A week of two halves...

On Saturday night we went out to the village taverna where there was live Greek music and a meal on offer. The guy who played the Mandolin was amazing but they were all local guys a couple of them from Assos, just there to entertain the punters. We had spit grilled lamb and the trimmings for the meal and a couple of bottles of wine and with this inside them people started getting onto the floor to do some traditional Greek dancing. Now that Sandra has been taking lessons for a few weeks she was brave enough to join in and did a very good job too in fact as she left the dance floor there was applause and shouts of bravo to accompany her not bad for the first public viewing but I am waiting for her to improve a bit more before I can charge for her entertainment services. All in all a good night was had by all.

The weekend was dull with some rain and a touch cold you didn't want to be out without your fleece and a raincoat in case you got caught out, so with this in mind we set off for Lefkas Island on Sunday morning to witness the carnage which is the 2nd annual soap box derby down the hill into Vliho near Nidre. Some of you may remember me talking about the first such event last year held at the same time but in excellent weather, this year the first two time trials which are used to calculate grid position for the third and final race was in held in light rain which I'm sure must have made the trip even more uncomfortable. I think there were 28 entries this year but unfortunately only 19 made it to the start line, whether this was due to the inclement weather or technical problems with the carts I don't know but bearing in mind that the vehicle has to be constructed for a maximum budget of 50 euros it's probably tight for anyone. The cars have to have at least three wheels and carry two people down a course which is perhaps 2 miles long reaching speeds in excess of 60 KPH in places so they have to be robust, although some of the competitors obviously don't think like this and one machine was made of Dexion which seemed to twist and contort at the slightest excuse. I think the lap record last year was something like 2 minutes 12 seconds but this was beaten by several of the cars this year and I think the fastest car did it in something around 1 minute 50 Seconds which is much faster and there were a few who beat the 2 minute barrier. Our friends from Lefkas Marina entered again this year and with little alteration, other than the addition of extra ballast, to their vehicle managed to knock about 20 seconds off their time finished a creditable 2nd place again same as last year, although the fastest car in the time trials which almost certainly would have won the race crashed on a bend and ended up not finishing. Sandra and I would like to congratulate Maureen and Kevan on their race and also the Vliho yacht club for organising such a splendid event. I should also mention mad Robbie for his excellent entry of an old motorbike and sidecar (unpowered) which although it came last, gave us the best laugh of the day with the Nazi uniforms and machine gun mounted on top.

Monday the weather changed the sun came out and hardly a cloud in the sky since in fact it's been so good we decided that we would try and get our little garden into something like shape starting by laying a path across it to replace the somewhat precarious and wobbly bits of stone squashed into the surface. I borrowed a Mattock/Adz type thing from Jorgos as we have no real gardening tools here and Sandra went to Thesprotiko and bought a Greek style spade with a pointed end and a trowel set and off we started. The rough grass which covers the garden had got to be about 9 inches high and of course we didn't have anything to cut it with so we asked Christos to come with his brush cutter to mow down the thick of it although I've ended up having to tidy it all up with a pair of scissors and a large craft knife - oh well I suppose we have time on our hands! The soil dug out for the path is going back onto the garden to level things out a bit but I don't think it's going to be any oil painting when it's finished but it will be neat and presentable and provide us with a place to get the old barby going which will be a must in the next few days.... I HOPE!