A Day in the Life...

Many people ask me what I do with my time now that I no longer go out to work and living on a Greek island. I thought I'd share today with you, October 3rd 2006.

I got up this morning at around 7.45. I put the coffee on while dodging around our skinny white kitten who, although he no longer yells for his food as he realises he will get it after the coffee's on, he just likes to make sure he's keeping an eye on me lest I forget.

I decided against swimming this morning as I had to go to a couple of places as soon as I'd walked Rosie and didn't want a soggy swimming costume. So I showered and dressed and Rosie and I left the house around 8.45. Ok, so I take a while!

Since I had business in the north of the island I decided to peel off and go to Alinda Beach with Rosie. Now the tourists have all but gone it's a great place. Large sandy beaches and a little further on, small covey sort of beaches. We picked Panagias which John and Mary like best and Rosie, who hasn't been there for a year, dashed around like a maniac, chasing sticks and emply plastic bottles. She even swam quite far out on her own, she usually only swims out either for a stick or to follow one of us.

One lady appeared for a swim. I had to call Rosie back as she went to say hello. Luckily the lady didn't mind and Rosie soon lost interest and came back to find her stick.

We left the beach at about 9.30 and went into Kamara where NicoSat is. They sell televisions, satellite equipment, stereos etc. They also sell UPS which I had bought from them a week or so ago. If you want to see the blog on this visit, please click here.

Having made my point and an appointment for later, I went to see Tassos and his father. Tassos has the Multimedia Centre which sells computers and computer parts, consumables - well, anything remotely relating to computers. First I saw his father who has agreed to make me a cupboard for the kitchen as I need to use the chest of drawers elsewhere. Then I spoke to Tassos about the UPS. He, of course, had one which was cheaper than the one we'd bought at Nikos and it had a proper manual. This referred to the "Line" and "F/M/T" as being for Fax, Modem and Telephone. Ever wish you could go back and do something differently? Like thinking of going to Tassos in the first place.

I returned to NikoSat, had another conversation (sorry, you'll just have to read the UPS blog) and went home.

By this time it was 11.45 so Rosie and I had home-made muesli breakfast, chatted to Rich and I picked up my enormous backpack that I use for shopping. No time to waste as most of the shops shut between 1.30 and 5.30.

Off to Lakki then. I saw a few people on the way with whom I exchanged toots on the bike or waves. Pernille, Peter at the Savana Bar's girlfriend, Antonis the Mover - he and his truck move anything from households to fig-tree logs. He waved as he always does. Sue, married to George whose website lured us here in the first place, my mate Anne from New Zealand, married to a commercial fisherman. He has one of the two large fishing boats on the island. As I passed Yiorgos the Electrician's shop I saw Yiorgos the Telephone outside who waved and told me to come in. We arranged that Yiorgos (E) would come and fix our telephone lines that had been fried by the UPS between 5 and 5.30 pm today. He's here now, turned up at 5.15.

I went to the butcher and had a chat to the butcher's wife