It Started With an Ouzo

by Stavros Allanopolis

  As a result, we have given the house the name of ‘Meerkat Manor’ and this is very different from any other houses nearby, or in all probability the whole of Greece itself!

  Photo: The Meerkats Looking Out Of The Window.

  Meerkats are very sociable animals and live together in small family groups; constantly hugging each other and always on the lookout for predators. So I decided to position them in such a way that they looked as if they were real, and living together as a family.

  Of the 28, I placed two as ‘lookouts’ with one on the top of the metal staircase railings to the upper terrace, and one on the top of the roof at the entrance to the terrace.

  I then planned to build some stone pillars on the boundary walls and place the other 26 in them set in groups at varying heights to create the effect of a family living together. The different heights idea was to try and create the effect of them popping up from their home built under the ground and being on the ‘lookout’ for predators

  In anticipation of what I was to do, I had two Welsh slate signs made and they were shipped direct from Cardiff to Agios Nikolaos in time for our arrival.

  One I immediately built into the wall at the entry steps up to the ground floor terrace. In white lettering out of the grey slate it says, (Greek lettering for Meerkat Manor). Alongside the lettering it has three silhouettes (white out of grey slate) of three Meerkats on ‘lookout’ duty.

  Photo: Author And Meerkat Manor Sign.

  The other sign is a reproduction of just the silhouettes (white out of grey slate) and is built into the wall to the side of the front gate, where I would also build a stone ‘hide’ on the wall.

  Photo: Gate Signage Plaque.

  I eventually built the other 26 Meerkats into stone pillars and to the side of the arch. The arch was to be built sometime later as an ‘entry’ to the second garden. During this period of time Norwich Union launched their advertising campaign which featured Meerkats. If you haven’t seen it, go to www.comparethemeerkats.com You won’t regret it! You can even make your own pet Meerkat! Talking of no regrets, from that very first moment when we stepped out of the car and until the present day, we have never regretted what we did; not a single minute!

  So, there we were, all unpacked and ready for our first evening at ‘home’ and our first sunset in our new home. We were all unpacked and ready to go and sit on the upper terrace to enjoy a glass of? You guessed it, Ouzo!

  Our first in our ‘Dream’ home!

  We just sat in comfortable silence, deep in our own thoughts, and enjoying the view whilst we waited for the sun to set on our first day as Greek Residents.

  Photo: First Sunset At Meerkat Manor.

  Photo: First Glass Of Ouzo At Meerkat Manor.

  Ever since that first night, we still go up on to the terrace and sit and watch the sun set at the close of the day.

  As the sun sinks from view and rises somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere, I usually say,

  “Somebody, somewhere, is waking up to that sun; their first rays of light and the dawn of a new day.”

  Every day, since our second day, as soon as I am awake and dressed, I climb up the stone steps and go up on to the terrace with my cup of tea and sit on the wall looking and waiting for the sun to return and rise up in the East. It is always peaceful and quiet here in the olive groves, but at that time in the morning it is more so. There are no insects buzzing and it is just the sound of silence; truly magical. Imagine then sitting on the terrace looking forward.

  To my left and behind me to the East is the Taygetos range of mountains. I can see them clearly and they start to rise quite steeply just over half a kilometre away. In the middle of the part of the range that I can see there is a ‘V’ in the ridge, and this is the place where I can see the glow of the sun as it begins to rise and shine on us for another day.

  Gradually, moving my vision in a clockwise direction, the mountains start to fall away towards the sea and about 500 metres away to the left of my view they meet the sea. The point where they meet the sea is where our nearest beach is; Pantazi Beach.

  It is quite a small beach measuring around 150 metres wide and 50 metres deep. The beach is a mixture of sand and small pebbles as it enters the sea.

  There is also a small tavern at the back of the beach nestling under the shade of the Tamarisk trees that grow alongside the road. The road goes to Agios Dimitrios to the East and Agios Nikolaos about one kilometre to the West.

  As I was to become my early morning routine in the days to come, after watching the sun rise, I always turn to look out to the sea immediately in front of me (South West) and marvel at the stillness of the water and the variation in colours that can range from deep blue, almost black, to bright turquoise.

  I can see the fishing boats bobbing up and down as they ply their trade; an endless quest for fish! At that time of day, there are usually three or four boats and I sit and stare and wonder about their catch as invariably it is quite small; just a few buckets of fish to show for three or four hours work.

  Turning further in the clockwise direction, I am now facing towards the West. The view is virtually uninterrupted and looks out over the olive groves in front of the house and I can see right across the Messinian Gulf. Across the gulf I can see the ancient town of Koroni and I can also make out the silhouette of the island of Venetiko right on the horizon.

  Just slightly further to the right of this view, I can see the village; Agios Nikolaos. I can see the whole village from this vantage point which is just a gentle stroll through the olive groves; 12 minutes walking on the paths that meander through the groves in an ‘as the crow flies’ direction.

  Full completing the clockwise turn, behind me to the North is once again the Taygetos range of mountains, and I can look straight up to the village of Pyrgos teetering on the edge of the cliffs.

  The air is so fresh and clear that most days we can hear the church bells as they ring out their message to the congregation, and because the air is so clear, the peels are sound as if they are ringing in our garden despite the fact that they are about two kilometres away, and this can be morning noon or night!

  In the morning, I listen with a cup of tea in my hand.

  In the evening it is definitely a glass of Ouzo whilst looking at yet another fabulous sunset, and of course ‘watching the olives grow!’

  Also, in the same vista is the village of Riglia which is at the top of our track.

  Once again because of the freshness of the air, we hear the olive press working and can even smell the sweet, ‘green’ smell of the freshly pressed olives and of course the church bells there.

  Something else that is quite remarkable is that even from this distance (800 metres), we can also hear the Priest singing as he practices on Saturday and Sunday mornings before he leads the services for the villagers.

  WILDLIFE VISITORS – NOAH’S ARK?

  Looking back, I can still recall all the exciting things that happened during those first week weeks of our new life together living in Meerkat Manor.

  From that day and to the current time, I am still amazed at the incredible amount of wildlife in the area. Albeit, some of it is unwanted in our garden!

  I can only list the wildlife and birds that either roam wild or live in the surrounding olive groves. There are so many different species, I am sure that I have not remembered to list them all here:

  Pigs, Goats, Cows

  Foxes, Cats. Dogs

  Polecats, Badgers, Mice

  Rats, Snakes, Praying Mantis

  Tortoise, Lizards, Scorpions

  Hoopoes, Owls, Buzzards

  Sparrows, Blackbirds, Robins

  Jays, Pigeons, Doves

  Great Tits, Dickers, Chaffinches

  Bullfinches, Greenfinches, Goldfinches

  Swallows, Swifts, House Martins

  Pied Wagtails, Yellow Wagtails, Butterflies

  Moths, Spiders, Mosquitoes

  Seeing the pigs roa
ming wild around the olive groves was quite a sight! Sadly, they are not around for long as they are being reared to end up as the Regional Speciality – Spit Roast Pig!

  The goats and cows are domestic breeds but the farmers allow them to roam around the olive groves in search of food. Some of the funniest moments in those early days was shooing the goats and cows out of the garden after they had jumped over the wall. The ‘grass over the wall is greener’ syndrome comes to mind!

  Seeing whole flocks of some of the birds is quite a sight. Some fly at high speed just above the olive tree tops and others are to be seen foraging for food in the olive groves; either of the tree trunks or on the insect-laden shrubbery. Whenever there is rain, the finches will gather to have a bath in a puddle; in the puddles; 50 – 60 at a time! Amazing to watch

  Over the coming weeks and months, we were to experience some very emotional moments with the animal kingdom, some sweet and some sour.

  The first ‘sweet’ experience of some note was with a lamb.

  One afternoon, after we had returned home from a shopping trip to Kalamata, we were inside the house unpacking when we heard a ‘clip, clop’ sound outside. I looked out of the front door and there standing on the terrace was a very small lamb! It could not have been more than a few weeks old, “Baaaah,” came the greeting. It just stood quite still looking at us; “Baaaah, Baaaah.”

  Photo: Lost lamb Ventures Onto The Terrace.

  There had been a flock of sheep grazing in the olive grove the day before, so we thought that maybe it had become detached from its Mother.

  The flock wasn’t to be seen anywhere nearby, but we thought that with a constant “Baaaah” call from the lamb, the Mother would come in search of her infant. As we stood looking at it, I noticed that it had a very short tail indeed. In fact it was bleeding from a little stump. So, either it had escaped from being ‘docked,’ or maybe got itself caught up somewhere and damaged its tail in making its’ escape.

  The latter was more likely as we had not previously seen any sheep with ‘docked’ tails. After a while it settled down and went to sleep in the sunshine, and we left it in peace thinking that it would eventually wander off in the way in which it had arrived and we carried on with our chores.

  Several hours went by and when we looked out, we saw it standing in the corner of the garden; quite forlorn with its head bowed.

  “Maybe its hungry?” observed Valerie. “Let’s give it some milk.

  A small bowl was duly filled but it wasn’t interested. We thought that maybe it didn’t know how to drink yet as it was so young and used to feeding from its Mother. A mad dash to the supermarket followed with me in search of a baby’s bottle! That didn’t work either. Soon after these attempts to feed it, it settled down on the ground again and went back to sleep. So, we decided to let it be but left the gate open just in case its’ Mother came looking for it.

  By late evening, it was still either dozing or wandering around as we had seen earlier in the afternoon. There was nothing more that we could do, so we decided to leave it be and went to bed for the night, still hoping that Mother would come to the rescue.

  When I awoke next morning and opened the front door, I was not prepared for what I saw. There sitting on the terrace was the lamb and it was nestled right up to our metal cat statue! It had obviously decided it had found itself a buddy to keep it company through the night!

  We repeated the exercise with the feeding bottle, but no luck; it wouldn’t feed. We were not really sure what to do. However, a little while later, we could hear the distant, and now familiar, ‘pinging’ of a bell, the type which the farmer places around the neck of the leader of the flock.

  The flock follows the ‘pinging’ as the leader of the flock wanders through the olive groves grazing on the available greenery, and they all stay together within earshot of the bell.

  I had an idea, and said to Valerie, “Ok. When the flock gets near, I’ll lift the lamb over the wall and carry it as close to them as I can and put it down and see what happens. Surely, its’ Mother will come and find it and take over.”

  The first part of the plan worked; I got the lamb into the flock. However, the second part was a failure; they shunned the lamb. Clearly, this was not the right flock as its’ Mother wasn’t in it. After a while the flock moved on leaving the lamb behind.

  What to do? Rejected, the lamb came back through the gate and into our garden again. Throughout the rest of the day, we tried to get it to drink some milk. No success. However, it did drink some water from the cats’ bowl.

  As the day turned to night, we decided to repeat the exercise of the previous evening, and leave the lamb roaming free in our garden but with the gate open.

  The next morning found the lamb was again nestled up to its ‘buddy’ on the terrace.

  I said to Valerie “Even though it is very cute and (by now) quite friendly with us, as well as its ‘buddy,’ we can’t keep it.

  Let’s see if the sheep come by again this morning, and if they do, we’ll try putting it into the flock again.”

  The flock returned and we repeated the exercise and again with the same result; rejection. However, this time the lamb stood its ground and when the flock moved on it followed them.

  The sheep ‘graze on the move’ and move around quite quickly, but the lamb managed to keep up with them.

  Within half an hour, they were eventually out of sight and we hoped with the lamb in tow.

  Over the following week the flock returned most mornings as it ‘toured’ the olive grove, but we never saw the lamb with them and it never returned to Meerkat Manor or to visit its ‘Buddy.’ We hoped that it had eventually been reunited with its Mother. Altogether a ‘sweet’ experience.

  Another ‘sweet’ experience was with a tortoise.

  It appears that as recently as 20 years ago there was an abundance of tortoises living in the Olive tree groves surrounding our house. However, numbers have drastically reduced for the last 10 years. The species is called the Marginated Tortoise.

  The ‘sweet’ experience happened as I was walking up the track to ‘Meerkat Manor’ with my head up looking at the Buzzards flying above me; lazily gliding on the hot thermal air waves.

  As a result, I almost missed the tortoise crossing the track in front of me. In fact I almost trod on it!

  Out of my peripheral vision, I just caught a glimpse of something moving by the side of my shoe, and I looked down just in time to avoid treading on it! There beneath me was this incredibly tiny tortoise. By its own standards, it was almost at a run, its little legs were moving so fast. By mime, it was moving very slowly. Determinedly moving forward, it was obviously on a mission, but where to only it knew.

  I bent down and picked it up to examine it more closely. The markings were exquisite and very sharp despite its small size; obviously a baby.

  Photo: Tortoise ‘On A Mission!’

  I was so excited by this discovery that I almost ran back to the house in my enthusiasm to show it to Valerie.

  “Wow” she exclaimed, “Isn’t it beautiful. Let’s take a photo before you let it go.”

  I gently placed it in the palm of Valerie’s hand and took several shots of it. By placing it in her hand for the photo, I ensured that I had a record of the scale of its size; extremely small and extremely pretty.

  A ‘sweet’ experience.

  Photo: Adult Dwarf Marginated Tortoise.

  Since that moment, we have also had several sightings of adults of the Marginated species; around 30cm in length! We have also experienced somewhat of a phenomenon; two pairs mating!

  The sound is akin to that of someone knocking on a wooden door; two shells bumping one against the other. It goes on for at least an hour non-stop; no further comment! More to the point, it does indicate though that maybe the tortoises are returning to the area once again. We hope so as they are such pretty creatures; they are most welcome visitors. All in all, another ‘sweet’ experience.

  And now to the ex
perience of a ‘sour’ moment.

  The Polecat or Pine Martin as it is sometimes called.

  For those of you that haven’t seen one, they are mostly black or very dark brown with a long flowing tail and a white splash on the chest. They are sometimes called Pine Martins. The adult Polecats, and our experience is with an adult, are around 20cm high (ground to shoulder) and 60cm long (nose to end of tail). They live and nest in the tops of trees and are mostly nocturnal. They live on fresh shoots of any living plant and the odd insect or very small mammal.

  One adult decided to live on the shoots and roots of our plants; a ‘sour’ experience indeed! Over the course of several months, we would come out into the garden first thing in the morning to inspect our previous day’s planting of cuttings in readiness for transferring to the garden only to find that it had paid us a visit in the night! What did we regularly find? Empty pots; no cuttings left, or at best ‘mutilated,’ and all the soil dug out of the pot and all over the place! Clearly, it had been coming during the night in search of food and attacked the cuttings in the pots to feed its hunger. Even when we started putting stones and weights in and on the pots it would somehow dig them all out and generally wreak havoc!

  We did some research (how many times have you said “thank goodness for the Internet”?) and discovered that in all probability the eating of the young shoots is all about a search for moisture to quench its thirst. So, we experimented by putting out a water bowl at night. We placed it close to any of the cuttings we had potted that day. Success!