Day 115: Friday 11 July – A Very Quiet Day in Ioannina, by Ken

Two o’clock this morning saw Jane and me rushing around outside getting our outdoor gear under the awning after light rain falling on Mabel’s roof woke us up. That quickly turned to heavy rain that continued for much of the night.

Dawn brought a leaden sky and showers. We decided to have a quiet day in Mabel. I spent most of it working on the blog while Jane fought to get two loads of washing done in the hope the rain would stop. The washing turned out to be a real challenge, after 2½ hours the first load was still churning through what seemed to be an endless rinse. Jane called it quits at that point, removed the sopping washing and put a second load on.

A Grey day In Ioannina

Jane decided the day provided a good opportunity to make a moussaka. At midday we set off into Ioannina to buy the ingredients. We encountered the usual Greek parking where it seems turning on hazard warning lights allows you to abandon your car wherever it suits. Double parked cars are a frequent sight as are cars parked diagonally fitting as much of their bodies in the gaps between conventionally parked cars as possible. Sometimes that is not a lot. The first supermarket we came to had double parked cars in the road outside, but there was also a car park opposite. That had a ute parked across three parks and a VW Golf with its centre almost perfectly aligned over the line dividing two parks, The supermarket had everything we needed except mince. In fact there wasn’t much meat at all, but this was compensated for by a huge variety of fish. The second supermarket was also bereft of mince. The third place we found was in the centre of town in a busy shopping street, as are most supermarkets in Greece. There was nowhere on the road to park so I drove Smarty onto the pavement and turned the hazard warning lights on. Not one of the many people that had to walk around Smarty batted an eyelid. Jane returned after quite a while, language difficulties having delayed her, but she had got the mince.

In between visits to see how the second load of washing was going – just as slowly as the first Jane made the mother of all moussakas. It took three hours at the end of which the heat in Mabel’s kitchen area meant she was wetter than a wet thing. She vowed never to cook another.

The sun returned mid afternoon and Jane was able to hang the washing out. A water skier zipped up and down the lake and, as yesterday evening, rowers spent the evening training.

Jane’s moussaka was reserved for other days – the size of it suggested there were at least three, maybe four, meals for the pair of us. Instead we finished the remainder of my pasta with a vegetable sauce.

As the evening wore on it became too cool for us to sit outdoors and we had to retreat inside Mabel.