Saturday 1st - Welcome to November, it's cloudy and grey and would you believe it? around 28C. Yep, we have a spout of summer on Ithaca while the rest of Europe is in rain and cold. Yesterday and today it was swimming weather all over again, but to tell the truth, the skies are pretty bleak. Northerly winds have been tossing and tangling our hair with 7 Force today.

As you can see in the photo below right - the bayside restaurants in Frikes have nearly all packed it in. It's looking radically different from the colourful promenade of the Summer, but don't despair, Symposium Restaurant is still open (thank you) and so is Piperato Grill behind the bayside. With yachters still coming in, it's lucky for them there is somewhere to eat and get dry in case it rains (rain not likely at least until after Thursday).

I know there's a few of you out there waiting for this news. Poppy from Rementzo gave birth to a baby girl this morning in a Patra hospital at 10.30 am. Mum, baby, sister and daddy are fine and looking forward to being back on the island soon, getting the rest of us to eat humble pie with our predictions the new addition to their family would be a boy.

It's been awhile since we've caught up with Dimitris Danis, one of Ithakis well known faces both to locals and visitors alike. When asked about the process of his new project, ORES (Cultural Performance and Gallery Space in Vathy) seems he's nearly ready to put the finishing touches on. It's sure to be stylish and impeccable, the usual Danis stamp of excellence. Keep tuned for more on ORES very soon.

During Ithacas heyday, workers would come in from other parts of Greece, usually parts of Greece where there were no olive groves, to pick olives from all over Ithaca. During those days, farmers made wine from their grapes and oil from their grove to make a living and needed many hands to finish the work. Although some of the bigger groves on ithaca still work this way, many olive groves have been left to the weeds in so many areas around the island. Old locals here and there, gather up family members, hessian bags, canvas, combs and wine to head into the fields for a hard days work, sawing off branches, combing the olives from the branches and bagging them up ready for one of the factories where Ithakis oil is produced. Ithacas most famous oil producing area is Perahori, our eco friendly village in the south. In other parts, it's domestic use only.

Looks a little like Spring