Olive picking

We are nearing the end of October and the clocks have changed but no-one seems to have told the weather that it is supposed to be cooling down, on the contrary, warnings have been given out that it will be up to 10 degrees warmer than we would normally expect this time of year.  It being so lovely we went for a swim this morning.  The duck told us that the water temperature was 22 degrees, the same temperature as John's Mum has her central heating set at (and apparently on today as it was shitty in Chesterfield) and I thought it was rather bracing getting in but once in it was actually lovely and I was glad that we haven't given up on a swim at home just yet - as John reminded me we have a full 12 degrees temperature drop to go before we can say enough is enough!!

After our swim we headed off down to the museum to catch up with Philippos and his son Marios and to follow them to one of Philippos's fields where we were helping them to pick olives.  The field was located down the back of the Gravity Road Diner and way off into the boondocks!  We were in Kenny and to be fair we could have completed the whole journey in Kenny but we stopped under a tree and John and I were transferred into the back of Philippos's trusty old truck.

This land is where Philippos's grandfather used to have his house and where he grew up.  The house is no longer standing but Philippos told me about them all living together with the farm animals and his brother going to school on a donkey - taking two hours to make what is now a ten minute trip into Polis!  The olive trees and the carob trees there are ancient.  The one we were starting with had been moved from the Akamas as a sapling many years ago - probably over 100!

We worked solidly for five hours stopping only for a lunch break enjoying a massive sandwich prepared by Philippos's wife Marina.  We managed to get the olives from just two trees.  We had to work quickly because the nearby goat farm let the goats wander and they were very interested in the prunings from the olive trees and then the harvested olives themselves and they weren't bothered by us trying to shoo them away.

One particularly feisty goat (and a female one at that) was not going to be dissuaded by anyone from getting to the olives not even when John started shaking a big old stick at her.  They came and then they went - Marios said they were returning for their tea but bugger me if they didn't return shortly afterwards and started their shenanigans all over again!!

It was enjoyable but exhausting and dirty work.  I just did the collecting of olives which had been 'combed' off the tree by the mechanical comb which was powered by a noise old generator or stripped the olives from old branches which had been taken down by John precariously perched up a tree and using a teeny tiny battery saw which kept running out of battery.  He kept saying that had he known he would have brought my man-sized loppers and his chain-saw!

I don't know how many kilos of olives we collected but what I do know is that the time we did it before (about 8 years ago) I studiously removed nearly every leaf so that when we went to the olive press we were pressing olives and not a mixture.  Philippos wasn't too bothered because he said he had a machine at home which cleaned them with air - not entirely sure what he meant by that but it meant that I didn't have to be too fussy when scooping up the fruit.  

It does make you realise just how labour intensive this job is but we really enjoyed ourselves and had a right old laugh.  It was all made easier by the fact that Marios speaks such good English so conversation flowed and Philippos was so kind to try and explain to us the history of the place and took me to see where the old well had been located and gave me some dried herbs to sniff which cleared the old nasal passages I can tell you.

We just knew that when we got home we wouldn't need much rocking - just as well as I am walking with the girlies again tomorrow - a 5+ kilometer up and downer around the outskirts of Kathikas.