"Wild Night"

................................................. Thelma & Louise

“The Wild night is calling
All the girls walk by, dressed up for each other
And the boys do the boogie woogie, on the corner of the street
And the people passing by just stare in wild wonder, yeah
And inside the jukebox roars just like thunder”


August is so different here compared to the rest of the season. It’s Hot, hot, hot, too hot! The island is in a blaze of heat and sunshine, and whilst the sea breeze is soothing on the beaches, it can feel a bit like a fan-assisted oven sometimes! The temperature has really changed, the days are hotter but shorter and the evenings are really warm and sticky. The landscape is not as green, there are a lot less flowers, and everywhere has become dustier.

And busy, busy, busy….. This is the 4th month of the tourist season and the bar and restaurant owners have become frazzled. The atmosphere generally is not as chilled as the rest of the season. Usually everyone is frazzled due to overwork and too many late nights, but this year it’s been compounded by the lack of tourists, lack of spending and the lack of any real income from the season! Traditionally the bars have dropped the live music in their bars in August because the punters are coming in anyway but not this season. They are all being so affected by the current economic climate. Therefore Keith is still doing 6 gigs a week (so we are getting frazzled too!!)

the empty beach early in the season

The beaches are a lot more crowded, including more Greek families. We often sit on our fold away chairs on the beach; watching the world go by and the Greek families usually provide us with great entertainment. The way they park on the beach is hilarious, double parking is almost compulsory and they bring everything but the kitchen sink with them; all shapes and sizes of sun beds and elaborate parasols and tents, radios, cool boxes and the all essential bat and ball games! They are masters of outdoor living!

The same view of our beach in August
The roads are full of transfer coaches, hired cars and scooters and Italians!! They come to Corfu in August in their 100’s. And the visitors in our annex apartment were no exception! Eleonora (Keith’s niece) and her friend Venessa (aka Thelma & Louise); arrived in Corfu on the Venice ferry for a 2 week vacation/road trip! Their little ford fiesta was loaded to the gills with supplies of food and clothes and of course lots of shoes!! If all the Italian tourists arrive here as well stocked up as this, it’s no wonder the locals class them as ‘poor spenders’, cos you name it…. they had it, food, drinks, toilet rolls and lots and lots and lots of pasta!!!!!!

They soon settled in and from a quiet beginning of just going down to the beach,

..............in a beach taverna

and having dinner on the balcony and sometimes coming to Keith’s gigs they soon spread their wings and ventured into the night in Sidari. They explored the clubs and bars arriving home just before dawn like vampires, having left a trail of lovesick puppies in their wake!!!

It was the same when they had a day out in Paleo (with Liz as chaperone.)

the harbour in paleo

Paleokastritsa is a traditional Italian holiday destination on Corfu and full of beautiful people. So Liz was dispatched to a beach side taverna to spend a couple of hours, drinking frappe and people watching from afar, whilst the girls sunbathed on the beach and swatted off the speedo clad masses with supreme ease.

It was astonishing to watch the young Greek/ Italian and English boys fall over themselves just to take a second look, on the beach, in the street and in the bars, it was always the same!! But the girls didn’t seem to notice; they were more interested in buying shoes or sampling elaborate cocktails.

a lunch in corfu town

Over the years we have met lots of people who have told us about mishaps they have had with hired cars on the island, mainly burst tyres or going off the road or hitting potholes but we must say this has never happened to us (yet!) So as part of our induction to the island we warned Thelma & Louise about potholes in the road, oncoming coaches and motor bikes. But what we didn’t say was don’t run over the edge of pavements in Sidari!! So guess what? They accidently ran over a pavement, and got a puncture right in the middle of the main Sidari strip of bars @ 2am in the morning!!!
So being the enterprising, good looking, Italian girls that they are, they got a local man and his son to change the wheel for them! He was out picking up his teenage daughters from the nightclub opposite, so when the daughters noticed the girls’ plight, they persuaded their dad to help change the wheel and the local girls disappeared back into the nightclub! Much to the irritation of their dad who’d had a struggle getting them out of there in the first place!!!!

With the wheel fixed they made their way back to base and the following day we arranged for the tyre to be changed at a local garage. And with a smile and a wink from the girls the price was dropped from 80 euros to 20! It was a bit like a scene from one of those ZZ top videos in the 90’s (Legs!)
On the middle Sunday of their stay a beach party was advertised for our beach in San Stef. Live bands & a DJ, starting at 6pm sounded a good idea and although Keith was working we said we would get back to see the end of it. On the day not much seemed to be happening, they’d organised the bar and oil barrels as tables but no sign of a stage or electrics etc.
Then at 7pm using the local speedboat and JCB, a spare pontoon was dragged from the corner of the beach to become the stage

The stage arrives

and in ‘Greek time’, a generator, lights, band gear and BBQ all arrived and were set up. It all started close to midnight and at 1am when we returned a local trash metal band was in full flow playing Pink Floyd covers and some original material (quite well as it turned out). At 1.30am the DJ took over to play dance music and bass and drum stuff, we left about 2.30am and went to be bed but the party continued till 5.30am with our windows rattling away from the bass sound ½ mile away!

the band on the beach

The 2 weeks rapidly drew to a close and we got up at 4.30am to accompany Thelma & Louise to the ferry port for their return trip. The night before Keith had played locally at the Athens bar, we escaped there at about 1.30am and with the ferry due out at 7am we left home at 5am to get to the port on time, but as we passed the Athens bar, it was packed and still going strong with drinkers, tourist & locals alike.
We waited till the girls drove onto the ferry before returning home. It was so nice to drive through Corfu town at that time of the day with the sun coming up and the town just starting to come alive without all the noise and ‘caffuffel’ of the usual daily routine.

on their last day soaking up the sun
“…..And everything looks so complete,
when you’re walkin down on the streets
And the wind catches your feet, sets you flyin', cryin'…..”

.........they are missed so much, someone has built a memorial to them on the spot where they sunbathed everyday!

"Tempted"

“…I bought a toothbrush, some toothpaste,
a flannel for my face
Pajamas, a hairbrush, new shoes and a case.
I said to my reflection,
Let's get out of this place….”

When we first planned to come back to Corfu this year, we extended an invitation to a huge list of friends and family to come and stay with us for a week or 2 of rest, relaxation, rock hard beds, over indulgence, stomach upsets, sunburn and mosquito bites……….and apart from our family visitors, so far only one of our friends has been ‘tempted’ to come over. Jules arrived on her own last Friday for her ‘Shirley Valentine’ experience.
............Jules finds a stoney faced companion......"Hello Rock"

a selection of "Jules"...Shirley Valentine moments! " hello shoes"

In an action packed week, we tried to tick as many boxes for her as possible, with trips to Corfu Town, Mouse Island, Afianos (our local Greek theme park village!), lots of bars and tavernas; a BBQ on our balcony and of course Keith’s gigs, where Jules made 2 guest appearances, which delighted the punters.

Jules & Keith "rock" the Athens bar

Jules is an experienced biker; she has a full licence and owns a bike in the UK. So we hired bikes and had a fantastic day out exploring the North of the Island.

........... Biker Chicks!

We collected the bikes and the first stop was to get fuel, but as we left the garage forecourt Jules set off first and proceeded to drive on the left!!!!! Liz frantically shouted and blew her horn until Jules eventually realised what was wrong. A worrying start to the day! We had a final destination in mind…… The 3 Brothers restaurant on Astrakari beach (where else would you go for a “Shirley Valentine “ meal)

...so with Keith leading the way we visited or drove through every village in a 20 mile radius of home ending with the letters “des” Kavadades, Magoulades, Armenades, Rachtades, Karousades and Velonades (where we got married - 3rd August 2005)

Above, the wedding day and now 4 years later

& Agrafi !!!! (Well there had to be one odd one that didn’t end in ‘des’)

As we drove through Armenades, Keith spotted a tortoise in the road just close to a tight bend, he slowed down to show us and we pulled up to take a closer look. Liz decided she would pick the tortoise up and move it to the road side, where it would be safer, but in the time it took to stop the bike put it on its stand and walk over to the little jaywalker, a local man on his bike sped around the corner and hit the tortoise, which sent our little friend flying! It ended up spinning around, upside down in the road, amid screams of shock ‘n’ horror from the girls. Liz picked up her new friend and placed it gently on the roadside to the sound of hissing and spitting (…from the tortoise I think?) and we drove off…..shell-shocked!

At Agrafi we accidentally did a little ‘off roading’; where Keith followed a road sign instead of his sense of direction and we ended up down a dirt track and into a field of corn. We turned around and made our way back to the road through a track full of huge bamboo plants and onto our destination, where the lunch was as expected, with quality sea food and eye candy for the girls.

But the highlight this week was the day we all went to see Eric Burden and the Animals (yep he’s still alive) in Corfu town at the old fort!!

With Jules and our friends Bob and Bev, who live just up the road from us in Avliotes.

Bob & Bev

We’d tried to by tickets in advance but to no avail, so it meant get there early have some food in town then go to the gig and pay on the door. Not knowing what Greek security would be like at the venue, and being seasoned outdoor concertgoers, we decided to take our own ‘disguised’ drinks with us. We had 4x500ml water bottles; one filled with Ouzo; two with Gin & Tonic and the other with water to mix with the Ouzo!!! We needn’t have bothered as no one checked bags or anything all we did was save money on the bar in the arena.

This was the most beautiful venue, in the grounds of the old fortress and with the church as the backdrop to the stage overlooking the sea front,
lit up with various coloured spotlights; it was the perfect setting for an evening of live music.

note the empty space between the front row and the stage ....soon to be filled!!

However, whether it was local organising or Eric’s rock star persona, the concert that should’ve started at 9pm still hadn’t started by 10pm! And with no support act, even the locals were getting restless. With lots of slow handclapping and whistles echoing around we were eventually told it would start in 5 mins. A seating arrangement of plastic chairs in front of the stage had quietly filled up during the wait for the gig to start with 300 chairs;

But by now a crowd of over 1000 people had gathered and chairs were being jealously guarded and it became like musical chairs if one was left unattended for any length of time. The front row of chairs was a discreet 30 feet away from the front of the stage, far enough back to allow the people sat there to see above the raised stage.

But as the music started all the people lingering around at the back without seats moved forward to make this space a “mosh pit” and as Eric Burdon & the animals came on stage, any hope of sitting down to watch the band disappeared.

The band was good, none of the original Animals though, just some very good session musicians, Keith reckoned that the drummer was the same one we’d seen with Crowded House last year. Eric Burdon looked great, with a shock of white/blond hair, more than he had in the 60’s and looking very cool in his shades, which disguised the fact that he is probably in his late 60’s now! They played all the hits including of course “House of the rising sun” ..................which made the crowd all sing along, it was a short set just over an hour, plus the encore with “We gotta get out of this place” which was preceded by a spectacular drum solo, and as the band came back on stage, one by one each one solo’d; 15 mins later it was all over, it was an event worth going to as a spectacle not sure if any of us would pay 25euros to see Eric Burdon again but we all agreed it had been a good night out!

And to round the week off we all piled in the car to Corfu town for a last minute shop, sightsee and to meet Keith’s niece Eleanora and her friend Vanessa who arrived on the Venice/Corfu ferry to stay with us for 2 weeks!!

................................Thelma & Louise Arrive

“We gotta get out of this place

If it's the last thing we ever do

We gotta get out of this place Girl,

there's a better life for me and you”

Eric Burdon