Solstice party

Wednesday 21 December 2011

The Winnebago family have no heating.  They have electricity now, running a cable 200 metres down the track from Gerry and Marie-Do’s villa at the Corner of Doom.  But G&M don’t want it used for heating.  Michael has been working 6.5 day weeks for months, and so has little time to do anything around the homestead.  So I suggested to Alison she and the kids might like to come over for the afternoon on Wednesday, for mince pies and squirty cream sitting around the stove in the shed.  It was great fun, although very cramped, trying to explain what a solstice is, playing games with the kids, and seeing how many mince pies Kieran (who is actually spelled ‘Kyran’) could eat.

Then in the evening we went down to JD's restaurant in Nidri.  It is run by Jackie and Chris, who coincidentally come from Dave's home town of Redcar.  Chris is a time-served electrician from ICI, a careful and meticulous worker with electrics.  A-ha, we thought.  We took him copies of the floor plan of the house, and asked if he would design the electric circuits we need.  He was more than happy to do so.  We need this info before we break ground, as the plumbing and wiring may need to go through the walls at foundation level.

No Charge!

Tuesday 20 December 2011

Dave believes we have a fault in the battery charger.  He took it in to Dieter some weeks ago, and we thought it was fixed – it didn’t reproduce the fault in the repair shop, anyway.  But it has been playing up again since.  We sit in the camper van in the rain and listen to the generator mysteriously kicking in and out for no obvious reason.  Being mechanically minded, Dave says it is going ‘off load’ at intervals: just generating power that’s going nowhere.  This is down to the charger, which stops accepting power, even when the batteries are not fully charged.

This is not good, as it means we run the generator for say, two hours, and only get value from one hour’s worth.  It’s a waste of diesel, and contributes pollution and noise to our environment, but we can’t do without some boost to the batteries in these endless overcast days.  Apparently Greece has 300 days of sunshine annually.  It’s just a pity the 65 unsunny days all come at once.

Dave had a look inside the charger, but it’s all electronics, so he closed it up again.

School Christmas Bazaar

Sunday 18 December 2011

The band were asked (by Spiros at Mamma Mia) to perform at the School Christmas Bazaar to help raise funds for much-needed improvements.  It’s a flattering invitation and a nice opportunity to give something back to our adopted community.

The day was a great success.  It stopped raining (luckily, as the gig was outside), the quad filled up, and the boys played really well.  We later heard that the bazaar raised just under 6,000 euros, an unprecedented figure that Spiros says is due to people staying to listen to the band, rather than just browsing the stalls and leaving.

Warming up

The man with white hair, standing by the big Alfa umbrella in the second photo, was clearly loving the music, jogging around the tables as he mingled.  I asked someone who he was, and they said ‘the Headmaster’ – pretty cool for a headteacher, I thought.  

I later had a dance with him, and the next day, passing me in his car outside a supermarket, he hooted enthusiastically and waved. 

Rob has been loaned a motorbike for the winter, which includes this rather lovely replica leather flying helmet and goggles.

As we were clearing away the band gear, the PA system was playing Greek music and we were dragged into a Greek dancing circle.  Hastily discarding speakers and cables we twirled and mis-stepped a few times, sandwiched between the Biblos owner’s wife and Dave’s book-keeper, until able to disentangle ourselves and make a getaway.