Did the Earth move for you?...

We have had more than our fair share of rain this week, we must have had several inches over the week perhaps as much as a foot. This means that we have watched quite a bit of television (and also had to repair Yanni's downstairs so he could watch something also).

Picture: Water coming off our roof as it bucketed it down.

We would have watched some films which we had recorded on SKY+ but unfortunately the satellite box hard drive has eaten itself and so we are recorder less, never the less we have quite a few films etc on DVD and on our hard drive on the computer, and there's also television to watch. With the bad weather though this has been affecting Satellite reception too, we have been able to get most sky channels but not ITV etc most of the time.

The good thing about the rain is when it does clear it give us great views of the Amvraticus Gulf from our kitchen window like the one in this picture.


This week we have had a couple of nearly serious disasters. On Saturday we came back from the shops and I parked my car down the north side of the house where I always leave it to keep it in the shade. Just as I was about to get out of the car the retaining wall below collapsed, probably as a result of the rain which left the front left hand wheel hanging over an eight foot drop into the olive groove to the side of us, not a good thing I thought. Luckily I was in the car and sharp enough to get it started again and give it some boot whilst turning the loose wheel into what remained of the stone wall and with four wheel drive it had sufficient grip to pull me clear. The car isn't going back there again!

Picture: This is where the wall fell away, as usual the photo doesn't show much but the rocks at the top left are a good eight feet below that tire track, my wheel was somewhere near the pipe which goes over the edge.


The other potential disaster was on Sunday evening when we had an earthquake followed about forty five minutes later by a couple of aftershocks of about the same magnitude. At first we though the retaining wall at the front of the house had collapsed with the rain but it felt like a truck hitting the side of the house, the strange thing is that you could actually feel the direction it came from. We checked on the earthquake sites on the net which had the details within a fifteen minutes of the quake and it had a magnitude of 4.8 which is fairly small really and was centered near Parga according to the maps on the web site so it was only about twenty miles away if that. A couple of people have said that they felt it in Lefkas but not all and not those afloat at the time, seems that a boat is the safest place to be!

Wednesday was Sandra's Birthday and as the weather forecast gave a fine day we decided to have a ride to Parga for Lunch and then up the coast to Sivota and then to Preveza harbour front for an evening meal. Nice day, great food and a good time had by all.

Picture: Sandra in "Island Bar" in Parga waiting for some liquid refreshment to celebrate her birthday

The forecast is OK for the rest of this week and the weekend so we have but then more rain is coming in for next week so we have decided to make our move to Lefkada a little earlier than planned. It's no good being sat around here while the sun is shining and then move all our goods and chattels next week in the rain getting everything soaked in the process. With this in mind we have put the roof box onto the car put the seats down and got it rammed full of stuff to take to Vounikas tomorrow, we'll then bring back Tree & Mikes trailer and move everything else the day after so we have a busy few days waiting for us.