A wet day, I spent it reading the papers and writing my funeral speech. Nice to see United & Liverpool win and City lose.
25th October, 2010
Gloriously sunny day after heavy frost first thing. We were up early and drove to Pauline’s Mum’s Doctor’s surgery to deliver a thank you letter for thirty years of service. Dr Kelso is retiring himself in a few months time. He always greeted Mum with, How are you Lady Jane? and she loved it.
We then drove Phyllis & Colin over the Pennines to Huddersfield. I forced them to stop on the moors to get out and have their photographs taken:
We then took them on a tour of Huddersfield before going to Ciao Bellafor lunch.
We had a lovely meal of Greek Salad, Italian Salad, Calamari Fritte, Spicy Meatballs in tomato and garlic, Chicken in cream and tarragon sauce all with roasted vegetables and a couple of bottles of wine.
After lunch, I took them on to meet my friend, Chris Woods at Honda. Colin needs a new car and quite fancies a Honda. I found an advert for special offers on Jazz 1.4 SE models. They are incredibly cheap at the moment.Effectively, he was paying £8.000.00 for a brand new, four door car that will last him ten years.
26th October, 2010
Miserable, wet, grey day today. Didn’t go out. Completed my Tribute for tomorrow. I was told I couldn’t speak for more than 5 mins but I can’t cut it down to less than 8mins. This notice appeared in the Oldham Chronicle.
27th October, 2010
Up at 6.00 am. Shower and breakfast of tea and toast with raspberry conserve. By 7.00 am, the sun is starting to show and, by 8.00 am, it is obviously going to be a beautiful day. By 9.00 am, I am off in the car to the other side of town to pick up Florence. Florence had been the cleaner of the Anchor Housing flats. She had befriended Mum over the years and done her washing once a week. A few months ago, Florence retired from her job but had continued to visit Mum each week to take her washing and to have a chat. Tragically, just as Florence was retiring, she was diagnosed with bowel cancer. Mum had been trying to raise her morale and to persuade her to fight.
I picked Florence up and delivered her to the common room in Mum’s flats where all the others had gathered. I then went down to meet the three cars and to get mourners in to them. Mum’s coffin looked wonderful with lots of her favourite white lillies. We drove down to the Hollinwood Crematorium – a journey of twenty minutes – through beautiful, autumnal sunshine. Alongside a photo of the Crematorium, below, is a copy of the Order of Service and a copy of my tribute.
28th October, 2010
Got up later today. We both felt very tired after yesterday. It was a long day and very stressful. Now we have the clear up. Phyllis & Colin will leave on Saturday. We have to book removals to clear Mum’s flat of everything nobody else wants. It probably won’t happen for another week. I took this picture of some of the family as they were saying goodbye in Mum’s flat and setting off for the South. Phyllis will kill me when she realises that I have put this photo of her saying goodbye to her youngest grandson, Daniel, aged 6 who is being trialled by Fulham Football Club.
29th October, 2010
We have been living in the warden assisted accommodation for month now. We have spent the past two weeks of Mum’s death with Pauline’s sister and her husband Colin. They are retired – in fact considerably older than us at 73 & 74 years old. They have been sleeping in the Guest Room (£5.00 per night) and we have been sleeping in the Hairdressing Room (£2.00 per night) which is much bigger but we have to move out each Wednesday morning so that it can fulfil its function. This week, the hairdresser came to the funeral even though it was Wednesday. She had her own special relationship with Mum. Mum used to make her two toasted currant tea cakes and a mug of tea every Wednesday at 9.00 am.
Phyllis and Colin are going back to Surrey tomorrow. We have booked the removal firm to deliver our goods from store and then to clear Mum’s flat. Unfortunately, that can’t happen until November 11th which means we will have been here six weeks but we have quite a few loose ends to tidy up. Pauline & I are going to The Garden of Remembrance at the Crematorium to scatter Mum’s ashes. Quite remarkably, her Dad’s ashes were scattered there in 1961 and the Crematorium still has a record of where. Pauline will be able to scatter her Mum’s ashes over the patch where her Dad was scattered. It will be a poignant but meaningful moment for Pauline. As executor, Pauline has to distribute Mum’s fortune. She has spoken to Pensions and made sure her rent was up to date. We have been inviting in all Mum’s many helpers to see if there are any mementos, photographs, clothes or trinkets that they would like and most have left with something. Cath had a photograph that she talks to every day and isn’t at all surprised when it shouts back at her. She also had a lot of Mum’s blouses. Florence had the boxed set of Daniel o’Donnell cds. It’s her favourite singer. Joyce had skirts and the warden, Margaret, had coats. We also donated two motability trolleys to the warden for distribution. The most moving thing about this has been the people and how upset they have been at losing Mum.
30th October, 2010
A lovely day today. We were up at 6.00 am as Phyllis & Colin were driving back to Surrey. It was very hard for Phyllis leaving her Mum’s flat for the last time. She said she cried all the way down the motorway. We’ve got that to come in ten days time. Later in the morning, Cath, the Maltese Falcon, who used to clean my office in school and who I persuaded to clean for Mum because she only lived over the field, called and we let her choose clothes & shoes that Mum had never worn. She was pleased to. Pauline spent the rest of the day bagging up the remaining personal possessions to go to Dr Kershaw’s Hospice in Oldham.
At the same time, we are trying to look ahead. We have completed the paperwork for our six month let. We can see the finished apartment on Monday just before the white goods go in. We’ve set up our insurances and booked the removal firm. As soon as we’ve moved in, we will go down to stay with Phyllis and Colin for a few days and start to search in earnest for a property to buy. Actually, it won’t be in earnest. It will be in Surrey or Kent.
This has been an amazing day. After wonderful treatment from the nursing staff, Pauline’s Mum has suffered attrociously at the hands of the doctors and consultants. She has been nil by mouth for over 24 hrs. The consultant visited her ward but ‘overlooked’ visiting her’ in his own words. I got hold of the email of medical director for the Oldham NHS Trust and contacted her. By coincidence or not, we received a phone call from the ward sister 20 minutes later inviting us in. At 8.30 am we left for the hospital. She is sedated but alert. She has a protusion on her abdomen – a hematoma – which has to be operated on. The complications of that are her age at 96, the fact that she has just had a heart attack and that she is currently taking a blood thinning drug. However, the alternative is unthinkable and agonising.
Pauline goes in search of the consultant who missed her out yesterday. He turns out to be a nice man who deals with stomachs and not hearts which is why he missed her on the heart ward. He gives her more morphine and sends her for another CTC scan. Eventually, he tells Pauline that she needs an operation which, at her age, is most likely to kill her. Other than that, she will die in agony over the next week. There is no choice. Unbelievably, they demand that Mum gives her own oral and written permission for the operation. She does both confidently. She removes her teeth and puts her hearing aid in ready for theatre. Pauline and her sister, Phyllis, and her daughter, Mandy, say goodbye to her and she is wheeled to Theatre. Two and a half hours later she is wheeled back past them and the surgeon puts the thumbs up saying, It’s all gone very well. He had removed a blood-filled hernia and then noticed a blockage in her bowel. He removed part of her bowel which had turned gangrenous and reconnected the bowel successfully. A heart attack a week ago may have saved her life.
By the time she was back in the High Dependency Unit, she was fighting to get up. Pauline had to restrain her. We left her to sleep and all drove home absolutely elated. I opened two bottles of Pinot Grigio from Ancona and we polished that off in minutes before tucking in to bacon sandwiches.
18th October, 2010
The high of yesterday made the 6.30 am phone call from the hospital even harder to take. We were told that she had deteriorated rapidly in the past two hours and we should attend immediately. I bundled Phyllis, Colin & Pauline in to the car and drove them down to the hospital. Pauline’s Mum was conscious and talking. She told them that they had both been good daughters. They held her and kissed her and talked to her for five hours and then she died. If only it could have been like that with our Mum.
19th October, 2010
Today is wet and dark. Pauline & I have finished phoning all who need to be contacted. We have to collect the Death Certificate this afternoon and then go and register the death at Chadderton Town Hall. Pauline’s Mum had organised and paid for her funeral some years ago. She and her friend, Angela, had taken out The Golden Charter Funeral Plan costing £1740.00. Basically, everything has been done for us. All we have to do is inform every one and arrange a get together afterwards. This will be in the lounge of the Anchor Housing flats she lived in. The catering will be done by the lady who comes in to cook them all lunch three times a week. Once again, I have to make a speech. I am gathering material for it now.
Today we had to put the milk money out for the milkman who called every day. Mum was very particular about how it was done and the money was already counted out in a brown envelope in the second drawer down of the dresser. The little brown envelope had to be put under the plant pot just outside her flat door where the milk was left. The milkman would look for it but he wouldn’t be surprised if it was accompanied by a pot of jam. Mum had problems with her hands from chronic arthritis or Arthur as it was known and from an industrial accident. As her strength failed, she couldn’t open jars. She would leave a new jar of jam out and the milkman would open it for her as he left the milk. All part of the service for Lady Jane as her doctor called her.
20th October, 2010
Had lovely support from family members. Liz read the Blog and alerted Ruth to Pauline’s Mum’s condition. Ruth phoned me and then clearly alerted other members of the family. I had a lovely email from Bob:
John
I am so sorry to hear that Pauline’s mum has died. I’m sure you are both coping with the situation but it is a sad and difficult time. If there is anything I can do to help in any way just let me know.
Best wishes to you both.
Bob
and another from Catherine:
Hi John and Pauline
I heard your sad news from Ruth-hope you are supporting each other and I send my thoughts and love to you both.
Love cathy xx
I replied but I just hope they know how much it meant to me.
21st October, 2010
A mawkish day preparing funeral details:
Putting an advert in the local paper
Preparing and order of service leaflet
Arranging extra cars for people
Arranging catering
It all feels bonkers but it has to be done. I have had to write the eulogy which I am being made to make. I have also had to prepare photographs for documents. These will be on the front and back of the order of service:
22nd October, 2010
I have been in contact with the Medical Director. This is what I wrote to her in Pauline’s name:
Thank you for taking the trouble to reply and to look at the problems we were having. We now know that the problems we were experiencing with our little old Mother were not isolated to her or to us but appear institutionally present across Oldham Royal.
Jane Barnes, our Mother, had fought her way to 96 years old. She was immensely proud and amazingly independent for her age. However, as with any 96 year old body, bits started to fail and fall off. She had a pace maker. She had a cataract operation. She had a tumour removed from the tip of her nose. As she became less active, she developed problems with her legs and, in her final years, she suffered a great deal with bowel problems. We made numerous fleeting trips to Oldham Royal to have these problems attended to and occasionally Mum would spend a couple of nights in hospital. Mum didnt want to go and was always desperate to get away but she would acknowledge, as we do, the wealth of lovely, genuinely caring people she came across in the course of her time there.
What we were not happy with was the lack of Joined-Up Management of the environment within which these people were desperately trying to offer a good service to us. Every time we came to the hospital, we waited in a cubicle for someone to come and ask the same questions often fairly platitudinous and condescending as she/we were asked three or four days earlier. The answers were always recorded long hand on paper and when we pointed out the fact that this information must be on file, we were invariably told that The file hasnt come back from the other Department yet. There was and still is a distinct lack of rigour in information management across the hospital which slows down the treatment of patients.
Ten days or so ago Mum had a heart attack and was admitted to hospital and found herself on Ward F2. She didnt want to be there and she was desperate to get home but she knew she was being extremely well looked after by nurses who were overstretched and didnt have a spare minute. Because Mum was so independent and determined to look after herself whenever possible, the ward staff responded to her very positively. She couldnt speak more highly of them nor they of her. Her heart problem was stabilised with drugs and we were about to bring her home on Saturday when she suffered a terrible night of agonising pain with her bowels which had caused her immense suffering for a couple of years. I sat with her in the ward until late Friday night/early Saturday morning until she underwent an x-ray. I had to personally fight hard to get doctors to visit the ward. That is inexcusable. A large protrusion, thought to be a hernia, appeared on Mums abdomen and she was in agony. If Mum roared with pain, you knew she was in agony. She was incredibly tough and long suffering. Eventually, after a lot of agitation from us, Mum was put on a drip and given much needed pain killers progressively leading to morphine.
Visiting her early on Saturday morning, she had been made nil by mouth by a 7.30 am Ward Visit and was informed that she would be seen by the surgical team during the morning ward round. This didnt take place. The pain was under control and remained so throughout the bulk of the day. In fact, she was quite chirpy. When my sister visited at midday, Mum was still expecting to be seen by the Surgical Team and told my sister to leave by 2pm as they were due to arrive then but that didnt take place either. Eventually, I was told that she had been overlooked and apologies were profuse. By seven in the evening she had deteriorated badly and she was in extreme pain, still nil by mouth and crying out for water which she was refused. She couldnt even have her lips moistened or take her medication. In fact Mum was extremely anxious that she had not been given her heart medication as she believed it would cause her heart to worsen again. The ward nurse, Lorraine was very upset because she had been bleeping the doctors for many hours for attention for Mum but she could get no response. I actually stood with her while she bleeped to no effect. Once again, that is inexcusable.
By this time, we were getting frantic. We threatened to escalate the situation by demanding to see duty team management and we were told that no one knew who it was because it was the weekend. I threatened to go to A&E to declare an emergency situation and the ward nurse frantically bleeped the doctors again. Eventually, a very young girl – a doctor looking like a Top Shop Assistant arrived and with no urgency asked fairly inconsequential questions. She was clearly out of her depth. She appeared quite scared and her interpersonal skills were dire. She could take no executive decisions. She said she would need to speak to her Registrar. She left but no Registrar turned up. We were told that a doctor would be with us in ten minutes. They werent. The young doctor also informed me that the medical teams and the surgical teams do things differently and she could not intervene in their systems, she could only consult her Registrar. After half an hour we were told it was too late for a visit from the current surgical team because there was about to be a change over of surgical teams at 8.00 pm.. My niece and I went out into the corridors and grabbed the first doctor we could find. We told him the problem. He advised us where to go to find out who was the On Call Consultant if the Registrar or a member of the Surgical Team didnt come down. Afterwards, he told us to complain strenuously. Communication and urgency of action between sections appears to be a major weakness.
Two hours later, at 10.00 pm, a doctor from the surgical team arrived and examined Mum. He said he thought she needed an operation but he would have to refer to the consultant who was at home. He arrived just before midnight when Mum had been nil by mouth for about 16 hours. We were then told she could have sips of water until 3.00 am. This was really distressing Mum and greatly raised the anxiety of the situation. The pain was managed and we returned home.
When we arrived at the hospital early on Sunday morning Mum was told she would have to take on a large amount of solution prior to having a CT Scan. Nurse Lorraine had to query the solution sent to the ward because it was one for injection not imbibing. She said that this was quite a common sloppiness in the system and was one reason she was leaving the hospital. This delayed the 10.00 am scan while we waited for the correct solution and Mum had been nil by mouth to all intents and purposes for about twenty six hours. I have to conclude that this extended period of denial served to weaken Mum and engendered considerable anxiety both in her and in us. Once again this is inexcusable. The scan demonstrated that an extremely risky but largely unavoidable operation was required. The risks were fully spelt out. We understood and Mum did. We made a fully informed decision together and the operation went ahead. The surgery was completely successful but Mums 96 year old heart couldnt sustain her and she died around midday on the Monday. Although we shouldnt have been surprised, we cant help thinking that the context of the operation in which Mum had been nil by mouth for so long and desperate for sustenance and her heart medication didnt provide her with the best platform from which to fight the stresses of a serious operation.
All patients and their relatives are naturally stressed by illness, hospital environments and operations. They do not need and should not have the additional stress engendered by dysfunctional management of the process. How can it be acceptable or justifiable for desperate ward nurses to be calling for doctor attention not just for minutes but for hours without response? How can it be acceptable or justifiable for relatives to have to feel it necessary to take matters in to their own hands and to start charging in to the corridors desperately searching for help? Where is the discipline in this service and where is the management? Nurses and Doctors we met in the hospital were very critical of the process that was clearly failing us and gave us the impression that it was very common in Oldham Royal. They also said that it was exacerbated by being the weekend. So many nurses said, Dont get ill at the weekend in Oldham. How can hospitals have weekends? Do the population of Oldham really need to be ill only during the week?
The lack of urgency shown by doctors in response to requests for help by the nursing staff was equally mirrored when it came to getting the death certificate. We made three different appointments with the registrars office while waiting for a doctor to get round to signing the certificate. The lady in the hospital office said she always had to continually bleep to get doctor attention and assistance and was often ignored. When a doctor did arrive, she was totally unprofessional in appearance with skin tight jeans and ballet pumps and, just like Top Shop girl on the ward earlier, she displayed no urgency or people skills and ignored us completely. How can it be reasonable to demand professional dress for nursing staff but not doctors? Patients and relatives need their confidence in professional staff to be bolstered not undermined. It seems to be indicative of the lack of discipline in the hospital.
We do not want you to consider this as a formal complaint. It is not. Indeed, to do so would be an insult to the wonderful nurses who cared so hard for Mum and to the surgeon who was prepared to take on such a high risk operation and to give Mum the fighting chance that she deserved. What we do want is for this to be seen as the observations of an end user on her local hospital in the hope that conclusions can be drawn and changes made to the service provision.
The hospital phoned back and invited us in to meet the management team.
Went back to see our old neighbours who had received some post. It was our new, ten year passports. The photos are awful. Nowadays, you cannot smile or have hair covering your ears. Pauline was mortified. While we were there, we went up the garden to see the rock fall. It looked as if our old shed had been deliberately targeted. It was flat as a pancake.
23rd October, 2010
Today, I had a morning appointment with the diabetic opthalmic consultant. She is gorgeous – Ms De Souza. Unfortunately, she has signed me off saying she doesn’t need to see me again.
We went on to the Letting Agents to find out when our flat will be available. It is ready on November 8th and we hope to move in by the 10th. It will be nice to be settled for a while.
When I was working, Sunday was dominated by the papers – usually The Sunday Times, The Observerand one red top. I would get up at 6.00 am to go out and buy them from the local garage. Delivery boys never got anywhere near us until after 9.00 am. Far too late. I would read solidly for five or six hours until lunch time. The afternoon would be set aside for school work. Many of my most enjoyable and absorbed times have been immersed in political history, and current thought. When I retire, I thought, I will have so much more time to enjoy the Sunday papers. Well I have retired and I’m enjoying them less. It must be me but the articles seem more vacuous and sterile than before. The Labour Party are drifting distinctly back to the Left. The Tories are dragging the Liberals firmly to the Right. The middle ground is classicly being neglected and left up for grabs. It ought to be a time of high excitement but I cannot feel it. The working Middle Classes are being assaulted at every turn and yet they don’t seem to have the gumption to rise up. In Greece, in Spain, in France people passionately take to the streets. Politicians think three times before attacking their population’s status quo. Not here. We meekly accept and I’m the same. I can’t get involved in the debate. For once, I am more interested in Finding somewhere to live, visiting the hospital, etc.. Today I’ve even been planning our return dates for Greece. We will leave on Tuesday, April 12th and return on Saturday, October 8th. This is exactly the statutory 180 days we are allowed out of the country.
11th October, 2010
A glorious day. We were expecting to bring Pauline’s Mum home today but, when we go to see her, we hear she has had another bit of a heart flutter and that they want to keep her in until tomorrow. It’s so nice of her to move out to give us a bit of space. We are booked in to this guest room for three weeks at £2.00 per day. With no additional costs apart from food, I’m thinking of extending it to six months every year.
12th October, 2010
Another glorious day. We set off early for Huddersfield to take our car in for service. It is the big, four year or 48,000 service but it is still free for us. When we bought the car, we paid £500.00 up front for five years free servicing. We didn’t expect to keep it more than one year but it has really paid off. We discussed a new car with them when we went in and it looks like a new model of our car will be out this time next year. It will cost about £35,000.00 so we’ll have to do a bit of saving. Saving? What is that? The gave us a courtesy car – a brand new, sporty style Civic R-Type. It was so low to the ground, I could hardly get in it. And it was manual. Do you know how tiring that is? We drove to the hospital to let Pauline see a Dermatology specialist about a suspicious mole but it turned out that all was well.
Pauline had made a appointment to discuss her Mum’s condition with the specialist in Oldham and then we expected to bring her home. The specialist said they were amazed by her mental and physical agility. She was challenging all of them over the side effects of her medication. She caught them out giving her too many water tablets and gave them hell. They had now controlled the heart problem with drugs but over night she had a stomach upset which she has regularly and they want to give her a CTC scan and keep her in until Friday. She’ll go mad – and she did but she knows it’s for the best.
13th October, 2010
Pauline’s Mum is in a ward with four other elderly women who have largely given up on life. One is refusing to eat at all. The others spend their time sleeping and don’t respond when their relatives come in. While Pauline was talking to the nurse and to the Specialist in one corner of the ward, they turned round to observe Mum trimming and filing her nails. Later, Pauline helped her to the toilet and as she passed the mirror, she said, Oh. My wrinkles are coming back. She ordered face cream immediately. Amongst these sleeping old women, she cares desperately about her cleanliness and appearance.
Our passports are about to run out. Ten years go I had a moustache and never dreamed I would be retired by the time it needed renewing. We had just driven to Greece for the first time after selling Slade House and buying a field in Sifnos. We were still in our forties – just. Today we have filled in renewal forms and the new passports (costing £155.00) will take us to the brink of seventy years of age. Let’s hope we get there!
14th October, 2010
We received an email from our previous next door neighbour, Jean:
Hi John and Pauleen
Hope you arrived back safely and enjoying the British weather. It hasn’t been too bad so it’s easing you in gently.
Thought I would cut the grass last Tuesday as it was sunny in the afternoon. The bottom didn’t look too long so I thought I would lawn rake the top as everyone’s is covered in mushrooms. What a shock as I reached the top. The hut was absolutely flattened by a rock fall. The stones are massive and in the middle of the lawn with tree branches under which probably broke the fall and stopped them rolling. I was shaking when I saw what had happened. Perry always said that those rocks would fall and I just thought, Perry is worrying about nothing again. I was glad your house was sold as that would have put most buyers off. I haven’t spoken to the new neighbours yet as Joanne has just gone back to work this week so I haven’t seen her. Perry saw her and said she didn’t look too concerned. We have contacted the insurance as we think it is John Whitworth’s responsibility. It is going to drag out for a long time and take some sorting out.
Hope to hear from you soon.
Love Jean and Perry
To put this into context: everyone who came to Quarry Court said, Aren’t you worried about the rock face crumbling? So did Insurance Companies. Every time we would answer we answered, Of course not! Before we left, we donated our garden shed to our next door neighbours. Now it has cracked and fallen and demolished the shed as well. Poor old Jean & Perry. How fortunate are we?
Dear Jean & Perry
This sounds awful. I always thought the place would fall apart after wed left but even I didnt expect it quite so quickly. Thank goodness you are alright. But the shed sounds like its done for and we were going to ask if we could lodge in it for a few weeks. Pauline & I never thought the quarry wall would crumble In fact, we thought it was rock solid. The problem now is what you tell the insurance company when you come to renew your policy.
We went to Sainsburys to have our passport photos done. It’s changed in the past ten years. Now you are not allowed to smile, to wear reflective glasses, to let hair cover your ears, to look to one side or the other. The machines have improved though. You can do a test photo and then another before you print them. £5.00 each for the photos and on to the Post Office to use their ‘Check & Send’ service – £8.00 each and the passport for £77.50 so the new passports cost us over £180.00
On to the hospital to learn that Pauline’s Mum would not be released until Monday. She is undergoing more tests which will not be complete Friday evening and discharges do not take place over the weekend. She is resigned to it and has told us not to visit tonight because she wants to read her book and everyone keeps going in and disturbing her.
15th October, 2010
We went to the hospital for afternoon visiting. Pauline’s Mum had enjoyed another good night and she had been told she could go home two days early – on Saturday. We return three hours later to find her doubled up in agony in the toilet of her ward with violent stomach pains. She is screaming with the pain. She has a lump on her abdomen the size of an orange which doctors think is a hernia but Pauline thinks is blocked waste matter from her bowel. She is in so much agony that she is administered morphine. With the indelicacy of the situation and to give her more privacy, I retreat to the car at 8.00 pm. Eventually, the pain subsides and she begins to sleep. Pauline emerges half an hour after midnight and we drive off to sleep a little ourselves. Pauline has called her sister, Phyllis, to come down from London just in case. She will arrive tomorrow morning.
16th October, 2010
We got to bed at 1.30 am and were up at 6.30 am today. It almost feels like a school morning. Pauline had phoned the ward at 3.30 am last night and does so again now. Everything seems to be alright and the doctor is with her now.
Last night was our first in Pauline’s Mum’s warden assisted flats. We have rented the guest bedroom which is just two doors down from hers. It allows us to be quickly available if she needs us. She goes to bed at 6.00 pm and gets up at around 5.00 am. By the time we get up at 7.00 am, she has washed, dressed, made and eaten her porridge and tea and she is reading her book. She is looking a lot better but she isn’t well. She has fluid on the lungs which is making her breathing difficult. A couple of weeks ago, one of her legs, which swells hugely and painfully during the day, burst and water and blood ran everywhere. The nurses who came to treat her didn’t get it right and the leg became infected and very sore. She was prescribed antibiotics by a locum who didn’t know she was allergic to them and this triggered the current crisis.
A quiet day reading the Sunday papers on Sunday. It poured with rain all day.
4th October, 2010
We don’t know how long we can afford to rent the room – it cost £2.00 per day – but we are going in to Huddersfield this morning so Pauline can have her hair cut, we can have our tyres checked and start to look for a temporary flat to rent. There are a huge number of brand new flats on the rental market here with carpets and white goods but unfurnished. We want to take one on for six months so we can look after Mum and go house hunting in the South. It has to be in our doctor’s catchment area. A 2 bedroom apartment like this is going for around £500.00 per month which is peanuts really and will do us well.
I wrote too soon! We got down to our car to find we had left a small reading light on inside on Sunday morning and our battery was completely dead. We had to phone the AA. They came in about 20 minutes and a nice lad revived us in 10 minutes. Unfortunately, we were just too late to make the hair appointment but rearranged it for tomorrow. We still drove across the Pennines on this glorious day to visit Sainsburys and took some photographs. There is something fantastic about the elemental nature of the Pennine hills.
5th October, 2010
Happy Birthday to my darling, Pauline. She is 59 today but looks 30 20 years younger. We are going out for Lunch after she has been to the hairdressers. Unfortunately, Pauline’s Mum had a rather bad day which rather overshadowed things.
6th October, 2010
Torrential rain this morning. Unfortunately, unlike Jane, I am not too important to notice. We have appointments in Huddersfield this morning to view apartments on six month lets. The sooner we get this end tied up, the sooner we can look for property to buy in the South.
We viewed the first ground floor apartment in a old, non-conformist chapel. It had been sandblasted and split into four apartments. As we walked in through the huge, iron door on to stone flags, the smell of new paint mingled with the distinct smell of damp. We quickly made our apologies and left.
We then went on to a new propertyin a new ‘estate’. It was a two-bedroomed second floor apartment but was so small that the Master bedroom was about the size of our ensuite in the house we have sold. We left the estate/lettings agent on a positive note and he had two more viewings immediately after us – we passed them as we went out – but the moment we got to our car, we both spontaneously said, NO and moved on.
We drove back to Oldham to find that Pauline’s Mum had been unwell with chest pains. In spite of her protests, we phoned her doctor who told us to get an ambulance. The change in an old lady of 96 was amazing. From someone who had terrible chest pains and couldn’t breathe well, the sight of an ambulance team brought out wise cracks and an attempt to jog round the room. She was distinctly deflated when told she had no choice and would have to go to hospital. When we got her there, she expected to be released after her blood test but was furious to be told that she would have to stay over night to have further tests.
7th October, 2010
We have been told to phone the hospital after 11.30 am to see if the monster was ready to be released. In the meantime, Pauline found a penthouse suite in a new apartment block that is currently for let and she made an appointment to view it tomorrow afternoon. The hospital tell is she is not being released today. We go down to see her. It is confirmed that she has had a heart attack. She doesn’t think much of that diagnosis but realises she can’t get away until permitted. In the ward, there are three other women lying flat out. She is dressed and walking around. Pauline gives her her walking stick and stands back. We have taken her current book for her to read. She is being told that she has to spend two more nights there while her drugs are rebalanced.
After a couple of hours we leave. Just as we do an estate agent phones to say that a new block of Charles Church apartments, which we have watched go up, are about to be completed in a fortnight. Clearly, they have no confidence at all of selling them because they are to be offered to us immediately on short term rental terms. We will be able to see them next week. We will be back at the hospital tonight to visit the caged monster.
8th October, 2010
We continued our dual activities of vising rental properties and visiting hospitals. In the morning we went to look at a penthouse suite of two bedrooms, dressing room, two bathrooms, kitchen diner, lounge and balcony overlooking the grounds. It had a mezzenine bedroom and was full of tubular steel and industrial sized windows inteded to appeal to 20/30 something professionals. It felt cold, impersonal and strangely laid out. We decided against it even for six months.
In the afternoon, we visit Pauline’s Mum in hospital to be told that she has had another heart flutter in between running round the ward. They want to keep her in until Monday and she seems quite happy about it and says she is in the right place to be sorted out. The nursing staff want her to stay because she keeps everyone else entertained and happy.
We leave Sifnos one week today or that is our plan. We have planned to spend two nights in Patras on the Peloponnese, take a 24 hour ferry up the Adriatic to Ancona in Italy, stay at Lake Lugano and then drive to Metz in France where we spend the night before going on to Zeebrugge in Belgium for the ferry to UK. Unfortunately, Pauline’s Mum was taken ill last night and had to go to hospital this morning. It is uncertain how serious it is but, if we have to, we will try to urgently rearrange and leave a week early by leaving the island on Monday night. We will see.
If there is a hiatus in this Blog, it will be because of the above.
27th September, 2010
Unfortunately, we have had to make the decision to leave the island tonight – six days early. Pauline’s Mum had a bad night and we have been instructed to get home. We have contacted three different ferry companies and three different hotels and all have been wonderfully helpful and rearranged our bookings at the drop of a hat and at very little extra cost. I think a £2,000.00 trip has been rearranged at an extra cost of about £150.00.
Tuesday we get on Anek Lines Olympic Champion.
We will be in Hull at 8.30 am on Saturday morning.
28th September, 2010
Having sailed through the night on the F/B Korais and arrived in Piraeus at 6.00 am this morning, we have driven through the lorry blockade to Patras on the Peloppenese. It is now 11.00 am and we are having breakfast and waiting to board our Anek Lines ferry, Olympic Champion to Italy. It is a sweaty 27C/81F and we retreat to the airconditioning of our car to wait in comfort with a copy of The Times.
When go on board, we upgraded to a Deluxe Cabin which is huge, has a settee and armchairs, a television and a fridge with complimentary wine, etc.. In brochure terms, we should have paid an extra 140.00 but, because the boat is so empty, we were charged just 35.00. After an early dinner, we had an early night.
29th September, 2010
During the night, my mobile bleeped messages from Albania and Croatia and, as we woke, we are five hours off Italy. Clocks go back an hour and the bacon & eggs breakfast is a little harder to eat. I use the ferry’s satellite for internet connection and listen to the Today programme. Poor old David Milliboots. He has to start again.
Our cabin is dominated by a huge floor to ceiling porthole which, as I write at 8.00 am (UK time), shows a blue sky and fleecy, white clouds over a calm and blue Adriatic sea. We are about four hours from Ancona and the next leg of our drive.
The ferry docked two hours late and put us under pressure to reach our hotel at Lake Lugano. We still stopped at the local Italian supermarket and bought huge chunks of Parmigiano Reggiano and about fifty bottles of glorious red wine. To add to our problems, our Sat. Nav. decided that the quickest route was through the centre of Milan at rush hour. Twenty years ago, Pauline and I flew to Milan and spent a few days sight-seeing. We stayed in the Hotel City on the Corsa Buenos Aires – the biggest and busiest shopping street in Milan. We were in awe of the traffic chaos even then. Imagine my shock when I found myself driving past that hotel in the street at 6.00 pm in the twilight. I’m glad I did it but I don’t want to do it again too soon. Below is a photo I found of the Corsa Buenos Aires, Milano with the City Hotel on the right.
We didn’t arrive at the hotel, which overlooked the lake, until 9.30 pm. If you’ve ever staying in a Swiss hotel, you’ll know that the restaurant closes promptly at 10.00 pm. We just made it.
30th September, 2010
The BBC website had said we could expect rain throughout our journey. In fact we saw none until late this afternoon as we approached Metz, the capital of the Lorraine region and where we will stay tonight.
I haven’t had chance to tell you yet but just as I was surprised to hear from Mike out of the blue so I was shocked to receive a text message as I dozed on a 22 hr ferry passage from Greece to Italy. You may all be aware that, as you travel across country borders so you swap mobile airtime providers. Even within Greece we are constantly swapping three different providers: Cosmote, Vodafone and Wind. As our connection automatically drops one provider and picks up another, we get a text message welcoming us to the provider. This can happen four or five times per day. When travelling through Europe, it happens even more often. As we sailed down the Adriatic with countries on both sides, we are inundated with ‘Welcome’s. When another one came in, I was about to delete it when I was flabberghasted to find it was Liz. First Michael and now Lizzie Dripping. This is what she said:
Hello John
I was reading all the back blog last night as I’ve not been able to access it recently. Hope Pauline’s Mum is OK and that you and Pauline take care on your way back. I enjoy your Blog and would want you to carry on. Me ‘got issues’. What ever do you mean?
Love Liz
Almost immediately afterwards I received a text from Ruth in a strange language saying:
Flying back 2dy Liz has told me abt Paulines mum will ring u 2moz lots of hugs 2 u both
Love
Ruth & Kevan
I emailed Liz from Metz:
How lovely to hear from you. I was sailing up the Adriatic when it came in and it was a lovely surprise particularly having just heard from Mike a couple of weeks before. You will see I have featured it in the Blog for this week which I am currently writing in a hotel in Metz in northern France.In my view, Jane felt a little challenged when the Blog / Website became required reading for members of the family. She saw/sees herself as the lynchpin (anointed by Mum) and it must have looked as if the prodigal had returned and was usurping her hard won position. In actuality, I was just trying to enjoy my writing while also trying to mend a few fences but, obviously, not very successfully. We all have issues not least Caroline and Jane and Me. You dont exactly hide yours but why should you? They define your relationships with others in the family. Mum was fond of being scandalised, on the one hand, by family members isolating themselves while encouraging it, on the other hand, by playing family members of against each other.
These issues are part of the joy and sadness of life. Now I am retired, I have more time to reflect on them and put them in perspective. Have a lovely weekend. Im going to be house hunting. Lovely to hear from you. We should do it more often.
Lots of love John
1st October, 2010
Left the Metz hotel still full after the most amazing dinner last night. We forwent breakfast and drove to Thionville at Sortir 40 on the N4. We try to stop there at the Carrefour for more wine, mustard, patés, oils, etc. By that time we gave in and had breakfast of croissants with apricot jam and delicious coffee. We left at 11.00 am and drove the last three hours to Zeebrugge. We read last Sunday’s papers while we waited to board the final ferry. At 4.00 am we get to our Club Class cabin where I drink my first British beer for six months and watch British television.
We went to bed over full again after a fantastic dinner and go to bed early after losing two hours on our Greek body clocks. The weather is excellent and the sea is calm. Our cabin is quiet apart from my snoring. Just before we sleep, the BBC News tells us that two competitors in the Gordon Bennett race are lost, feared drowned in the Adriatic off Italy. If I’d known sooner, I could have looked out for them!
2nd October, 2010
Huge buffet breakfast and then disembarcation. We spent an hour on the motorway from Hull to Huddersfield. Straight to the Vodafone shop to buy a mobile internet dongle. Much better value than the Greek one. We can have 3Gb per month for just £15.00. After buying Sainsburys out, we drove over to our new accommodation in the warden-assisted apartments that Pauline’s Mum occupies. From there we will look to get a flat to rent for a month or three while looking for somewhere to buy in the South.
Beautiful swim today. The air and the water are hot/warm. The temperature was 34C/92F. We did an hour in the sea and then came back for a late lunch at 3.30 pm. We had garlic sauce and courgette crisps with biscuits and blue cheese. As we nibbled we watched Man. U. v Liverpool. It was a really good match which United didn’t manage to lose in the final minutes. Berbatov scored a hat trick. In UK he is called Ber_ber_toff but in Greece he is known as Ber_BAH_toff.
After this there were two more games to choose from: Wigan 0 v Man City 2 or Chelsea 4 v Blackpool 0. I watched the former but they were both poor.
We ate and drank so much for lunch that we didn’t want an evening meal. We just sat outside with a mug of tea and watched the sun go down over the harbour.
We leave the island two weeks today.
20th September, 2010
Or there again, maybe we won’t. The Greeks have taken the one piece of industrial action that can really hinder us. They are blocking the road we go on between Piraeus & Patras to get our ferry to Italy. The Greek government have been instructed to break monopoly industries and bring in competition. They are doing just that with the Pharmacies, The Railways, The Transport Lorries, etc. The Lorry owners have all paid 2,00,000 – 3,00,000 to belong to the monopoly industry. They face losing their investment when foreign firms come in free of charge. The are incensed and have parked their lorries to block the major roads as the lobby Parliament. The Athens – Corinth – Patras highway is blocked. If we can’t get down it, we are stuck. I used to pray for rain but now I pray for an end to the lorry strike.
The sea and sun were at their perfect, September best today. We indulged it all at the beginning of our last two weeks before returning to the Land of Rain. (Perhaps)
21st September, 2010
For the first time in months we went into old Sifnos – Apollonia – for a change. I was struck by the stark contrast between our house and those that first attracted us as tourists.
and then I suddenly spotted modern Sifnos breaking in.
22nd September, 2010
I’m not a believer in miracles but one happened today. I went to the chaotic post office and a woman behind the counter handed me three letters that had arrived for me. I had applied for internet banking with the National Bank of Greece and they had sent me my password. I had a letter from a friend in Oldham and I had a postcard from someone called ‘Mike’.
I don’t know who this person is but they’ve got a bloody cheek sending me love! And what the hell has he sent me a picture of a church for?
23d September, 2010
A cloudy but warm day today. Last night I sent Ruth in Crete about six text messages on Skype and a couple from my phone about the state of the last One Day Test. It was just like Test Match Special. I sent more Texts in two hours than I have in two years. Today we broke Greek law and nearly brought the Fire Brigade down on us. We have been tidying the garden in readiness for leaving. As we have about four acres of garden, it takes some doing. As a result, we had a lot of rubbish and I decided to have a bonfire. I must admit, it did go up alarmingly quickly but Stavros later told us that we could have faced a huge fine because it is illegal to start a bonfire until the beginning of October – because of the tinder dry land.
24th September, 2010
We now pay a small Greek tax each year to signify we are house owners and members of the community. It only amounts to 120.00 between us but it makes us feel wanted. The President of the island has obviously heard we are paying tax because for the first time in the fifteen years since he was first elected, he actually went out of his way to wave to us as we drove through the seaside village of Platys Gialos. He has never acknowledged us in any way before and nor has any other island politician. Essentially, until now we were tourists. Remember, there should be no taxation without representation. Now we are paying tax we should be allowed a community vote. The community votes for the Presidency in two months. Maybe that’s why he waved!
Decided I would write to Mike.
25th September, 2010
Every morning at 8.00 am, I switch off the television news and switch on the internet. Through wireless speakers, we listen to Radio 4’s Today programme. It is our one connection with UK culture. Today was dominated by who would win the Labour Part leadership but sandwiched between the brothers Milliband was a short item about the big sporting event today. Not Man. City v Chelsea nor Liverpool v Sunderland but The Gordon Bennett Cup – a balloon race first started in 1906 which has been run 53 times somewhere in Europe since inception. This year it is in England and based in Bristol. If you want to attend, click on the picture below for the website:
It is a football afternoon with four games showing. I will watch Man. City v Chelsea and West Ham v Spurs. Also available is Arsenal W. Brom and Liverpool v Sunderland. I’ve just sent a text message to Ruth on Crete alerting her to Bolton v Man U. on Greek TV tomorrow afternoon. Hope she can catch it.
Just three weeks left on the island this year. We bought our ferry ticket to Piraeus this morning 137.00 one way for two adults plus a car. Then the most wonderful thing happened. It rained. It was our first rain for six months. The heavens absolutely opened and it poured for an hour. Within twenty minutes of it stopping, the hot sun had completely dried the patio and we were sitting outside in an atmosphere perfumed with herbs – oregano, thyme and rosemary.
13th September, 2010
Today is ‘Back-to-School Day’ right across Greece. There is nothing regional about education here. It is centrally directed and intimately interwoven with Church & State. The curriculum is centralised and every school should be teaching the same thing at the same time on the same day right across the Mainland and the islands. Today all schools open for about an hour. Priests, Politicians and Teachers attended. After that, they are told who their class teacher will be for the year and will be given a clear plastic bag containing all their exercise books. Then they go home for the rest of the day and lessons start on Tuesday.
Pauline & I couldn’t resist first day celebrations and followed Stavros with his three children – Nikos, aged 13, Markos, aged 10 and Ellie, aged 6 – as they attended the First Day speeches. It took place in the school yard. On the platform were four Greek Orthodox priests, the island’s President, leaders of PASOK and NEA DEMOKRATIA, the Headteacher of the Secondary School and the Head of the Primary School.
Everybody, including the teachers, dressed as if they had just come of the beach. The idea of a uniform is a non-starter although Nikos chose to wear the national costume coat for the special occasion.
14th September, 2010
Wonderful rain storm with thunder. We got up at 3.30 am to watch it. I wanted to dance naked on the patio but Pauline wouldn’t let me. She said I would look gross and would offend the goats. This morning, after breakfast of Assam tea, homemade bread toasted with cherry jam, we decided to drive across the island to see what effects the rain had brought. As we drove two hundred metres from our house, up over the first incline, near Apostolis farm, the road was covered with partridges adult and young. The young ones didn’t want to move. Later, when we got back, we looked them up on the internet. They were red legged partridges delighting in the puddles. I bet they taste nice.
Driving on we found a huge herd of goats blocking the road. They were desperate for all the fresh vegetation that springs up with the first taste of water since February.
There is a bulb, the size of a large hyacinth which throws up a large, white stick flower all over the island – a bit like liatris. This is cultivated liatris.
This is the wild, Sifnos plant.
Driving on over the highest point in the centre of the island, we see all the neighbouring islands in the clearer air. This is Serifos:
and this is Folegandros:
15th September, 2010
A work day today. Pauline was using the annual supply we get from our window and door manufacturers, Sylor. They give us a pack containing a bottle of detergent and a bottle of oil. To maintain our ten year warranty, we clean and all the windows and doors each year. While Pauline is doing that, I clear the garden. Eventually, I will lime it before we leave so that the winter rains can wash the lime into the soil in readiness for next year.
16th September, 2010
I was using wonderful, ratcheted loppers that I found in the local hardware store. There is an invasive and prickly bush which spreads quickly across the land here. It looks and feels a bit like hawthorn. I bought the loppers especially to cut it back. I was happily hacking away on the hillside behind the house; the sun was hot – reaching low 30Cs/90Fs – at 11.00am and I had my big, floppy hat on and thick, gardening gloves. One minute I was manfully slashing and burning and the next minute I was flat on my back with my head down a hole. Every time I tried to turn a push myself up, the further my arms and head went down the hole. I felt like a beetle, flipped on its back and unable to escape. After a few minutes of hollering, my little helper appeared and I was pulled out of the hole and comforted with coffee and biscuits which made the whole experience worthwhile although, being a warfarin-user, there is a worry about internal bleeding. I easily cover my body with huge, purple bruise marks and cuts refuse to stop. On this occasion, only my pride is bruised.
In the afternoon, we had a wonderful swim. We still go every day for an hour. The water temperature is a little cooler – it has an edge to it – but it is easy to get in and so crystal clear. We do our swim and then straight back to the house for lunch which tends to be ham and rocket sandwiches. The bread is homemade. The rocket is from the garden and the ham is from the windmill supermarket.
18th September, 2010
Saturday brings shopping, swimming and football. The temperature today was 33C/92F but felt hotter. The sea was gorgeous and warm. We had a wonderful swim and I didn’t want to get out but Pauline was going (more) wrinkly and the first football match was about to start. Today the matches available were:
Stoke 1 v West Ham 1 – quite a good game, I thought Everton 0 v Newcastle 1 – a fantastic game & I really enjoyed it Spurs 3 v Wolves 1 – on at the same time as above Sunderland 1 v Arsenal 1 – wonderful
Salmon en Croute for dinner this evening with a bottle of claret – one of my last fifteen bottles. I have managed them well because we only have fourteen nights left on the island. Pauline capped the day today by falling through the bottom of a third canvas sun chair. We bought them from B&Q fifteen years ago so I can’t complain but Pauline can. Not only has she felt a bit embarrassed but she badly bruised her back on one and scraped the backs of her legs on another. Fortunately, this time she only made me laugh.
The Sifnos school yard is being swept; the windows are being opened to air the building. The Sifnos Secondary School is preparing for opening in one week. After a three and a half week holiday, they should be.
6th September, 2010
When we drive past the school yard today on our way to the supermarket, the teachers are sitting on the wall outside in the sunshine being addressed by a guest speaker. This is staff training Sifnos-style. Oh, the stess! When we talk to our friends on the island who have Secondary-age children, they are excited because of a new development. A new (on-line) curriculum is being introduced in Greece this September. It is an expensive development because each pupil will need a notebook/laptop and the country can’t afford them. England can’t afford that. Greece’s answer is to release it in just twenty areas of the country. Sifnos has been selected. The one problem is that, although the kids know how to use the machinery, the staff don’t.
Pauline went to the Post Office but our parcel still hasn’t arrive.
7th September, 2010
A bit windy today. We didn’t go swimming. We are still waiting for our parcel from London. It was posted twelve days ago and should have arrived after four days – maybe five. The UK postal service say our parcel is in Greece. The Greek postal service is in chaos.
8th September, 2010
I don’t think I told you what the parcel was we were waiting for. One of our lifelines throughout the six months away is a tyre inflator for the car. You plug it into the cigarette lighter and the engine powers the inflator. We have needed it three times in the past six months. It makes the difference between sitting around for hours waiting for assistance and spending five minutes sorting out your own problems and driving to a garage. In many remote spots on Sifnos, it could mean not waiting half a day for someone who doesn’t speak English. The other day, ours fell apart and we couldn’t repair it. Nothing was available on the island. We turned to the web and Argos. We found a upgrade for £40.00. Pauline’s niece in London bought it and forwarded it by Parcel Force.
9th September, 2010
Wonderfully warm and calm day today. We only have just over three weeks left so job completion is getting a bit more important. Mundane jobs like applying teak oil to the patio furniture, clearing the vegetable patch, giving the windows and doors their once-a-year treatment. Each year we go to the Woodman’s works where we meet Kostas, who speaks not a word of English, and his wife, Maria, who speaks English fluently. They give us – free of charge – a package containing a bottle of detergent and a bottle of oil. The two will do one treatment of all the woodwork and maintain our ten year warranty.
Had my INR (anti-coagulant) test today. The result was near perfect 2.3 so I phone Huddersfield Royal Infirmary with the good news. John, the doctor in the Path. Lab., says I don’t need another for five weeks so this time it will be on the NHS and free.
Swimming was fantastic today. The water was warm and crystal clear. The surface was like sheet glass. There was a handful of people on the beach. If it could only stay like this.
10th September, 2010
Cleaning the house this morning. Pauline got us up early. My job is change a light bulb, sweep and mop the patio and NOT use the family bathroom toilet after it has been cleaned. Why? Professor Ken Toyne and his wife, Jennifer are coming for coffee and it has to be spruce. I am walking round wearing a hang-dog, beaten expression to emphasise my subjegation. However, it is a beautiful day. 33C/91F is forecast. We will be swimmming this afternoon.
11th September, 2010
On Thursday, we went down to see Apostolis to buy some meat. We wanted beef. There was a bit of shuffling and then Apostolis’ wife and Stavros’ sister, Moshka phoned up to the farm a couple of kilometres away and Apostolis came haring down the mountain on his moped. Arriving at the shop breathless, Moshka said we wanted beef. It’s finished, he said. More in two days. He returned to his farm.
That night, as we sat drinking coffee on our patio, Apostolis open-topped lorry came back down the mountain. He tooted as he passed us with one huge, dead cow in the back. It was a magnificent and huge, brown and white beast lying on its side, distinctly DEAD. We watched the lorry slowly trundle into the valley and thread its way through the narrow tracks to Apostolis’ ‘slaughter building’. Our coffee ran cold as we contemplated the awful fact that our request had resulted in that death.
Today, with all such thoughts dismissed, we went in and bought a couple of kilos of magnificent, dark red beef. Slow cooking with onions, carrots and a litre of red wine, we will eat it with jacket potatoes. Sorry, Jane BG! Sorry brown cow!
In any other year we would have been travelling back across Europe ready for a start back to work on Monday. As it is, Monday is a Bank Holiday in UK and, because our old school becomes an Academy this term, the school holidays have been extended until September 14th. Typical!
30th August, 2010
We were wandering out into the sea for our daily swim when we got a call, Ey Up Lad. I knew immediately that it was Stelios. It was the same greeting he used when we first met twenty years ago in Apollonia square. Then he was a young lad of 25 and I was a mere sprog of 39. Pauline and I were sitting at Lakis Kafenion, drinking coffee and watching the world go by. Stelios (No not that Stelios of Easyjet fame.) came by unfurling a roll of plastic pipe across my feet and on to the local restaurant which had lost its water supply. Stelios was the first Yorkshire Greek that I had met.
It turns out that after a spell on the ferries, Stelios, who was born and had family in Sifnos, landed in UK and met a girl and got married. Eventually, Stelios opened a Mediterranean restaurant in Leeds doing Greek/Italian food and was very successful. He and his wife had two lovely daughters and have a house in West Ardsley. You can take Greece out of the boy but not the boy out of Greece. Stelios came back to Sifnos and built a house with ‘Rooms’ attached and now spends the Summer here and the Winter in West Ardsley. It was their last swim of the Summer and were leaving today for Athens, flying back to UK tomorrow so the girls could get to school on Wednesday.
31st August, 2010
One of the great successes and leaps forward this year has been establish mobile broadband in the Greek house. It is not brilliant and one has to be patient at times but we can do our business. We bought an Cosmotedongle for our laptop. It is 3G mobile, of course, and that is not perfect on a Greek island. Particularly, we found that when all the tourists arrived with their 3G mobiles, the bandwidth was just completely consumed. Although we had plenty of connection signals, our pages loaded as if they were being filtered through concrete. Now the tourists have left, we have a reasonable service again.
One compromise I have had to make is moving out of the study because the signal is almost non-existent there. We have put a desk in the lounge. The desktop computer is still in the study but the laptop is in the lounge and attached to it is the wireless distributor which feeds the wireless speakers so we can listen to the Today programme from Radio 4. As I type, I look out over the valley to the mountain. This morning, it is really beautiful.
1st September, 2010
In 2002, we started to pay for our Greek house build by purchasing the land. Over the next four years we spent 320,00.00. At the time we were sending over money in wadges of £20,000.00 to Stavros. At the exchange rate at the time, the value of these euros was £220,000.00. Today, the value of those euros is £266,000.00. We recently had it valued at £350,000.00 – £400,000.00. Even in these difficult times it is possible to make money out of property – as long as Greece doesn’t leave or get thrown out of the Eurozone.
2nd September, 2010
As I think I have written before, electricity supply is the carrot with which those building houses are persuaded to pay tax on it. Until the receipts for purchase of materials and labour are submitted and successfully scrutinised and signed off by the tax authorities in Milos, the house owner is not given full electricity supply. For building power is needed and provided but not at full strength. After all tax payments have been received – proved by the tax receipts – the supply is upgraded to full power. Our house was completed six years ago. collation of all the paperwork took another two years by the accountant. The paperwork has been sitting in Milos for four years waiting for scrutiny and stamp of approval. We are still using building-strength power. It isn’t a major problem to us. We don’t have to compromise our lifestyle and it is a great deal cheaper but it is a symbol of Greek bureaucracy.
Today we went to the DEH office in Apollonia. The man behind the desk could speak a word of English so we took our friend, Rania, with us to translate. He basically confirmed for us that we had been using electricity completely illegally for six years be he understood that the officials in Milos were rushed off their feet and it might be another six years until we had our paperwork stamped. Below is the view from the electricity office:
3rd September, 2010
For some reason, there is no longer a postal delivery on Sifnos. For years a man has ridden round the island on a motorcycle with a huge leather bag slung across his chest filled with mail. No longer. Everyone has to go to the Post Office and look through a box of mail for their own post. If it is left there too long, it is sent back. This has resulted in many trips to the Post Office and long queues at the counter. We are waiting for a parcel from London and have gone up each of the last three days. We are going again today.
Throughout the summer, our island is like our little world – or it was until satellite tv and the internet. Even so, the islanders never talk about any other island than their own and if we refer to one, the reply as if we are talking about some remote region of the Amazon. To reinforce this, you can never see another island from Sifnos. Daily, ferries come from other islands and go to other islands but it takes hours to get there. This seems to emphasise and exaggerate the distance between them. Suddenly, in September, the heat haze goes and islands emerge into the crisp, blue sky and they are incredibly close. This is Kimolos. It looks like you could walk there in half an hour. It actually takes two and a half hours by boat and is a beautiful island. Pauline & I went there a few years ago. Almost nobody from Sifnos will ever set foot on Kimolos. They just don’t see the point.
Usually, we drive 12,000 miles a year. We have averaged that for nearly thirty years. It is five months since we got in our car and drove to Hull docks, drove all the way across Europe, across the Pelopponese and then to the shops, etc on our island and in those five months we have clocked up exactly 2,000 miles. Next month, when we drive home, we will arrive in Huddersfield with just over 3,000 miles on the clock since we left in April – exactly half our normal total. The moral is: if you want to cut down the mileage on your car, drive to Greece and back.
Two fat ladies. Only 16 weeks until I’ve completed two years of this Blog. I can’t decide whether to stop then or not. I’ve got time to decide. Just 6 weeks until we leave the island and 7 until we arrive in UK. We’ve just been reviewing our diaries and that first week is manic. We have appointments for:
The Dentist
The Eye Specialist
The Dermatologist
Breast Screening
Anti-Coagulation Clinic
Hospital check up for Pauline’s Mum
Car Service
We then drive south to stay with Pauline’s sister and start looking at properties in reality rather than on the internet.
23rd August, 2010
Thankfully, today is cloudy and windy and only 30C/89F. It really is refreshing to have a cool day! Sunday papers today. We read them under the pergola and really enjoyed the change intemperature. It was not a day for swimming today – for the first time in months. Maybe, there is a hint of Autumn in the weather. We went out for a drive to a locally popular bay and were surprised how quiet it was. It had an end of season feel.
24th August, 2010
More painting today. The wind has dropped but the temperature is forecast to reach no more than 34C/93F. We painted until I was tired and then had a fantastic hour’s swim in warm and wonderful waters.
25th August, 2010
Today is traditionally the end of the Greek’s holidays. By the 25th of August, they are back in Athens and ready for work. We already have some idea because the two car/bike rental businesses have lots of bikes back in front of their shops. The beach is much quieter and it is easy to park our car.
26th August, 2010
Frangiskus, the electrician, came to finish of the last of the outside lights. The photograph below is an attemp to show how they look at night. When he was leaving, Frangiskus tried to go without being paid. I had to insist we paid him for his three evening’s work and even then it was only 70.00 or £57.00. Had to drive Pauline up to the Post Office to check if we had any mail. I park the car next to the Old Trafford of Sifnos. Of course, although the islanders know more about West Brom FC and Manchester City than I do and follow all their matches closely each weekend, there first sport is Basketball and that is the inter-village competion. Nowadays, with relative afffluence on Sifnos because of tourism, they have a purpose-built arena. It is pictured below:
27th August, 2010
Received the final bills for all the tiling today. It was very pleasing. Dimitris, Janis & Lurch came round to say goodbye and collect their tools. The bill for 210 sq.mtrs of outside tiling, for concrete leveling, for building small edging walls and for plastering an outside wall plus some finishing off inside the house of skirting tiles and 5 sq.mtrs of tiling the kitchen came to 5800.00. The tiles cost 3000.00 and the materials cost 750.00. The total cost for all the building work was 9550.00. If you add in the electrician’s bill of 350.00, this year’s building total comes to 9900.00 or £8250.00. It has made a massive difference to the house. It is now completely ‘finished’. Only landscaping remains.
The air temperature today was 36C but last night had a little chill in the air and the sea today had a slightly fresher quality. The first signs of Autumn are coming. Greek TV is full of adverts for ‘Back to School’ products – bags, pads and pens, etc.. The long range forecast for Greece is frightening. After our heatwave summer, they are expecting torrential rain and freezing temperatures across the islands throughout the whole of September. Late evening skies can be attractive now. This one is at 9.10 pm.
28th August, 2010
Now we have all our outside lights fitted and working, we can’t resist using them all to show off. Stavros says that from his house – about two kilometres across the valley – it looks like Blackpool Illuminations. Well, he didn’t actually say that but words to that effect. Everyone around the bay puts their lights on at 9.00 pm just as the sun goes down.
