Saturday, November 19/2016

Have asked, as urged by management, for items missing from the usual complement in the kitchen. Thus yesterday we returned to find our supply of small spoons has been increased from four to six. When we arrived there were only three table knives, blue handled with serrated edges. They're dreadful knives, inclined to snap in two if used for anything as unyielding as peanut butter, but we duly requested three more of them, if only to take their turn succumbing to the peanut butter. When we came back yesterday the knives had been replaced with six white handled substitutes, suggesting the usual method of raiding a temporarily empty flat to supply requests from another. This leaves the most important request unfilled. When we moved in there were no cooking pots at all, though there was quite a good stainless steel frying pan. So I resolve to ask one of the cleaners, which means determining the Greek word for cooking pot. The internet supplies "κατσαρόλα", pronounced catserola, so I suggest it to Veneria when we pass her on our way to the supermarket. I hold up two fingers for quantity and sketch the appropriate size in the air. Ah, metrio. Yes, medium. Much nodding and smiling as we congratulate each other wordlessly on communication accomplished. Veneria points cheerfully to the door of the flat next to ours, which I take to mean that it will be the source of the new pots. Probably unoccupied at the moment, or perhaps it has tenants who don't cook. And indeed we return from shopping to find two shiny medium sized pots and lids in the kitchen. 

There is wifi at the Sunflower but it's been slow to the verge of non-existent in the flat. Works more or less in the bedroom, and sometimes when a tablet is placed on the microwave in the kitchen corner - not while operating, of course. It works considerably better in the reception area so sometimes we go down in the evening. Much busier than at the same time in previous years, with quite a lot of young people, many of them backpackers. Which may, in fact, be the reason for the slowness of the internet.