Tuesday 29 March 2011
We woke on Tuesday to a homestead with no food. Monday’s meals had been fridge scrapings and tins and the last of the potatoes, so the cupboard was bare. That’s okay, we thought, we’re going to De’Vine anyway, let’s have breakfast there.
At 10 o’clock the De’Vine was closed. Dave’s hypoglaecemia was setting in – hunger makes him depressed and frustrated. Nowhere was open for wheat-free breakfast. It was too late to buy something, go and cook it and be back to meet Tree and Mike. Help! Then I spotted Viljan (Upside Down George’s nephew and chef) going into the restaurant. We followed him in. He was just popping in to make himself breakfast, so we joined him. Eggs and bacon all round.
De’Vine’s was open at 1100, Tree and Mike were prompt, bringing a solid looking Jeep, so with Andy Devine we all went to his place to find the trailer. It was deep in the undergrowth, and quite a slimy green in places, so we reckoned it would fit in well at Goat Bottom, already part-camouflaged. It also had an enormous egg in one tyre, fingers crossed it didn’t blow out en route. Mike was very gung-ho, and turned out to be a brilliant trailer-manoeuvrer. We put the minimum in at the apartment, just the desk, chair and push-bikes, so as not to keep T&M waiting, and to avoid overloading the stressed tyre.
About 100 metres from GB, on the rickety track, the tyre blew out. But it’s a double-wheel trailer and the second tyre on that side held together until we had got it in position. The trailer then subsided to the right, with a gentle sigh. That won’t be going anywhere again in a hurry.
It was more level than that when we put it there!
Tree and Mike having a look round.
Then it was lunchtime, and there was still no food in the house. T&M went off to Lefkas, and we went back into Nidri. George’s was open, with Elizabeth there, doing the cleaning. We begged her to feed us, and she was very accommodating.
On with the moving. More boxes and cartons and bags, and sails and enough bedding for two changes in an eight bed establishment (otherwise known as Tropi); books and paints and guitars; sewing machine, fabrics, wall hangings, rugs, mats ...
... it was suppertime, and the living wasn’t easy. In other words, time to see what George’s could do for us for a third time. Everything was out of the apartment, Dave had done the final run and gone to buy Rob a beer, I washed and scrubbed and bleached my way out of the empty apartment. It was after 8 pm. Feed me now!
We sat down at a table and George went to get us beers. He came back with a plate of Oysters - 'on the house'. I haven’t had oysters since the early 80s; Dave had never had them. How special. By instinct, George had made the meal a celebration - they were really nice oysters too.
and how to resist a plate of mussels fresh from Albania?
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