One week on

It's now Saturday 11th June and we are starting to see some order and some parts of the garden! It took us a few days to get everything to its place and about a week to clear the garden and get to the apothekei. An hour a day in the evening to be precise (when it had cooled down a bit.) Did we mention the sun has shone daily and it's been hot too?

No snakes discovered this time when trimming the weeds back (still a big area to do yet so might report differently later.) We can now park the car, which incidentally did very well on the journey across Europe loaded up to the hilt we are very pleased with it. I digress, back to the garden. There is now room for the car and also for the bike to park now and we can get to and from the apotheki with all the stuff we put in the house for the winter.

The bike, well theres another tale......I had to replace the subframe of the front fairing and when I was reassembling it I accidentally put one of the components back upside down which rendered the machine unable to start causing, headaches, stress and much swearing (Mrs D learned some new repairing expressions.) However I left it for a couple of days and went back to it again, knowing it was something I had done as it was working when I took it apart. I just happened to be leaning on the handlebars staring into the abyss of wires, cables and tubes when I noticed something read "Top" the wrong way up. Quickly I put it right to find this was the cause and what a plonker I was not to notice it in the first place. With bike all working again the next thing is more dealings with Greek officials to get it insured and taxed with my new Greek plate on it - more on the beuracratic nightmare later.

We have had a night out at the quiz - which we won!! Also caught up with a few friends and all is pretty much as it was. We have many things we brought from the UK to finish off the kitchen, bedroom and bathroom so all these will be first jobs before we start on any of this years projects.

This year it could be a paint job for the house, doing out the sitting room, building a partial roof over the decking to keep the sun off and whatever else we find needs doing along the way.

We've now finished the kitchen - hooray!! It looks great too. A few things for the bathroom to fit and a couple of bedside cabinets for the spare room to knock together.

Had our first day in Corfu town which was a bit of a failure on the business front as we are having to go again next week. Still it keeps us busy and out of mischief. Been busy to day so will probably be a movie night in tonight and maybe an evening in Sidari tomorrow to see whats on offer in the way of entertainment this season.

Well best get on and see where Mrs D has got too, been quiet for a while........cheers y'all and keep in touch.

A couple of updated garden pix below.

Back in the sun..

Well – we made it. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, the temperature is hot – and the weeds are high. In fact they are reaching for the sky themselves, well past the roof of the car. So first jobs first meaning D has to start strimming furiously just so we can get the car into the garden.

Anyway a brief report on our journey over here and we both agree that it was the best crossing of Europe yet. Obviously the weather helped as it was beautiful in Germany and across into Austria. We camped for a couple of days in the Mosel Valley in Germany, next to a cycle-way but sadly we didn’t have any bikes so we had to walk instead, then we moved on, driving across the country (this was a long day of 350 miles) and into Austria, specifically the Tirol region. This time we camped in a place called Reutte where we have stayed before. It’s a beautiful little town surrounded by the Alps. The weather made the scenery here even more stunning and we managed a cable car ride up into the mountains then a steady walk along the tops. What a view! We also visited the spectacular Neuschwanstein Castle which was built by an eccentric Bavarian king but you may be more familiar with the fact that it was used in the filming of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang! After 3 days we had to move on to keep to our schedule so a 150-mile drive brought us to our final campsite in the Dolomite range.

I have to tell you that the most exciting part of this day was our finding an accessible C&A in a place called Telfs! We parked up and rushed in (don’t you just love C&A, I remember being devastated when they closed down in England) and as always D bought more stuff than me! Best shop there is for cheap T-shirts. Anyway back to our journey and our last camp always needs to be within reasonable driving range of Venice but preferably not actually in Venice (the campsites are expensive, mozi-ridden and too populated for our liking) so D had done his research and found us a lovely place in Toblach – ideal for walking in the Dolomites had we had time.

We left there at 8am the following morning and arrived at the Venice ferry terminal at 12.00 where (because our budget doesn’t stretch to cabins) we crammed sleeping bags, rolly mats, water, beer (obviously), butties, crisps, tuna-salads and minimum-sized washbags into two ruc-sacs and two cooler bags ready to be hauled onto the boat for the 24hr crossing. It wasn’t too bad sleeping on deck, we have done it before and know what to expect and as long as you are not too fussy you can usually manage a few hours sleep to the sound of the sea …… still we were glad to ‘disembark’ at Corfu harbour and drive the last part of the journey back, via the supermarket of course and it was a huge feeling of relief when we eventually arrived back at our house. After turning on the water and electric we set about unloading the car and as ever I just cant believe how much stuff we managed to bring.

So we will be continuing to unpack, re-arrange things and strim the garden area for at least the next few days. Still its not all work, in case you were worrying (!). We went down to one of our local bars and had a beer with a couple of friends and we plan to go to quiz night in another or our bars on Tuesday where it should be a lively night as it’s the landlady’s birthday. More later....Mrs D

pix below are from top - Mosel River, camp in Mosel, 2 views from Tirol peaks, camp in Reutte, sunset in Tirol, 3 of Neuschwanstein Castle, 3 in the Italian Dolomites and 3 in the garden we arrived.