Snippets, thoughts and observations

John and Mary

Early May

John and Mary came to visit - excellent! They chose to stay at Castle Vigla in Vromolithos as Mary's feet didn't like our 63 steps - can't say I blame them! We saw them on several occasions and I gather they had a great time whizzing around on their scooter. It was great to see them!

 

Birthdays

Three of us - Anne, Liz and I have birthdays within two weeks April-May. This year we seemed to celebrate better than usual although a planned trip to Turkey went out of the window. Even a mini-trip to Kalymnos was postponed, perhaps until later in May. This was partly due to the boat schedules. Until later in May we would only have about 4 hours in Kalymnos, certainly not long enough to shop and lunch and shop again!

Anne and my birthday present to Liz (notoriously difficult to get it right!) was lunch in Alinda as close as possible to her birthday. She's working many hours at the moment so timing was essential. Very few places open (except in Panteli) around 21st April but we went to To Steki and had a super lunch. Liz's husband Maurice kindly chauffeured us so we could have a beer - or so.

On mine, the 29th I've told you about our evening out, below. On Anne's birthday we had breakfast at the Sorocco which is Motoland's new cafe/bar in Panteli. They do a great breakfast - 2 eggs, bacon, mushrooms, (fresh) tomato, toast (Greek-style which is bread on the griddle), "Sunday" bread which is yesterday's warmed over; coffee and fresh orange juice all for €8. A terrific start to the day! In the evening Anne's husband George (well it's really Giorgos but...) treated eight of us to a lovely dinner at Nero Milo (the Watermill) in Aghia Marina. A magic set of birthdays!

See some pics here: Birthdays

April 30th

I had to buy a kettle the other day, the fourth in five years. I went to the shop of a guy we use a great deal. I had forgotten to look up the word in my dictionary but we got there in the end. He pointed out one make "very cheap €15". Then he showed me the €30 and more ones. I said I'd rather have the cheaper since none of them seem to last very long and did it have a year's guarantee? He stared at me for a moment then burst out laughing, slapping his thigh. It was a stupid question. Nothing has a guarantee - you can try filling out the leaflet in the box but it really won't do you much good. When first here I bought a drill-set from a hardware shop, ours having been lost in transit from England. I went for the cheaper model and the man said there was no guarantee as it was from China. I assumed naively that he meant no guarantee that it would work for very long. I discovered my mistake when the hammer thingie stopped working after a few uses. "I told you there was no guarantee" he said when I took it back. See - they mean exactly what they say!

In case those of you not living here are wondering - no, it's not just we foreigners - everybody is treated exactly the same!

Yesterday was my birthday - a real biggie! Wanting to take our friends out for a meal but being somewhat skint I hit on a brilliant plan. I spoke to Antonis who has Zorbas Taverna whose site I created and maintain. We reached an agreement - that I wouldn't charge him a maintenance fee this year if he agreed to provide a slap-up meal for 11. We had the usual starters - cheese croquets (Rich's favourite) and other croquets, Greek Salad, mixed salad, tsatziki and so on... followed by superb pork done in the oven. A really good meal aided by beer and wine. My camera's batteries expired but Anne had her snazzy phone with her and came to the rescue. As soon as I have the pics, I'll put them here. Then we proceeded to the Savana Bar - naturally. I have a similar barter arrangement there too, so was able to "buy" the first round. Terrific! I left, not too worse for wear at around 2am. Tzouma had accompanied me, Julian having kindly gone up to the house and let her out after our meal. She was a little confused but eventually heard me whistling down on the beach and came hurtling down the stairs, ecstatic.

A great birthday!

1st March 2010

Good heavens - is it March already? I have been very lax for which I apologise to anybody who ever bothers to read this!

We had a perfectly lovely Christmas at Andrea and Paul's - his sister is Sue, married to Jim-the-Glaswegian. There were about 8 of us and having eaten our fill played with their wii. Andrea then served up traditional cold meat and pickles plus loads of other things for a supper. Terrific day!

New Year's Eve we had a party again - 4th in a row which we love. Not only many of our ex-pat friends but some Greek ones too - excellent!

Pics of New Year's Eve

March 23rd. Oh dear, I hope the postit will help!

I had been working on the Leros Animal Lovers site. LAL is now a Registered Charity which was pretty exciting.

Since I wrote that everything has changed and five of us (ex-pats, the ones who worked so hard) have resigned and are no longer part of Leros Animal Lovers

The car had been playing up, not wanting to start. It's a nice little car, Suzuki Wagon R automatic. Yellow. Its previous owner called it ("her") Primrose. I had parked outside the large veggie shop in Lakki a couple of weeks ago. I mean right outside almost at the entrance - and it refused to start. I apologised to the veggie guy and said I'd get it fixed asap. My mobile had battery problems but worked long enough to get me rescued by Jim. He couldn't get it started either despite helpful comments from passers-by and kindly dropped me home. My mate Anne drove me to Lakki at 5 when everything reopens (except Wednesdays and weekends) to see the garage. George (American-Greek) heard my story, picked up a large lump hammer and Anne and I drove him to my car. He went to the back, lay on the ground and we heard a loud "thump". "Try and start it now" he said. Believe it or not - it started immediately! I drove it to his garage and €470 later it was all fixed. Sigh. Petrol pump, battery...

Since I last put anything new here, we have joined the mains sewage system - lovely subject what! Our Large Illegitimate neighbours (usually shortened to the "FBs") tried to extract €1,000 from our pockets to "allow" us to use "their" pipes. We were not inclined to do this, oddly enough. We did, however, have to pay around that sum to the Water Company who laid separate, parallel pipes just for us. How quaint that our s*** and theirs will not have to mix!

I have a wonderful "new" camera. A Nikon D100 DSLR. Very exciting. Actually it terrifies me! It can do so much and I have only scratched the surface. The more I learn the more I realise how little I know. I still have my Canon A640 which I love but cannot get the shots the Nikon can. Obviously. The Canon is small enough to live permanently in my backpack which is great for quick shots though.

The stairs down to the road are a mess. You could not believe how difficult it is to negotiate. To avoid what's in the picture, you have to turn left and go through somebody else's "avli" - in this case a mini-courtyard - to avoid the worst bits. I have been to the Council, the Water Company - you name it. The downstairs neighbour, Anna, slipped and broke her leg. The story is that until 2 years ago the water from the mountaiin above found its way down... ending up ... somewhere. Then the man with the replica mills above, who lets them out in summer, built a new wall, thus changing the course of the water from the mountain. Therefore, as soon as the rains start in November, the stairs are literally the water-course. The street below has a permanent pool as well. The response from the authorities. Well, the Council said "see the Water Company". The Water Company's representative? A shrug. "Ti na Kanoume, ola Leros einai to ithio"!. "What can we do? All Leros is the same". Aargh!

What else? Well the lambs and kids are disappearing from the mountains. Easter approaches fast and the main fare is, you guessed it, lamb and goat. On Easter Sunday there will be spit roasts all along Panteli beach. I'll take photos and show you.

Ah, coffee mornings are perking up. Liz back from England, Anne back from New Zealand, sun shining. Ahhhh. Catherina is offf back to Sweden for a few weeks with her parrot, two dogs plus two puppies being adopted. Rather her than me but at least she has a great camper-van! Sity's here from Holland too. Good days.

From L-R, clockwise. Me, Sity, Pat ('bout time she made it to coffee mornings!), Anne, Catherina, Liz. Kindly ignore all the beer bottles and remember I said "coffee morning"! Well, OK it started at 12 noon this week.

Must mention bowling. Liz and I did the annual membership thing. This allows you to play 3 games every day should you wish. We did wish. Since we joined January 1st we have played many many days. Now, however, she's working and I can either go on my own or play with another couple who also became members. I have to say it's great fun and we don't take it seriously in the "scores" thing, only that we play, have fun and hope we get a score that pleases us!