Dances with Decking

Sara: "Look, this is how you bang a screw in."
Dave: "I'm sure that's not right, pet."












Dave: "See, if you use the electric drill, they go in much easier."
Sara: "I'm not convinced. Go on, let me have another go with the hammer ..."








Despite technical differences, we finally got the decking finished. Hurrah! For some reason it looks rather like a stage - just begging for a rock festival field-warming. Roll on 'Nidri-stock' (anything Jimi Hendrix can do, we can do ... surely?)

We had a little victory twirl across the boards, but the effect of manual work in the full sun is extreme personal slipperiness - which probably wasn't taken into account by the people who designed the waltz.

Ian and Linda came to inspect the works:

Band Night Extras

I got some great photos of Dave and the band at Sivota.
For those interested, here's some shots:

Almost the whole band in this one: Robbie, Rob and Dave,
Vince's back and Martin hidden behind Rob.
Dave wanted to get nearer the front, but his guitar lead wasn't quite long enough!

A late night shot from the deck of the boat (we got a good parking space as a result of throwing the race early in order to get Dave to the sound check on time). A couple of random girls had stormed the stage and everyone was too busy to chuck them off.

Robbie and Rob getting the crowd going.

Dave and the bubbles again - look at him go !

A moment of triumph: Dave proves he can play and smile at the same time!

Race Day Blues

Thursday 16 September 2010

So we didn't do as well as we'd hoped. Out of the four race days we retired for the first and last as there was just not enough wind. Overall we came sixth out of 13 boats on the results of just two races, when we led the field for the first half and then got overtaken in the last stretch as our spinnaker wasn't up to it.

Here's our crew - officially promoted from scurvy to motley as a result of their efforts. From the top: Pete, Mike, Sara, Dave, Maria, Naomi (not sure why Naomi chose that moment to poke a water bottle up her nose):
















Regatta party was excellent. Dave played to his largest crowd yet, and despite a week of performance anxiety, gave a stomping show. The band ran to three encores - possibly a new record!




Dave and the bubble machine from backstage











We spent the weekend scrubbing the apartment, as Dave's sister and brother in law, Linda & Ian, are staying in the house while we camp out on the boat for the next two weeks. Finally got back up to the land today, Monday, and put in another section of decking.

Anxious to get on with building the shower block (ie. shed). This is quite a challenge - we need about 3 x 2.5m to put in a loo, shower and washing machine. We want to insulate with straw clay which is straw dipped in a chocolate-milk consistency clay slip - this fire and vermin proofs it and holds it together when it's tamped down. So the pressure is on to to find a supplier of straw.

Quickie

The pumpkin took third place, as hoped. Very pleased with ourselves as you can see.

Nothing more for a while. Off yacht racing for the next few days, culminating in the regatta on Thursday.

Starting the decks

Hangovers notwithstanding, we were up and in action while it was still morning - Dave fixed two decking areas - the small one at the back, which we then found didn't fit and had to lower the supports; and the middle section that will allow us to get in and out for tools without having to hurdle through the joists. Meanwhile I created steps so we can get up and down easily, and lugged more wood around.

A vital piece of kit:

Quick siesta and off to the Pumpkin Judging Jamboree!

Collecting the wood

Wednesday 8 September

Back to the woodyard, loaded Shrimpy's van up. Far too many 4 metre pieces, terrified all the way back that they'd slip off the roof and decapitate someone, but apparently I was just being silly - the boys had it all under control. We off loaded in the field next door, as the big van won't go round the corner on the track. We then piled them in the back of the little van and shuttled a bit closer to our patch, but in the end we just had to carry them the last 50 metres.

A thankless task: dodging yellow thistles that skewer through your shoes; sweat dripping; curious flies buzzing close; crickets sniggering in the olive trees, and everywhere the hot sweet resinous smell of inland Greece.

We were done, with just time to get lunch and a wash before going to set up the band to play at a private wedding party at Villa Octavius in Raxi.

Passionate about Pumpkins

Luckily, we were far too busy to do any more on the land that afternoon - tomorrow is the great pumpkin competition judging, so we had to move our monster. Mad Robbie brought a trailer, and we loaded his two and then ours - something relaxing to do after all the heavy lifting of the morning.

The 'Mythos Miracle' (100% recycled, post-consumer waste) leaving home - with a little help from its friends

Delivering to a bar is all very well, but it does mean you have to have a beer and sit around chatting when you get there.

Robbie and Bill with the Pumpkin Weighing Apparatus: modelled on a medieval siege weapon. Children will be loaded in one side, pumpkin in the other - what can possibly go wrong?











Tough competition: early arrivals include Mad Robbie's Monster; Bill's so far unnamed surprise; Harrison's incredible/inedible Hulk, and the Mythos Miracle (2nd from left - and slightly outclassed, unfortunately)

Errands in Lefkas Town

Tues 7 Sept 2010

Tuesday morning - the woodyard. I love the place. There's a really helpful girl who speaks good English (she told me her name and said it's short for 'Chrysanthemum' in Greek - for some reason this hasn't helped me remember it at all).

So you buy the wood, and they cut it to length (give or take a few centimetres - which probably aren't very important). They also let me scrump among the offcuts, which is great for getting extra bits which are bound to come in useful one day!

While in Lefkas we also checked out whether we could get a phone line put into a static caravan / camper van. They said no. What about in a shed? (a 'spitaki' or 'little house') - yep, that'd be fine, they said. Weird. We'll have to get the shed built and then organise the line, but it looks like we'll be able to get the internet when we move in.

We also started the quest for straw bales. We have no illusions about this one - it's going to be tough. Our first call was to the garage just before the crossroads on the way into Lefkas. Dave was sceptical (straw bales in a garage?) but I'd taken the precaution of writing out the Greek for straw (Achiro) and drawing a vague picture of a bale. The garage man was very helpful: Straw for sleeping on or straw for eating? We assumed he meant animals. We need bedding straw. Eating straw is hay - if you use it in building it tends to grow. No bedding straw, sorry - try Ag. Nikolaos on the way to Vonitsa. Ag. Nikolaos, okay, um ... where should we ask? A shrug for our sheer stupidity - at the shop, of course.

Finally we called in on Dieter, an Austrian friend who has taken over an electronics shop in Lefkas and is a whiz on photovoltaics. He gave us loads of useful info on solar panel sizes and optimum roof angles; batteries, regulators and inverters. Dave listened and asked intelligent questions, while I struggled with the strange minty green tea with milk that Dieter's assistant had provided. I should've asked for coffee.

After all this we went back to the woodyard to load up all the shorter pieces in the van and drive slowly and carefully home. Unloaded on the land to try them out, and realised we'd need more joists if they weren't to be too bouncy. We can get those tomorrow when we go back for the long pieces with Shrimpy in the big van.

Dun Levelling

Hurrah! Got a good bit done today. All the frames are now in place, so we're off to Lefkas tomorrow for the decking planks. At one end the frames are on single blocks and at the other they're three blocks up. Hope it doesn't all shift in the next earthquake!

We found out that Sara's good at levelling - it takes patience and artistry. Dave said he was getting on with something else, but I'm not too sure ... ?

Weekend bits n' pieces

George reckons I should put this photo on. One of our first purchases for the building site was, of course, a sofa, two armchairs and a coffee table. They do have cushions, but when we leave they are put away and we chain the rest to a tree.

When we're working, we chase the shade with the sofa, so as to have somewhere comfy to collapse between exertions.

We got some bits done over the weekend, despite rain bucketing down on Saturday and Dave working on Sunday.


I'm still not happy driving round by road, especially since the car's still sick and I'm less confident in the van, so I walked across the bottom field as I was on my own.

I did some more levelling, and Dave came over after work, first visit on the motorbike, which we photographed because it looks good.

Two more pics below: a view from the bottom right corner (NE) and a close up of a thorny scrubby thing that is actually wild asparagus. In April it throws out tiny spears (about 1-2mm diameter) which are delicious eaten raw or shown to boiling water for a brief moment.

Finding our Level

Today we put in some of the blocks to level the decking-to-be. This is a hot, sweaty, heavy, dusty job which takes far longer than I'd've thought possible and requires a lot of sitting in the shade recovering. So only one of the biggest frames is levelled; another big one and 3 smaller ones to do, tomorrow and tomorrow ...

The good news is the generator fired up. There was initial disappointment but after we opened the fuel tap it worked much better. It's not too noisy, and it's out of the way behind the truck, and we only need it for brief bursts of power tools, so that's okay.

I forgot to mention our debt of gratitude to Jono's Helene's Elizabeth, who gave me a black marker pen when she was here (for the boat, really) which has been extremely useful for marking the screw holes in the frames. Thanks Lizzy!

Deck frames

Three days of not doing anything constructive on the land! George and friends have just come out for 2 weeks on the boat - using cheap flights into Kefalonia, so Dave and I took Tropi south on Monday, spent a night in a bay and then went into Fiskardo, where the usual mayhem meant that about three anchors were laid over ours. The next day we had planned to catch the ferry back, but force 7s grounded the ferries, so after we'd untangled all the anchors we took a very bouncy trip over to Sivota, all wearing life jackets, riding a roller-coaster 4 metre swell. And fell asleep as soon as we were home.


Our sophisticated water supply.


So Thursday: we made an early start on the decking, and by 11 o'clock all the cordless power tools had gone flat, and we'd run out of long screws.

We were making frames as they would help us get the blocks level, and as a base to fix the deck boards to.

After two hours of recharging we got back to it - it was good and hot by then, and all the shade had gone. None of the wood we got (the cheap stuff) is straight, flat or untwisted, which made it an interesting experience and makes us very curious about how it'll turn out.


Some completed frames - rather larger than we can handle easily

Oh, and we moved the generator into it's box - nearly got to fire it up, but didn't have a funnel the right size to put the oil in. Tomorrow, maybe?