Every Day's an Endless Stream of Cigarettes and Magazines........

............................ Now Helen and Martin are here!

Corfu Flora (as promised)

Electrical Storms
Our 3rd week in Corfu started with a bang, well several of them in fact, we had a couple of spectacular electrical storms. From the lookout point on our balcony, on the edge of the bay, you could see the storms roll in over the village an hour before they landed. In particular, on Saturday, as Keith was leaving to set up for his gig at the Condor in San Stefanos, the sky turned black, the sea turned an amazing turquoise colour and then the whole sky lit up with fork and sheet lightening for about an hour. We managed to unload all the equipment into the venue just as the rain came down, the road became a river and we were trapped for about 40 mins in the bar, so we had to have a G&T while we waited for the storm to clear. The whole storm lasted about 2 hours and just cleared in time for the gig to start at 9.30pm.

Strikes and picket lines Greek style
On Friday we collected Helen and Martin from the airport. When we arrived there seemed to be more than the usual chaos, only 2 or 3 coaches in the pick up area with long queues of people waiting around. All the Thompson staff were doing what they do best, walking around with clipboards putting people into queues in the blazing sunshine. We discovered that there was in fact a coach driver’s strike and we had driven through a picket line to get to the arrivals area. The strike was just employee drivers only; only the owner-drivers were ok to pick up for the holiday companies. The airport was chaotic with huge queues at the taxi rank, the taxis had inflated their prices to maximise profits and everyone was very fraught. Apparently the only way the tour companies could get people from the resort to the airport was to bus them to the nearest port (in the north that would be Kassiopi) and then boat them to Corfu town harbour and then either taxi or mini bus to the airport.
Our route across the top to Arillas

Sunday morning walk over the hill to Arillas
Helen woke up on Sunday morning with a bright idea, whilst the temperatures are not so hot (25 degrees) “why don’t we walk over the hill to Arillas!” I don’t know who was more surprised when she suggested it? Us or Helen when we all agreed that we should do it.
It took us about 45 minutes to get up the hill and along the headland and down to Arillas with some fantastic views of both bays from the top of the hill and many photo opportunities. It gave us a different perspective of our village and where places lay in relation to where we are staying. A nice leisurely lunch in a taverna in Arillas with wine…… then all we had to do was walk back over the hill to home!! An hour later and with a few sore leg muscles, we arrived back in San Stef. Had a quick swim in the Athina pool to ease the muscles, then a siesta (it’s a hard life)
View of San Stefanos on our walk

Emergency Modification to PA Equipment
Many of you will know that Keith invested in a state of the art P.A. system a few months ago, the sound quality is amazing, plus its small, light weight and easy to set up and dismantle and even Liz gets involved in packing it all away at gigs. As you can imagine being a BOSE system it wasn’t cheap, so it was more than a bit irritating when a pin that holds the clip, that holds the mixer, that fastens onto the mic stand, that helps Keith make it sound sooo fantastic! Broke!!!!
The only thing left to do was to borrow a safety pin from Helen, and replace the broken pin and it worked !!!!! (see piccy). Keith will be contacting Mr Bose on his return to the UK, Helen wants to patent the modification. (Not sure what is holding up her knickers now though?)
See the safety pin holding the desk onto the stand

“Keiths a lot more confident now?”
As you can imagine now that our drinking buddies have arrived, the alcohol consumption has increased a bit, which also means the mindless chatter of Keith & Martin has started. The other night, after a gig, Martin spent a good 1 ½ hours debating (mainly with himself), how the new P.A. system has increased Keith’s confidence! “Is it the system?” “Is he more confident?” “He wasn’t like that last year!” It was like having a tape loop running. Needless to say it has become a catchphrase for the summer!
Keith P.A. all set up for a gig

2 Gigs in one day
This Tuesday (tritti) Keith managed to do 2 gigs in one day! The 1st was on the beach in Sidari at the “Seamonkey’s” Bar, 2pm till 4pm and the next one was also in Sidari at “One For The Road” where he played last year, this was 10pm till 12. Two very contrasting gigs both equally enjoyable, Keith thinks he played over 30 songs at each of the 2 hour gigs and he worked out he played 47 different songs (anorak!) he even remembered most of the words as well!!
More Flora

Martin’s office
Martin got a bit giddy when he found out he could get access to the internet on our balcony and at the Athina Pool side. So the first chance he got we went armed with books ipods & suntan cream down to the pool and Martin set up his office. Because of the glaring sun he had to improvise and put a cover on so he could see the screen, so here is a picture of martin working hard in his office by the pool. Good to see he’s not taking too much time out from the world of high finance.

Martin by the pool on his laptop

Sitting in the morning sun.........

........... Waiting for the evening to come...

We have settled back into the Greek way of life really easily, it’s as if we have never been away. We have been here for 12 days now and Keith has already done 5 gigs. A couple are the same ones as last year but 3 have been in large restaurants in the Centre of Sidari. Playing to the diners from 7.30 to 9.30pm with free dinner for us both thrown in. Then we still have the rest of the evening left to go out, which is nice!

Keiths first gig this year
Beach bar Gig
Today’s gig was in a bar on the beach in Sidari (the Sea-Monkey) from 2pm till 4pm. In the morning the weather was a bit indifferent, it started off with rain and as we set off for Sidari it was very cloudy, so we set out with no sun block or lotions, Liz even thought about taking an umbrella. We set up in the garden on the beach of this bar, under a tree for shelter (mainly from the rain), then 10 minutes into the gig the sun came out, we misjudged the projectory of the sun completely and Keith spent the next 2 hours in full sun, playing guitar!!!!! It was a fun gig though; great audience reaction and we sold 6 Cd’s. Keith had a few problems keeping eye contact with the audience, as several of the 40 something women decided to sun bathe topless right in front of him, he said there was more flesh on show than a night out in Newcastle!!!!
The Beach Bar Gig
Greek workmen
When we’d been in the house about a week we heard a crashing noise, followed by the sound of running water, the toilet cistern had fallen off the wall, one of the problems with living this close to the sea is that all things metal corrode very quickly, so the screws holding the cistern to the wall had rotted. Anyway we told Stefano, our landlord, about the problem and he quickly arranged for a plumber to call.
We were just about to go out the following day when this tall hunky bloke with long blonde hair, in dungaree’s turned up and said in a B movie voice “ello I’m coming here to fix your plumbing” Liz was a bit too quick to suggest I went ahead down to the beach because she didn’t mind following on when the plumber had finished. (Yeh right)
Been catching up on lots of people we met last year
Once we got here we set about networking with people we met and or worked with last year. During the winter it would appear all sorts of fall outs have occurred, so many of the Greek bar owners have either disappeared or fallen out with the brother that they were in partnership with last year. One example is the Thallasos Restaurant in Arillas where we had many fab nights last year, Yannis the good looking long haired brother has quit the business run by his brother and his wife, and he is now working as a tiler; (Liz now wants to renovate property over here mainly with lots of plumbing and tiling.) We also caught up with “Chips” in Roda; Darren May and Groucho (2 fellow muso’s) and Mick and his wife Helen who used to run the Sundowners bar in San Stef. And our friends at The Waves Restaurant and The Athina Hotel are all well. All seem to be making ends meet in their own way. We also went to The Roda Tavern and had a great meal and chat with Costas and his wife Voula, (who is expecting another baby in the Autumn). It is great to be back amongst our extended circle of friends.
View of Waves Restaurant and Athina Hotel from our balcony
Shopping for local produce and cooking in our new slow cooker
One of the purchases we made before we set off to Corfu this year was a slow cooker. (I think only people of a certain age can get excited about such an event?) We can sort out a meal in the morning, usually a Greek dish like pastistada or klefitico, put all the ingredients in and 6 hours later when we return from the beach we have a great meal waiting for us. We are really enjoying finding little farm shops and buying locally grown products. It really does make a huge difference to the quality and colour and flavour. (Next thing you know Keith will be getting an allotment!!)
Out and about looking for flowers
Skyping from our balcony using the wireless Internet from our local taverna
In the last couple of days we have discovered that after 10 at night we can get wireless Internet from our balcony accessed from the Condor Bar ¾ of a mile away. So we have been merrily ‘chatting’ away using Skype to Helen, Martin, Paddy, Lorraine, Gemma, Sheila and Katarina Liz also got on line by the pool at the Athina Hotel (although you may ask, what kind of saddo takes their laptop to the pool?) Liz does !!!!!!

On T'internet on T'balcony

On T'internet by T'pool

Keith jogging on the beach
We find when we are living here; there are aspects of our life style that are very different from in the UK. Obviously it is very ‘outdoor’ here but we tend to feel a lot fitter because we walk more instead of using the car and we are swimming every day. In the first few days Keith even went out every morning and jogged the full length of the San Stef beach and back, this has tailed off a bit now as the Ouzo nights and excess gigging have kicked in. We needed to burn off the calories because on Friday Helen & Martin arrive, so then we will be back to our usual excessive ways.
First (and only?) sunset photo
Keith collecting pictures of flowers (beats the usual 100 shots of the sunsets)
This year instead of sunsets and silly signs I’ve persuaded Keith to photograph some other aspects of life in Corfu and at this time of year the whole island is in bloom and very green. We are not sure what all the plants are called but the smells and the colours are amazing, something you don’t get in the height of summer as everything is fried to a crisp by then. We will post some photos of them over the next few weeks.
Flora
Locations of gigs so far
Tuesday “Sea monkey” in Sidari 2-4
Wednesday “Smugglers” Sidari 10- 12
Thursday “Calypso” Sidari 7.30 - 9.30
Friday “Madison’s” Sidari 8-10
Saturday “Condor Bar“San Stefano 10-12
Sunday “Calypso” Sidari 7.30-9.30

Hope it is not too rainy in the UK! Love to you all.


Local produce "Yamass!"