Good Morning Greece

 

Morning coffee, Greek style.

The finest part of my day is the moment after waking, when I draw back the curtains, throw open the shutters, and am greeted by a glorious, Greek, sunny morning.

Looking down on my garden, the fist thing seen every morning,
on opening the shutters.

I cherish these moments alone, sitting, with my first coffee of the day, just thinking, marveling at the cerulean blue of the sky, listening to the twitter of sparrows in our huge yucca tree and feeling, the not yet too hot, sun on my face.

A gorgeous cerulean Greek sky

The view that greets me every morning, while filling my kettle.

Small urn on my kitchen windowsill.

It truly is my own little piece of paradise, I remind myself not to take it for granted, to be thankful and to remember just how lucky I am to be living in Greece.

After my second cup of coffee, especially at this time of the year, when rose buds are unfurling and trees are throwing out more and more emerald green leaves, I check on how things are coming along in the garden.

Flowering nicely

This year, our son Yiannis, has taken an interest in gardening, so I have a look at how his stuff is doing.

 Yiannis lives in an apartment with his family and only has a narrow balcony, so he’s experimenting in our garden, it’s quite a help actually, he tidies up and waters, rather like having a gardener helping out!

 I just hope he doesn’t become too enthusiastic, they say, to keep things calm, there should only ever be one gardener arranging and planning things.

Colourful flowers

Yiannis stuff again, also doing well!

I already have enough run-ins with MGG (My Greek God), who’s idea of pruning is to massacre things with a chain-saw, I can do without another “head gardener” getting in on the act!

 After seeing that all is well, I might just have another cup of coffee before watering what looks thirsty, this, when the weather becomes much hotter, turns into a daily ritual, sometimes, twice daily, and then it really is a chore and not a pleasure.

 Water being splashed around, brings out all sorts of unwanted creatures, slugs and snails mostly.

 Look at this one here, just how anyone can eat something like that, is beyond me.

Slippery snail

Once, in France, MGG, ordered snails, much to my surprise, although he does occasionally eat snails cooked by his mother, not at all in the French way, but cooked in a rich, spicy, tomato sauce.

 Anyway, the French snails, of course, came simply in their shells, along with the little tongs.

 MGG tried, but just couldn’t put one in his mouth, you see, his mother’s snails have the sauce to camouflage things a bit, these didn’t!

Snails, cooked Greek style.

Not to be defeated, MGG took the crusty bread, tore it apart, and poured on the melted garlic butter, threw in the snails and made a snail sandwich, which he proceeded to eat!

Goodness knows what the French thought about this Greek heathen!

 If, by this time, after watering and generally pottering about, MGG has not appeared, he gets up about an hour after I do, at around eight o clock, I have a third cup of coffee, before getting on with my day.

Mint, used a lot in my summer cooking, keftedes, potato salad and, of course, mint sauce.

Bougainvillea, just beginning to bloom.

Writing this, I have just remembered, I promised that I would spray Yiannis’ roses for him this evening; they have an attack of green fly or some such.

 I forgot, do you think he will know the difference, if I do it in the morning?

According to him, novice gardener, it should only be done in the evening.