Christmas holiday

For Christmas this year we decided to splash out and have a nice break somewhere in a hotel. Further south along the coast are a couple of small villages that have some very nice hotels, so we drove down to have a look a month or so back. One hotel looked very good, right on the coast with beautifully decorated rooms, although quite small but the prices were quite high and the staff not over friendly. We gave it some thought and decided that if the weather turned out to be bad we would have very little choice in how to spend our time in that area. We then looked closer to home, at the hotels in Kalamata, and found that they offered a very reasonable deals, compared to the UK and one hotel had two packages on offer for the Christmas period, one of 3days/2 nights and another of 4days/3nights. The rooms where of a high modern standard, it had an excellent restaurant, a bar and a nice reception/lounge area, so that was that. Some friends who are staying in a nearby village also booked to stay there with us.

We arrived at the hotel just before lunchtime on Christmas Eve, dropped our cases in our room and strolled along the seafront towards Kalamata centre. The weather was wonderful, strong, warm sunshine. We stopped for lunch at one of the tavernas along the seafront, sitting at one of the tables that line the beach with a wonderful view of the sea and the mountains. The food and wine was very good and again proved that eating in Kalamata costs about 2/3 of the price of similar meals in the Stoupa area.

After a long leisurely lunch, we strolled further along the seafront before turning back towards the hotel. Another stop for coffee at a bar allowed us to watch the mountains surrounding Kalamata turn the most wonderful shades of pink and red as the sun sank low in the sky.

We had been told about a house in Kalamata that is decorated with lights at Christmas and has been featured on Greek television in previous years. We asked the hotel receptionist and she explained how to find the house and as dinner was not until 10pm we decided to go and take a peek. Once we were close there was no chance of missing it! It was a mass of light and colour. We stopped the car and got out to take some pictures when the owner saw us and invited us into the garden for a better look. Only then did we realise that it was also a wonderful cactus garden as well. Finally, back at the hotel we washed, dressed and had a drink before dinner.

Christmas Eve is celebrated more than Christmas Day in Greece, so along with the evening meal there was live music in the restaurant. It turned out that as far as we could tell we were the only foreigners in the restaurant. The meal was excellent, although at one point when plate of turkey, stuffing, one small roast potato, a small piece of carrot and a single brussel sprout was served, we worried that our appetites would not be satisfied. No problem, the courses just kept coming and by the time we were finished we were all totally stuffed!

Christmas Day turned out to be another wonderful day for weather. Not a cloud in the sky and no wind, so we decided to have a sightseeing tour of the peninsula that we look at every day from home. Although we had been round this area three years ago, our friends had never been there before.

After a large breakfast we first drove across to Pylos on the west coast. As you approach Pylos the road gives you a wonderful view of Navarino Bay, a wonderful natural harbour that is enclosed by the island of Sfaktiria.

Down the coast we stopped again at Methoni and strolled along the beach by the walls of a castle, the main parts of which date from the 13th century. A Greek fisherman was sitting on the rocks near a small anchorage and as we passed, he wished us “Kronia Polla”. We stopped and chatted for a few minutes, although it was quite limited as he spoke no English. After a few more exchanges of “Kronia Polla” we moved on again as it was now past lunch time and believe it or not we were getting quite hungry!

Not seeing many places to eat in Methoni we carried on to Finikunda, a small village that has developed as a tourist resort in recent years. Seeing a small taverna with a few people in we asked if they were open. Yes, “no problem”, please come in the said, so we sat down to eat. Turkey or pork were cooked and ready so we made our choice and enjoyed another excellent meal. Although we ordered a half-kilo of wine with the meal, a second quickly arrived compliments of the owners – “Happy Christmas”.

Further round the coast we again stopped in Koroni, a small port that we see every day as we look out from our verandas. By now it late in the afternoon and the sun was getting low behind the mountains putting Koroni in deep shade, but changing the view across to the Mani. Our coastline was now turning changing colour to the pinks and reds with the setting sun with a backdrop of the Taygetos Mountains showing their snowy peaks.

Finally we made our way back to Kalamata as it got dark to get ready for yet another meal. More food, but somehow we managed to eat it! Again, we had live music in the restaurant while we ate.

Next morning, another leisurely breakfast and then we packed and left for home. The ‘holiday’ was over and so was the good weather. The rain started as we left the hotel, and has continued for several days with more thunderstorms.

Fizzzzz….Electrical fun.

This entry was to have been posted just before Christmas, but we had yet another twist to the story. It started back in November when we had one of the first thunderstorms of the winter. I should have had ample warning as last year one person lost their fax machine, satellite disc, satellite box, control panel on their cooker and computer modem all in one storm. Since then we tried to be careful, unplugging everything whenever a storm approached.

One morning I woke early just as it was getting light. The sky was overcast and I could see some lightning away in the distance towards Kalamata. Lainie was still sleeping, so as the storm seemed so far away I thought I would just have a quick look at the teletext pages on one of the TV channels where there are some news pages in English. Yes, you can guess what happened next! Although the storm still seemed a long way of, suddenly there was a strike very close to the house and it caused a surge in the power supply. The TV went with a loud bang and a terrible smell of burning, I couldn’t wait for Lainie to wake up so I could tell her! Later in the morning we also realised that we had lost our telephone, the strike had taken out the base station for the DECT phone we use. So, no TV and no telephone, guess how popular I was.

We replaced the TV with a new set from one of the supermarkets in Kalamata, a 21-inch screen with teletext for 109€, around £75, not too bad. We still had a phone in the house, but the problem was that it came from England. We could ring out ok but it didn’t ring when we had an incoming call, anyway, recently we managed to find a DECT phone from another supermarket for only 30€.

At the beginning of the week before Christmas we had another few days of thunderstorms. Now being very careful we unplugged everything to prevent any damage, well almost. We have an ISDN telephone line, so there is a box to convert the connection for ordinary telephones and a computer interface. A lightning strike must have sent a pulse through the telephone line blowing the computer interface but leaving the telephones working. So we called the OTE fault reporting number and tried to explain the problem.

The people in the support centre speak English making it a bit easier but when you try to explain something technical it gets more difficult. An engineer returned our call, but unfortunately the engineers don’t often speak any English, and he tried to tell us there could be no problem with our phone as he was speaking on our line. Lainie understood enough Greek to follow most of what he was saying but trying to make him understand the problem was with the box was far more difficult.

Finally, after missing an engineer who called while we were out, another called on the morning of Christmas Eve and brought a replacement box that solved the problem.

Since all this has happened we have bought several surge-protection adaptors to try to prevent this from happening again. If anyone has any suggestions for how to deal with lightning strikes and protect the whole house we would be pleased to hear from you!

Bad weather

Yesterday we had some heavy rain and thunderstorms so spent all day indoors catching up on a bit of computer work.

Last night we watched the news on TV, thank goodness that we don't live in Athens! They really had problems with the rain. It showed an underpass that had filled with water/snow and frozen overnight, filling it to a depth of about 18 inches. The morning traffic was ploughing through looking like a fleet of icebreakers. Some poor guy on a motorbike had the worst deal, he almost got through, and then ended up on the central reservation where his wheels fell into some ruts and got totally stuck. We watched him waving at each car that past him as their bow-waves of icy water washed over his legs. Somewhere else in Athens they had a flash flood that had been about 4-5 feet deep. Houses and cars looked totally wrecked by the muddy water.

As a result of the rain we now have a swimming pool, well just a small muddy one. We have had a spot in the garden where we had been accumulating rubbish, bricks, bits of concrete, iron and any other bits and pieces left over from building work. A few days ago Vagelis arrived with his lorry and digger and scooped this all up to clear it for us. Where he used the digger to remove the rubbish we ended up with a patch that is 5-6 inches lower that the surrounding area, so this has filled with water. During breaks in the rain we are now trying to level this out, but the ground has become like heavy clay in England. It sticks to your boots and shovels so that everything weighs about 10 times what it should. Ah well, its good exercise.

Where did the summer go?

Very sorry, can’t believe that it’s been so long since we last updated the diary! Instead of one single entry trying to cover everything we will add little bits over the next few days.

The summer drew to an end with several visits by friends and family, so several weeks went by with a very pleasant social calendar. Then we had a couple of weeks working on the house and garden followed by our olive picking. During that time nothing really happened that we felt was worth writing about here in the diary. We could fill it each day with a very mundane commentary about each bit of work we do or each visit to Kalamata, but we’re not sure who would become bored first!

Anyway, lets give you a report on our olive picking. There are still several trees that are suffering very badly from damage inflicted during build work. Out of the 52 trees we originally had we were left with 39 after the house was built. However, one has now been reduced to a 3inch high stump, one that looked very poor has died and another 4 had very few olives, because of damage. That means we had 32 trees that cropped this year. From these we had 18 sacks of olives, picked in three batches, which gave us 141 litres of oil! After the olive press had taken their percentage to pay for the pressing and a few litres we shared with some friends we now have 115 litres of oil. More than plenty for us this year, but after we give away a little during the year and retain some in case next years harvest is poor, it’s probably about right for us.

The weather has now turned wet this week and the evenings are getting cooler. On a good day it’s still pleasant to work in the garden in a t-shirt and if there’s only a little wind then it does feel quite warm.