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Introduction
Welcome back to our regular readers and a special welcome to any new ones!
February in Corfu is traditionally a very wet month. We guess that many of our readers only ever experience Corfu in the warmer months of the year and have none or little inkling of what the island's weather can be like. Just think of how green the island is and that should give you a clue! The only good thing we can say about the weather at the moment is that it has not been as cold as some years. Then, of course, we do expect to experience some beautiful sunny days even if they are cold. Compared to what much of the UK has experienced lately it is idyllic. I know where we would rather be!
As many of you will be aware, Greece has been going through a bit of a tumultuous time economically. We have been saying that the country is in denial for over a year. As everyone now knows, Greece has been pilloried as the bad boy of Europe. Although the economy is clearly in dire straits, everybody seems to be ignoring the plights of Portugal, Spain, Italy and Ireland, all of whom are in a similar state. That's a bit of a mystery.
There has been talk here of pulling out of Europe and returning to the Drachma as currency. It will never happen! Europe will never allow itself to be seen to have failed. Mind you, it might make them think before admitting other countries. I was going to say, "Banana Republics" but upon reflection, I guess that is unfair.
The population's reaction to some of the government's efforts to reduce its deficit has been predictable. There already have been strikes and protests. We have had power outages which have been island wide and clearly nothing to do with maintenance. In a country where the national sport has been tax avoidance for centuries, we reckon that the government is in for a rough ride. Sadly we don't appear to have anybody with the steel or gumption of Lady Thatcher. On a personal note, we were going to do our bit and pay off some of our tax bill this week but we have been told that the tax office is on strike! Ho hum!
On a brighter note, We have Carnival and Clean Monday to mark the start of Lent in the Orthodox calender to look forward to this month. Whether we actually make it into town for Carnival or whether Tricia will get to buy and fly a kite on Clean Monday will probably depend upon the weather. We will, however be eating out on Clean Monday.
At this stage, I can't think of anything else that we have planned for this month, so we will just have to see what occurs. So, enough of this preamble!
February 2010
The month started cold and wet.
Those of you who read last month's offering will be aware that we had attended Darryl and Paula's celebration to mark the opening of their butcher's shop in Peritheia. Well, the shop was open for business and we are proud to announce that Tricia was their first customer on Monday, 1st February, closely followed by one of the Greeks from the village. The place was looking good. More to the point, so was their meat! Darryl and Paula were resplendent in their white overalls.
Unlike, many people who come here with a dream and try to turn it into reality, they have invested a lot of time, money and effort into their venture. We wish them every success. If you holiday here and are unsure of Greek cuts of meat, or maybe planning a barbecue, you could do a lot worse than pay them a visit. Indeed, Darryl is a fine grill chef and will even undertake running the barbecue for you so that you are free to enjoy your holiday.
There now! That's enough free advertising for one month!
After buying our meat, we paid Spiros Gelati a visit for a coffee before returning home. After all, I had a couple of new websites to work on!
The 2nd February was really sunny but freezing cold. It was 0°C when we got up and had undoubtedly been colder over night. There was a frost and ice on a water bowl in the garden.
To Tricia's amazement, I suggested going out for a drive to take some photographs as it was sunny and unlike summer time, the air was clear. She didn't need asking twice!
We drove up around the north and northwest coast. As with all seaside resorts out of season, Sidari was a bit desolate but still worthy of a couple of photographs. We continued on up to Cape Drastis and then on to Longas. We were taken by surprise by the strength of the wind. In fact, at Longas it was almost impossible to hold the camera still to take photographs. I have included an image of some flagpoles with shredded flags that give an indication of the wind speed.
Our final stop was at Agios Stefanos on the northwest coast, not to be confused with the one on the northeast coast. It has long been one of our favourite places and is enjoyed by many who spend their holidays there. It may not be as 'upmarket' as its northeast counterpart but has a delightful beach and nearby working harbour from which many traditional fishing vessels make their daily journeys out into the ocean.
After a few more photographs, we decided that we would make a slow journey home. To be honest, the cold and the wind had taken its toll on us old folks and made us really tired! It did make a pleasant change though.
That night we watched Chelsea draw 1 - 1 with Hull. That wasn't the scoreline that we were hoping for!
We decided that we would go for a further photographic excursion on Wednesday, 3rd February as the weather was again sunny. More to the point it wasn't so windy. Mount Pantokrator was our destination this day. We were hoping for some fine shots across the island and into Albania. Unfortunately there was quite a bit of haze and the resulting shots were not all that we had hoped for. It was the first time in a long while that I had wished that I had an SLR camera with me or at least one that I could attach filters to. Still there were a couple of reasonable shots.
Thursday 4th February was sunny and cold again. We decided that the woodpile needed replenishing and so I was tasked with cutting up some of the pile under cover behind our garage. First, I had to get some petrol and oil for the chainsaw. I can hear you thinking, "What's the hardship in that?" Well, nothing actually so long as you don't get half way home before remembering that the bottle of oil that you have paid for is still sitting on top of the petrol pump!
I eventually returned home and set about sawing some of the woodpile. I also split up some old palettes for kindling. It's amazing how tough they are. By the time I had finished, I was satisfied that it was a job well done. I know that I will have to make further inroads into the woodpile but that can wait!
It was sunny and cold again on Friday 5th February and we had to make a trip into Acharavi for some supplies. We were just making our way back to the car when we spotted our recently widowed friend, Joan. She was with her two friends and they were on their way to the local Spa. Good for them! We learnt that Joan was going to visit family and friends in the UK the following week. Again, good for her!
That afternoon, I was to be found in the lower section of our land that we laughingly call "The Orchard" on account of the fact that we once planted fruit trees that have not produced so much as a lemon! I set about some of the undergrowth and vegetation in general with a combination of the chainsaw and strimmer. It was a session of what our friend calls 'destructive gardening'. This was followed by another session of splitting up palettes for kindling.
That evening we were surprised by Milios, the Albanian wall builder, who announced that he was going to come and start our gateposts and the three columns beside the garage on the following Monday if the weather wasn't bad. I thanked him for letting us know and resisted the urge to point out that he was only eighteen months late! Like when dealing with TBW, we weren't going to hold our breath!
Whilst out giving the dogs their last walk of the day, the rain returned. The rain continued all night and by the morning of the 6th February it was torrential. To say that I got soaked walking Jake was an understatement!
Friends Sara and Keith turned up at around 10.30am to take some of their belongings that were stored in our basement. They anticipated moving into their new home the following Tuesday. They were understandably excited. However, the torrential rain and the fact that the power had tripped downstairs and refused to reset, dampened their enthusiasm somewhat. It didn't do much for mine either!
The rain stopped during the afternoon but predictably returned just as we were taking the dogs for their last walk of the day. It was during this walk that the power went. It wasn't just us, it was all of the surrounding area. We were plunged into total blackness. Fortunately, both Tricia and I were not in any of the more inaccessible parts of our land and so managed to get home - very carefully.
Thankfully, we have been here that long that we are quite well equipped for such eventualities and it wasn't long before we had sufficient candles lit to see by. As it wasn't far off our bedtime, there was no need for the gas lamps! The power must have returned during the night as it was on when we got up.
Sunday, 7th February was our friend Michelle's birthday and we had arranged to join her and John with Darryl and Paula and Alan and Pauline for a birthday lunch at Apnoea Taverna. It was an excellent meal and I think it fair to say that it was washed down with copious drinks! That wasn't the end of it though as we all went on to the kafenion in Acharavi for a' top-up' afterwards. I'm glad that we had the dogs as an excuse to leave by 10pm as I don't think that I would have lasted much longer!
Monday, 8th February was sunny. We were really pleased because Milios was supposed to be coming to start on our gateposts. Yeah right. He was found at the bottom of our neighbours garden rebuilding a wall that had collapsed. Part of our wall was also down which is why I had been employed on destructive gardening duties a few days earlier. We did a quick deal. For €70 he would rebuild our bit of wall. At least we knew where he would be if the rain held off!
At 10am, Sara and Keith turned up to collect more stuff from our basement. That whiled away an hour or so before I went down to collect some steak and kidney pies from Darryl. Whilst at the butcher's I met up with Doug and Debbie who had just returned from a couple of months in the UK. I am glad to report that they were both well.
There was little to report for the rest of the day.
I managed to get the newsletter published on the 10th February. It was a horrible wet day and many strikes were being reported. It was, however what you might call a 'fruity’ day! Firstly, I had been given a bag of oranges by Paula and then we had a visit from Yiorgos who presented us with a bag of lemons and mandarins. Lovely!
Thursday 11th February was very wet which meant that I had a good excuse to work on www.bobgilesphotos.com. I am sure that if you read last month's offering, you will be aware that I am developing this site with Drupal, a content management system which is new to me. Methinks that this is going to be a long haul!
We took a number of DVDs to Alan and Pauline as they now have their TV mounted on the wall but have no means of receiving a signal. They do however have a DVD player connected! That was a nice way to spend the morning! As they are still relatively new to living on the island, I offered to take them to a couple of places in Platonas to get some pieces that Alan had considered ordering from the UK. Such folly! We made arrangements to make this trip the following day.
It rained during the 12th February and it was bitterly cold. I made the trip with Alan and Pauline to Platonas and they returned home pleased that they had found these local suppliers. We had powercuts on and off until about 1.30pm.
Milios was still working on the land adjoining ours. We hadn't realised the extent of the wall that was down. What with the rain slowing him down and the amount of work, we aren't sure when we are going to see work start on our gateposts. I suppose that it does mean that we can hold onto our money for a bit longer!
Sunday, 14th February was dreadfully wet and cold. Still, it was Valentine's Day and so, being the romantic that I am, I got up and made a Valentine's breakfast for us! Honest, I did! Please all stop laughing in disbelief. Our Valentine's Day dinner was pretty good too, but I am afraid that I can't take any credit for that!
The bad weather was made worse by the fact that we suffered power cuts for most of the morning. One of the outages caused me to trash one of the websites that I was working on. Fortunately, for once I had recently backed up the site. Not only that, but whilst restoring the site I realised how to do what I was attempting at the time of the power cut. If that doesn't make sense, just accept that it was a techie moment!
The evening finished on a very damp note when Tricia and I were drowned whilst taking the dogs for their last walk of the day. Come to think of it, the dogs were decidedly unimpressed as well!
It may have occurred to some of you that we hadn't been out for a meal over the weekend. There was a good reason for this. Monday 15th February was 'Clean Monday' which marks the start of Lent in the Orthodox calendar. We had arranged to meet Alan and Pauline at Apnoea Taverna for lunch as they had not been here for 'Clean Monday' before.
The weather wasn't that good but a few people were flying kites on the beach despite this. We had a traditional 'Clean Monday' meal. That is, nothing with a backbone was consumed ... unless you count Alan's pork chop! Also at the taverna was a Czech lady that we know called Eva. Some of you who remember Liberty's Taverna from a few years back may remember her as she was working there then. She was celebrating her birthday with her husband. We suggested that it was her 21st which raised more than a little smile! Still, who says that flattery is wasted as we ended up sharing her birthday cake!
It was a late lunch. No surprises there! However as Tricia and I were approaching the turning for Loutses on our way home, we decided to visit 'Ice Dream' for our first ice cream of the year there. I am pretty sure that it was their first weekend open this year. There is little ice cream sold here beyond October on account that traditionally, most Greeks believe it to be unhealthy to consume it during the winter. We can report that Ice Dream’s ice cream is still the best on the island! There was one slight problem though.....
By now, I am sure that everyone will be aware of the economic difficulties that our adopted country has finally woken up to. It was reflected in the price of the ice cream. €3.40 for a tub containing two scoops of ice cream seemed a bit on the pricey side! A classic example of the Greek mentality that dictates that if you are selling less, you put the prices up to compensate! There is still a lot to be learnt here where marketing is concerned. The concept of making a small profit but getting a quick return does not seem to have reached Greece. We are sure that if businesses adopted such a policy, far fewer would go out of business.
We have been commenting on the economic climate here for a few years now, but we suspect that there are going to be serious problems this year where tourism is concerned.
One last comment on the subject of various country's economic conditions. We have noticed that there has been much said about the value of the Euro having dropped. We would like to point out that Sterling is in a much worse condition and it is this which makes your currency exchange less attractive! Just to rub salt into the wounds, we recently read an article in The Independent newspaper that suggested that the UK's economy was in a worse state than Greece's. If you don't believe me, check out http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/shock-as-british-deficit-equals-that-of-greece-1904129.html!
Don't get me wrong. I am not bashing the UK but it, would be nice if the facts were reported in a little more balanced way. Having said all of that, it doesn't absolve Greece from a lot of the underlying causes of her economic woes. Most of them HAVE been accurately reported by the world's media.
Sorry for that bit of a rant!
Tuesday, 16th February was a pretty relaxed day. Milios was working on a continuation of our dry stone wall, further up the road. Fortunately, this bit wasn't our responsibility and hence, the cost wasn't down to us. We were getting a bit anxious as to when he was going to start on our gate posts though. The weather wasn't all that and to be truthful, we were surprised that he was continuing to work.
Wednesday, 17th February started wet but it brightened up at around 11am which was fortunate as Alan and Pauline brought some packaging that they had asked us to store in the basement. Their timing was excellent as we were experiencing another power cut but it returned at about 11.15am. The basement is truly 'pitch black' without lights!
It always seems that whenever we want to go to Corfu Town that we never have time to do all that we want to do! We managed to get around most of the supermarkets on Thursday 18th February but that still left a lot of what we might loosely call 'business' unaccounted for. As a result, I returned to town alone on Friday, 19th February.
I visited the tax office to pay off this month's instalment and found it deserted. It was a pleasant surprise when I consider some of our previous visits. My next port of call was to the bank to try and get the remainder of our pink slips that keep the tax man happy! I was less than happy when the girl there thought that she would be unable to do them for two weeks! She did promise to try to do them sooner which cheered me up a little. I must confess that I try not to aggravate the girl in question as she has always been helpful. Those of you familiar with Greek banking staff will be aware that this is a real bonus!
I had also been tasked with a visit to a number of supermarkets to try and source some of our more esoteric requirements ... like Horlicks! What with all the running around, I was starving by the time I hit Roda. There was nothing for it. I had to stop at the grill room for a pitta gyro and small beer! Sometimes, these things just have to be done! Suffice to say that by the time I returned home It was quite late.
Saturday the 20th February started sunny and stayed that way until quite late when we had some showers. Milios turned up to discuss building our gate posts. I showed him a photo of one in Agni that we rather liked and asked him to copy it. He assured us that he could do this and started cutting stones there and then. I don't know why but something told me to check our wheelbarrow that Milios would undoubtedly be using. Sure enough, it had a puncture. Much to Milios's amazement, I had the wheel off and the puncture repaired in no time flat! Why is it that even Albanians think that we can't do anything?
That evening, we met up with Alan and Pauline at Gelati's for a couple of drinks and a chat with Ilias, the retired phone engineer. I still have a hankering to buy a small olive grove close to home that we could also use to exercise the dogs. Obviously, it would have to be securely fenced. I suppose that it would be cheaper to fence our land but we can't help feeling that it would detract from its wonderful open feeling. Ilias had a few suggestions of land for sale but none took my fancy.
From here we left to go for dinner at Maestro Taverna. It was amazingly quiet for a Saturday. We felt sorry for Christos and the rest of the band that played to no more than six tables all night.
After dinner, Vaso came and sat with us to discuss Greece and her (Greece's) economic woes. She was very welcome as were the bottles of Metaxa and Tequila that she placed on the table! It was a late night!
It goes without saying that we got up late on Sunday, 21st February. There were some sunny spells but it was very cold. Milios worked on cutting stones in preparation for building the gate posts. As one of them will straddle a drainage grill we had to have a debate about how and where it needed to be cut. I became fed-up with the debate. I lifted the grill, produced my angle grinder and cut it how I wanted it. There were no arguments!
Monday, 22nd February started sunny. That lasted until about 1.30pm when it started to rain. Milios started to construct the first of our gate posts. It was clearly going to be a long job as every stone had to be cut by hand. He wasn't far into the construction when he declared that my cement was no good! Despite being stored in the basement in unopened sacks, there were definite lumps. I was dispatched to Roda to buy 125 kilos of white cement.
It became apparent that the gate posts were going to end up ... er ... immense. I am going to withhold photographs until they are both finished. All I will say that we have received comments from our neighbour, Christos, about building the second Acropolis!
That afternoon, I had a trip out to Debbie and Doug's to install a new wireless router for their computer. Well, I would have installed it were it the correct one for their telephone system! Ho hum!
We continued to have a real mixed bag of weather for the rest of the month. Sadly, it included a lot of rain. Milios managed to work every day. When he wasn't able to build the columns, he busied himself cutting stones. I must confess that I spent longer than I should messing about with a variety of computer projects!
We had something of a result on Friday, 26th February when the bank phoned to say that our 'pink slips' were ready.
During the morning, Milios and I were chatting by the almost completed first column when one of the villagers, Kostakis, pulled up alongside us and summoned me in something of a conspiratorial manner. I was presented with two cuttings from his fig tree which he assured me would grow if planted in pots for a couple of months before planting them in their final sites. He must be psychic as Tricia and I both like figs and have been considering getting one.
I managed to shift a few stones from various points in the garden and started building a low dry stone wall. Really, it's more of a border to try and define a path down onto our first terrace and to enclose what might, one day, form another flower bed.
I did a bit more of this on Sunday, 28th February before meeting up with Alan and Pauline for dinner at 'The Invisible Kitchen' The meal was excellent. My only disappointment was that we had something of a mix up with the menu which Tricia receives by email. As a result, none of the things that I had planned to have were actually available! Ho hum! Never mind. What we had was first class. If you ever have the opportunity to have the lamb fillets wrapped in spinach and then filo pastry, you won't be disappointed!
We finished up by calling in at Spiros Gelati's for coffees and Metaxas. What a great way to finish the month!
Conclusion
February 2010 certainly has been wet here! This hasn't come as a surprise as we always feel that February is the worse month of the year. We have had our usual round of meals out although if the economical woes of Greece worsen, I can see us cutting back where outside dining is concerned.
I have actually managed to get one of my new website projects off the ground. It is by no means complete but it has allowed me to tinker with a bit more new (to me) technology. So far, all this has cost me is time thanks to friend Nigel's generosity in providing the web space free.
Much to our amazement, we have actually managed a couple of trips out to take photographs. I think that Tricia's camera was probably one of the best birthday presents that I have ever bought her. (It makes a change from jewellery!)
Several friends have returned to Corfu and others are in transit! We look forward to meeting up with them again.
Power cuts have featured quite prominently during the month. These, invariably are caused by striker's protests against the government's austerity measures. We have to admit that Greece has been making headlines quite a bit lately. Sadly, it's for the wrong reasons!
Oh well, I had better finish here or the newsletter will never get published!
All the best until next month's offering.
Bob & Tricia.
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