April 17th, 2024: In this update I will talk rubbish. In a previous post I spoke of Greeks’ penchant for dumping crap on the pavement. I attached a news report with household effects dumped on what Greeks call the pavement or sidewalk, το πεζοδρόμιο.
Within 50 metres of my home in one in one direction and 150 metres in the other, a bathroom (tub, washbasin, cupboards) and a bedroom respectively have been dumped on the pavement. The bathtub has even shifted position – someone must have turned it round to see if it was worth taking!!
As you can see, the bathtub in the second picture is the right side up – after inspection!
The bathroom – together with about twenty bags of rubble and an uprooted tree – is still there blocking the pavement. However, the bedroom – very much in the style of the 50s and 60s – is gradually disappearing, piece by piece, from the side of the road. I say ‘side of the road’ because there is no pavement as you will see from the photos.
The above shows the non-existent pavement with the white car in the background parked on what would be the pavement.
Where I grew up, a pavement is a paved area, level with a kerb marking where the pavement ends and the road begins. At school back in the 1960s when we were learning how to cross the road, it was called ‘kerb drill’. Here the same design principle largely applies on main roads. Then it becomes a free-for-all. Anything from nothing, to a rough area level with the tarmac, to a kerb within which – and a few centimetres lower – there is a rough surface. Result: many people walk on the roads.
More pleasantly, the weather has been glorious the past few days, more like June than April, but yesterday and today we seem to have returned to normal temperatures for the month. Still very pleasant. The flowers are returning. Our Japanese acacia is also beginning to bloom, but I don’t think the tiny splashes of green would show up well in a photo. I’ll take a pic tomorrow. Anyway, here are a few pics of flowers in our communal garden.
What a difference a day makes! And finally, a red rose:
