28 February 2019
Naxos Reservoirs Are Full Up
For once there is enough water
This picture is actually from February 17th, when I went to check on
the water level in the two reservoirs we have here on Naxos. This one
is the big one. Obviously I went by bike, that's why you can see
my bike on the left of the picture.
This here is the overflow of the big reservoir. So as you can see,
the φράγμα (fragma, literally "dam") is full to the brim and overflowing.
There was some talk of the reservoirs having leaks, with some people
saying the leaks are quite severe. While others claim they are only
some natural leaks, where the water will drain into the water table.
Getting the water into the island's water table would mean it's not lost,
so let's hope these people are right.
This one is the smaller of the two reservoirs, and it appears also
to be completely full. Since I took these pictures we have had even
more rain. This winter has indeed been quite special to the amount
of rainfall we got. For once, everybody is happy about the weather
and the water!
15 January 2019
Again to the Snowy Top of Mount Zas
We've been there 2 years ago
Two years ago we had visited the top of mount Zas (the highest mountain
on Naxos) on a snowy day. Last winter we didn't get any snow, but there
was a tiny bit of snow at the beginning of January this year. Time for
another go!
Continue reading "Again to the Snowy Top of Mount Zas"
05 January 2019
Happy New Year 2019! Καλή Χρονιά! Guets Neus!
This weblog has lasted 14 years already...
A nice and Happy New Year 2019 to everybody! This winter has brought
some nice rains to the island of Naxos so far and the night into the new
year was no exception. We passed the year mark in a good downpour. Which
for the island is a good thing, and personally I was glad to be warm and
cozy inside!
The picture shows a typical greek βασιλόπιττα (vasilopitta, a cake eaten
on new year's day, with a hidden "coin" inside for someone to find).
2018 was... I don't know. One of those years. It had a lot of ups and
downs I guess. Some difficult times, but also some good friends to help
going through those times. Sometimes things can only be taken one step
at a time.
In blog years, 2018 was lame. This weblog has been around for 14 full
years now, but it spent 2018 on "minimal mode". The start wasn't even so
bad, with 2 posts per month in the first month, and then even a spike
of activity in April (when we had our "sprint" on Naxos). But then it
went down to "oh oh, it's already the end of the month, time to write
a post to not have an empty month!" (again). Sometimes I had ideas for
quick, short posts in the style I used to have in the first years of
this blog... but then other things were happening, and I forgot again.
Too bad. I don't know how to rekindle my own interest in the blog, but
at least I'm not thinking about stopping.
In cycling, I did quite well in 2018. I rode a 200km brevet in January,
and managed to ride very slightly more than 10'000km in a year. My
strongest year so far. I have no new goals for cycling in 2019, for now
the goal is only to have fun out riding.
27 December 2018
10'000
Nice, round numbers, goals, and distances
I didn't set up a goal for how much I wanted to ride this year. Last
year I was close to 10'000km, but not close enough to seriously think
about getting there. The last winter was very dry here, so I rode a lot.
Then I had a very strong spring, with some months where I hit 1000km
each month. So at some point I started to think more serious about it.
It must have been somewhere in late summer, when I accepted that this
had become a "goal" for me. Get to 10'000km riding this year. I normally
try to ride 10 hours or about 200km each week. With 52 weeks, it seems
easy enough to get to 10'000. But then, there are periods of bad weather
(I used to ride gladly in bad weather too, but now I'm more thinking
about staying safe and healthy). Speaking of "healthy", there are a
usually also the periods when I catch a cold, and usually 1 week of
riding is lost, while the next week is very limited. Travelling is
another cause for missing kilometers.
But this year, things more or less worked out. In February I had an
infection from a scratch from one of our village cats. 2 weeks without
riding. I did one trip to Switzerland, without bike. 12 more days off.
As mentioned, spring had lots of riding, summer wasn't so bad (in summer
there is heat and lots of tourist traffic here, so I ride less). In fact
I was coming along so well, that for a long time I had a buffer of about
500 to 800km.
Then in November I went to Spain for a sprint, and a chance to cycle
up the Angliru climb (famous from La Vuelta). Also a chance to do some
flatter kilometers to, around Lugo. So I had done plenty of training
riding up the Liona climb (the toughest climb we have on Naxos, still
only about a bit less than half as much as Angliru...) Instead I did
only 2 short rides and then cought a cold. No Angliru and lots of days
off.
Now the "goal" thing became a bit more interesting. I wasn't really
behind, but I couldn't slack off either. In the end we had a rainy
period in December, but I managed to "work around it", or rather: ride
around it.
Today I rode the final kilometers for my 10'000km goal for 2018. While I
was ticking off the last 4, I thought about the riding in this year,
what I could remember from each month. Some months were easy and I had
good recollections. But I forgot the brevet I rode in January, and it
took me a while to remember when we had gone to ride on Paros. Still,
lots of good memories!
Coming back, I uploaded my ride to Strava, and updated my stats. But
where it had told me yesterday that I had 9936km (64 below the magic
number), now I had ridden 65 and it showed me I had 10'099 in total.
I guess Strava is drunk. In any case, I'm past 10'000km and the goal is
reached... and I still have some days to go this year.
30 November 2018
27km/h
Nicht schnell
Als ich vor ein paar Tagen ein Mietauto übernahm, war auf dem Bordcomputer irgend was komisches eingestellt. Mit ein paar Mal auf den Knopf drücken versuchte ich, etwas sinnvolles zu sehen. Statt dessen kam ich auf die denkwürdige Anzeige: "Durchschnitts-Geschwindigkeit: 27km/h".
Schnell ist das nicht. Das Auto ist hier auf Naxos unterwegs, wo es keine Autobahnen gibt, und auch die Landstrassen selten mehr als 300m grade Strecke haben. Aber so tief hätte ich den Durchschnitt jetzt nicht vermutet. Immerhin kann man auch lange Strecken ungestört mit 50-60km/h fahren. Viel Verkehr gibt es nicht und Stadtverkehr auch nicht wirklich. Mit dem Fahrrad bin ich mit so 21km/h auch nicht wirklich langsamer, allerdings ist das dort harte Arbeit, denn es geht hier immer auf und ab.
Am meisten erstaunt hat mich aber, dass der Autohersteller diese Zahl überhaupt zugängig macht. Der Traum von der freien Autofahrt ist doch nicht weit her, wenn man am Ende mit nicht mal 'nem schlappen Dreissiger unterwegs ist.
31 October 2018
Cat Stories
In monthly installments
Oh wow, it's already the end of another month. Since I had the plan to
make at least one post each month, let me tell you some cat stories.
Everybody loves cat stories.
I live in a small village without cars. The "roads" are dimensioned for
loaded donkeys and humans. Cars simply can't get through, you have to
leave them outside the village. Which is good for the cats. Cars kill
cats. They also ruin quality of life for people with their exhaust,
their noise, their demands of space, so in my book, if a place works for
cats, it's good for humans too.
In the evenings I feed the village cats. In the summer there are fewer
of them coming to my "dinner date". That's when there are more people in
the village, staying in their summer houses. They feed the cats too, so
I might have only 5 or 6 guests. In winter I might have 14 or 15 cats
coming for food. I'm not the only dinner date around, so not all of them
are there each day. Still it's a carpet of cats and they all try to walk
in front of my feet. One of those days I fall flat on my nose, my fall
only being softened by a carpet of furry little cats. Or maybe they will
get away in time and the fall will all be mine "clumsy human, can't land
on his feet".
Some of them don't mind eating together (they are friends, or family, or
both). Some don't like each other. I know a bit their habits, so some of
them get a bit of food at the edge of the group by themselves. Sometimes
I sit with them and listen to the "crack, crack, crack" of them eating
their dry cat food.
Some days ago, a neighbor passed by. At first she was surprised to see
them all, then she counted them (there were 10 of them). Then she told
me that there was one cat she'd seen last year very thin and spindly,
and that she saw here again now and she was all round and well fed.
Indeed it doesn't need much. A bit of cat food here and there, and for
the rest they can look after themselves. Even a beat up tomcat drifting
through can get round with shiny fur once he picks up a bit of regular
food each day.
One thing though makes an even bigger difference. Some people of our
small neighborhood got together and we sterilized the females. We went
from our neighborhood having lots of kittens twice a year, with a cat
explosion going to come down, to a stable neighborhood population.
Sure we won't run out of cats even now, there are always some drifters
arriving and staying.
In other neighborhoods on Naxos, the Naxos animal
welfare society is doing this task. In areas that are tourism based,
there might not be many people staying all the year who could look after
things. But for our local population it was easier to do it ourselves.
If you've been to Naxos and noticed some nice cats, or even some
not-so-nice cats in need of help, I can recommend giving NAWS some
financial help. Even a small donation will go far.
30 September 2018
Water Update
It's falling down and it's coming out of the pipe
At the start of this summer I was prepared for the worst. It pretty much
hadn't rained for more than half the winter. The 2 big reservoirs on
Naxos were only about half full. Two years ago, we were without water
for 2 weeks in our village. I was expecting and had started to prepare
for something similar.
Part of our preparations was implementing a few steps to reduce water
usage - even if they would not change things on a big scale. For example
collecting the water that runs out when you wait for the hot water
before taking your shower. Another part was to have a bunch of plastic
containers with water in the house (for washing, toilet, etc.) and some
bottled water.
The situation was obviously discussed near and far in the local
population. From the side of the municipality, I've heard about two
measures that were taken. Not that I've heard anything from the
municipality directly, communication is certainly not the strong part
of Naxos' municipality. The first thing was that our plumber mentioned
that they got/bought a system to discover leakage in the water network
last year. The second one is that apparently the municipality announced
that they bored more groundwater wells, so no problem about water in the
summer.
There were also some water outages in Naxos town (Chora), and for quite
some time the water coming out of the tap was yellowish/brownish.
Obviously at those times they were dragging out the last drops from the
reservoirs. Water was trucked from higher up places to town too.
As for our personal situation, we did not have any water outages this
summer. Again, as there is no communication, I have no idea why. One
day we were happily having lunch in Halki, when the waiter brought a
plastic bottle of water instead of a "karafa" of plain tap water as
usual. When we asked him about it, he said: "But haven't you heard that
they connected a second well to our water network, one which is known to
be unsafe for drinking due to heavy metals?" Ups. Someone else at the
super market said the same thing. So we went and bought some bottled
water too. That was definitely not to my liking, but what could we do?
In fact, what R did was very simple: She took a sample of our tap water
to a chemical lab in town. It cost us 70 Euros and it took a day or two.
Result: Our tap water was perfectly drinkable, without chemical, heavy
metal, or microbial contamination. In fact the guy in the lab
congratulated us on our water quality. We bought 2 weeks of plastic
bottles for nothing, but better this way around.
By now we had a few days of rain and autumn / naxos-winter weather
already. The summer tourism invasion (again another record high this
summer) is over too, so I assume that the water consumption has gone
down too. Everybody is hoping that this winter will bring more rain...
even if it will be again summer for a while from next week.
31 August 2018
End of Tourist Season
It's about time
So it's the end of August, and pretty much the end of the peak of the
tourist season. I'm not much into ranting (especially on this weblog),
but ah well, it's about time. For the last 4 years or so, each year
there was a new record high of tourism. It really has passed any
reasonable limit. Someone told me that in July there were 12'000 cars on
Naxos. Since we officially have about 19'000 residents, you can imagine
that this is a lot of cars. Also there wasn't much water from the
previous winter, so resources were a problem. In Naxos town, there were
days when the water supply was shut down.
Looking through the news, this seems to be a common theme all over the
world. "Tourist hotspots" get badly overrun, leading to all kinds of
problems for the people living there. Obviously there are places way
worse off than Naxos, even if Naxos seems to be some kind of
"fashionable" place lately. I don't know what gives. I understand that
people want a vacation, but I don't get why everybody has to go to the
same places.
Surprising enough, in our village the water supply has held up so far.
According to rumours this is because another water source was connected,
but which is not healthy to drink. Bad deal, in my humble oppinion. But
then it's only a rumour. This has not kept me from mostly hiding in this
village all summer, the best option to avoid the tourist hordes.
I cycled all summer, with only a slight reduction of distance. I managed
very well to go out more in the late afternoon and evening, which helps
to avoid the worst heat. I also went cycling mostly in the mountains.
This helped me to avoid the worst of traffic, since it was a total
madhouse down there.
I'm looking forward to September now. Temperatures will relax a bit
more, the tourism traffic will reduce a bit more day by day. I guess
I'll even go to swim now and then.
23 July 2018
The Smell of Smoke
But where does it come from?
Today, leaving the house and going for a late run to the super market, I
smelled it immediately. It smelled like smoke, like a wood fire. Now
it's summer and it has been 35°C today, so there is really no chance
that somebody lighted a fire in their wood stove or their open fire
place. Instead I put two and two together with what I had read in the
news.
When I arrived at the super market, people were lingering outside and
talking about the smell. "Is there any fire around here?", they asked.
I told them I believed that the smoke is carried over from Attica, from
the forrest fires in Kineta and Pendeli near Athens. It's far, but the
wind is in West-Nord-West, which is that direction. Some did not believe
it, some agreed with me.
Naxos is somehow remote from Athens, it's as if those things don't touch
us. But then friends call and tell of other friends of theirs whose
houses are in danger.
28 June 2018
Tasting the bitter coffee of the Nebula Humble Bundle
It's more of a mixed bag
Some years ago, when I lived in a shared appartment, one of my flatmates
was an Italian with high culinary aspirations. But he was also a bit
thrifty. So one day he went to a discount super market and bought a bag
of coffee of their house brand. It did not take him very long to find
out that what he bought was total rubbish and basically not drinkable,
of which he complained loudly to me. I basically told him: "What did you
expect from a bag of coffee for 1.50 Euro? Just throw it away and buy
something better." But no, he insisted on finishing that bag of coffee,
drinking all the bitter and foul tasting black fluid he produced with
it.
Last month I came across a "Humble Bundle" of science fiction books. In
case you don't know the "humble bundle" thing, it's some organization
that sells bundles of software (mostly games) or ebooks, the buyer can
set the price, and everything over a certain amounts goes to charity.
Obviously the quality of the products in the bundle can vary quite
a bit. In any case, I wanted something to read and was open to try
my luck. The bundle was called: "Super Nebula Author Showcase 2018
presented by SFWA!"
Continue reading "Tasting the bitter coffee of the Nebula Humble Bundle"