18th May, 2014
Did absolutely no work today at all. It felt great. Downloaded the Sunday papers. Pauline cooked a wonderful leg of lamb that she had marinated in (our garden’s) lemon and rosemary for 24 hrs. It was absolutely gorgeous just like her. Because Greek television was dominated by local elections until the early hours, I broke the tradition of a lifetime and watched a film. I hate films but I quite enjoyed this one. It was Julia Roberts, Clive Owen and Jude Law in Closer. It demanded a bit of brainwork to keep up. Of course, I was watching it a decade late but that felt so much better!
19th May, 2014
Back to work today – well, garden clearing. If only Phyllis was here. She could be helping! Perfect day for it – cool and overcast. Actually, large spots of rain began to appear around 12.00 pm and turned into consistent rain by 12.30 pm. Now 3.00 pm and still raining. We can hear it draining from the roof into our Sterna. The only person not happy about it is Mother Cat who arrived bedraggled and complaining loudly. We pacified her with cold lamb which she appeared to love.
Nikos was the first to spot the deliberate mistake. He is awarded the honour of five more years under the Troika Government for his vigilance.
20th May, 2014
Later yesterday after a reasonable amount of rain for mid-May, we found the cat curled up and sleeping on MY outdoor dining chair. If there could be any doubt, the evidence exhibited below was photographed this morning.
Mother Cat is GUILTY!
Did another hard morning of garden clearing and retired at around 1.00 pm for a well deserved rest. Meant to keep the ferry schedule up to date so here are the last two:
It’s not to bad at the moment.
21st May, 2014
You will not be surprised to learn that we adopted a cat with taste. Her favourite food is Italian salmon and today she totally rejected a huge bowl of lamb bits – probably because the garlic flavour was too strong.
Another productive day land clearing only interrupted by a call from Athens from our architect who has been asked to do a job for us. We will meet him soon.
22nd May, 2014
Another good day. Windy but quite warm at 24C. We just did a bit of early shopping and then back to the garden clearing. We are really beginning to see a difference which is spurring us on. The additional benefit is the expenditure of energy aka calories. I hit a new milestone today – a weight that I haven’t seen since 1990. It spurs me on.
23rd May, 2014
Will you still love me when I’m 65? You are and I still do. Happy Birthday, Ruth.
It always feels good that you are so much older than me. Have a lovely day. It is a little blustery here but getting hotter.
We went up to the National Bank of Greece to take an official document from our architect, had coffee at Prago Coffee Shop and then come home to do a hard morning’s garden clearing. We live so frugally these days. We hardly ever spend any money. We buy petrol once a month, fresh fruit and vegetables once a week and at least two of our meals out of seven consist of salad and tinned oily fish – kippers or mackerel – which we brought from UK. Apart from fresh orange juice for Breakfast followed by Yorkshire tea and fresh Italian coffee, I only eat one meal around 3.00 pm. Any wine we drink, I brought from France and Italy. Our biggest outlay is on cat food. Mother Cat is insatiable but I can deny her nothing.
24th May, 2014
Lovely end to the week – warm (26F/79F) and calm. We went out to do the weekly shop and have our regular banter with Flora and Mario. We also went to the butchers and bought half a pig. Well, it felt like it as I carried it to the car. Actually, 3.5 kilos or nearly 8lb of pork leg along with 5 pork chops for which we paid €35.00 or £28.00. We decided to not do any work in the garden today but laze around reading the papers and listening to the radio discussions about local and European elections in Britain. This is heaven for me.
Our meal was a tin of kippers and tomato & cucumber salad with anchovies and blue cheese. This is also heaven for me. I haven’t allowed myself cheese for months and I love it! Looking forward to the Madrid v Madrid final tonight. Unfortunately, it kicks off at 9.45pm Greek time which is late for a little lad like me.