Monday, 16 September

To the supermarket today with a longish list.  Until now, we've only had bread, water, and fruit in the house.  The supermarket is about half a mile away, so there and back makes my main walk for today.

Most of the stores between here and there are closed now; among the casualties,  our dry-cleaners and the green grocer across the street from us.  There are whole blocks of empty shops.  Our neighborhood, once bright, thriving and decidedly middle class, is gradually becoming gray and listless and, well, a bit slummy.

Back to near the supermarket in the afternoon, to an open green grocer for veggies and fruit.  That makes close to 2 miles of walking for today, just to procure food for a few days.  If the stores near us keep closing, we shall soon be unable to live here without a car.

New license plates on cars have the EU logo on them, with the letters GR below it.  

The television channels are mostly back, after the tumultuous closing of the sate-run  media earlier this year, although channels 1-4 are all the same.  We once again have the BBC and Deutsche Welle.  Most of the other programs also seem to be in various foreign languages, from Spanish to Turkish, with Greek subtitles.  

In short, Greece, as we had known it, is rapidly disappearing.  

Makes me think twice about renovating this place, and we still need to refinish the wood floors and paint the inside.  I think  maybe after that we'll stop, deferring the replacement of numerous pieces of junk furniture until we see brighter days ahead, if we ever do.  

The doves and the sparrows have realized we are at home; at breakfast this morning we found them waiting for us to feed them.  THAT, at least, hasn't changed.

I miss having pets and/or  nursing wild orphans.  I told Demetrios the next cat I get, when we are too old to travel, is going to be a Turkish Angora, which I explained meant long-haired,  pure white, two blue eyes, and hearing.  (Many of the blue-eyed are deaf, and many Angoras have non-matching eyes, much prized in that breed.)  "Oh,  no, so boring!" was his response.  "Now THIS cat" - pointing to a calico on the street - "is gorgeous and interesting to look at."  And so she was (and spayed, too, as we saw from her clipped ear), but I miss my Snow White, from when I was a child, and especially Frosty, her kitten, and I want them both back.  (With Angoras, you definitely want two, as they are very active and always wanting to play.)

Now it's time to catch up on some of the housework that, because of my broken foot, was not done thoroughly when we left here.