Where are we now?

Pix from top are - a retired Greek car, Cunards Queen Victoria, our car in Arillas in autumn, Olive tree trimming, sorting, burning and a beer thief.

Right let's get this thing up to date. We arrived in Corfu 2230ish after an appauling landing. Our friend Steve came to pick us up and told us we were going straaight out as there was some live music on in Sidari. So no sooner had we touched down we were in a local bar 'til late. It was good to see everyone and the music was pretty good too.

Its mid October at this point and the holiday season finishes at the end of October. It does however have a fairly quiet feel about the place at the moment. The wet season appears to have started early this time too with a lot of unsettled stuff about, not to good for the holidaymakers.

There seems to be plenty of local Brits heading home this time getting flights back before the direct ones finish at the end of the month.

We managed a few nights out in Sidari before the season finished as it gets pretty quiet out here after that. Then as soon as we hit November the weather settled down and the sun returned. This gives us a chance to get outside and do a few chores like digging out the bamboo, trimming the olive tree, a spot of painting, pointing and patching up.

We managed to do most of these things and a fair bit of cycling too. Also a couple of trips into Corfu town. We made a special trip down one day to see Cunards Queen Victoria pull into town. It was a super sight seeing this mega cruise ship in port and the sun shone.

The weather continued to be good pretty much up 'til yesterday the 18th apart from one massive storm over a week ago.

Mrs D's scribbles take over now detailing the storm and other recent events -

Have we had fun here or what! Last week’s weather was absolutely beautiful – shorts & T shirts in the middle of November, what more can you wish for. Ideal weather for bike rides, sitting in our fave café with a coffee and digging out the last of the dreaded bamboo from the garden and celebrating with a beer round an enormous fire as we burnt the bloody stuff.

Anyway all this was to change: on Friday we set off in the car, in the evening sunshine heading towards Acharavi for a beer. We called for some gas and the dreaded happened: the car wouldn’t re-start. With much help from the garage staff we managed to run it off and get it (and us) back home which was a great relief but more disasters were to follow…. we parked the car overnight on our village hill so we could run it off to get it started on Sat morning which we did and D spent most of the morning round at a friends both with heads under the bonnet and between them the problem of a burned out starter-motor was diagnosed. So now what? The local car shop was closed until Monday and anyway we didn’t know whether or not we could obtain a new starter-motor there, so it was a worry and we are facing a 1300 mile journey in a couple of weeks!

Anyway Sunday was ok and we finished a few jobs in the garden but by evening time the rain started and boy did it come down. Overnight we had a storm to end all storms, so bad that it was dubbed the worst on the island for 10 years. It was very exciting to watch from the dry safety of indoors but the lightening knocked out power supplies across most of the island and we were without electricity for the whole of Monday. The weather remained so bad that we couldn’t venture out – the only method of transport we had was our push-bikes (as D had taken the front end off his motorbike so that’s off the road as well) and we would have been blown to bits on these and anyway to add insult to injury I had no less than 4 punctures in my front tyre! Now we do have a camping stove so we were able to make hot drinks and it may sound quite romantic to sit by our wood burning stove playing cards by candelight but by 9 oclock at night I’d had enough and not only that, we had run out of beer!

The weather continued to be dreadful for another couple of days but we managed to order a new part from the local car shop (we had to beg a lift from the same friend) and eventually collected it on Wednesday – one day late due to electricity cuts affecting banks & shops but still pretty good service in light of the fact that all goods have to come from Athens. So thankfully we now have a car again and please keep your fingers crossed for us that our old tub makes it across Europe for us!

The weather is improving daily again now and is due to be hot and sunny again by the end of the week so that will be nice. Its not so good in the UK at the moment is it with gales etc. and I think it’s the severe drop in temperature that will be the biggest shock to us!

So as you can see it's been fun times here. It's now Friday 19th November the weekend weather is set to be reasonable then its sun and showers next week.

We depart and sail to Venice next Thursday at 0700hrs from Corfu port. We dock into Venice at 0700hrs Friday morning then it's a 330 mile haul ass over the Alps to Innsbruck, then more Alps over the Fern Pass to Altenstadt in southern Germany and our first night stop. Saturday is a 340 mile drive to Leige in Belgium via Ulm, Stuttgart, Karlsrhue and the German wine growing region for stop number two. Sunday is a leisurely 150 mile drive to Dunkirk and the 1400hrs ferry to Dover then onto our good friend Marians in Winchelsea for a couple of nights before the final 300 miles up north to sunny Skipton. Well that's the plan!! We only hope it goes without incident or car problems!!

So what for this week, well there may be last minute business to attend to in Corfu town, a trip to Acharavi a bit of cycling hopefully and maybe a beer or two with friends before we leave. There maay be time for some last minute scribblings before we set off back but if not we'll be scribbling again from the loft in Middleton in early December, keep in touch aand wish us luck!!