|
Introduction
Happy New year to one and all!
Forgive me if I start this newsletter in something of a reflective mood. Those of you who read our December 2009's newsletter will be aware that the month and year ended on a sad note with the passing of my cousin, Hazel and our Greek friend Lakis. We can only hope that we do not lose any further family and friends this year. Sorry if we have started on a bit of a low this year but I'm afraid that it is a reminder of one's own mortality.
Anyway, I suppose that we should all be looking forward to a brighter New Year. Tricia and I are looking forward to a new grandchild in March. So far, Corinna, the Mum-to-be, seems to be doing fine and looks well despite having to cope with a husband, her own three kids and assorted livestock. Skype is a real life saver as we don't get to see the family that often. Our grandchildren are growing at an alarming rate as too is Corinna! To be fair to Corinna, she seems to be managing her weight increase very well, given the circumstances!
Life here in Corfu is pretty much what we would expect for the time of year. Obviously, it is quiet without tourists and many places are shut until Easter at the earliest. Having said that, it is a time of year that we tend to like because it is so quiet.
We will be approaching that part of the year that heralds the worst weather. We have already had several storms and days of gale force winds, not to mention, torrential rain. Still, when we have seen the weather that has hit the UK over the Christmas period, I know where I would rather be! I am sure that in amongst all the bad weather, we will have some sunshine even if we don't have the warmth of summer. To date we have only had the temperature drop to 3°C on one occasion. In fact over the past week, we have had a few days that were positively Spring like.
I guess that we ought to get on with the newsletter now and see what 2010 has in store for us.
January 2010
January 1st was beautifully sunny when we finally awoke after our New Year's Eve celebrations. Not only was it good enough for Tricia to suggest that we went for a walk but it was good enough for me to agree! Our little dog Bella was equally happy as she came with us for her first ever visit to the the beach - as far as we know!
We strolled the length of Almyros Beach and despite being unsure of the sea, Bella did venture in. I took a few photos, none of which were that exciting but they give an indication of the nice days that we get on and off throughout the winter.
What with this exercise and our late night, I think it fair to say that we were more than a little jaded by the time we returned home.
I telephoned our friend Joan who lives in Liapades only to discover that she had to accompany her husband Bill to Corfu General Hospital the night before. He certainly sounds in a bad way and all we can do is hope that the medical staff there can work some magic. As this is the fifth time that Bill has been admitted over the past year it is very worrying for everybody, especially Joan.
The 2nd January was remarkably warm when we went down to Acharavi. We had gone to get a bottle of wine to take to our friends Alan and Pauline who had invited us for some 'nibbles' and a drink to celebrate them finally taking up residence in their new home.
When we arrived, the sun was shining and it had turned into a really nice day. What can we say about Alan and Pauline's new house? I think that to say that it is beautiful is not an understatement and much of the interior finishing is a credit to Alan who has either done most of it or been very firm with those entrusted to do the building work. After a very shaky start with a very 'dodgy' builder, Alan and Pauline have come up trumps with a Greek builder who has 'ticked all the boxes'.
Given our own experiences with builders and the delays that we experienced in moving into our home, we can empathise with their sense of elation at finally being in their new house. Having previously lived in Spain and France we can only say that they are gluttons for punishment!
I mentioned earlier that we had been invited for nibbles. It was more like a small feast! We had a smashing afternoon there sitting around the table, eating, drinking and generally 'chewing the fat!' The included photo of Alan and Pauline gives an indication of their elation!
Sunday, 3rd January was cold and pretty grey. Home was definitely a good place to be and so that's precisely what we did!
Monday 4th January was cold and grey. My first job of the day was to sort out networking issues on Tricia's computer. How those gremlins get in there, I have yet to work out! I guess that the dirty power supply doesn't help.
I braved the cold to investigate the cause of a bit of damp at one corner of our house and having removed one (rectangular) down-pipe and peering into the hole in the terrace, discovered that it had been fitted to a round elbow! That's not unusual but the joint was dire and would clearly be problematic. Although I wasn't entirely convinced, I decided that as soon as the weather improved, I would get the impact drill and chisel away the terrace to expose the joint properly as it was embedded in about 30 cm of concrete. A job for another day!
I did, however, complete one job! I fitted coat hooks outside, under the veranda roof. (The coat hooks had been kindly donated by Alan. I do wish that people would stop finding jobs for me! Just kidding!)
By now, you are probably wondering why on earth do we want outside coat hooks. It's simple really. When we return home having walked the dogs in torrential rain, we thought it a good idea to have somewhere for our wet weather gear and dog's leads to dry off other than dripping in our hallway. That left the rest of the day for important stuff ... like messing about with various websites!
Tricia continued working on the curtains that she had brought back from Ikea during her last visit to the UK. It was the turn of the kitchen windows on the 5th January. For my part, I fitted hooks for the tie-backs. It was better than being outside as it was extremely cold, grey and windy.
I visited the post office in Peritheia to pay our phone bill and promptly had a blazing row with our local postman. The truth was that he wanted to leave the cold post office and return to his warm kafeneion next door. He started to make excuses as to why he couldn't take my payment. His best offering was that he hadn't got any receipts! Having made the journey especially to pay the bill, I wasn't having any of it. He grudgingly took my payment and receipted the counterfoil. I guess it will be a while before we see any mail!
The 6th January, "Twelfth Night" saw Tricia and I fully employed removing our Christmas decorations. It was an extremely windy day, so much so that I was forbidden to go up the ladder to remove the rope lights from the gutter. I didn't put up too much of a fight!
Thursday, 7th January continued to be windy but it wasn't as cold as it had been. Tricia and I ventured into Acharavi to replenish supplies and for a change, pay money into the bank!
The visit to the bank proved to be less than straightforward. I don't know whether it is me or whether it is just that we have been here long enough to know when to 'stand our ground'! I paid a sterling cheque into our sterling account and was promptly told that we had to wait 25 working days for it to clear. I have had this before but only at this branch and so wasn't surprised. However, I was in the mood for a fight which was a shame really because the young cashier is always polite and helpful. Despite my mentioning that I had recently paid a much larger cheque in at another branch and only had to wait 20 working days, the cashier wasn't going to budge.
Tricia read the warning signs! I glanced over my shoulder to see her vanishing out the door! I wasn't in the mood to let this go. The cashier continued to fill out forms and entering details on the computer as if nothing had happened. Then inspiration struck! I dived into my 'man bag' and found the receipt for the previous payment which clearly showed that we only had to wait 20 days. I thrust it under the cashier's nose, half expecting him to wander off to the manager or argue. He did neither. He just said, "Okay, I'll put 20 days!" WHY? Of course I don't expect it to clear in 20 working days, even though funds will be taken from our UK bank within 7 days. We shall see.
The grey windy weather continued until Saturday 9th January when it added rain to the equation! Around midday, I took myself off to Platonas to buy some electrical bits, leaving Tricia working on her computer. As I was returning, Tricia phoned to say that the power had gone and as expected, the uninterruptible power supply had started beeping. The power had returned but Tricia was concerned as she knew how to reset the UPS but it refused to stop beeping.
I returned home muttering things about women and technology! It was totally unjustified this time! (For once!) I couldn't stop it beeping either and immediately began to suspect that the UPS was faulty. The air went blue as it was not that old. There followed a few more power fluctuations which didn't help. Then Tricia made a discovery that one set of lights in the lounge were only glowing. The penny dropped. We had a problem on one of our three phases. What could we do? We weren't sure where the problem lay. Was it our house or the grid?
As a temporary measure, I rigged up an extension lead from a socket that had full power. Running on low power also effects our phones as they run from the modem and are all wireless, so it was imperative to restore full power. Woo Hoo! My bodge worked!
Then the power went ... totally! We had a feeling that this was going to be a long outage. From our enquiries, we established that a transformer had apparently caught fire and that the pole had also burnt down! The main freezer, despite having insulated walls verging on 6 inches thick, was given a duvet as added protection.
We awoke on Sunday, 10th January to find the power still off. We also discovered that the outage was very local, affecting only part of the village. That gave me an idea!
I decided that it would be a good idea to get one of the laptops recharged so that we could at least watch a DVD in the evening. I went down to the kafeneion for a coffee and left the laptop on charge whilst I went to do a bit of shopping. When I returned, the job was done!
The power was still off at 2pm when we went for lunch with Alan and Pauline at Gelati's. We knew that he would be unaffected by the power outage as he possesses the largest generator known to man!
We had a nice long lunch during which the power returned at around 3pm. Fortunately, we had set the manual override for the central heating before leaving and as a result the house was nice and warm upon our return. More to the point, the freezers had survived without us losing anything. That rated as one of our longest power outages.
Monday, 11th January started brighter but cold. I took the opportunity to make a repair to the downpipe and drain before the rain returned.
You will recall that at the beginning of this newsletter I commented upon how sad we had been at the losses we had experienced during December 2009. This month was about to add to that sadness.
We received a phone call from our friend Joan in Liapades to say that her husband Bill had died in his sleep overnight. He had been seriously ill and we had feared the worst when he had been sent home from the hospital earlier but it still came as something of a shock. In true Greek tradition, the funeral was to be held the next day at the Anglican church in Corfu Town.
Tuesday, 12th January was a cold, grey day. We left for Corfu Town quite early for Bill's funeral. Parking, as always, was a bit of a nightmare and so we decided that it would be easier to park in the Old Port car park and walk across town. We decided that we would have a bite to eat before the funeral. An ouzo meze seemed appropriate. Bill would have approved!
The funeral was very well attended. Tricia and I reckoned that there were more Greeks than British in attendance. There were many people from Liapades that we had met over the years including the Papa. At the conclusion of the service, we filed out to discover that there were even more people waiting outside who had been unable to get into the church.
We made our way to the British Cemetery where to our amazement, there were even more Greeks who had not been at the church. We know, from a later conversation, that Joan was amazed at how many had attended and it had given her considerable comfort. Tricia and I had never attended this cemetery before and we were taken by surprise. It really is like a British cemetery and reflects Britain's role in Corfu's past with so many British servicemen buried there.
By the time that we returned to our car, we were exhausted having walked so far.
Although we had overnight rain, it had stopped when we got up on Wednesday 13th January. Most of the day was spent doing little jobs around the house that I had been studiously avoiding, like fitting hooks inside cupboard doors!
Much of the 15th and 16th January was spent on the newsletter and 'techie' things but the morning of the 16th was set aside for cleaning the car. It was unbelievably filthy even though it had enjoyed a recent visit to the car wash. As it is invariably garaged, it has not had the benefit of the torrential rain!
Sunday 17th January was a pretty lazy day although we did finally take the Christmas rope lights down from the gutter at the front of the house. I managed to get a little bit of tidying up done in the garden and gave the Canna lilies a much needed ... er ... haircut! My own haircut followed on the 19th January. To say that the hairdresser was a little over enthusiastic was an understatement. Strewth, It was cold! Still it should last until about October.
There followed a few sunny but cold days We had to wait until the evening of Friday 22nd January before we saw any rain worth mentioning.
We actually received a phone call from Sofia, (TBW) promising all manner of things. It was unprompted by us and so I suppose we should be hopeful that there may be some action. We aren't holding our breath though.
Perhaps the best thing about the day was a long phone conversation with an old friend and work colleague, Nigel.
Nigel has not long retired from the Police Service and is involved with a couple of business ventures. (They’re the ones that I know of!) Unbeknown to me, Nigel has been following our newsletters and had read my comments about my interest in various web building technologies. In this respect, our interests are very similar. He had previously emailed some suggestions about a system that he had some experience with. More importantly, he reminded me that one of his businesses was as an Internet Reseller. Put simply, he sells web space. He had offered me space at a price I could not refuse!
To be honest, following his earlier email, I had looked at the possibility of going down this route myself but decided against it. Selling the web space is easy enough, but it's the thought of having to provide backup to idiots like me that don't know what they are doing half the time! With what I spend annually, pursuing my hobby, I decided that I couldn't justify it. Mind you, if my circumstances changed ........
On the back of Nigel's generosity, we registered another domain name and pointed it at lovely big lump of web space! All I have to do now is to get to grips with Drupal and we will have another web site to our name. Watch this space. More importantly, watch www.bobgilesphotos.com! Be patient though because I have a long way to go!
If anyone is interested in web hosting for your own domain, contact Nigel at www.huttonit.biz. Mention my name. It probably won't help because it will be hard to beat his prices!
Saturday, 23rd January was sunny but cold. Suffice to say, I spent a lot of time trying to reduce the learning curve with Drupal. However, we had a pleasant interlude when we went to lunch at Zephyros Taverna with John and Michelle. They had returned to Corfu a week or so earlier and it was the first opportunity that we had to get together. It was a very long lunch, finishing somewhere around 7pm. Oh well, back in the old routine!
The weather was much the same on Sunday, 24th January and we went out for lunch again this week! Our venue was Apnoea Taverna where lunch could only be described as outstanding! As we said ... back in the old routine!
I was due to collect Alan and Pauline from the airport at around 7pm on Monday 25th January and so we had something of a mixed up day. Tricia made dinner for lunch time so that I had at least one decent meal as I was going to be out late.
Alan and Pauline's flight was on time (Aegean, of course!) They had clearly had an enjoyable if not tiring time. I'm sure that being away from the throes of house building must have done them good. Having said that, I bet that secretly Alan was itching to get started again!
They had kindly brought a hard drive back for me that I had ordered whilst they were in the UK. Guess what the first thing I did straight after tea upon my return was...! I'm sure you guessed. The drive was installed in our NAS giving us a little more security where our data is concerned. More to the point, everything worked first time. Joy!
Having lit our log fire on more occasions than we had anticipated, we were becoming concerned about our wood pile. It wasn't that we didn't have enough, it was that much of it was too long for the fireplace! It was that time of year again when the chainsaw had to be brought into play. There was one problem though. The chain was ... er ... knackered! I had sharpened it to the point where I was becoming afraid that it might snap and so a trip to Robertos for a new one was called for.
Whilst Nikos replaced the chain, I joined a small crowd that had gathered around Makis who was demonstrating an electric log splitter to the assembled throng. It was very slow but highly effective. As Makis pointed out, even a woman could use it. I enquired as to its cost. "Two hundred and eighty euros," came the reply. I walked across to a nearby display and returned with the best logging axe that I could see. I held it up and announced, to choruses of laughter, "Thirty seven euros!" To my amazement, Makis joined the laughter and not to be outdone pointed out that you would keep fitter using the axe!
I returned home to find Tricia hard at work creating dinner. It was to be Bianco made with a lump of frozen cod that we had left in the freezer. For the uninitiated I should point out that Bianco is a Greek fish soup. I should also point out that it is not my favourite type of dish although, like Tricia, I love fish. I have to say that it was first class and would put local tavernas to shame. To those who say that you should always use grey mullet I will say that this is NOT set in stone! Agreed that this is the classic way of making this dish but many authorities concede that it can be made with any white fish. So there!
Wednesday, 27th January was grey and wet. We had a bit of business to do in Corfu Town but were nearly thwarted. Parking was an absolute nightmare. We had decided to give up and were just driving towards the port to return home when we spotted a space outside the university building. We don't normally have that luck!
This was actually not a bad location because it allowed us to cut through the back streets to our insurance agent; then on to Yiannis Rousos, our electronics and satellite TV supplier, before making our way to the tax office.
Things went well. Miltos, our insurance agent had our renewal ready, Yiannis had a replacement power supply for the one that had blown on our external disk drive and the tax authority were happy to tell us what our repayments should be to clear the outstanding bill. Only this latter visit was not what we hoped for. They wanted us to settle the bill in half the time that I had hoped for and consequently this meant that the repayments were twice what we wanted to pay! Ho hum!
A quick visit to the market meant that we had travelled almost a complete circle and were back at the car within a few minutes. What had looked like being an abortive visit had gone reasonably smoothly in the end. ... Except for the tax bill!
The icing on the cake (for me) was that the power supply did the trick and I didn't have to replace a 1Tb hard drive.
The rest of the week was cold and grey and little got done. I did, however manage to learn a lot about how to get Drupal up and running!
Sunday, 31st January's weather improved a little. Although grey and quite cold, there were some sunny spells. We went to Apnoea Taverna for lunch with Alan and Pauline. Afterwards we had something of an additional treat. It was the opening party for Darryl and Paula's butcher shop in Peritheia.
Now you may be thinking that a party to celebrate the opening of a Butcher's shop was a little excessive but believe us when we say that it wasn't! Darryl and Paula had worked very hard since November to get the business up and running. The premises had originally been a taverna, long since closed. The amount of decorating and refurbishing was immense. There are acres of tiles from floor to ceiling, 99% of which were done by our mutual friend, Dave Ashcroft. There has obviously been a lot invested in equipment like chillers, freezers and a cold room. The shop looks the business! Just like the butcher's shops that we grew up with in the UK.
This may not seem like a big deal to those who holiday here and perhaps eat only in tavernas or restaurants but if you have had to negotiate some of the cuts of meat on offer you may agree that it can sometimes be confusing. This is particularly so on account of the fact that continental butchers cut meat differently. To see a beautiful fresh turkey being hacked with a cleaver brings tears to the eyes. It is certainly going to be a delicate balancing act for Darryl dealing with British and Greek customers.
Returning to the subject of the party, in our opinion, it was also a good move from the point of view of drumming up trade with both ex-pats and the locals. Getting the local Papas to bless the shop was inspired! Religion amongst the older generations here is still very strong and the idea that Darryl and Paula were keeping with tradition was sure not to have been wasted on the locals.
At the end of the day, the village needs a butcher. If we could encourage a pharmacy and a bank to install an ATM, the village would be almost self sufficient! We wish them luck
On that note we finish January's newsletter!
Conclusion
As with December's newsletter, this one has been tinged with sadness at the loss of our oldest English friend on the island. Bill will be missed by many, not least of all those Greeks with whom he was so friendly with in Liapades and beyond.
The weather has been what we expect for the time of the year. Despite much heavy rain, wild flowers have begun to show that spring is on it's way although we anticipate at least another month or more of bad weather.
Next month we have Carnival and 'Clean Monday’ to look forward to. So to see how we cope with these celebrations, you will have to check back!
All the best to everybody,
Bob & Tricia.
|
