Warmth and village gossip

A few evenings ago I was cooking up some chicken (supermarket variety I'm afraid, not ours, they're living to see another day) when there was a sharp rap on the front door.

I peered out through the glass but couldn't see anyone. On opening it I discovered our 88 year old neighbour-from-round-the-back, Sophia, (who is a couple of inches shorter than my 9 year old daughter), standing at the bottom of the steps, having used the end of her walking stick to knock. I gave her a helping hand up the steps and she came in, crossing herself in the doorway and muttering "poli oreyo" (very lovely) over and over.

Bless her, of course, she hadn't been in the house since we moved into it, we normally pass the time of day outside on the street.

She burbled away to me in Greek for a little while, but soon lost me. Thankfully Niamh was on hand and did an excellent job of translating a peculiar conversation. It transpired that Sophia had a blanket that she had made for her daughter when she was a child. It was still in good condition but Sophia had no use for it. Her daughter (now married with grown up children of her own) had no interest in taking the blanket and had told her mother to throw it away, and Sophia didn't want to give it to an Albanian because they wouldn't look after it (her words, not mine!)

The conversation then moved to her telling us that both her husband and son had been born in our house. I knew that there was a family link, but hadn't realised quite what until now.

Originally the property was a manor house, but over the years it has been divided into two smaller homes. She was able to tell us that the house had been in the same family for many generations. Eventually her brother in law had inherited our part of the house and had lived there with his wife and daughter. He had predeceased his wife and the daughter, a spinster, passed on before her mother. On Sophia's sister in law's death ownership of the property had moved to her remaining siblings, rather than her late husband's - and we had bought it...

This whole story was told without any resentment or sadness, but just so that we could appreciate some of the history of the house.

Then the conversation returned to the blanket. Having established the somewhat tenuous link between her family and my own, Sophia asked if we would like the blanket. Inwardly I cringed a little - and elderly crocheted blanket - hmm, I couldn't honestly believe that I would find a great deal of use for it. But still, I didn't want to upset Sophia so I said yes, of course we would love to have it, and agreed to call in at her house the following evening to collect it.

The next night the children and I went to Sophia's at the appointed time. Two rooms, bare boards, a fridge, one chair, two single beds (one in each room) a sideboard, a kitchen table, a portable TV and a hatstand. Spotlessly clean but exceptionally frugal - no phone, not even a water tap - that was outside. Laid out on one of the beds was a thick, creamy coloured blanket intricately knitted/crocheted - I'm not sure, into a myriad of tiny circular floral style loops. Wow, I hadn't been expecting anything so carefully made.

Sophia then started to say something about how it had made her hands ache when she made it. I assumed because of all the stitches, which apparently had taken her about 3 years to complete. No, the discomfort had come from when she had spun the wool by hand after preparing fleeces in the first place!

She grinned, pleased that she'd be able to surprise us, and said the blanket was no good for the summer, but in the winter that and a sheet would be all that was needed to stay toastie warm in bed at night. I didn't doubt her for one moment!

We accepted the blanket with some reverence, realising that this was more than just something to keep warm under in winter. It's a little piece of Greek history, linked to our home, that a very lovely elderly lady had put a huge amount of effort into when life was much harder than it is today, to ensure her children were kept snug in winter.

Before we left though Sophia's grandson Nikos appeared. Home from university for the summer we'd not met before but we started chatting and left together. He and Jack struck up an extended conversation as we walked back, so I suggested he join us at our house for a drink. Accepting my invitation we trundled home, dug out some cold coke and beer from the fridge and started to put the world to rights.

Nikos was intrigued as to why we decided to move to such an old village, and we got into a deep discussion about village life. We had just agreed that one thing was for certain, even if you had forgotten what you were supposed to be doing, half the village would be able to tell you! Greek village gossip is an art form that has been honed over many centuries!

At that moment the phone rang. It was Lakis from the taverna at the far end of the village. I assumed he wanted to speak to Tony, as they're friends, but no, he said, could he have a word with Nikos please, his mother was looking for him...

What was that about half the village knowing what you're up to even if you don't?!

We still haven't worked out how Lakis knew Nikos was with us :0)