"Get your motor runnin' head out on the highway"

There is a strange sense of ground rush (the sensation you get as you are about to land in a plane) During our last 2 weeks here the days are going much faster & the visitors arrive in larger numbers and we have to get ready to make for home.
During our last week here we have had 5 visitors, my friend Lorraine, who stayed with us and Helen, Martin, Paddy and Lorraine who all stayed in an apartment in San Stefanos.

So Keith decided not to do any gigs this week and take our last week off as a holiday and just hang out with them all. We have had such a fab week.

Most days have been spent on the beach or by the pool, only interrupted by having long lazy lunches and visiting our favourite restaurants for dinner in the evenings. We have been showing off all the new friends we have made out here.

On Monday we went to Costa’s in Roda, this is a traditional taverna and Costa has a Faulty Towers approach to his customers and we love it. Half way through the meal, without any warning he suddenly poured some dressing onto Paddy’s fish, luckily Paddy liked the dressing.

On Tuesday we went to one of our favourite restaurants where 3 Greek musicians play great Jazz and chill out stuff

On Wednesday we went to a pizzeria in Sidari, we have been here once a week every week since we got here because it fitted in so well before one of Keith’s gigs. It has a huge wood burning pizza oven and it is incredibly cheap. Lots of Gin & Tonics and loads of Wine and it was still only 10 euros each.

On Thursday we all went for the ultimate fish experience. We went to the restaurant we have mentioned before which you can’t get to by road. So 7 of us got the boat taxi and 15 minutes later, when we arrived’ we were told by a very hot, stressed owner in no uncertain terms that we would not be able to have a table that evening. But as our taxi had already left us we asked him (or should I say Keith & Helen ‘assertively persuaded’ him) if we could all have a drink before we phoned our return taxi.

He eventually came round found us a table & we were treated to a fish feast, whilst Costa plays at faulty towers this guy is the real deal! He glares at you, whilst chewing gum loudly when you are trying to order your food, barks at you if you want salad instead of veg or potatoes instead of fries! Even Paddy said whatever he brings I’ll eat it.
It was worth it!!! The biggest tiger prawns you’ve ever seen and Lobster in Baileys & Metaxa sauce with Spaghetti. Keith had a whole Red Snapper; Paddy& Martin had huge fillets of Red Snapper.

All this & the most amazing uninterrupted view of the sun set. We guzzled wine & beer the taxi came for us at 10.30 in the pitch dark to speed back to the main beach, a bit of skinny-dipping & a nightcap in a local bar then off home to bed. On the last day everyone had different flight times so we ended up just me, Keith & Paddy & we went to an old favourite The Delfino overlooking San Stephanos Bay quality food in an amazing setting, what a way to round up the holiday experience!

We have packed the car and we are ready to get our ferry to Venice at 7 in the morning

"..............Looking for adventure and whatever comes our way"

See you all soon

X

Reggae band in the Veggera bar!

In August much more effort is made to put on entertainment for the locals. Last week, in a beach side bar close to us, called the “Veggera Bar” they provided an amazing Reggae band from Athens.The Veggera bar is one of the coolest places to hang out, it is full of ‘beautiful’ young Greeks, on the beachfront, full of palm trees & umbrellas and at night there is a DJ with the best collection of tunes I have ever seen. This DJ doesn’t do any voice over tracks but any tune you ask for he seems to have it, & the music he plays is a sort of chill out rock, like early Chris Rea & JJ Cale mixed with Morcheba! Things you haven’t heard for years together with tunes you want to find out what they are so you can go out and add it to your ipod collection.

“Global Vibe” are a 7 piece reggae band with drums, bass, 2 guitars, keyboard, percussion & vocalist + a guest trombone player, white guys, some with “dreads” all from Athens but sounded like they came from Kingston Jamaica. They were due to start @ 10 we could hear them sound-checking from our house then @9.45 they started playing so we set off to see them. We didn’t need to rush, as the bar was fairly empty & we got great seats, they played 2 songs then stopped, they were still sound checking! Each of the 7 muso’s in turn asked the sound engineer (Yep they came with the full rig, desk multi-core, lights) for their sound to be raised slightly so they could be heard a bit better in the mix, but of course by the time he got to the last guy, the mix was as it was ½ hour earlier only generally a bit louder.In true muso & Greek fashion, time keeping was not an issue, they eventually ambled on stage @ 10.50 to start the gig, the place filled up & more people were on the beach, with plenty of space to dance.

It was all reggae, early Bob Marley, Toots & the Maytals stuff, some classic Ska songs & some, what I must assume were original Greek reggae songs, but they sung most songs in English with great Jamaican accents. It reminded me of a few years ago, when a crowd of us went to the cavern in Liverpool and saw a German Beatles tribute band, they all sang in English (with scouse accents) announced all the songs in English but when we spoke to them afterwards they didn’t speak any English (a bit bizarre.)Anyway “Global Vibe” were great, fantastic harmony’s, really tight rhythm section & the beach was full of people dancing, we left well before the end & we could still hear them playing from our home when we fell into bed, apparently it went on to the early hours & the band were seen leaving about 3 in the morning.

Chipero club
It would be wrong to call Chipero a drink it is an experience!
Chipero is a spirit, an illegal spirit in the same way that moonshine, raki or pocheen are. It is a mainly Albanian drink but it is also made in the northern mountains of mainland Greece, and arrives in Corfu via the Albanian workers who run bars & do a lot of the low paid manual work that the local Greek population won’t do.
Chipero is made from the residue left from wine making, all the pips, bits of leaves, twigs & unfermented grape juice are placed in a straw lined cauldron, suspended over an open fire, then distilled via a series of copper pipes & tubes leading through a large container of water to cool & aid fermentation. A clear strong liquid is drawn off, usually at least 40% volume & it is drunk neat!!!! It has an unusual smell to it a cross between petrol & the P20 sun cream that Liz uses,And is considered to be the elixir of life to those who know it well, offering apparently no hangovers or aftertaste just a nice warming glow as it goes down.

It is used, all over Corfu, Northern Greece & Albania as a cure for all ailments, as an after dinner shot, a first thing in the morning wake me up, & generally as an excuse for anyone who wants a “cheers” moment. A load of shot glasses are lined up on the bar, filled with chipero, then everyone downs it in one, with the cry of “yamas” & slams the empty glass down on the bar!

The chipero club at the “Tassos” apartments where we are living, is organised by Romeo, the Albania co- owner of the poolside bar, it is a group of old timers, by old timers I mean people who have visited this holiday site for several years & a few newer hangers on.Any time of the day you find chipero being offered up as a shot, but these guys, including a few women (chipero club is not a sexist organisation) drink it in the morning! They convene at the poolside just before 9am everyday, no matter how late they went to bed, and have a piece of cake a coffee & chipero just to start the day.
You can only drink chipero over here, not that it doesn’t travel, like the wine you bought on holiday & when you get it home tastes like cat pee. It’s just that you can’t buy it in the shops; it is kept in large demi-johns or old spirit bottles under bars or in a back room. Some of these chipero drinkers have tried to take it home, in 7up bottles in their suitcases & aroused the suspicions of the airport security people as the bags go through the scanners; it is promptly confiscated, maybe to be drunk later behind the hangers?Sounds an interesting club & I have seen them sat there with cake coffee & a silly grin, unfortunately we are never up early enough, to join in but I think my liver & kidneys are all the better for missing the experience.

Yamas!!!

Out and About, Creatures and More Amusing Signs

It’s nearly 2½ months since we arrived here & it’s still amazing & amusing to see so many contrasting things as we are out & about. Liz has had a fascination for trying to sight an old man on a donkey, something we used to see quite often when we first came to Corfu several years ago, and so she was very excited when we spotted one on the road from Roda to Sidari. It was several weeks before we spotted him again when we had a camera in the car, & we managed to get a couple of shots for posterity. I imagine when he has gone, the tradition of using a donkey for transport will not pass on to subsequent generations!

And we found the old couple in the mountain village selling home made honey, wine, olives and olive oil. We had bought honey from them years ago when the old guy slapped Liz on the bum, Liz insisted we stopped again to buy some honey & olives, he got quite excited when we asked him to pose for a photo & he managed to keep his hands to himself this time! She is now on the lookout for little old ladies, in traditional Corfiot dress, including headscarf and no teeth, (think she’s looking for a role model for future years?)

Also unique to these parts is the 3 wheeler truck, the engine is a cross between a motorcycle & a sit-on lawnmower. I often think this would be fun to own, to go to gigs in with my entire PA in the back but as it’s a single-seater cab so Liz would have to travel with the baggage as well! Mmnn!!

The wild life is not as obvious as you would first think, no foxes, rabbits or hedgehogs (although rabbit is on sale in all the butchers) & yesterday Helen saw a hedgehog crossing the road near our villa, moving about the same speed as a tourist, all the cars stopped for it (which is more than they do for the tourists). We have bright green tree frogs where we are staying, you hear them bleeping in the night like a car alarm on standby, we actually found one on the wall of our house one night.

We had lunch in Paramonas, on the west coast yesterday after a drive down to the south. This is largely a German resort, where last year, Keith famously ordered a Greek coffee after his meal and stirred it and drained the last drop which was like drinking sand off the beach mixed with tar! Not recommended! This time we managed to spot a very rare creature, not often seen on this Island, emerging from the sea onto a beach full of semi clad tourists. It was a man in a full wet suit. We half expected him to unzip the suit and step out in a full dinner suit 007 style.

One evening we came home to find a bat resting on our doorstep below the shutters, it resisted most attempts to move it, finally clinging onto the sole of a flip flop offered to it as a substitute branch, we left it in the grass next the house after posing for photos with us, & in the morning it was gone. The cig packet does not belong to the bat, we put it there to show you how small the bat is.

We do have an abundance of small lizards (geckos), which seem to be the staple diet of the local cat population, although they do scrounge from the holiday- makers when they can. There is also a stray dog issue in Corfu, wherever you go you see unkempt, scraggy looking mutts, a local rescue organisation exists but the number of dogs on the streets seems to be growing.

We try and wait to eat dinner after sunset (about 9pm) so that wasps do not attack us throughout our meal. We end up constantly wafting them away and looking like a bizarre Morris dancing troupe. But then as soon as the sun sets you have the Mosquitoes to deal with, and the whole ritual of lighting citronella candles and incense burners and spraying yourself all over with mosiguard, so you end up smelling like a cross between an old peoples home and an old donkey!! You have to be very vigilant out here not to leave anything around that could attract ants; they instantly appear for the slightest crumb. You find yourself constantly sweeping the balconies and verandas. (Liz in her black dress again) She is enjoying it so much I think we’ll sell the Dyson & buy her a “Ewbank” sweeper (readers under 30 check Google for a description of what a Ewbank is).

When you are driving around the Island and see this on the roadside it makes you feel a lot safer......

Here are a couple more endearing signs.............

Bye for now x

Sam-n-Nellie & other visitors

Visitors are like buses, you don’t get any for several weeks then 2 lots arrive within days!Sam and her friend Lilly landed in Corfu at 7am Monday morning, from Athens. They have been Island hopping for the last few weeks and they are going to spend 2 weeks in Corfu. After spending 3 nights at our house in Acharavi, they have managed to get a room in the Athena Hotel in St Stefano for 4 nights, and as they move to The Athena, Helen & Martin arrive for 2 weeks, an allocation on arrival package with Acharavi as the preferred destination. (They get the outskirts of Sidari 10 miles away!)After visiting their apartments at midnight we decide that they should stay with us and see if they can swap to a nearer apartment to us, or let Sammie & Lil’ take up the Sidari apartment when they have to leave The Athena.

In the morning Martin weighed up the options, stay in Sidari with its all night bars & clubs, foam parties & wet T-Shirt competitions, or stay in Acharavi with us, on a camp bed in our spare room? With maybe a bit of influence from Helen they decided to stay with us for the duration! So Sam n Lil got to party in Sidari for 4 nights & everyone was happy!

We are managing to fit in plenty of socialising around Keith’s gigs (4 x 2 hour gigs a week). All 6 of us went to Corfu town on Tuesday night & despite all the amazing shopping opportunities & designer clothes shops the only purchase made was some baklava for Liz.

We ended the evening with a beautiful meal in a square behind the cathedral, although in typical Greek style the service was slow, the 1st of the 6 meals arriving 20 minutes before Keith & Martins steaks finally arrived, 1½ hours after we sat down in the restaurant! But there was plenty of activity in the square, including some Greek dancers all in traditional costumes and there were lots of great people watching opportunities.

We had a wonderful day on Friday. After finding Sammie n Lil an apartment in San Stefano for their last 3 nights in Corfu, we dropped them off and the four of us spent the afternoon on the beach. Then at 6pm we went to Agios Georgios and got a boat taxi to a very remote fish restaurant not accessible by road. We had a huge platter of fish and king prawns and lots of wine and watched yet another beautiful sunset.

By the time the boat taxi came to collect us it was dusk, which was a fantastic sensation speeding across the sea when it was nearing darkness.

It’s great to have Helen and Martin over here with us; we are doing lots of exploring, lots of chilling on the beaches, lots of eating in restaurants and lots of drinking of wine. It’s just perfect really.

Don’t know how much longer we can stand this sort of pace of life though? We keep having to pinch ourselves to make sure we are not dreaming.
Only 3 more weeks to go until we sail back to Venice.