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MARCH
WEATHER ...
Some very nice days, but the bad weather returned with a
vengeance - we used almost all our remaining logs and resolved to buy no more
before October!
Dave Rice
Webmaster
www.mjbird.org.uk
Above: Dave Rice runs the Michael J. Bird Tribute website. Anyone
who enjoyed our book review of 'Who Pays the Ferryman' by Michael Bird might
get a good deal of the author's background at that site. Dave is a
freelance writer hailing from Maghull, Liverpool, UK.
__________________
Astratigos Village life...
((((((BANG!!)))))) No,
it wasn't 'BOOM' , or 'Boom', or just an ordinary 'Bang'... Nor
was it that dull 'Thud' of explosives which sometimes emanates from the
quarrying of stone from a hillside above Kolimbari. No, this was a big,
big, ear ringing ((((((BANG!!))))))
There was also a smell of burnt plastic.
And was that a wisp of smoke I saw curling upwards from behind my wall-mounted
modem? With a name like mine, starting with 'Will' - I thought afterwards
that 'Will 'o Wisp' would not have been appropriate. No, this was serious.
Maybe 'Will' - as in after one is dead - was nearer the mark!
My wife Pam had materialised behind me, she had been in bed upstairs at the time
of the occurrence. My mind, still reeling, replayed the flash and collapsing
picture which had flicked across my monitor screen; the sudden loss of
light and sound from the computer itself - the pretty flickering drive, modem and
printer lights - all gone. Just a deathly hush....
'Storm' said Pam's apparition, I came down to warn you! Was she too
late? Was I gone to the better place I had been promised since
Sunday school. "Dear Maureen Bailey, I didn't really mean the stink
bomb in the chapel vestry, honest"... "And the one into the pub
in Wigan - where the adults from our Sunday school outing to Blackpool were
imbibing after a hard day shepherding us little ones - it was a mistake, I
promise... it was just so boring sitting waiting on the coach"...
Dead? If I was I was still here. Maybe that is what happens to the
baddies, the black sheep.. Maybe you don't 'go' anywhere afterwards, maybe
you are just left to carry on - being able to see and hear all, but not be seen
or heard by the others, who think that you are dead!! Listing your mistakes for
ever.
"The telephones are all dead. The fax machine is dead" said Pam
- like the ghost of Christmas past, listing my disasters. Are you alright - that
was the most amazingly loud bang"...
But just a minute, I thought, if I'm dead there would be no enquiries about my
health. My head (To Kephalli mou) stopped spinning. Hey, I
was still alive - and I could tell by Pam's big stick approach that she still
loved me. I mean, it had to be me that struck the computer; modem;
telephones; fax machine etc. etc. (but thankfully not the dog!) with
lightening. I must have generated such a vast amount of static pounding
the keyboard that it just had to go somewhere!
((((((BOOM!!)))))) )
I flinched, half expecting to be dead again, as a peal of thunder crashed
directly overhead. The computer room was still closed and shuttered.
Behind the thick Venetian stone walls it is almost impossible to hear anything
outside less than Armageddon. It is entirely possible, I promise, to hear lightening strike into
the room.
The storm had not been there when I started work
on the website a couple of hours earlier - there had been a hint of cloud away
to the north, over the sea towards Athens - but I had failed to note the speed
at which the weather was approaching. My morning 'cuppa' had seemed much
more important than the eosterics of wind speed calculation... A mistake
which might well have made that cup of tea become the equivalent of the last
supper. Or at least boil the tea!
The OTE telephone engineer who arrived later admired the scorch marks on the
wall behind the modem - 'Orea' (fine) he enthused admiringly - 'Poli orea'.
Very fine! Indeed.... He replaced the modem and tested the lines -
all OK. Good. He was preparing to leave - much to our surprise when we
managed to break the Greek language barrier (though he spoke perfect English)
and make him believe that our extensions were also dead. He knew my sense
of humour - "I thought that you were joking"!! The phones were repaired.
"Is this where the lightening stuck"? The wonderment in the
voice of our InterAmerican insurance company agent was obvious - hushed, almost reverent,
as if viewing the inside of a great Cathedral. "Right here, in this
room"?.. "Right here" I said cautiously, not wanting to give
redirections to a passing bolt, "Right here"...
I had once before - whilst still at primary school - almost been struck by a bolt
which hit the playground only feet away. I am now wearing wellies, rubber
gloves and apron - and a crash hat with a lightening conductor on top.
"The best way to avoid injury by lightening", a recent TV documentary
advised, "is to douse the outside with water"!!!..................
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Site News.
All changing...
You probably already know that we use the 'Tesco' principle of offering
several different spellings of our site name. So that people mis-typing with
19 fingers or who have mislaid their reading glasses can still find us ok. We also use different ISP's and domain endings to ensure continuous
access. Try it: www.cretanvistas.co.uk
really is no different to www.cretanvista.gr
- except that you receive them from different parts of the world.
However, spill your coffee on your cables or get struck by lightening and
there really is nothing we can do...
Cretan Vista Calendars.
The 2005 calendar picture gallery went on line as planned by 18th February. Being the creator I hesitate to claim accolades, since the real kudos belong to the people who created the reality - builders to barrel-makers.
The 2004 calendar - Old Vehicles - is pending.
Books & Good Reading.
Still
growing rapidly and is, we hope, much easier to navigate now that the new introductory pages are open. Hopefully
our new style of presentation will make selection of books and navigation in this area of the site much, much easier.
The latest addition should please wild flower enthusiasts - 'Wild Flowers of the
Mediterranean' by David Burnie. Essential reading for anyone who
intending to seek wild flowers on Crete:-
1.Wild Flowers of the Mediterranean.
The People... The profiles... Every book review has an
introductory paragraph about the author/s. We have decided to go a little
further and where possible, include profiles of not only these talented
authors but also, where we can, of people behind them. Good examples are
'Patouchas' - Ioannis Kondylakis (Read the review)
and 'Who Pays The Ferryman' - Michael J. Bird - (Read the review)
there is a whole tribute website to Michael Bird. These profiles will be
attached to relevant the book reviews.
Photo Galleries. (Homepage links).
The 2005 Calendar gallery
is of course already on-line, (Cretan Vista calendars - link above). The 2004 Calendar - a specialist product featuring old cars, buses and lorries is moving forward, although not many of the vehicles featured are moving at all.. Wild Flowers:
A further two pages of the flower galleries (Gallery pages 7 & 8), another 24 wild-flowers
since the last news - making 96 different flowers. The next two pages
are en-route. We have more than 3,500 flower photographs in our
databases. The initial flower galleries will become an on-line book -
right here on site, very printer friendly - for personal use only. The galleries of our
Athens visit at Christmas and New Year will follow in a couple of
months..
We now have 13 galleries featuring several aspects of Cretan life.
Including a very nice gallery of sunrise and sunset pictures; the Souda Bay War Cemetery; and a gallery of magnificent wild-life pictures by Anastasios Sakoulis, author of "Stigmotipa Tis Kritikis Freesis" - (Links below - bottom right column); our infant gallery about house renovation; and of course our annual calendar galleries
containing 60 or so pictures of north western Crete. Some of them good!
A total of around 200 gallery quality photographs of Crete, mostly backed
with relevant information. Have a look. All our site photographs (more than 800
online in all) are the result of much hard work and we hope are of interest to our visitors. We know that some of the general pictures can be replaced with better ones - watch this space....
There are of course many other developments going on all the time - including new ones which I
continue to bite my tongue about rather than reveal until opening day.
Are we listening, do we hear?
We are and we do. The continuously increasing numbers of visitors and complimentary e-mails seem to show that our visitors - 21,000 plus individual visits in our best month last year - appreciate our efforts.
__________________
MORE FUN & SERIOUS PLEASURE PLEASE!
To our visitors who have taken the time to tell us that they have found our site enjoyable/ informative/ helpful/ or otherwise complimented the site - very many thanks. We are trying very hard and it's really good to know that you like it". Besides, my wife notes that many of you are ladies! Please don't stop!!
GUEST BOOK LINK
NB. Please don't use the Guest Book to place website links - any URLs - or contact style messages, are automatically disabled/removed in the interests of minors. Questions can be sent to us privately at:
cretanvista.gr
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