The last few weeks have been a blur. It feels like I have been pushing Charlie the Donkey uphill. Last week we had no fuel. A ten day strike by tanker drivers meant that just about every petrol station on the island ran out of fuel. So it was engine off and coast down hill for most of last week. My one overriding thought was that I could always get to the beach, as from where I live it is all downhill, but I might have to camp on it (which incidentally is against the law in Greece).

Eventually the tanker drivers went back to work. Diesel went up to €1.45 per litre, so I am still coasting down hill!! I’m not sure how the world is going to sustain itself with fuel prices as they are at the moment. It is killing for the small farmers where I live, as they have to run their pick-ups and tractors to live. Whatever the press is saying about food prices, they are not going up dramatically here on the vegetables that we produce. Perhaps I need to start a futures market in tomatoes, so that people with nothing better to do can gamble on the price going up or down and in the process double the price of what people need to eat. I really believe that food futures markets should be banned, as they serve no useful purpose, other than for making money for people who have never done a hard day’s work in their lives.

The fuel costs are affecting everything, particularly our building side of the business. We are at the end of nowhere in this part of the island and everything that we use has to get shipped and driven from somewhere. Steel prices have gone through the roof as there appears, suddenly, to be under capacity in the market. Very strange when you look back to the Thatcher years and how many steel plants got closed down. I do not pretend to understand any of it.

We all need to live more locally. Stone houses, with no steel in them, stood the test of time here. We have plenty of stone. Unfortunately building regulations say we must put a lot of steel into buildings because of earthquakes. I guess having seen the devastation in Sichuan that they have a point. I could not believe that China was an earthquake area having seen the standard of building and lack of steel reinforcement during my travels there. My heart goes out to the millions of people who do not have a roof over their heads any more and especially those who have lost their families.

Enough of a rant. On the up side of life, the weather has finally settled into summer pattern. Temperatures on the South Coast have been over 30°C most days. The island is still looking green though after all the rain we had this winter. There don’t seem to be as many tourists about as last year, maybe they are all waiting for the European Football to finish, it was the same two years ago when the World Cup was on.

Must go I have work to do and tomorrow afternoon I am picking Gordon up in Athens and bringing him back for half term.

I have really got into fusion cooking over the last few months. I guess because of LeiLei. I have been modifying Greek basic recipes and the results have been good, most of the time. I guess it helps having really fresh ingredients.

Here’s one I did recently:

Stuffed Vegetables (Γεμiστα)

Green Peppers in this case

4 Green Peppers

3/4 cup Brown Rice

3 cups of Vegetable Stock

2 Red Chilies chopped

1/2 an extra Green Pepper chopped

1 Onion finely chopped

2 Tomatoes chopped

4 Mushrooms chopped

Splash of Raki

2 tbsp Xigalo

Ground Black Pepper

2tbs Olive Oil

Heat the olive oil in a saucepan. Add the onion, red chilies, mushrooms and chopped green pepper and fry until soft. Add the rice and fry for a couple of minutes. Add the splash of raki stirring the whole time until the alcohol is boiled off. Add the chopped tomatoes and fry for two or three minutes still stirring. Next add the stock, bring to the boil,turn down the heat and simmer for about 45 minutes until the rice is cooked.

Whilst the rice is cooking cut the tops off the whole peppers, clean out the seeds. Put a pan of water large enough to take all the peppers on to heat. When the water is boilng add the peppers and their tops and blanch for two to three minutes. Remove the peppers from the water.

When the rice is cooked add the xigalo and black pepper and mix in thoroughly. The rice should be moist but not watery. Spoon the rice into the peppers put the tops back on, place in a baking tray, drizzle over a little olive oil, cover with foil and bake in the oven at 180°C for 30 minutes. Serve with green beans and salad.

Three days of the worst hay fever that I have had for years. So bad that I have been to the pharmacy to get medication. Anyone who knows me well knows that I hate taking medication, but when you cannot see, cannot breathe, have sneezing fits that last for an hour, I guess anyone sane would do something about it. I’m not sure why it has happened, out of the blue. Whilst I have had very minor symptoms for the last three years here, they have never been any more than minor symptoms.

It’s been a strange three days in several ways. I heard that Joy and Fran have left Property on Crete, one of my competitors. They have been there for years so I was very surprised. Good luck to them both. I have had to book Gordon, my 9 year old son’s flight out here at the end of May with Aegean on their new service from Stansted as all the Heathrow Athens flights are full to the brim on the weekend that he is due to fly here. Air fares seem to be going up beyond all reason, even accounting for increased fuel costs.

It was very hot and sunny in Armeni yesterday, which was the third day’s holiday in five, so we decided to go to the beach in Xerokambos. Got down there to find a strong wind blowing which made it cold and very sandy. Whilst Angel the Labrador loved it, both LeiLei and I had had enough after half an hour, so we decided to come home.

My seeds that I planted Easter weekend have all started to germinate, the orange and purple cauliflowers were first followed by the Pak Choi, which apparently is not the Chinese name for it, contrary to what I had always thought. Hopefully the chilies will start to germinate soon as we have been finding it harder and harder to get hold of fresh chilies that are decent over the last couple of weeks. It must be the time of year.

I found out that there is an on line petition headed by some of the academics that are dead set against the Cavo Sidero project that is destined to build 7,000 bedrooms (enough for 14,000 people) up in the far North East corner of the island. It accounts for three of the planned golf courses. Part of the proposal is that they will build a desalination plant to help with the watering of the golf courses. 14,000 people is more than the existing total population of this part of the island. Sitia is only around 10,000 people. Up until the massive rain that we have had this winter, water was a very scarce resource. Even some of the farmers who grow the food we eat had run out of water completely in September and October last year. Fundamentally, although the development would be good for my pocket and the pockets of lots of local people, I think that the scale is too large. I am worried about water resource in the long term and the effect that this development will have on it. It will also impact on what is an area of outstanding natural beauty and the wildlife that abounds around here. So I signed the petition http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Save-the-Cretan-landscape. It probably will not do any good as I think the government are firmly behind this project but the way that I feel about my adopted home left me with no choice.

I must have enjoyed Easter weekend and the relaxation as it was hard to wake up, get out of bed and go to work this morning. However, I finally made it. As usual, the Bank holiday is over and the weather gets immediately better. A busy week though as I have a lot to fit into three days. I can’t believe that Thursday is another holiday. I don’t think the weather can either as it is forecast to be good.

Caught up with everybody and got on top of most things. Had lunch and then took Angel the Fish Dog down to the beach for a walk/swim. Her favourite game now is retrieving a stick from the sea and then waiting to do it all over again. She even braved the waves today, normally she does not like them.

Then back to do some more work and to make more houmous, which was super delicious. Worked a bit more whilst watching the Man U - Barcelona match on the BBC web site. All England final, not that you can call Man U, Chelsea or Liverpool English these days.

Now for bed as I need to start early tomorrow and visit my office which I have not seen since last Wednesday.

A very quiet day, pondering life, doing a bit of gardening and just lazing around. The great discovery of the day was that one of the English roses that I planted in January has flowered, the most beautiful purple rose with a scent of lemons. It is still a tiny rose bush with lots of flower buds.

I did a lot more background reading on the internet about what is hapening to food prices and economies in general. I read an interesting article written by an American called Mike Adams in June last year. His advice to Americans at that time, before the real collapse of the housing market in the States, was “to prepare yourself now for what’s coming. Get out of debt. Get healthy. Invest in your education and learn some practical skills like gardening, bicycle repair or natural medicine. Own some productive land and learn how to use it. Be near a source of fresh water. When the oil runs out, and the fresh water tables are drained, and the financial system collapses, and the real estate bubble bursts, life is going to be a whole lot harder than it is today. Forget about shopping malls, must-see TV and the latest fashions. Most families are going to be struggling just to put food on the table.” I agree entirely with those sentiments. We have to get to a stage where less is better than more. We need to get back a century in time and observe that a lot of the things that our grandparents and great grandparents did was for a reason. I have kind of been working towards being self sufficient in my own life for some time now. I want to build houses that allow energy self sufficiency, preferably with their own water source and enough land to feed the owners and their family. I echo Mike Adams sentiments. I have thought for some time that we are on the brink of the collapse of the system as we know it. Corporate greed has taken over the world and is trashing it very quickly.

Sometimes you just have to go with your feelings. I know that I am in the right place at the right time. I do not really understand why I ended up here at the time that I did. The important point is that I did. I can now observe what is happening in the real world from afar slightly insulated from the rest of the world.

So it’s Easter Monday now and I need to get on with digging the garden, so that I can reap the benefits of my home grown vegetables.

I spent last night reading some really interesting articles on how speculation and market forces are leading the world into starvation http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2008/04/25/financial-speculators-reap-profits-from-global-hunger/ and tried to relate that to my life here and the fruit and vegetable market in Ierapetra, where I had been in the morning. I find the whole scenario of financial speculators causing the inhabitants of Haiti to eat mud completely repulsive. Almost as repulsive as the amount of money western governments have poured into war in Iraq in order to preserve their rights to oil supplies, rather than using this money to alleviate world poverty. The only person to come out of the current situation with any form of credit whatsoever seems to be Hugo Chavez, who is putting vast amounts of money made from his country’s oil into supporting the poor in Central and Southern America.

We got to the market in Ierapetra fashionably late and at the right time to pick up any bargains, so good tomatoes at 50 lepta/kilo, a nice bunch of leeks for one euro, bananas and apples some onions and other bits and pieces. Then off to buy some bits I need from the hardware store and into the town centre for some cosmetics for LeiLei. The town centre was jampacked and I was surprised by my good fortune at being able to find a free parking space an increasingly difficult to find luxury in Ierapetra. Everywhere the kafenions were full of people enjoying Easter weekend.

Then to the beach at Lagada on the way home, where Angel the labrador became Angel the fish. She loves swimming and will play endlessly fetching sticks that I throw into the sea back out of the water, never tiring. I wish I had half her energy. Then home and LeiLei cooked me Chow Mein, which is my favourite Chinese dish for lunch. It was super delicious and I ate far too much and collapsed for the rest of the afternoon. I think the first “Chinese” dish that I ever tasted was probably Vesta Chow Mein, which in retrospect was a disgusting invention of the 1960’s. I’ve just done a web search and apparently it’s still for sale.

The evening just sort of drifted past. Neither of us had the energy to go to the midnight church service, so Greek Easter is kind of passing us by, other than having a lazy few days. I spent the last hour before finally going to bed reading articles on the demise of the company that bought my software business in 2004, Erinaceous Group. They went into administration on April 14. I feel sorry for the shareholders that were taken in by Neil Bellis and Lucy Cummings and lost their money as a result. This pair cost me over £60,000 by refusing to pay me what they owed me too. I cannot find out how they fared personally from the collapse of the company, but I suspect that they and Neil’s wife and Lucy’s sister, Juliet, had managed to line their pockets before the collapse, although one article I found said that they had been unable to pay a bill for refurbishment of their Sussex mansion.

A late start this morning, woke up to rain, scrambled eggs on toast for breakfast as it’s Easter. Now for a shower and some gardening.

Yesterday I switched my mobile phone off and left it off all day. I realised that I hate the negative impact that mobile telephony has had on life. Like all so called progress I think that the effect on personal life is as equally negative as the improvement in communication is positive. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity I guess, or maybe just yin and yan.

I had a really peaceful day, researching Crete Eco stuff and drawing up a list of Chinese alternative energy suppliers for LeiLei to start contacting, so that we can start selling wind turbines and PV panels. I also did a lot of calculations for rain water harvesting stuff, which were quite scary. I need to find a cost effective way of storing vast amounts of water for it to be successful.

I also managed some reading, a walk along the beach, a little bit of gardening and cooked a truly great risotto last night.

Adam’s Truly Great Risotto

1 tbsp olive oil

1 small leek sliced

The beans from 4 broad beans

5 spears of asparagus

3 mushrooms chopped into large pieces

1/2 cup risotto rice

A small glass of raki

2 cups vegetable stock

2 heaped teaspoonfuls xigalo (Cretan soft cheese)

1 tbsp chopped dill

Black Pepper

Heat the olive oil in a saucepan. Add leek, asparagus, beans, mushrooms and fry for three mnutes stirring the whole time. Add the rice and fry for a further two minutes. Add the raki and stir till the alcohol has boiled off and it has been absorbed. Add the stock a little at a time stirring until completely absorbed. The secret of a good risotto is stirring constantly. When the stock has all been absorbed add the dill and xigalo and continue to stir. Finally add ground black pepper and stir, then serve.

Off to market now.

Today is the start of my fourth Easter in Armeni, it is amazing how quickly the time passes and how much has changed in my life since the first one in 2005. Some things never change. As I write I can only hear the birds chirping and the breeze outside. The church bells are chiming. This is the most religious time in Crete and the biggest celebration of the year. Today and tomorrow are fine. For me as a vegetarian, the meat eating orgy of Sunday and Monday is not to my taste.

Later today the mournful tolling of the church bell will start to signify Jesus death. Tomorrow everyone will be miserable until midnight. Then my community will be crammed into the church with standing room only for the magnificent service. White candles will be lit by everyone and after the service red painted eggs will be eaten.

I need to do some gardening. I sowed a lot of seeds yesterday as I could not work due to my internet connection being out for 10 hours. I need to dig the garden to prepare for planting them out. My roses have suddenly burst into bloom so I know summer has started. The tourist hordes must be about to arrive as all the shops that sell junk have opened in Makrygialos. Like all Bank Holiday weekends all over the world the weather is forecast to be bad. From 40°C at the beginning of the week the temperature is set to fall to 17°C on Sunday before climbing back to the seasonal norm of 25°C by the middle of next week.

Angel the dog (new addition) and Black Cat have been fed. I need to give Charlie the Donkey water, he has plenty of grass after the wet winter we have had and then breakfast for LeiLei and I.

On with the day.

Amazing, amazing beaches.

Bad hotel (Irini).

Scamming car rental company

More later.

Not sure why it turned out so well, but I have just eaten the best spinach curry bar none. Perhaps it was the lemon rice that I made to go with it, but the combination was simply unbeatable.

Perhaps it’s the very warm evening that made it taste better. It’s been an incredibly hot day, over 40°C which is 105°F to old timers (or Americans). I went to the beach at lunchtime and it was too hot to lay on the sand. The water was too hot too swim in. The only thing that has not been too hot is my curry.

Whilst everyone in England is building their own ark, here it is just very dry and very hot. There are still forest fires breaking out and the tragic death of two aircrew on one of the fire fighting aeroplanes that crashed yesterday. Still I think the heat is better than being under water (unless you are a fish).

My tiles in the house next door got grouted today and look really nice. Thanks Maria for telling me I needed grey grout to go with the tiles, the combination really works. I need to get the tilers out, the doors and windows in and then we can really start the finishing work. The house across the road is also looking magical. Manolis who sold it to me is really upset that he sold it as he can now see it’s real beauty and thinks it is worth more than I paid him for it. I don’t think he realises how much it has cost me to get it to this state. My stone mason has completely rebuilt one of the main walls.

Sterios my neighbour is finally home from Athens, where he has been in hospital, thank heavens. I was really worried about him, but saw him and had a long chat tonight. I hope his recovery continues.

I have been watering my citrus trees all afternoon as they look a little dry. I’m just about to invest in a solar powered well pump so that I can irrigate my trees much more regularly. I’m just having a little problem finding the pump that I want, but a nice lady called Gemma from SHURflo UK is helping me. Maybe tomorrow one of her distributors might answer an email….