All systems go

After about two weeks with no progress on the house everything is now going great guns again. In the last few days we have our waste tank in place, the iron has been laid and the cement pumped for the second floor; and the bricks are on site for the inside walls, which will be built while the concrete is allowed to dry.

Ashley noticed snow on a few of the mountain peaks that we can see behind Stoupa this morning. The weather today has turned very cold, as the wind is a north, north, easterly, although it is nice and bright. This afternoon we saw a few snow flakes falling, we have been told this weather is unusual for this area of Greece.

It’s decision time for us; the electrician has been booked for the 5th January so we have to decide where we want the light switches and the plug points. We also need to decide on air conditioning, as each unit needs to have an electrical point near by and an umbilical to an outside compressor unit. Even though we are not sure whether we will have air conditioning it is still best to have vents and the plug points put in place before the walls are plastered. That way if we decide at a later date to have units fitted it won’t be a problem.

On Monday we were in Kalamata to visit the bank, the vet and to do some other shopping. If you live in Greece you have to learn to be patient at times. In the bank a relatively straightforward transaction took over an hour. This is nothing to do with us being foreigners; it’s the way of life for Greek people every day. As we left the bank it started to rain and we headed for the vet to get some antibiotics for Dolly, as she still has a nasty rasping on her chest, plus some worming tablets for them both.

Having bought some tablets we crossed the road and found a restaurant frequented by many locals. We had an excellent lunch of roast chicken with vegetables, potatoes and fresh warm bread at a cost of only €7.00 for us both.

We chanced upon a tile shop and found some floor tiles that we like. The problem is now deciding on which floor level to have them laid. If we have them in the bedrooms chances are we won’t find any we prefer and wish we had them in the living area. If we have them laid in the living area we most definitely will see some we prefer. Such a dilemma! Unfortunately this is not the only one; we also need to make decisions on aluminium windows, shutters, mosquito nets, kitchen units, bathroom fittings and numerous other things.

With the rain now pouring down we headed towards a shop selling fitted kitchens and bedrooms that had been recommend to us. We were absolutely soaked through by the time we got there and unfortunately the owner who we needed to see was in England. However, we bumped into a very good friend who insisted that we return with him to his home, as we hadn’t seen them since last May. He and his wife dried us out and then insisted on feeding us again.

We asked their advice on how to prepare eating olives as we have heard of so many different ways. They brought out several jars they had prepared, some of which were this years and some from last year, with various flavourings to let us taste the difference. Anyone who has spoken to Lainie about olives will know that she can’t stand the taste of them. Surprise, surprise, she actually found that she liked some of them! My batch of olives I was looking forward to eating has suddenly halved in quantity.

Although we didn’t visit half of the places we intended, the chance meeting turned this very wet afternoon into a thoroughly enjoyable time.