Measuring the land, unwelcome visitors and a concert

10 & 11 May 2019

Greece has decided it needs a proper Land Registry, because people (including us) are being sold land that is falsely recorded and looks bigger than it is.  As part of this process we all have to get our 'topographs' recorded by GPS positioning and submitted to the relevant department. 

Spiros arrived with his GPS machine and took various measurements of the position of the house on the land, to add to the existing boundary measurements he had, so that the papers can be filed.

Spiros at work

 Dave tackling the overwhelming undergrowth everywhere on the land.  Unfortunately, after a few hours something in the motor burned out and the strimmer packed in - frustrating!

The unwelcome visitor was a rat and several mice.  Things were chewed, one morning, so we made a concerted effort to block up all access points, but that drove the vermin into the walls behind the plasterboard.  So we put down poison and blocked every new hole with metal mesh.  But then the rat died, and stayed behing the wall.  After a day of realising this, as the smell grew stronger, we pulled out the dishwasher and deconstructed the wall behind it.  The vermin were living in the gap between lime plaster and plasterboard - a short-cut, hybrid solution we had used below the kitchen cupboards to save time on lathing.  Not a good idea, as it turned out.  Dead rat and live mice were evicted, and Dave made a mix of plaster, so I could slap a good thick coat on.  We didn't replace the plasterboard.

One advantage was that I gave the kitchen several very thorough bleach-cleanings until it sparkled!

On 11 May, the Lefkas Singers (including Naomi and I, above) joined a choir festival celebrating the Seven Islands unification with Greece.  We were the only ex-pat choir, the only all female voices and the only ones to perform without music and with expression!  It went down very well, and Rosa was pleased with us (phew!)