and my roses are budding out very nicely! So, if you just leave your property over the winter, you are likely to be faced by an uncontrollable forest of weeds when you return at Easter.

I have also cleaned the pool, put a cover over it and reduced to an hour a day the working of the filter pump.

Remember also to turn off any automatic watering systems or at least turn them down to the minimum.

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