2011: Some Happier Moments

Well, 2011 wasn’t a whole heap of fun and our hearts really go out to those who are suffering hardship right now. Let’s hope that 2012 brings better hope and prospects. But here the editorial team join those out there who are publicizing the fact that 2011 wasn’t all bad….

In January we re-interviewed George Marinakis, Mayor of Rethymnon four years after he had first taken up office. The best question we asked (well, we thought it was the best question) was “What (so far) has been your greatest surprise as mayor?” George’s initial response was to respond “good surprise or bad surprise?” with a little bit of a quizzical look, but then he rallied well and said “obviously if you are a well prepared mayor, nothing should come as a surprise”. Good answer, but given the year we have had we wonder if this is still the case! Once again, we thank George for giving us his time. We also thank all those in Rethymnon who have been continuing to support the international community despite ‘the crisis’.

In February or March but definitely not April we were taken up with the carnival celebrations and the Bugle editor found herself dancing down the main street in Rethymnon wearing a powder blue tutu, white tights and dinky shoes, along with hubby wearing a huge white hat who looked absolutely magnificent. For those of you who knew the editor in her previous life (or come to think of it knows her right now) this style of costume might seem unlikely; jeans, t-shirt and wellies being the norm in the winter. But in the words of some of the best / worst James Bond movies: never say never ever unless you are talking about diamonds and / or Shirley Bassey.

Another memorable event in March: The Bugle kitty cats (Django and Dizzy, aka the ‘adorabubbles’) had their first birthday and progressed from ‘Friskies Junior’ crunchies to ‘Friskies Adult’ crunchies. This may not seem terribly important in the grand scheme of international journalism but it mattered to us. In the photo to the right you see them in grown-up Christmas mode.

In April there was the astonishing CIC overnight trip to Anogia and various other locations in some of the mountains of Crete. This was an inspired itinerary organised by Albert and Anna (was it only 36 hours?). Thank you! We did report on the excursion in our May 2011 edition but it is worth revisiting and the passage of time and distance has maybe given us a few new perspectives. Once again we express our gratitude to young Tassos, our incredibly brave coach driver. Better writers than us could possibly describe the journey in a suitably flowery or lurid fashion, but they would need more pages, more ink and might have names like Jack, Kerouac, Thelma, Louise, Shirley and / or Valentine. Here are a just a couple of our dodgy snapshot impressions of the excursion: As very mature individuals (put it this way, none of us were ever going to be eligible for an 18-30s holiday) we all assembled on time at our designated pick-up points. Very nice comfy coach. And obviously at our first pit stop at 11 am we were nearly locked into a monastery up in the hills having been offered raki and cookies. Then we drove to lunch which was possibly a little bit early at a village winery that wasn’t quite sure that it entertained tour groups because this was the first time that this had happened to them but managed to rally to the challenge in magnificent fashion and everyone in the neighbourhood helped to supply the plastic chairs. It was a stunning setting, marvellous hospitality and great food. Fabulous cheese, wine more than OK. The winery somehow managed to sell us some of their wines even though they hadn’t got glass bottles, let alone labels.

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