‘Wintering’ - Cretan Style

It’s November in Agios Nikolaos - the long tail end of the season – and I’m sitting by the beach at Kitroplateia in a T-shirt and sunglasses. ‘”It’s like summer” our friend, George, the owner of the Déjà vu Café, laughs “Only quieter – twenty-three degrees. Can you believe it?” He looks perhaps a little thinner after the frantic busy-ness of this summer, but today he is relaxed and happy – the end is in sight...

And, in truth, it is as if the whole town has breathed a sigh now that it has emptied of its weight of summer visitors. The jasmine is flowering, the clouds have slipped a little lower on the Thripti Mountains across Mirabello Bay, and there are sunlit peaks of rock holding up a deep blue sky. A few excited day-trippers in shorts and sundresses are still exploring Agios’ smart shopping streets - and in Kitroplateia Cove, a woman is bobbing gently with her baby in the sea, both encircled by a bright yellow, inflatable ring in the shape of a duck.

Menus are changing in the tavernas that remain open - summer dishes giving way to meaty, oven-baked stews and tasty plates of peas and potatoes cooked in olive oil and rich tomato sauce.

Up in the villages, the olives are turning black and plump, and the wood fires of the raki kazani stills have been lit - their smoke trailing in wisps in the valleys in the mornings. In Palaikastro, flamingos have paused their migration on the Hiona Wetlands beside the Minoan ruins of Roussolakos, while the clouds above them are scattered and dappled like the patterns on the wings of kestrels.

Finally, now, it’s the season of parties. Family celebrations long-delayed by summer business can take place at last. When I drive out of Kritsa one morning, I see a great crowd leaving the church - another mass of smartly-dressed families assembling at the taverna at the bottom of the village. A baptism. When I reach my destination in Ierapetra, there is another baptism party in the shadow of the newly restored fortress on the harbour. Smartly dressed waiters are swirling between tables packed with gossiping, silvery aunts and gold-sparkling grandmothers, while the men nod and drink – half an eye on the basketball game playing discreetly on a TV behind the event’s piano player.

It feels strange to be ‘wintering’ – slowing down with the shops and tavernas for the turn of the year – when these halcyon days are still arriving, bright and soft and clear – and when there are still people stretched out on the beaches in swimwear.

Down in ‘The Tables and Chairs Shop’ on the hill - there are still sunbeds for sale outside, while inside it is already Christmas! Fake Poinsettias on sale here may be the only Christmas plants I could never kill. In the doorway, a fan-assisted snow scene inside an old-fashioned, red streetlamp, is dusted with perpetual polystyrene snow. Drive past this place in the darkness, and the lights around the shop’s sign will already be twinkling in pinks and golds. And it may seem like the village children only went back to school five minutes ago - but any moment now, they will be making their wishes for the presents they hope St Basil will bring on New Year’s Eve.

On Kritsa’s main shopping street, our friend Irene – a black-belt seller of linens and handcrafts at the height of the season - takes advantage of these quieter days to sit in the sunshine and trace her finger across the pages of a world atlas. She tracks the routes her daughter sails, captaining her ship from America to Europe, to the Middle East and back again. Irene’s finger lingers over the places where there are reports of pirates – the Greek accent at the end of the word when she says it out loud making it strange and sinister - ‘pir-ra-Tes’. We shiver together over the number of days her daughter is at sea without sight of land. Neither of us likes deep water. Nor waves...

And yet, it is at this short end of the year when I am most aware of the movement of the tides, the pull of the moon and the turning of the earth. I wake with the dawn blooming pink and violet outside our bedroom door – and in the evenings, I sit behind the tall windows that open out onto our balcony and watch the moon rise over the crag that hides the ancient city of Lato – follow it as it disappears over the cliffs of Katharo behind our house. The days are undeniably contracting, the dark nights drawing out – and in a few weeks’ time, when the weather finally changes, our high balcony will be buffeted by winds – and standing at the railings will feel just like teetering on the bridge of a ship in a storm.

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Back in Agios Nikolaos, I walk around to the harbour, to be greeted by the sight of a cruise ship, ‘The Silver Whisper’ moored at the deep water quay. I realise, belatedly, that its arrival is the reason for today’s remaining day-trippers - then hear a couple, hurrying back to the dock, agreeing that they need to return in the spring.

On cue, the ship’s bell begins to toll out, deep and low.

It’s the sound of Easter in Agios Nikolaos.

Before you know it, it will be here…

If you like this article, you may also like this earlier post, about winter in Athens…

And if you like Claire in Crete, you may also enjoy my award-winning short story, Ann Hilder - a mystery inspired by the work of the artist LS Lowry and his shadowy ‘godchild’ Ann. The story is published as a small paperback book and as an ebook on Amazon at https://amzn.eu/d/bMidwmh

Thank you for reading!