Bears and Ginger Biscuits

Still at Vegoritida. It’s a lake. It had to be. You can’t argue with the views however and it is quiet beyond belief.  It is by far the nicest place we have ever stayed – helped no end by the view and lots of sunshine.

White bedding earns a 5-star Tigger review, but balconies and a view help; along with lots of doors to the outside that I can ask my humans to open, and close, and pull the flyscreens away from and back over again.  It is an upstairs apartment so the spiral marble staircase needed inspection – often.  Downstairs there is a small reception room (which another apartment opens from) furnished with interesting dark wooden furniture and rich red cushions.

I can watch the sunrise from the white bed.  From there I occupy the morning-side bay window with accommodating seating where I bask until around midday before moving around to the rugs under the coffee table for the afternoon sun.  By sunset I have moved back to the foot of the bed – which isn’t like ‘going to bed’.  In this studio it gets the very last direct sunlight before the sun dips behind the mountains on the other side of the lake – behind a town called Panteleimon. (Read the Book of Dust to understand why we like that name. This place called Pereia, and Panteleimon across the water, could easily be places in the Book of Dust.  They feel very magical.)  We liked it so much we stayed two extra nights – much to my delight.  

Wiffi is everywhere in our modern word, but when ours threw a tantrum, F and Mr B didn’t care much.  They just drank some wine and ate toast and sliced tomatoes, and looked at the sunset (and scratched my back for me).  We found a big cuddly blanket in the cupboard and we sat on the sofa all cosied in our blanket (like we do during winter at home). It’s not cold but no longer so hot that blankets are anathema, so we can once more enjoy being all snuggly together.  Snuggly is good for Tiggers who get lots of petting as a result.

The only drawback of this place is dogs – big ones.  It is rural Greece, so the dogs are wandering about protecting the world from those bell-ringing sheep and sometimes take shortcuts through the grounds here.

Mr B was heard to remark on Tuesday that it was ‘cool’.  He was wearing a jacket, but F opined that she was enjoying some brisk air on her skin at last and spent the day touring in the woods in a t-shirt and shorts.  I suspect the local through she was some kind of nutter – they are all in puffer jackets by this time of the year (despite it being 22 degrees C out there).

What was she doing touring in the woods?  You may well ask.  We went to see bears.  Actually, the humans went to see bears.  I was happy not to.  The pictures were sufficiently educational.  They don’t look cuddly, but I might let Mr B post a photo or video here.  The closest I have ever been to bears is the Winnie-the-Pooh bedtime stories we listen to on Sunday nights (Don’t ask; family tradition), and I now think I’d like to keep it that way.  

What I did like, immensely, was the village of Nymfaio where the bear sanctuary of Arcturus is situated.  I made several attempts to explore it on my own and was foiled by the humans. (Probably just as well if I’m honest.  There were, it turned out, unrestrained dogs taking themselves for walks in the most unexpected places.)

Nymfaio is on a mountainside. It is built of stone and has narrow, winding, stone cobbled streets.  Many of them are a bit overgrown with grass which is a little disconcerting when the signs for your destination direct you along one of these.  A local stopped his ‘ute’ between two competing cafes, to chat with the patrons of both and with the man doing street repairs with a pickaxe. 

Total gridlock.

Parking was signposted and I have no idea why we didn’t stop there but drove a little closer and parked on a roadside where a sign made it absolutely clear – this far and no further.  At this time of year we were likely the only visitors, so it probably didn’t matter. They’d only been gone a few minutes, and I was still peering over the dashboard watching them disappear down the track when some more visitors came trudging along the road.  Hazard lights seemed like a good idea – in Greece that excuses being parked in a really stupid place.  The button is in the middle top of the dashboard and I can activate it even if the key is in Mr B’s pocket.

After their bear excursion we lunched in the central market square of Nymfaio, at an establishment called The Great Tiger.  It’s an odd name for a Greek eatery, but as there was a stripey cat on the sign that was good enough for me.

That’s where I made several attempts to explore.  I raced over to the men drinking ouzo and smoking.  They were on my side and protested for my right to explore, but F dragged me back and I heard her say something like ‘o skeelos’ to the men.  I hope it wasn’t rude.

F says it is possibly the best lunch she has enjoyed in Greece. I liked it, there were 4 kinds of cold meat (charcuterie – another big word) on the platter.  The humans can keep their medley of salads and the chutney and bread and chilies and rose peppercorns and all – just give me the meaty bits.

Apparently, the coffee was good too.

We called in a town sized town on the way back to get some groceries for ‘tea’, and enjoyed an evening of blanketed snuggliness.

 

And the Ginger Biscuits?  Well since living in Greece I have had to use a litter tray – which F has kept stocked with wood pellets.  When they have done their turn in my box they go into the garden and boost the organic matter content of the soil out there.  She decided that for two weeks of travelling the ‘arse factor’ (as she calls it) of sifting my tray once a week (in addition to the daily dig around for lumps) could be short circuited by putting some sort of technologically developed clever litter in my travelling tray – stuff that clumps when damp instead of disintegrating into sawdust.  It was a disaster.  I hated it.  She hated it.  It seems to be coated in glue (which is probably the clever clumping thingie it does).  However, it sticks to the inside of the tray, it sticks to the fur between my toes, it then sticks to the floor in the bathroom where they inevitably put my litter tray, and there is cat litter everywhere.

In Naousa my humans bought some new litter.  Observational evidence suggests that Northern Greek people are not indoor cat keepers in quite the way that city dwellers seem to be.  The range of litter to choose from was a tiny section of the bottom shelf of the back corner of a pet shop full of bags of dog biscuits.  Remarkably they did manage to find something organic and plant based and which……

…..smells like ginger biscuits.

What bears eat..