Tourists are thinning....

Being Spied on by a donkey. 

 As the weather is now cooling and the tourist season is drawing to close things are beginning to return to normality here on Lefkada.  The traffic levels are returning to their normal unhurried best and the only thing to watch out for is the Greek drivers.  When the tourist are here you see all kinds of stupid things happening with people driving on the wrong side of the road and people on hired motorbikes who have never ridden one for years and look decidedly unsafe.  But now the peace and tranquillity of the island is returning until next May.

The view over Vournikas.

Sandra has now decided that after all this time here in Vournikas we should take a little more exercise, we used to do a lot of walking when we lived on the mainland but since moving here we just have never found the time.  With this in mind we set off the other afternoon to walk down the road behind our house which leads to Fterno at the other side of the hill behind us.  You get spectacular views from the road and there seems to be a permanent katabatic wind (from the Greek katabatikos (going downhill))  which keeps you cool.

Sandra in walking mode.

The track leads around the mountainside and from one side you can see the whole of Vasiliki bay and over Sivros and Vournikas and from the other you overlook the village of Fterno and the Island of Meganisi.

On route we had a curious Donkey which seemed to be keeping an eye on us, but this was probably because some friends of Liz's had been staying in the house next door for a couple of weeks and going up there armed with buns and carrots to feed him.  He probably thought we had food parcels to share as well but unfortunately no!  I am a Yorkshireman after all!

View over Fterno overlooking Meganisi.

Tony and I watching the rugby.

 We Spent last Saturday watching the Rugby world cup on TV, it's nice to still be able to get some sport while we are out here.  Just over a week ago I nearly was ready to pack up and come home because the BBC have altered their transmission transponders on the satellite and now we cannot get the BBC News channel and thus no red button access to the sports coverage

 Formula 1, Snooker, Football etc.
After a couple of days I discovered that the video streams are being sent out for the red button coverage on a few obscure frequencies which you can see through the add channels function on you decoder.  If anyone wants to know how get in touch, I've already sorted several people out.

Vasiliki bay this morning.

I have started to do some work around the garden now that all the visitors have left, you don't want to disturb their holidays after all, or is it that I'm looking for an excuse to do "nowt"!  Anyway much of last years branches that were pruned from the trees were put down a gully at the side of the drive to dry off and be usable as firewood this coming winter.  I've started dragging these out and chopping them up into usable sized bits.  Unfortunately because I haven't been doing anything physical for months my hands are now blistered and I'll have to rest up for a couple of days before doing some more :-)

This morning we have a a lovely little walk around Vasiliki stopping for a coffee here, a pita gyros there, ahhh this is the life...