Taverna

A couple of months ago Laine went into Stoupa to get a haircut. While she was 'in the chair' and talking to the hairdresser, Poppy, another young woman joined in the conversation. They all ended up having a good laugh and the other woman, Suela (pronounced Sue-ella) told her that she also lived in Ag Nikolaos. She was going to call her husband to collect her, so Laine offered to give her a lift back to Ag Nik. They hit it off and Suela wanted someone she could talk to sometimes, so that's how the friendship started. Suela and her husband Freddi are Albanian, so as far as most Greeks are concerned they are the bottom of the labour market

Suela has been running a gift shop in the village for a couple of years, it's very modern and successful, Laine had met her in the shop before on previous visits and she had recognised her. Freddi had been working as a builder in the area for about 10 years, but a about a year ago took the lease on an old building in the village, renovated it and opened it as a taverna at the beginning of May. Because they are Albanian it's very difficult for them to get Greeks to work for them. Albanians are mostly building workers who speak some Greek, but rarely English, and if their wives are here the same rule applies. Their first cook turned out to be a disaster so Suela got rid of her and did the cooking herself for a while, but because Freddi speaks no English she was also trying to wait on tables. This was preventing her from opening her shop so she was frustrated, angry and tired out.

She asked if Laine would work for her and I said that I didn't want to get into the Greek tax system, and anyway I didn't want to commit to working everyday, that would have defeated the object. But I/we, offered to help them, so I was waiting on tables and Ashley was serving drinks, clearing tables and washing glasses. In the meantime they had managed to find a chef, a Greek called Kostas who seems to be absolutely brilliant. It was actually quite fun, but it went on for weeks and I'm sure we would have tired of it, thankfully they have found other staff the week before Simon came. The young girl only lasted 3 nights, I don't really think they gave her a fair chance and Suela asked me again how much I wanted to work there and I had to insist that I didn't want to be tied to a job, also I think she could be a pretty tough boss and it might eventually spoil our friendship, so although I feel bad I/we have left them to struggle on.

Although most customers where finished by midnight we were often not home for another hour or two. Suela insisted that we then sit and eat with them (this was her way of thanking us), Kostas always insisted Ashley tried different dishes and Freddi was always topping up the wine. One night at about 11:30pm our accountant from Kalamata walked through the door, it turned out that he does that accounts for Suela as well. He speaks very little English but this doesn't stop him from talking to us. My Greek is getting quite good so I tried my best to translate, Ashley understands quite a bit of what's said even if he can't think of the words to reply. It was 2:45am before we left that night and Ashley has been booked for September to go with our accountant and several others to visit a monastery somewhere in northern Greece, no women allowed. If it's where I think it is he won't be able to go as foreigners require letters of introduction from a consulate in Athens and all sorts of other paperwork. I don't think it will materialise but we will see.

Driveway

Towards the end of last year we realised that our driveway from the gates to the house would be a problem for us in the winter. Once it rained the earth here turns quite sticky and car wheels very quickly turn double their normal size as they gather up a coat of mud. We needed to put down a hard surface to stop everything turning into a complete mess.

Laying concrete or paving might have been a problem as there could be some settlement where lots of digging had taken place during the house building. So to get us through the winter we bought a lorry load of gravel to spread over the drive and also as a path around the house. Around the house was also important as water running off the roof (no, we don’t have guttering) causes the red earth to splash up the house walls anything up to a metre high. Vaggelis looked at the pile of gravel when the lorry delivered it and thought it would take a day to move it and level it out. We rolled up our sleeves and in about 2 hours had the whole thing done.

That has worked very well, the car only collected mud from the track outside our gates and house didn’t get its red gaiter.

As the rains came to an end we started planning what we wanted to do with the drive, what shape we wanted and most important what materials to use. First we considered the flat stone that has been used for the steps and areas out side out door. This cream and orange coloured stone complements the stonework for the house. It’s quite an expensive stone, almost twice the cost of the grey/green stone, and because of the way it breaks you have a wastage factor of about 20%.

Next we saw some roadways and drives made from concrete that is patterned with a stamp as it is laid. At first we thought that would be a lot cheaper and looked quite attractive, then we saw a driveway from which most of the colouring had leached out.

After a chat with one of the local ‘builders merchants’ who gave us a direct price for materials and recommended someone to lay the flat stone at a fixed price per square metre we found that this was almost the same price as the concrete stamp. So we have made the decision and the work on the driveway is now in progress. In a few days all should be finished, that’s if the spell of unsettled weather that we now have gives them the chance to do so.

Gardening

Since mid March we have started a vegetable garden. As soon as the winter rain came to an end we started digging a plot between the trees that run in the odd piece of land to one side of our garden. After the winter rains the land was soft but not too sticky to dig and after a few hours we had a plot ready for the seeds.

Some friends from Riglia kindly gave us some young lettuce plants they had spare to help us. We were also given some seeds from a taverna owner in Agios Nikolaos together with some leek roots. Now I have never seen this done before, but we have been assured that they will grow, they are the bottom half inch from a leek with the roots still attached. We planted them in a trench and as they start to grow we will earth them up to get the long stalk. If this works can we dig them up, cut the bottom off and start again? Are these ‘perpetual leeks’? We’ll keep you updated on their progress.

We’ve planted:
Lettuce, aubergine, melon, tomato, onion, garlic, cucumber, cabbage, broccoli, dwarf beans, red peppers, zucchini, chilli peppers, beetroot, parsley, coriander.

So far the weather has been kind, not too much heat so with a little watering everything is doing well, just a couple of things that have been slow to germinate.

Life in general

It’s been a while since we have posted anything here. The main reason is that we don’t now have many exciting events to tell you about. So I apologise now, the next few posts may become a bit boring as we tell you a bit about the more mundane things that we do.

Over the last couple of months WE decided that I should try my hand at making some ‘furniture’. This came about when one day we were looking for a table of some sort for the television to sit on. It was a problem finding something suitable, either too small, too big, too fussy, just plain melamine, etc. One we did see was certainly in the ‘looks just like melamine’ bracket, the tabletop was hollow, but the design was simple. Lainie looked and said, ‘I bet you could make one like this’. Now there’s a challenge!

We sat down with paper and pencil and worked out the measurements for what we wanted, and then next time in Kalamata went to a timber merchant with our shopping list. They offered to make the pieces from a melamine covered MDF, but the thickness was only going to be about 12mm. We both thought that this was going to look too thin and make the whole unit look strange. Then he showed us some oak planks that were 4cm thick, now we knew we were looking at what we needed. These were cut down to the sizes for the base, top and sides in a few minutes, loaded in the car with the off cuts and home we went.

A couple of days of careful routing to get the pieces to fit together, then some light stain and a few coats of varnish and in the end we had exactly what we wanted. I don’t think MFI, IKEA and anyone else has much to worry about but we are pleased with the result.

Off cuts, what could we do with them? They were slightly odd sizes and shapes, but we worked out that there might be just enough to make a couple of small side tables. We took the off cuts back to the timber merchant and asked if they could cut them to size for us. No problem and no extra charge for doing so. When I asked if the had machinery to joint some of the pieces together we were told that they couldn’t help us with that.

As we were about to leave Lainie was asking them to recommend a strong glue so we could try joining the pieces. ‘You want them joined? We can do that for you.’ Trying not to look confused we showed them what we wanted and three days later and for the sum of 15 euros they had made two tabletops for us. Another session of routing, gluing, staining and varnishing and we have two tables. Slightly different in sizes as they came from the off cuts, not exactly the design we might have had if we started from scratch, but two workable tables.

The next woodwork project was to make frames for mirrors. We needed some mirrors for the bedrooms, so from our local builders merchant we bought some lengths of tongue and grove. He also cut the actual mirrors for us and I have now put together three mirrors for the total cost of 21,50 euros. At the moment the wood has a light stain with varnish, but who knows perhaps at some time in the future these may change colour, a much darker stain or paint to give them another lease of life.

What’s next, who knows? Well, I have and idea……. If it works out I will tell you about it, if not, well maybe I’ll tell you anyway.