Return to the Land of the Gods

We had an eventful trip back to Assos, we were expecting poor traveling conditions getting down to Gatwick and as such booked a travel Lodge at Gatwick airport so we could be fully rested for Monday endeavours. As it happened, there was very little problem on the road in fact there was very little snow when you got down to Nottinghamshire and this continued to be the case right down to below the blackwall tunnel on the M25. There was more in Surrey but nothing like the amount that you would have thought from the TV reports even at the airport where according to the media there had been wholesale chaos. At the airport there was no more snow than we had in East Yorkshire in fact there was probably quite a lot less. It seems that if something happens in the London area then it's the worst affected place in the land!!

Here are a couple of picture taken at Yokefleet just before we left for the cradle of democrasy.

The accommodation at the hotel was962" border="0"> adequet although the service at the restaurant left much to be desired it took well over 2 hours to order recieve and eat a 2 course meal, I have complained to Travel Lodge. The flight which should have left at 9am didn't in fact leave until 10:30 as the plane was held up for de-iceing in Milan. This delay meant that we missed our bus connection from Athens to Arta and had to catch another at 8pm ewhich got us to Arta at 12:30am. Our friend Christos was there waiting to get us "home". " border="0">

When we arrived in Assos Christos dropped me off for my car which I had left with Jorgos at the filling station and took Sandra and the luggage up the hill to our house, unfortunately it was pouring with rain and the car wouldn't start has it hadn't been running for nearly seven weeks the alarm and immobiliser system must have flattened it. So being half one in the morning I set off trudging up the hill to get home with no coat on sopping wet! I arranged with Christos to jump start me the next day which he did and we went for a drive down to Thesprotiko our local town were things started to go wrong, the car died half way up and hill and would not start again it sounded distinctly like a fuel related problem. Christos knew a local mechanic who came out for a look and decided that the battery was, to quote him "kaput". We left the car parked in the church car park and got a Taxi back home leaving the keys with the mechanic who was to get another battery and check it over. Three hours later he turned up outside our house with the car fixed and with a charge of 200 euro for the bother it seems the battery was 120 euro plus tax. Oh well these things come to try us! The engine management light is still on but he has now computer equipment to reset it and touch wood everything seems fine now.

While waiting for the car to be returned I decided to put the Satellite dish back up, I had taken it down before returning to the UK in case there were any high winds and I wasn't there to rescue it! Got everything up and tuned in pretty quickly and then found out that Sky had been pratting about again and I could only get a message saying that my card and sky+ box were not compatible with each other, bloody hell! ; This was going to cost a fortune premium numbers from Greece on a mobile, I don't think so! I called number three son, John, who rang them pretending to be me after I had emailed all the unit serial numbers etc to him, they then said that they could not do anything unless he was in front of the machine. However I think they must have re-downloaded the codes because within a minute of him letting me know it miraculously started working again.

Anyway, it's good to be home again and the whole village was really pleased to see us they were queueing in the kafenion (Coffee Shop) to wish us Chronia Polla (Happy new year but literally "years Many") big smiles all around apart from me who's wallet has taken a bashing!

Today we have been bottling our Olives which we harvested last November they still taste a little bitter but we are assured they will improve. Sandra has been signed up for Greek Dancing classes which start in the village school this Saturday (for women only thank god!). I think that's about it for this week but I'm sure there'll be more to come.