June 2009 Newsletter
Introduction
We hope that you found last month's publication interesting and that the images, particularly of the tortoises met with everyone's approval. Knowing Corinna’s dislike of all things that crawl and slither, I imagine that we had at least one dissenter!

This month starts with Louise and Steve still here on their holidays. Shortly after they return to the UK, I shall be making the trip there on matters medical and to do a little bit of shopping.

We will be having friends coming to the island on their holidays during the month and hope that we will be able to see them all.

We anticipate that the weather will be fine from now until the end of summer but who knows? The weather has been very fickle up until now and was only settled down over the last couple of weeks.

I am not going to dwell on the introduction this month so let's see what transpires.

June 2009
The beginning of the month started with a mixed bag of weather. It didn't stop Louise and Steve from going out and about though. They worked on the theory that as Corfu has many mini climates, they were bound to find somewhere dry!

On 3rd June the weather was not particularly good. Louise and Steve's efforts to find better weather elsewhere was not entirely successful!

That evening, Tricia made dinner for us all. It was meant to be Spaghetti Bolognese for Steve and I, along with a vegetarian version for Louise and Tricia. Imagine our surprise when Steve and I became victims of one of Tricia's mental aberrations! She had mislabelled chilli con carne as Spaghetti Bolognese! It was very nice though, although the spaghetti was a new twist!  Poor Tricia was mortified. Just imagine what she will be like when she reads this online!

Thursday, 4th June was nice and hot. I got up early and started strimming. Before anyone says how unkind when Louise and Steve are trying to get some rest, I should point out that they had planned to go bird watching in Agios Spiridon and weren't concerned about being woken up. Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Whilst Louise and Steve were out, I took the opportunity to go and do some shopping and had a minor success. I called in at Robertos’ hardware store and found that he had some rubber feet that was suitable to put on the bottom of the new outside chairs. Tricia and I had been concerned that the chairs would become damaged in the event of heavy rain which takes a little time to clear from the veranda. Unfortunately, Robertos only had 20 of these feet but promised me that he would get some more. It was a start!

On Friday, 5th June we all went out for lunch. It was a very hot day and Tricia and I had arranged to meet Louise and Steve at the River Taverna in Lefkimmi. This has been featured in one of chef, Rick Stein's programmes and was quoted in the accompanying cookery book as being a vegetarian taverna. We should have known better!

Louise and Steve had eaten there once before and although Tricia and I knew where it was, we had never been there.

We arrived ahead of Louise and Steve and introduced ourselves to the owner. I think the fact that we spoke to him in Greek initially did us a big favour. It was obvious that we were English and he immediately went into English. We found him very communicative and was quite happy for Tricia and I to sit and have a drink whilst we waited for Louise and Steve.

There was a blackboard outside the taverna which displayed their menu of the day. It quite clearly was not a vegetarian taverna!

Louise and Steve arrived shortly afterwards and we ordered our lunch is and drinks. Poor Louise had a far more limited menu than she had anticipated but still enjoyed her lunch. The bill for the entire meal and drinks came to €40. We defy all those people who say that the prices are the same all over the island to go into any taverna in the North East of the island and pay the same as we did for the same meals.

We left Louise and Steve to go off to the Lefkimmi salt flats to pursue their bird watching and to visit a nearby beach. Tricia and I did a little bit of shopping and didn't get home until 6 pm.

Upon reflection, I must have had a brainstorm on Saturday, 6th June! It was exceedingly hot and whilst Louise and Steve went to spend their last day in Corfu on the beach, I undertook a monster strimming spree! God! Did I hurt afterwards!

In the evening we had booked to go to Janis Restaurant in Kassiopi for something of a 'Last Supper'. We arrived in Kassiopi early as Louise and Steve had not had the opportunity for a wander around there. We got down to the harbour where we found our trusty builder, Yiorgos, fishing. He maintained that he had only been there about 20 minutes and he already had one sizeable fish. At least he wasn't going to starve!

The meal at Janis Restaurant was very nice. It certainly wasn't the cheapest. In fact, it was far from it. If we had a criticism of the place, it was that it just did not feel particularly Greek to Tricia and I. However, should anyone be thinking of going there, we would not dissuade them as the food is very good. I guess that that is the main thing. Although we have implied that it is pricey there, we have paid as much elsewhere and had far inferior food. We would go back again.

The weather was hot and sunny on Sunday, 7th June. Louise and Steve were returning home to the UK. Tricia and I drove them to the airport  to check in. As they had intended going straight through to the departure lounge, there was little point in Tricia and I hanging around. ...So we didn’t!

Tricia and I had a relaxed drive home and decided that we should continue the holiday theme by having lunch out! Our choice of venue was Apnoea Taverna where we were made extremely welcome by Yiannis. It was another nice meal and as always, Yiannis was his usual hospitable self!

Our friends Chris and Barry were due to arrive from the UK on Monday, 8th June for their first visit in two years. They were certainly welcomed by hot weather! We thought that we would do the decent thing and let them settle into their apartment before we visited them the next day.

Tuesday, 9th June was extremely hot and much of my time was spent working on the very overdue April and May's newsletter.

In the evening we went to visit Chris and Barry at their apartment in Agni. We had a couple of drinks before going down to Nikolas Taverna for dinner where we met another couple of friends, Roy and Margaret whom we had not seen for a year or so. As we had not met up for so long we had plenty to catch up on. It was an enjoyable evening, not to mention a late(ish) one, by Taverna Nikolas standards at least! (Why do they close so early now?)

The next day I did little apart from finishing off the newsletter which we finally published after Tricia had proof read it. It was an exceptionally hot day. To give you an indication of how it was, it was 29.2° C at 9 am and 33.5° C at 6pm.

Hang on! Did I say that I did little that day? I actually got up at 6:30 AM to water the garden and strimmed two terraces! On top of that I went shopping and washed the car!

To be honest, much of this work was done in preparation for my trip to the UK the next day.

My flight to the UK on 11th June was a good one it was also on time. I met some friends, Nigel and Cathy who also live in Corfu at the airport. We always seem to be bumping into each other either at Corfu airport or Gatwick airport and are always on the same flights! The coincidence continued when we all turned up at the same car hire desk at the same time! I was due to stay at Corinna and Dave's house for couple of nights and stopped off to go and do a little shopping on my way there.

I pulled into West Thurrock Business Park just as it was reported that there was a major hold-up at the junction of the M1 and the M25 motorways. I visited one shop and decided that I had better get on my way in case the traffic built back to the junction with the M11 which I was due to take. It proved to be a good move as the traffic was almost backed up to the junction. Had I have realised that this traffic jam had been building for many hours, I would never have stopped to go shopping!

The next day saw me running around having what one might call a medical MOT with visits to the doctor, the diabetic nurse and to the retinopathy service for an eye examination. That evening, Corinna and I took Lauren, Rebecca and Ryan out for a meal in Chatteris. It was a nice meal made better by the kids’ impeccable behaviour! They were rewarded by the owner giving them ice creams. I think it fair to say that it took a lot for Corinna and I not to put our hands up when the owner said, "Who wants an ice cream on the house?"

On Saturday, 13th June I drove to Louise and Steve's house stopping on my way at Lakeside shopping mall. It will come as no surprise when I say that I bought myself a new toy! I hasten to add that this new toy was as advantageous to Tricia has myself! Don't get excited! It was a wireless network extender.

Tricia tends to use the laptop computer some distance from our wireless router and I have been researching ways of improving the signal. One of the simplest methods seemed to be a wireless extender that works through the mains sockets. My concern was that wiring in Greece is not done in the same way as in the UK. To be honest, I have been told by Greek electricians that the ring main circuit such as we use in the UK could not possibly work! However, enquiries of the manufacturer suggested that as long as all the wiring in the house ran from the same meter, that the system should work. I decided to take a chance and buy them in the UK as I have been unable to source them in Greece.

That evening, Louise, Steve and I continued something that has become a little bit of a tradition. We had a takeaway Indian meal. My mouth is watering just thinking about it as I write this!

I left Louise and Steve's house very early in the morning the next day. In fact it was so early that they weren't awake, or so I thought. My return home should have been a relaxed affair. Needless to say, this is me that we are talking about and if anything can go wrong it probably will. This day ran true to form.

I returned the hire car and then set about looking for where one should return the keys as the office was closed. I have omitted to mention that since my last visit to the UK five weeks earlier, the old car hire offices had been gutted and were now situated on the roof of the short stay car park.

I went to the front door of the office and was in fact a portacabin, expecting there to be a letterbox or someplace to drop the keys. There wasn't one. Silly me! It was situated on the back wall of the portacabin. I wonder why I didn't look there first?

I made my way to the departures dragging both my suitcase and hand luggage which I had made certain did not exceed the prescribed weight and size limits. Upon arriving at the EasyJet Speedy Boarding check-in, I found that it did not open until 4 am. It was 3:50 am and so had to wait.

Unlike my last return flight the check-in went without a hitch. My hold luggage was half a kilo underweight and there are was no problem with my hand luggage. I did however mention that I had a battery-powered drill in the hand luggage without any drill bits and without the batteries. I pointed out that I had previously asked the security staff at the airport if it was permitted within my hand luggage. I also pointed out that they were happy with it. Not only that, but it was not one of the prescribed items that were banned in hand luggage. The member of EasyJet staff was quite happy with this.

I decided to go through into the departure lounge immediately. This proved to be a very good decision upon my part!

I arrived at the x-ray machines with all my loose items in my jacket pocket. I had taken my computer out of my hand luggage and was convinced that I should go through this time without any hitch. I even told the security staff that I had the drill in the hand luggage and again repeated that there were no batteries, drills or screwdriver bits with it.

This was met by a sharp intake of breath by a member of the security staff and the comment, "I don't think you can take that Sir.” I pointed out that a colleague of his had previously said that I could. This was met with, "I will have to get a supervisor." I was unperturbed as I was convinced that I was in the right.

My coat and computer appeared at the other side of the x-ray machine but not my hand luggage. I looked around and saw a member of the security staff holding it. He came over, enquired as to whether it was my bag, and then told me that he was going to have to manually search it. I again explained that there was a battery powered drill in it minus the batteries, drill bits or screwdrivers. I also explained the advice that I had been given five weeks earlier.

My bag was all but dismantled. Everything with a shiny surface was swabbed and checked for explosives. Again I was told that I could not take the drill in my hand luggage. By this time I was becoming more than a little exasperated but managed to keep cool.

A supervisor was called and it was at this point that I almost lost it! In the end I'm glad that I didn't get too upset. However, upon reflection I think that I would have been justified in becoming visibly upset due to this woman supervisor's attitude.

She was about 5 foot nothing, dressed in a yellow high visibility jacket and sported cropped hair. She marched up to the counter, picked up my drill and said, "You can't take that in your hand luggage. You will have to check in with the hold luggage." I pointed out that I had already checked in and further pointed out that this should have been obvious as I was standing in the departure lounge! She was unimpressed and refused to allow me to take my drill in my hand luggage.

I was now becoming seriously annoyed and doing my best not to show it. I could see my options reducing rapidly. If there is anything that I hate it is a jobsworth! I did manage however to make one point. The man who had originally searched my bag, whom it must be said, had been polite throughout, apologised. He added that, "It is a sign of the times that we live in." I replied, "That is why I live in Greece, the last free country in Europe!" I don't think that that went down too well with the female member of the Hitler youth!

The female supervisor was unimpressed when I pointed out that I have previously been told that I could take the drill through by another member of staff. When she asked me to identify that member of staff I nearly saw red. I looked her straight in the eye and said, "The chances of me recognising a member of your staff after five weeks and who was probably on a different shift anyway are nil and so I won't even bother looking." I couldn't believe her stupidity.

It was clear that nobody was going to budge and that I was in serious danger of losing my drill. I decided to play my last card and demanded to speak to the supervisor's superior. To my surprise, she agreed without any comment. Upon reflection this meant that she was no longer responsible for making a decision where her judgement would be called into doubt. Little did she know!

A few minutes later the supervisor returned with another lady. I immediately explained what I had been told on my last visit through Gatwick and told her that the drill had no batteries or screwdrivers or drill bits with it. She checked with the man who had searched my bag that he had in fact had everything out and checked it thoroughly and said, "That’s okay sir. I'm sure you understand that we have to be careful." The flak jacketed supervisor shrank visibly! It did cross my mind to say, "Na na ni na na!” and stick two fingers up at her. I decided not to! I wasn't going to push my luck having won what I considered a major victory for commonsense.

After boring everybody with this tale of woe, I won't even begin to bore you with the debacle over the Speedy boarding! I actually managed to be first on the plane but an awful lot of other Speedy borders were not so lucky! There were some seriously unhappy passengers but in fairness to the EasyJet cabin crew, they dealt with the situation admirably.

You cannot believe how pleased I was to get back home to Corfu in glorious sunshine and enjoy a sedate drive back to our house. Mind you, my first words to Tricia as I walked through the door were, "I am never going back to the UK again!" You'll be pleased to hear that I have calmed down now.

Monday, 15th June was very hot and to be honest I had already decided that I was going to have an easy day before I got up!

After sorting out my luggage and finding a lot of things that I had mislaid by packing them in the drill case, I decided that I would try out our new network extender. It really was a simple job to connect and Tricia's computer immediately detected the new network. By comparison with what she had been experiencing previously it was much faster. Tricia was thrilled and decided to collect her email a few minutes later.

I don't know who was more worried, Tricia or I. She had just started to collect her email when there was a loud explosion from somewhere nearby, outside the house. At the same time the power went. I prayed that it was not due to us connecting up the wireless extender through the mains sockets.

I can tell you here and now that it was nothing to do with me! We were however, without power for much of the day. That is not entirely true because our house is fed by three separate phases and it appeared that only one phase was out. The problem was that there was clearly something very wrong somewhere as the outage kept swapping between phases!

Wednesday, 17th June started off very hot. The last time I looked at the thermometer it was 35° C in the shade. That's nice if we don't have to do any work.

I got up early that day and did a little more strimming. Most of what is left is areas that have started to grow again after previously being cut. It's a bit like painting the Forth Bridge!

That evening Tricia and I collected Chris and Barry from Agni and took them to the Eucalyptus Taverna in Agios Stefanos. It was a lovely evening. Tricia and I couldn't fault it. We hope that Chris and Barry enjoyed it as much as we did.

It was again very hot on Thursday, 18th June. Up until now we had been watering the garden at night. However, as we had been out late the previous night, I got up at 6 am to water. Whilst I was about it I replanted the dwarf beans which had either failed to germinate or had been eaten.

That afternoon Tricia and I settled down for siesta. We were rudely awoken when the earth moved - literally! There was an earthquake which we later learned measured 2.7 on the Richter scale.

Now that may not seem very strong to a lot of you but when you consider that the epicentre was a 1 km south of Kassiopi and near the surface, we can assure you that you certainly feel it!

Now you may think that we are crazy but when it has been as hot as it had been the last few days you really need to be up at about 6 am if you have anything faintly resembling physical work to do. As a result Tricia and I both continued with this regime.

On Saturday, 20th June Tricia and I were both up at 6 am. Tricia got stuck into house work whist I went to water the garden. I then went and cut a lot of shrubbery from the raised flowerbed by our drive. As a result we now have a massive pile ready for burning in November when we are next allowed to have fires outside.

We had invited Chris and Barry for lunch the following day and as a result I had to go off shopping in Acharavi and Sidari. By the time afternoon came both Tricia and I were in desperate need of a siesta!

Tricia had received a message from someone who wanted to know where you could get lamb on the spit. She pointed them towards one of our favourite places for that sort of food - Agonari, in Agrafi. All this talk of lamb on the spit made our mouths water and so we decided to go out from meal that night to Agonari, where else?

Imagine our dismay when we got there at 9:30 pm and found the place empty. Not only that but there was no lamb roasting on the spit, merely chickens. We make it a point not to be the only people in a Taverna if we can help it and so decided to make a long overdue return to Maestro Taverna in Acharavi.

We were treated like long lost friends. Our meal was excellent and Vasso, the owner, sat down with us after we had finished, for a long chat. The subject matter, as always, was prices and how empty many places were. This conversation continued until long after the last customers had left. This may have had something to do with the fact that Vasso produced a bottle of Metaxa and a bottle of Tequila! We got home somewhere around 2:20 am!

We had tremendous thunderstorms during the early hours of Sunday, 21st June. However, it had stopped raining when we got up and so the dogs got walked before we had our breakfast. That was the first! What a way to start Father's Day!

Because of the heavy rain, everywhere was hazy. This was a shame because we were hoping that Chris and Barry would be able to see the view from our veranda in all its splendour!

I collected Chris and Barry from Agni and brought them home for lunch. I was pleased to find that Tricia was ready for us as she had been looking a little jaded after our late night when I had left!

We had a really nice lunch, not to mention a few drinks and fortunately the rain held off so that we could eat outside. I must confess that it did become quite cold and eventually we had to give in and go indoors. It was really nice catching up with each other's news. We made sure that they got back to their apartment in Agni in time for a little siesta before they went to dinner!

We had another overnight storm during the early hours of Monday, 22nd June. This storm continued into the day but eventually eased off. The temperature dropped to 18°C at one point. We couldn't believe it! This looked like being the coldest and wettest June that we have experienced in our seven years here.

With it being cool it meant that it was more comfortable working in the garden. I managed to get our runner bean poles up and picked some courgettes without getting soaked. Tricia took the opportunity to make great inroads into weeding the kitchen garden. Yes, yet again she overdid it and suffered for her efforts!

We had a late dinner that night but it was a pleasant evening if not a little cool. We rounded the day of by sitting outside with a bottle of wine until about 10 o'clock. By that time it had become really cool and so we decided to watch a DVD to round the evening off.

Would you believe it? We had another storm during the early hours of 23rd June which continued well into the morning. Even though we both wore our waterproof jackets when we walked the dogs, we managed to get ourselves drenched following a cloudburst!

We were pretty much confined indoors all day which isn't always such a bad thing for us but we did pity the poor tourists, many of whom will undoubtedly not have been expecting weather like this. Amongst them would have been our friends, David and Valerie, who arrived the day before.

We had yet more overnight storms during the early hours of 24th June. Although it was sunny when we got up, it was cold - 14.2° C when we got up, to be precise. Although it warmed up during the day, it was 14.8° C when we went to bed.

During the morning we drove to Liapades to visit our friends Bill and Joan as it was Bill's 80th birthday. I had last seen Bill when he was in hospital following a fall earlier in the year. He clearly had not made a full recovery yet and was confined to a wheelchair. Despite looking frail he still had all his wits about him though! Bill received a succession of visitors throughout the morning and we decided to leave around lunchtime.

As it was not far away, we decided to do a little shopping in Lidl's before returning home at about 3 pm, exhausted!

We had more overnight storms and torrential rain on Thursday, 25th June. This continued for most of the day. We could not believe the weather. We found it depressing and can only imagine how tourists felt.

I took the opportunity to research a new computer project. Who said, "There's a surprise!" If anyone is interested, it involved the package, 'WordPress', which meant that I had to set it up on our server. I don't know whether I will ever put this knowledge into practice but it was a bit of fun. I have just reread this paragraph and realise just how geeky that sounds! Ho hum!

Just by way of a change (not) we had overnight storms on 26th June. Although we had rain first thing in the morning we managed to get a bit of work done in the garden not to mention a bit more work on my computers!

Tricia suggested that it would be nice to go out for lunch to Zephyros Taverna as it brightened up around lunchtime. It seemed like a good idea  and so off we went. Imagine our surprise when we found ourselves behind John and Michelle's car as we approached the Taverna.

We acknowledged one another and they continued past the Taverna. We assumed that they were going to walk Mottley, their dog.

We walked into the Taverna, passing Mario who was peeling potatoes. This was clearly an exercise that he had experienced during his National service! There was a wonderful smell emanating from the kitchen and when we enquired as to what it was, Mario explained that they had killed a ram the day before and that it was being roasted in the oven along with potatoes.

We couldn't resist it! Mario went into the kitchen to ask his mother if the lamb was ready. It was! You can guess what we ordered!

No sooner than we had ordered our lunch, John and Michelle pulled up outside. This was a nice surprise as we now had company for lunch. After a brief discussion, they too ordered the lamb. When it arrived, the portions were absolutely enormous. I think it fair to say that what had started as a light lunch developed into dinner.

We returned home for something of a quick siesta. I don't think that it was the size of the dinner that made us tired. It might have had something to do with several bottles of retsina though!

We had a visit from Pete that evening who came to return some DVDs and pick up a new supply. At the time of his arrival I was playing with my latest toy. It is a HDMI USB media player. This connects directly to the television and allows us to play virtually any media file from a USB memory stick. I have downloaded some television programmes that we would otherwise not be able to see here and played them with this device. The quality is outstanding and suffice to say, both Tricia and I think that this was money well spent.

Later that evening we arranged to have Sunday lunch with David and Eda and David and Valerie.

Apart from a shower in the afternoon, the rain held off during Saturday, 27th June. However the temperatures were well down on what we would expect this month, particularly being the end of the month.

Tricia spent all day sorting out the apartment and giving it a quick spring clean. She had booked flights to return to the UK to see her dad from the 7th until 17th July and as Corinna, Dave and our grandchildren are due out here on 21st July, she didn't want to return and have to start tidying up. Of course, she has not allowed for the state that the animals and I will have left the main house in!

As we have already mentioned, we arranged to meet David and Eda along with David and Valerie for lunch on Sunday, 28th June. We had decided that we would go to the White House Taverna in Kalami as it is under new management. We collected David and Eda from Agni and drove to Kalami and had a few drinks with David and Valerie before setting off for the White House. It was all very civilised as usual!

I think it only fair to say that Tricia and I have only been to the White House once or maybe twice since the first year that we ever visited Corfu. That was quite a long time ago! To be honest, we had never found the food particularly exciting. As a result, it was with some trepidation that we agreed to go there as it has always had something of a reputation for being expensive.

Those of you that have been paying attention will recall that we have been having something of a campaign against places that charge too much for poor quality food. As we have explained to many a Taverna owner, it is not that we cannot afford to pay the prices they are asking, it is a case that we refuse to pay the prices that some are asking. This lunch had the potential for being interesting!

Having said all of that we can tell you that the menu was interesting. The food was very well prepared and the portions were exceedingly generous. In our opinion the menu prices were acceptable, particularly when you take into account what is probably one of the best locations in Corfu.

There has been an enormous amount of work done to the White House Taverna over the winter and they really have made it a nice place to eat. The staff were polite, knowledgeable, and eager to help without being obtrusive. If you are visiting Corfu we would definitely recommend eating at the White House Taverna.

Monday, 29th June was sunny. Hopefully the weather is now going to settle down for the rest of the summer. Let's hope we don't speak too soon.

I guess that the only thing that is worthy of commenting upon that day, was Andy Murray’s victory at Wimbledon. It was a thrilling five set match that kept Tricia and I glued to the TV. I must confess that I generally find tennis boring but having a Briton who actually knows how to play has made it interesting. It must have been interesting because we stayed up until the end of the match and didn't get to bed until about 1 am, the match having ended at about 10:30 pm UK time. Sadly, as everybody now knows Murray did not proceed beyond the semi finals. Still, that’s the closest he has ever got and who knows, maybe next year he will make it to the finals.

Again the good weather continued throughout Tuesday, 30th June.

I was on my way to Acharavi to do some shopping and go to the bank when I met the postman. He had two letters for us. One was the phone bill and the other was from the tax authority requesting information about our property so that they can levy a tax on us! I hasten to add that is not just us! It appears that the number of people have received similar letters because the postman told me exactly what it said before I even opened the envelope! This wasn't the start to the day that I had anticipated.

Things got worse as they usually do! The bank was absolutely heaving and as usual I only had two members of staff dealing with customers. I gave up and returned home after a little shopping.

Then, to add to our woes, our broadband connection died. To be precise, Tricia was having difficulty and my connection appeared okay, for a while that is. Yes, by the end of the day we were incommunicado. We could neither send nor receive emails. I was particularly annoyed as I had received a couple of offers from software companies that had considered taking up. Now couldn't as they were time-limited.

It wasn't all doom and gloom. I managed to clear some ground in our vegetable plot and planted out some chilli plants and some Welsh onions. The Welsh onions were a gift from Eda. She also brought us some marjoram which Tricia planted in her kitchen garden. At least we achieved something on the last day of the month!

Conclusion
I have managed to complete this newsletter pretty much on time. That's the first in a very long while! I just have to sort through our photographs to see what is worthy of including in this month's image gallery, sort out the files and upload it to a website. That is, I would upload it if we had a working broadband connection!

Update
Publication has been further delayed due to a further two outages of our broadband connection as well as my proof reader taking herself off to the UK! Then I decided to start a building project with our trusty (?) builder, Yiorgos. More about that next month.

The weather here this month can only be described as unbelievably bad. We may have to review our scepticism about global warming!

We still have friends visiting the island and hope to see more of them before they return to the UK.

Louise and Steve returned home at the beginning of the month shortly afterwards to be visited by yours truly. My own short visit to the UK was enjoyable in that I managed to see Corinna, Louise and our grandchildren. I must confess however, that the pettiness and general bloody mindedness of officialdom in the UK really spoilt it for me.

I know that we occasionally have a rant about the way that the UK is going. Sorry guys, it really is going down the pan! I can see everybody leaving eventually. I just hope that the last one out turns the light off! Okay, so I may be exaggerating (just a little) but unless you are on the outside looking in, I think that is very easy to miss what is going on. On this occasion, I will shrink from saying that everyone is being brainwashed!

Life is much simpler here!

On that note I think that I had better wind up this month's newsletter. We hope that it finds you all well and hopefully we will get to see some of you this year.

All the best,

Bob and Tricia.