Kythera Newsletter October 2018

Supported by The Kytherian Association of Australia.

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Autumn 2018!

Dear Friends of Kythera,

It's pouring down on Kythera! I just drove my favourite brother and sister act – Poppy and Georgos Koroneos – from Karavas in the north to Hora in the south. Each year we go on the little excursion and do lots of errands – like buying little broccoli plants in Kato Livadi and looking for snails for lunch – on our way to Poppy's ex-teacher who lives high over the Bay of Kapsali.

Georgos and Poppy flanking Poppy's old "Home Economics" teacher "Kyria Marietta" on their annual crossing of the border to the South to visit her in Hora.

At the beginning of our journey it was cloudy but dry. Georgos and Poppy were discussing heatedly whether they thought it would actually rain. Hearing them yell about something as mundane as the weather, I can imagine that as children they probably exchanged blows. Frequently. And, if her voice is anything to go by, the last thing you would want is to be on the receiving end of a "Poppy Koroneos right hook".

As a city-slicker myself, I always thought that "country people" could read the weather like the back of their hands. But Georgos and Poppy's dispute proved that, even among local experts, there wasn't always agreement.

The clouds rolling low through the hills of Kythera looked more like a postcard from Peru than something closer to home...

The main road flowed like a river in some areas. Torrential rain: just what the island needs. Unless you have a blocked rain-water drain like I do. My excuse for coming to Kythera in October - actually one of my favourite months on the island - was to clear a storm-water drain-pipe outside our bedroom, which flooded when it last rained a month ago. The end of the drain-pipe seems to have been buried in subsequent landscaping. Now none of the builders can remember where it was exactly laid or where it's exit can be found.

Hora during a break in the rain. Many Summer visitors to Kythera have never experienced the freshness of a good downpour on the island.

More important is that the underground water levels recover after two years of almost rainless winters. The waterfall and pools below Mylopotamos had stagnated, water restrictions were in place and many young and old trees didn't survive. But a dozen days like today and all should be well again - at least for the next summer.

Kythera-Family.net has now been updated to comply with the latest European data privacy standards. It was a long road to get there. The first obstacle was to find an affordable and gifted programmer who was up to the task. A few months ago I met Tamer, a dynamic "coder" who is proficient in "Laravel", our website's state-of-the-art website programming language. The last update of the software was 4 years ago, so Tamer had first to install the newest versions of "PHP" and "Laravel" and "Elastic Search" and lots of other geeky stuff before it was worthwhile to even begin creating the new compliance features on the site. Had a commercial agency done the work it would have taken a couple of months and cost a fortune. Tamer liked the community aspect of our site and dedicated himself with an obsessive passion and completed the task in a week and at a fraction of the usual cost. Now, with the site up-to-date, we can start to improve it again, hooking it up to our facebook page and making it all more fun to use. Thanks to Tamer for the great job and to the Kytherian Association of Australia and the Aroney Trust for their support! And if I haven't mentioned it often enough, also to Angelo and Mary Notaras and family, without whose unwavering support and vision, Kythera-Family.net would never have been built.

Never Short of Desire

In this scene Poppy's mammoth bodyguard Konstantinos decides he needs the sunshade more than Poppy, and three beautiful Italian tourists who have arrived on Kythera by mistake enjoy the purity of St Nicholas Beach in the North.

An Island Named Desire, my cinematic sequel to Kythera mon Amour, is moving slowly but steadily ahead. After the interruption caused by the acceptance of the series of short films ("Winter on Kythera") to the Cannes Short Film Corner in May, we are back on track with the editing. We showed a few scenes from "Desire" at the Lemonokypos restaurant on Sunday (thanks Georgia and Manoli for the venue!) and it seemed to go down well. If I can balance my family duties, day job and film editing over the next few months I hope to have the first cut of the film ready for release early next year.

Regards from a rainy island,

James Prineas (james@kythera-family.net)

Pictures from Autumn

October isn't just the season for olives and snails: the fruit on citrus trees prepares to ripen too!

Citrus trees need protection from the wind, like here in a low garden in Karavas.

The first oranges of the season...

The stunning pomegranate fruit - magenta on the outside and the inside!

As far as I know all olives go dark if you leave them on the tree long enough. Green olives are just black olives which have been picked early!

Poppy scouring her olive grove in the Far North for some delicious young snails for lunch.

The Meteo site is a great reference for the weather situation on Kythera.

The Kytherian World Heritage Fund presents:

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