22. Flood, Swelter and Beers.

The bad weather that heralded our return to Greece continued for a few weeks, culminating in a tremendous thunderstorm, which caused widespread landslides in the local area, and flooded our back garden. Our garden is walled all round, and the builders, with a distinct lack of foresight, left only one drainage hole, which couldn't cope with the amount of water cascading off the road. As the level rose during the night it flooded the boiler room underneath the outside stairs and took out our central heating boiler, just at the time when the nights were getting cold enough to need it. Up until then we had been managing with a log fire, but had gotten a little carried away with (unecessary, but very cosy) roaring blazes; quickly reducing our winter stockpile of logs. Fortunately for us, as well as the normal shops in the village, we also have a plumbing/electrical supplier and installer, Thassos, who arrived on the day we rang him and carried out the repair by torchlight!!!

The thunderstorm also signalled the end of the bad weather and within a few days we were enjoying an extended run of warm, sunny days lasting well into the beginning of December. On some afternoons, whilst we were sat on the balcony reading, we were nearly reaching for the suntan lotion!!!! As I write the weather has begun to turn, but the warm spell has certainly shortened our winter.

As Christmas rapidly approaches our social life seems to be gathering pace too. Several meals out with different friends recently have been very enjoyable, and cheap too, as winter prices are now the norm. The highlight of our nights out was undoubtably a party laid on in recognition of the efforts of blood donors from the village. This was attended by the Mayor of Parga and a traditional Greek "band" provided the entertainment. A fund raising raffle of prizes donated by local businesses completed the official events for the evening.

The Greeks need no excuse to enjoy themselves and, as the wine and beer flowed, the dancing began. After a while the Mayor gave a thank you speech for everybodys' support and, switching to halting English thanked the ex pat contingent too. Not content with that, he also said how happy the villagers were to have us living and working amongst them, which was a nice touch; and then promptly invited us all to "Dance with us". Those brave enough accepted the invitaton, those of us who weren't ordered another beer.

The draw for the raffle took place towards the end of the evening and we won a prize which Margaret went off to collect. She returned with what were obviously two large cake boxes tied with ribbon. An inspection of the top box revealed a lovely selection of scrumptious Greek cakes and we shared these out reserving the second box all for ourselves. After an excellent night out we returned home with our remaining box and decided to round off the evening with coffee and a cake. On opening the box we discovered that it didn't contain cakes but BISCUITS!!!!

Still, it could have been worse.

We could have won the 20 litres of sheeps milk that somebody had donated.