Tic tic tic tic.... The olive harvest is on us again.

Well the weather here is still warm currently about seventeen degrees for most of the day and although cool after the sun goes down, it's certainly nothing to complain about.  I guess that it is not quite as good as this back in dear old "Blighty" in fact looking at the news from the UK it looks very blustery at the moment, although I did see this morning on TVAM that they were talking of draught conditions if they didn't get some rain soon in some areas.  This makes me smile, as we have had two small rain periods perhaps amounting to an inch of rain since we returned early September.  There is no talk here of water shortages, the farmers are still irrigating their crops and shock horror, people are still getting washed!  Well most of them anyway.  If a small island in what is currently being rated as a third world country can always have plenty of water, without having to desalinate it, then why can't Britain get it right.

The "Strippers" not quite "The full Monty!"

We had Sunday lunch out this week at the Katougi restaurant in Vafkeri.  Very nice food and great company too.  We had a really great afternoon with Peter and Alison and also with Ray and Linda who just happened to be there as well.  Only just made it back home in time to catch the Grand Prix which would have been a catastrophe!  

Pirouetting over the abyss.

We had arranged over the weekend with Tony, Jez and Debbie, that we would attempt to get Tony's Olives in on Wednesday.  Tony was aquiring some bags and a net and we would arrive tooled up to do the business.  Although there are at least four olive trees on Tony's land this year only one of them has any olives on it and it's laden.  It also needed to have a bit of a haircut so after a little perusing we decided that instead of knocking the olives down into a net we would prune it and take the fruiting branches onto the patio were they could be stripped, riddled and bagged ready for the press.

Mid day break

Lunchtime was home made soup and hunks of bread, delicious.  I think Sandra may have to open a Cafe, her food always seems to go down well with other people.  

Chopping the tree back has at least made it so you can see Lefkas and the marina from the lower balcony.  I did have to leave one long branch however as it was supporting Liz's  washing line and my name might not have been worth much if she couldn't get her washing out when she returns from her trip to the UK, I could blame Tony but she knows it wouldn't have been him that was so severe with the tree.  Guilty as charged!

The end result.

It was very labour intensive work but rewarding and today I'm feeling as stiff as a very stiff thing.  I think we ended up with about forty kilos of Olives off the one tree but as yet I'm not sure how much this equates to in term of the golden nectar that is extra virgin olive oil complete with blood sweat and tears!

Anyway, that's the Lefkas town end of things done next it's on to Pondi tomorrow to start on Deb and Jez's Olives hopefully they will be easier to get at but who cares have saw will travel!

Our neighbours and landlords Tree & Mike arrived home safely this week, although Tree is only home for a week before setting off back to the UK again for a bit of a knees up I think.  Anyway both say they are pleased to be back in the sunshine and we are all pleased to see them here.