More of Crete

Stones on the beach, blue sea, old monasteries, blue and white colours, relaxed atmosphere downtown Chania, laid back Cretans, not too many tourists yet, delicious Cretan/ Greek food, shopping unlimited for greek spices, buzzy night life- Crete is all that and so much more...

See how Liza enjoyed the holidays

A week on Crete- Knossos

 

Being impressed by the warm weather, sunshine and Cretan driving (=overtake if you can otherwise get off the road) we spent the first day at Knossos. It used to be a capital of Minoan and ancient Crete dating back from 6.000 BC! At some point it used to be the largest city in Greece and the European continent. What has been excavated of it are the bits of ancient settlements including the Palace of Knossos. Amazing how skillful the builders were milleniums ago. Elizabeth definitely enjoyed the trip being carried around, touching and feeling the ancient hand-cut stones.

A week on Crete- booking and arriving

If you haven't tried to book one of the last minute travels, how about trying this for fun. Elizabeths passport arrived at 1 pm on Friday. The Internet booking system for the travel agency has closed at 12 pm. Luckily Katya was checking the availability of the places in the morning and left it on another pc, so we could just proceed to booking. The trip was bought and car hired at 2 pm. Next morning we have driven to the airport to catch the flight in the aftrenoon (having shopped for a fold-up push chair for E before!)
It was a bit of a rush but all worth it when we arrived on Crete. Oh, the car hire company stood us up, but thanks to the Budget owner, who happened to be South African (!!!) we got us a good deal. I guess you don't meet that many SA mates on Crete :)

The hotel we stayed at was very nice, 5 stars, self catering appartment. Huge place, with couple of restaurants, bars and swimming pools(www.calderagroup.gr). It was nice but we only slept and had breakfast there. We just needed to get out from the bunch of Scandinavians sitting by the pool, smoking cheap cigarets and drinking booze the whole day.

Garden in bloom, new terrace and Irish citizen

 

This week has been so sunny and warm that our garden started turning green and blooming. There's nothing better than spending a day outside in a sunshine admiring God's miracle of life. This is what Katya did this week- enjoyed her last month of maternity leave. She's going back to work on the 4th of May, which is so soon! This time home with Elizabeth has been so precious and pleasant, I wish I could stay home for a bit longer... Well, going back to work is actually not so bad. I do miss it to be quite honest. Just that change from long days at home with sweet Elizabeth to the busy and often stressfull hospital world will be quite dramatic. But I'm looking forward to it.
This week David has been enjoying his time off work in the company of his precious girls. Here are some pictures of what he's been busy with. It's not just computers he can fix- handy man indeed!

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Get your own

And last, but not least, the postman brought today to us the most wanted letter- Elizabeth's Irish passport!!! Finally after 2 months she could get a temporary passport, while a real one will be arriving next week. So, now we've got something to celebrate- Elizabeth became an official Irish citizen.
To celebrate it we've bought ourselves a trip to Crete- yahaaaaaaaaaaaa!!! More updates on that will follow.

Easter Holidays

We spent Easter this year at home. Still haven't got Elizabeth's passport yet, which means that we can't travel anywhere with her. So we decided to stay in Denmark.
David was off work since Thursday. The spring has really come to us as it was up to +17°C. We took advantage of the great weather and got our terrace furniture out.
Katya's been wanting a green house to grow her own tomatoes in since we got the house. Well, this Easter we installed the greenhouse glass, washed all the panes, and David built the potting table for it out of pallets cut to shape with his vast collection of carpentry tools and worked it into to shape and the planting boxes and soil have been bought- all ready to get started!!!
In the evening we had a grand start to the barbeque season! It's so nice outside now without winter clothing and without freezing all the time. Having a couple of hours of daylight in the evening makes it much better. Elizabeth enjoyed staying outside too. She was a great helper, sitting in her pram and entertaining Mummy and Daddy by laughing, singing and talking her usual "Dadada" and "Bababa".
On Good Friday there was a service in our church (Galten Valgmenighed, meaning Fellowship of Choice www.gava.dk). Even that the occassion was sad- our Lord Jesus Christ being crucified, it was a very encouraging message we've heard, about why it was necessary for Jesus to die on the cross.
On Easter Sunday we celebrated this joyful occassion in the morning service, or should I say David did as Katya had to walk around the church building half of the time to get Elizabeth to sleep, as she was very tired- that's a part of parenthood.
Otherwise we enjoyed having some friends over for coffee and supper and going out to see some friends and family.
We spent Sunday afternoon at Larisa's (Katya's sister) summer cottage. It's a lovely place in the middle of the forest with only summer houses and plots and trees. We visited our own plot of land, which we have in the same area. Not much more than trees on it, but we hope one day (when David learns how to use a saw) to build a house there. It'll be one of those DIY jobs for David for the year of 2016, maybe? (But will update you on this progress on 2056 :D)
Here's a visual presentation of our Easter holidays.

Flower Lady

Here's looking at the lady who was awarded a contribution by a pharmaceutical company towards an Oncological course. There were 10 recipeints out of 23 applicants so there was some competition. Personally, I think the flowers were a winner :). Well done Katya!




Here's Lizzy and I in the Hammel swimming pool. I can almost swim now, thanks to Lizzy! Anyone for a taste of Plastic Fish?