A different week...

Brian and Victoria, with Kev and Lu officiating.

Lefkas Shanty singers providing impromptu entertainment.

The weekend got off to a cracking start with Brian and Vicky's engagement party at "The Octopuses  Garden" right here in Lefkas town.  What a great venue with a super setting and best of all there were loads of people who we don't normally get much of a chance to speak to there.  The engagement, actually should really have been a wedding but with her hectic and busy lifestyle Vicky had forgot to get divorced.  So they made vows to each other that sooner or later when the paperwork is completed properly they'll do it all again but this time for real.

 The entertainment came from a hastily arranged choral rendition or two from the Lefkas shanty singers, most of whom were attending and included the male lead for the evening Brian.  They actually did very very well especially considering that their conductor and task master Rosa wasn't at the party to keep them in check.

It's this big... Yeah, right.

A very good evening was had by all just a shame that it started to rain and of course I had left open the boat windows so we had to depart at about eleven o'clock.  We stole the pictures from Facebook, they were taken with a decent camera by Gilly on the night so thanks to her, Brian and Vicky for allowing me to reproduce some of them here.

Saloon finished with new cushions and curtains.

 On Monday we picked up the curtains for the boat which we've had made by Takis at Yacht Shelters, the same people who made a super job of our upholstery.  The old tub is now looking less like a charter boat and more like our home, and we can block out the light now!  We still have some more to do in the cabins but of course I didn't bring enough curtail rail out from the UK so that'll have to wait.

And the starboard side too! 

Tuesday was Oxi (ochi or no day) an important bank holiday in Greece celebrating the refusal of Greece to be annexed by Mussolini and thus the start of Greece's involvement in the second world war in 1940.  As one young Greek guy said to us the other night, Greece is the only country in Europe that celebrates the start of the war rather than the end.

We were due to pick up Jez and Debs from Preveza, but their debacle with flying from Corfu continued.  When they should have gone back to the UK they were on the Ryan air flight which wasn't allowed to land at Corfu and caused quite a furore in the UK press stranding about three hundred people in Corfu.  Well they got a refund and travelled a week later and had a great trip finishing by flying back to Corfu.  The plan was then to get the ferry to Igumenitsa and then a bus to Preveza where we would pick them up.  No one had thought of Oxi day though and the resultant mass mobilisation of Greeks on the public transport network, the bus was packed and they couldn't get on it.  A quick phone call got us on the way to Igoumenitsa to pick them up and now they are safe and sound back on the island.

Today Tony and Liz have set off back to the UK to finalise things with their new house and then of course to furnish and decorate it.  It will be the first time they have set up home together from scratch so we would like to wish them all the luck in the world  and hopefully we'll see you again at some point early in the new year.