Where does the time go???

It's the 20th July already! Reg has been and gone, the Toms are coming on strong, the car port's done, Slim's still hanging about, the sitting room ceiling's up and Mrs D is painting - you guessed it, the sitting room ceiling. As you can imagine this task comes with a certain amount of complaining, it's above your head, it's hot, the paint's thin and it gets everywhere!! Enough said I think before I get in bother, easy for me to comment when I'm sat in front of a computer.....

Reg (aka Graham) went last Friday after a two week holiday out here with us. Well, that is if you call painting, labouring, concreting, swimming andd snorkelling a holiday. He seemed to have a good time and we did spend a lot of time by and in the sea. We had no choice tho' as it has been 44dgs daily for about ten days now. We had to resort to being in during the hottest hours and grafting and beaching at opposite ends of the day. I'm not complaining as I keep hearing that splendid word "unsettled" being muttered on the BBC UK weather....

This week I finally got to grips with the olive tree using the chainsaw, seemed to go OK and the only thing that got damaged was the ladders. They'll be OK just a bit of a dent. There are bits of olive tree in a heap in the garden now, some waiting for further sawing, later this week I think. The cycling's getting a little less lately due to the heat, sorry!

Next week, as long as Mrs D survives the ceiling paint job, we are going over to Meteora on the mainland for a couple of days. We are going over on the ferry with the motorbike to give it a bit of a run out. More on this when we are back.

We then have a couple of weeks to hopefully finish the sitting room altogether before we head off up the Adriatic to meet friends in Venice for our trip out to Slovenia. Another adventure which I am sure will  make it to this blog.

We were supposed to be having a beach day today (which in reality means we go to the beach around 2.30pm when it's cooled off a bit. However, it's a bit breezy out with some clouds and the chance of a storm so we decided to stay at home and get on with some jobs. Not much more to report at the moment so I'll sign off and probably be back with some more of this stuff after Meteora. Yamas.....D 

Tortoises, ‘Slim’ & toms.

With all currently rosy in the garden with George’s toms coming on strong and tortoises sneaking through regularly we have a new visitor to the garden……Slim is our new found furry semi-friend. An extremely thin black cat (hence the splendid name.) He is a wild cat but appears most days around dinner time to see if there’s owt going!! Some evenings he hangs around outside sitting in the olive tree so he can see in the kitchen window!! What a cheek.
What else is new…….we are in the process of knocking together a sun shelter for the car. One of those unexpected tasks. I know it sounds silly but yes we do need to try to keep some of the sun off the car or it gets too damn hot to get into (sorry.) Once we have finished that we will be setting about the sitting room ceiling. Reg is here with us now and he always wants a job so we’ve had him on painting before we start on with the ceiling.

We’ve been down to the sea a few times, came second in the quiz (again.) We are off to Arillas this afternoon for some beach and snorkelling. I almost forgot, we went down to Corfu town the other week to see Cunards Queen Elizabeth – very nice. Made Thomsons cruise ship look like a tug!! That’s about it for now so best get on and get sorted for the outing.

More soon - Mr D

The lemon song

I’m writing this in the shade of our umbrella-covered decking area after a Greek lunch of feta cheese, and olives which our neighbour kindly gave us off his own olive trees and they are delicious. Over the fence, also in our neighbours garden, is a very heavily laden lemon tree. He doesn’t give us any of these fruit because we have 3 trees of our own and more lemons that we know what to do with. I make a litre of lemon juice almost daily, I drink lemon tea, I make lemon cakes, lemon merangue pie and we have a slice of lemon on our dinner plate. Every so often we hear a ‘thud’ and know it is the sound of another lemon dropping off one of the trees. This humble fruit grows so prolifically here that we take it for granted – and yet it is beautiful. The fruit is completely untampered with and free from all ridiculous EU regulations. They are shaped just as nature intended, not regulatory size to allow them to fit into a neat little supermarket carboard package and they are free from all that awful wax. I thought they deserved a special mention.

Mrs D

(Thanks to Led Zep for the title of this piece!)

July already.............

Hello again, another round of overdue nonesense follows. It is the first weekend in July and we have been here little over a month. Apart from Greece being all but bankrupt all is surprisingly well out here. The garden is back to order, the house is aired, Mrs D aka George has put the tomato seeds out and all are doing well.

The bike is now working properly again after having a new battery fitted plus an oil and filter change. Also it is now officially Greek with its shiny new Greek plate complete with insurance and road tax!! It only took two years, well all in good time as they say. We are planning a celebratory trip over to the Greek mainland and maybe Bulgaria to mark the occasion, watch this space.

We’ve had a few ‘beach days’ done a bit of cycling locally but that’s dwindling now as it’s too hot during the day (sorry.) On the social front we are managing the quiz on a Tuesday eve with a friend Steve as the third team member. So far we’ve won three times and come second once after a three question tie breaker!! Not bad, with the prize being an English breakfast for two, we now have free breakfasts lined up for all guests all summer!! The Friday early doors ritual continues and we make the odd live music night down at Napoleans one for the road. All in all pretty good so far.

We are also watching with interest the Greek economy story. It is interesting to see what the media has to say and what is really happening here in Corfu with the locals – it would appear that with the Corfiot Greeks here life pretty much goes on as usual. We’ll see what happens on July 15th as to whether the Greek ministers having been telling the truth or not…….

What for the next few weeks, well Reg is here now so we’ll be entertaining for the next two weeks. Then we have the mainland trip before we head off up to Italy early August to meet some friends at Marco Polo airport in Venice before heading off to Slovenia for 10 days in the Julian Alps. More on that later. For now it’s back outside into the sunshine for some ground clearing where we’ve been strimming, could well be BBQ day today as well.

Y’all take care now and more of this nonesense later…………