Daily life in Greece

    This programme, Docville, is outstanding by the standards of Greek TV. Each hour-long episode is filmed over a series of days in a the same location. Previous programmes have given us an insight into the working lives of people in a small kafenion, a wedding outfitters, a graveyard and in the church of [...]

You could be forgiven for thinking that Greece is a patriarchal society. It’s the men who hog the majority of the public roles as politicians, university rectors and banking heads, (unless a woman is the daughter of a previously important male and thus has leverage). But of course it’s the women who run the place. [...]

There is a funeral every week here in the village. I am convinced that soon there will be nobody left to bury. There are only around 60 houses, most of them inhabited by pensioners and just a handful are home to families with young kids. The women live longer than the men. As testified by [...]

Greece is littered with ruined buildings, temples and monuments. You have to feel for the Ministry of Culture which has the impossible job of maintaining, guarding and promoting the most prominent. This is the Temple of Olympian Zeus in Athens. It sits in the middle of the city encircled by a web of traffic-snarled highways [...]

Here in Greece the sun is shining and the flowers are out. This photo was taken on my drive to Ioannina yesterday. On days like this you just have to slap a big smile on your face and celebrate being alive!

The term austerity is not used here in the village. Instead people talk about the need for oikonomia – economies to the English speaker. And everyone is catching on fast. Every day the black clad housewives sit over their afternoon coffee bragging about how much they saved on the latest purchase. Recently the MIL caught [...]

This morning I sat in the coffee shop and watched while workers from the local authority trimmed the trees which line the pavement in Anatoli. They arrived on this particular stretch around 11am. One man had control of a hedge trimmer with an extra long handle, his job was to lop off the branches. A [...]

A group of fisherman took up camp on a bend in the river close to the junction with the main road, just outside the village. Their white transit van didn’t move for five days. Finally, curiousity got the better of him and C went to take a look. They were catching eels. Two nights later [...]

I wonder how you calculate the economic cost of all those early retirees in Greece. According to current figures from ELSTAT, the Greek Statistical, service there are just over 4 million people working in Greece and roughly 4.4 million inactive. That includes retired people. The average age of retirement is 55 most of them face [...]

It was my name day today. Yesterday after my run I drove up to the church in the next village, Αγιοσ Εκατερινα, to see if anything was happening. A couple of stall owners were laying out their stocks of sweets just outside the main gate and the church was unlocked. It’s a tiny whitewashed chapel [...]

Sometimes you’ve gotta admire the Greeks, their national trait appears to be defiance. I just found a nice article on the Greek Reporter website about the electricity company, PPC. If you live in Greece or read the international press (or my post dated Oct 20) you’ll know that the latest government wheeze for extracting money from [...]

It was slightly surreal watching the news on Greek TV tonight because they were interviewing international journalists who had been covering the political game playing in Athens last night. A Greek reporter was talking to his counterparts from France, the UK and the US and discussing how many live feeds they had done so far [...]

The electricity bill arrived today. It included the unpopular property tax. For the house in the village C will have to pay €270 split into two payments. Half payable by 14 November, and half in January. It’s worked out according to the footprint of the house. The bill has the house as 90 sq m [...]

Apparently Κολιονασιοζ, a coffee shop on the main road into Ioannina makes great baklava (the sticky sweet that resembles shredded wheat). But unfortunately their massive roadside sign just looks like a photograph of snails or some hideous form of insect life. One day maybe I’ll stop off and sample their cakes . . . .

At school one of our set texts for English Lit ‘O’ Level was Lord of the Flies. I found the book deeply upsetting and I hated reading it. I can’t remember the details but if you haven’t read it the story is about a bunch of schoolboys who are stranded on an island. They slowly [...]

C went hunting with his best friend Panos this morning. All the ducks they shot will be cleaned and stashed in the freezer to be eaten throughout the winter. As the economic crisis bites deeper the Greeks who live in an area where they can hunt, fish or grow their own food have an advantage [...]

The MIL has been busy planting while I was away. The first green shoots are appearing and soon we will be feasting on fresh spinach, onions, leeks, greens, garlic and broccoli. She does all the work herself, preparing the ground, planting, weeding, and watering and refuses help from either myself or C. She claims I [...]

According to someone in the village kafenion a child was abducted from the local Jumbo superstore this weekend. The young boy was grabbed by gypsies while he was browsing the aisles with his parents. Apparently he was hustled into the shop toilets, his head was shaved, and he was smuggled out of the shop and [...]

I am back in the village for a few weeks and now I remember how summer here is the pits. C lives on the edge of the Rodia Wetland so there are plenty of flies (with no sea breeze to send them on their way) and mosquitos. As a result my back and calves are [...]

The kafenion or coffee shop is the centre of Greek  life. Everyone meets for coffee and sits for hours nursing a cup of frappe or a small Greek coffee. For the village men it’s a place to escape the wife and the kids and sit in the company of men. Maybe play a few hands [...]

On Friday I discovered that Ioannina has a recording studio! It’s a tiny room above a music shop off the main street. I was there to record some readings for a new series of  English language course books for Super Course. The other ‘readers’ had recorded their pieces and I was the last to take [...]

After four months in the UK I returned to Greece on one of the first charter flights to Preveza. It was a great flight. A problem with the computers at the Monarch check in desk at Gatwick meant that I was allocated seat 3A, a window seat with masses of leg room. The same glitch [...]

British holiday makers believe Italians to be the worst drivers in Europe according to a survey carried out on behalf of carhiremarket.com. An articles on the home page of eTurbonews.com says Italian drivers received 34% of the votes, the French 20% and the Spanish 8%. Somewhat surprisingly British drivers came in fourth position with 5% [...]

I have just finished reading

Today is a holiday in Greece. It’s Clean Monday. The end of the carnival season and the start of Lent. Traditionally everyone heads out for the day. Families with kids, young couples or the wrinklies who are still young at heart will head for an open space, a beach or a park to fly their [...]

Daily routine for a retired (ie over 45 year old) male in the village: 8am get up, wander across yard to outside toilet hawking and spiting en route, shout at wife, amble 200 yards to the coffee shop, sit and argue with other men. 1pm return to house for lunch. Sleep. Get up return to [...]

Ordeal by food is how writer Gillian Bouras describes a New Year’s Day spent at the house of a neighbour in her village. She has my sympathy. Any visit to a Greek home for any sort of celebration, name day, funeral, etc involves masses and masses of food. It is impossible to refuse to try [...]

One of the men in the village is married with two children under the age of seven. He works for a local company driving some sort of huge Caterpillar machine. He has not been paid his full salary for the past four months. His employer, apparently can’t afford to pay him. The freeze on Government [...]

It appears I am spending Christmas and New Year in the village. After snow blocked the road to Ioannina last Thursday (the road clearers were on strike) I missed my bus to Thessaloniki and my BA flight to Gatwick. I re-booked my ticket for the weekend but again I was forced to cancel my flight [...]

This year the award for the most festive foodie place in Ioannina goes to Kokkino Piato in Anatoli. No tinsel, no tatt, no fake snow and definitely no cotton wool santas. It’s the height of restraint but soooo seasonal. I love it. All credit and a big festive bit of cheer to the owners, Iza [...]

We are soon to have our own IKEA in Ioannina. Up to now we have been forced to drive to Thessaloniki or Athens to buy modern, affordable furnishing. Most of the local shops only stock the old fashioned heavy, brown wooden furniture. The trendy, modern outlets that stock anything remotely stylish charge such outlandish prices [...]

A friend’s husband has just come out of hospital in Ioannina. After a week he has lost five kilos and looks gaunt. He has a problem with his gall bladder and needs an operation urgently. Apparently the surgeon has no available slots in his operating theatre to perform the operation. My friend and her husband [...]

I have just finished reading Starting Again, In Search of a Home by Gillian Bouras. According to the blurb on the back cover she is an Australian who settled in the Peloponnese with her Greek husband. If I have read between the lines correctly she moves to London for a spell before returning once more [...]

There is no getting around it. The fact that 39 per cent of those entitled to vote stayed home and 9 per cent of votors cast blank or spoiled ballots says more about the state of Greek politics than anything. Most people I spoke to were not even planning to vote, others were intending to [...]

Apparently our next-door-neighbour sat down in the kafenion last week and ordered a whisky. …. a bottle. The regulars joked that he had come into money and the story flew round the village. Apparently he was given €100 by one of the candidates in the local elections. C was most upset and complained that they [...]

I live in village which has just 50 houses. There are around 300 inhabitants although many of those only turn up on election days. The majority of the population are retired (that means over 45 in Greece!). The village infant school is attended by a handful of youngsters and the primary school has around 11 [...]

Just posted this to inspire envy in all of you workers sitting slumped over your desks in Bristol, London and Cardiff. This was taken at 5.28 pm this evening. I had just finished my run along the beach (actually more of a fast jog!) Better than the UK skyline hey?

The local elections will be held across Greece on Sunday. Yesterday the local candidate visited out village to drum up support. Luckily we were out at the time but when we returned home we found an envolope tucked into the gate. It contained a leaflet outlining the candidate’s policy and three voting forms already checked. [...]

Aldi is pulling out of Greece at the end of the year and the shelves in the Ioannina store are gradually emptying. Last week they reduced the price of their alcohol. A friend in the UK who works for a rival chain told me that best wine buyer in the UK works for Aldi. I [...]

Yesterday I was driving into town and every few blocks I could hear a sharp burst of whistle. I assumed that as it was the first sunny day in a month the Greek government or some high up education big wig had decreed that all school pupils were to do an hour of sport that [...]

We have had friends to visit for ten days. Unfortunately the entire time they were here it rained. And of course there is nothing to do here in the rain. Everyone was going stir crazy in the house especially their three-year-old son. Every time his mother took him out to play on the swings the [...]

We are being besieged by flies in the village. We usually have more than our fair share of the filthy things because the neighbours, C’s uncle and aunt, keep their disgusting bedraggled goats in a corrugated iron shed adjacent to the house. But the recent influx is scary. Apparently it is due to the change [...]

Jumbo recently opened a vast warehouse store between Arta and Preveza. For the past six month we have been watching progress on the construction with mounting anticipation. For those not familiar with the brand they are the closest Greece has to Woolworths. Ostensibly a children’s toy shop they stock all the stuff you didn’t know [...]

Yesterday C’s mum dug the potatoes up. All 100 kgs. I offered to help but she insisted on doing it herself. I am not sure what she thinks I could possibly do wrong but hey ho who am I to argue. I went off and read a book in the sun.

Our language lessons at the University finished on Monday. The majority of the students (including myself) have not yet paid the fees (a mere €200 euros for four months). I can’t that would ever happen in the UK. I have suggested to the university admin office that they ask students to pay before the start of [...]

The other morning I was driving to work as usual and turned a corner to be faced with a line of traffic at a standstill, hazard lights flashing. The blockages was on a corner where after last month’s heavy rains the mountain had slid down and blocked the road so I assumed something similar had [...]

Nothing excites the women of the village like an unexpected death. This evening a neighbour rapped loudly on the front door as we were settling down in front of the TV. The godfather of her son, Takis,  is an ambulance driver. Apparently he had been called out to our village. He called Takis from his [...]

C has been spending all his spare time hunting. He leaves the house at some ungodly hour in the morning and  yesterday he returned triumphant having bagged 30 ducks. (Do you bag ducks or only pheasant?) I am no duck expert but the majority of them looked like mallards. In the early days of our [...]

Yesterday the rug seller appeared in the village. The huge van with carpets strung to the sides and roof circled the village while the seller boasted about his products over the loudspeaker. Our next door neighbour can never resist a look and when I joined her in inspecting his stock she had her eye on [...]

It had taken me a year to pluck up the courage to move to Greece. I gave up the sensible PR job, packed up my stuff and stored it in my friend Katie’s basement, and hopped on a plane. C met me at Ioannina airport. It was raining. On the hour-long drive back to the [...]

Public sector jobs are highly prized in Greece. They are considered jobs for life and the relaxed working environment, numerous holidays and substantial pension means every opening is hotly contested.  For female employees the early finish (2.30pm) and generous maternity allowances enables them to continue working and bringing in a salary while keeping house and home, [...]

Traditionally people gave up bus seats to pregnant women and to carry heavy bags and hold doors open for the elderly. These small civilities have almost disappeared from life in the UK but they are still very visible in Greece. Here the majority of the males behave like gentlemen and the elderly members of a [...]