Why does it always rain on me..........?

Leaving Hull on Sunday......

at sunset.....

........... at quarter past G&T.........!

We have been here in Corfu for just over a week now. We took our time driving down to Venice, stopping over with family as usual on the way. We had 3 days on the road, and it rained & rained & rained & snowed!!!!

Drove past 100's of castles down the Rhine valley........

..... and through clouds and more clouds

The evening we spent with Paul & Milena in Heidelberg was very musical, with Paul & Keith playing guitar ............and Antonia playing beautifully on her flute

Fed and watered....we left Paul’s house on Tuesday morning in light rain and within 10 miles it was heavy rain for virtually the rest of the journey.

Switzerland...rain...snow...and cherry blossom....

Then going through the Alps, just as we were about to enter the St Gottard tunnel, a snow storm blew in; it was an amazing experience, we had considered driving over the pass rather than using the tunnel but the pass was closed due to bad weather so we didn’t have to make that choice.

Italian lakes in all their glory.....

The bad weather continued through Italy,

and when we got to Deborah’s in Milan there was a thunderstorm late in the evening. After a very pleasant evening with the Sannelli family in Milan we set off to Shelia’s and experienced the rush hour traffic around Milan.

Italian drivers have a unique way of driving, they drive at high speed right up to the bumper of the car in front almost pushing them out of the way, then lots of sudden braking and swerving from lane to lane, usually at the last minute before they turn off for their junction, it’s like the “wacky races” and how there are not more serious accidents I do not know.

We arrived at Sheila’s in the Italian Lakes on Wednesday and had a particularly ‘wet’ night!! This time due to lots of wine and an intense wine fuelled debate where we put the world to rights, after which we decided the following day to do some sight seeing and go to Verona for the afternoon.

What an amazing old city with fantastic old buildings and all the stuff you’d expect from a tourist hot spot including a Mc d’s with a “tastefully” different coloured M to be “subtle” in amongst the ancient Roman and Venetian architecture……nice!

There were lots of street artists and things going on for the tourists.

Whilst we where there the heavens opened once again for another downpour and the marble tiled streets became skating rinks and Liz in her flip flops had to cling on to me for dear life at the risk of falling over!

Romeo...Romeo...where for art thou??
........In Macdonalds of course....!!

We escaped the downpour by stitting and eating in a pizza place in the main square and people watched for an hour.

On Friday morning we finally woke up to decent weather as we set off to do the short trip to Venice.

Snow on the Italian Alps on the way to Venice....

What has surprised us so far is the price of fuel! It is more expensive than in the UK; in Holland the average price was 1.34 euros, Germany was about 1.20 euros, and when we drove through the alps the 1st services we stopped at wanted a staggering 1.68 euros per litre, luckily the average price on Corfu this year is just under the euro at .97 cents.

Anyway with a slight detour on route to Venice due to a new stretch of motorway not recognised by the SatNav, we arrived with time to spare for the 24hour ferry crossing to Corfu, unlike some people, who arrived with minutes to spare, the ferry was just about all loaded up and over a 20 minute period just before the doors closed, what seemed like an endless stream of last minute passengers in their cars and trucks had to be fitted on to the ferry;
..with the usual Greek/Italian mayhem and chaos, a British car that arrived at the last minute got loaded on and off 3 times before the job was done.

The trip from Venice to Corfu was largely uneventful,

We had a great cabin this year...

the ferry was fairly quiet, and we felt like real youngsters compared with the average age of the other passengers.

The only drama was that this year with all the smoking ban in Italy and the forthcoming ban in Greece (yep they are gonna try to do it here…This July!!) Liz couldn’t buy any cigs on the boat!!!! Not that she’d planned to stock up with thousands as in previous years, but not a one anywhere on board. This must have caught many people by surprise ‘cos 1st stop on mainland Greece and several people got off whilst the boarding and unloading took place and they ran to the shop at the ferry port and bought some for the remainder of the journey, even some of the crew wizzed over to the shop to buy some!

So we arrived here last Saturday, happy to find our home just as we had left it. We have spent a majority of our first week networking and finding work and catching up with friends. And Keith has managed to do 3 gigs in the first week.

So all is well. Will blog again soon.

"Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter"..

.....Well it’s been months since we last blogged hope you haven’t missed us too much. It’s not because we’ve been lazing around doing nothing since our return last September; on the contrary it’s because it’s been so chaotic. Now as we start to get ready for another summer on the sun-drenched island of Corfu, we thought it was time for an update.

We arrived back in sunny Yorkshire mid September and threw ourselves back into work, Keith went straight back into gigging in the Pubs, and we rounded up the usual suspects to come and support the cause. Including Paul & Milena, all the way from Germany. Paul is seen here passing on the finer points of his Dylan repertoire to Keith!!

We also returned to a new home............ (living with Liz’s son Adam & his girlfriend Amanda). We all very quickly realized though, that house sharing was not for us, we felt as though we were living the student lifestyle all over again! But we made it work for 4 months until we found a place of our own at the end of January.

End of October it was Arwen's first birthday, so she had a Halloween Party (find Keith in this picture?? Ha Ha)

We had a fab December and Christmas; starting when we went to the Officers Christmas ball at Sandhurst with Paddy and Lorraine. A very posh do, with lots of posh nosh and champers!! Christmas involved most of Lizzy’s family; including Siobhan after her gap year traveling round the world, and Sheila who had taken her first winter off for years of being a ski rep; all converged on Helen & Martins house at some point over the festive period. Resulting in impromptu parties and social gatherings on a daily basis! On Christmas Day Pippa tried (in vain) to teach her mum the art of ‘charades’

We collected Gemma and the grandkids from Durham and spent Boxing Day at Keith’s parents with his youngest son Simon.

Phil was still in Thailand but he returned home late January full of tales from his 6 months in the Far East. Even Debbie and Franco (Keith’s sister & family) got over for a pre-Christmas visit.

As Caitlyn's birthday falls between Christmas & New Year we usually go over & do something for her birthday, this year she decided it would be ice skating at Whitley Bay ice rink, as stadiums go it would give Bradford ice rink a run for its money as 'the grottiest public venue', it had a bowling alley upstairs that had seen better days it was like a being in a film set from the 50's but a good time was had by all & we returned to Gemma's for an evening on wii-fit & alcohol.

NYE resulted in Liz having a few anxious days, as news of her daughter Carmel in Oz taking a tumble flew round the internet (via facebook, twitter, skype and the rest)

She spent NYE in hospital with only her laptop for company and high on painkilling drugs, rather than partying as she’d planned, but luckily with physio and a strong heart she has made a speedy recovery.

January and February saw several days of deep snow adding to the bleak mid winter we experienced as we sought to find a home of our own. Then fate took a hand as it does and a chance conversation with a friend of Keith’s saw us move out of the city and relocate to the beautiful countryside on the outskirts of Keighley.

It feels like we have finally found home, a 200 year old stone cottage for the two of us, in a village called Steeton; with 2 pubs 100 yards away, easy commuting distance either by road or rail, to Leeds and Preston for work and family and nights out. Liz managed a sight-seeing trip of the local area on her first train journey home from work. She managed to miss her stop and ended up in Skipton! Not a great start but she got over it and has managed to get off at the right station ever since!

So here we are, it’s Easter, and with spring arriving.......it's the start of the wedding season!? In our village here in Steeton they seem to like to do things differently. Here is a picture of a wedding we spotted a couple of weeks ago

anyway............... our ferries are booked, we’ve contacted all our relatives on route and organized our overnight stops, on our way to Venice for the ferry to Corfu, We will arrive in Corfu on 1st May for the summer season. Keith’s been practicing some new songs for the summer, plus trying to learn all the ones he tried to play last summer. Liz has been trying on her little black dress and organizing her sales pitch ready for selling cd’s to her public. “Here comes the sun…..do do do do …………”

"Two of us riding nowhere........

…..Spending someone's Hard earned pay….”
And now the end is near and we face the long drive home.
It’s been weeks since our last confession, and its not that we had nothing to say it’s just that we were so busy doing stuff with our visitors. Then when everyone went home we just stopped! And did nothing for several days in a daze!

Anyway here is a brief summary and pics of the last 7 weeks

In one crazy week we had 17 family members staying in San Stefanos, some with us (Gemma etc.), others, mainly Helen & Martins family, in apartments just up the road from us, it was a bit like a re- run of the wedding holiday. We managed to fit in a Greek night with dancing, at Manthos Taverna,

some dangerous ball games in the Athina pool and as we had little kids with us, so lots of digging in the sand. Adults only though!! Kids are only there to watch and learn!

We also dragged numerous family members to Keith’s gigs so the bar owners were very happy. It was Adams birthday during that week so a drunken night out in Sidari took place ending in a boozy gig at Napoleons bar

where Keith was playing, then some late night dancing in the Condor till the small hours.. Some of the gang went to Aqualand one day and had an amazing day out (see Caitlyns blog) it was a crazy action packed week.
Helen & Martin & family left and we had a couple more weeks with Gemma & the kids and Adam, who was joined in the second week by Amanda, who missed him so much she came back for another week after she’d gone home.

One of the highlights of the week was hiring a high powered boat for the day; we all piled into the boat and spent lots of time jumping in and out of coves snorkelling (and caught a couple of starfish)

and generally acting like big kids whilst the little kids watched on, although Finley did have a swim in the sea and Arwen threw up in the boat.
We carried on business as usual at night with the gigs, but during the day we walked miles with pushchairs and stuff up and down the hills and across the beaches, Liz has now got ‘buns of steel’ and is in danger of becoming muscle-bound (maybe)

Finally the day came, and on the Monday we said a fond farewell to everybody with 2 trips to the airport and we came home at about 2 in the morning to a very calm peaceful house aaah! and relax!!! As our house quietened down so has the resort and we have had some relaxing days on the beach and chilled out evenings sat on the balcony with a G&T and watching the world go very slowly by.

All summer we have continued to gig constantly 4,5 sometimes 6 gigs a week, even in August, when traditionally Greek bar owners expect their bars to be full without paying out for entertainment, if a gig has been dropped there always seemed to be 2 others who wanted Keith to play at their bar. Also people who saw Keith last year have come back and said hello again, so slowly we are building a reputation just as some of the established artists on the island have.
Keith has been invited to play in jamming sessions with other muso’s on Monday nights in Roda and a couple of weeks ago he was asked to do a gig in Ipsos with a Greek band who we met last year.
Some friends from Preston Julie, Claire & Sarah (all muso’s)

came to Corfu for a week, Clare was keen to do some singing and ended up doing a spot at 3 of Keith ‘s gigs, and got offers of work for next year if she wants it. (That’s how Keith got started). Its been a lot of fun and we have made some great friends and got to know a lot more people through the music this year.

“……You and I have memories

Longer than the road that stretches out ahead…..”

Byeeeeeeeeeee.....x

Schools out for Summer.....(Caitlyn's Blog)

Out for summer.....Out till fall.....We might not go back at all....

Introducing Caitlyn 8yrs old (Keith's Grandaughter) Our first guest writer....

15th July Me, Mum Finley and Arwen got to Grandad and Lizzy’s house ready for our 6 weeks holiday.

Every day we have been going to the Athina pool or on the beach with a packed lunch. Every day is really sunny and we are all going brown.

On the third week the Cockerills arrived at night, then the next day we all met up at the Athena pool. Then at night we went out for a meal and we went Greek dancing.

The next day we went to the beach, and we got some floats for the sea, after we played bat and ball in the sea and we built sand castles.

One day we hired a canoe

At night we had a barbeque at Grandads house and some of us played on the Nintedo Ds. The next day Adam and Amanda arrived and we went out for a meal then after we went to the Acabar I got a cocktail. The next day Adam and Amanda came to are apartment on their bike to say hi

We went to the water park and we went on loads of free falls. We went in the three brothers restaurant for tea.

We went to the gig at the Condor Bar and there was another girl called Caitlyn who stayed in apartments next to us. Every day we look for little old ladies to take pictures of to go on a calendar.
One night we went to a Greek festival there were loads of dancing.

We went to Corfu town to have a bimble and I had a Henna Tattoo done on my back! We went to Sidari to buy me a watch, a bag and a hat.

Then after 6 weeks we had to go home.

Byeeee love from Caitlyn....x

Nizlopi....Lizlopi...the JCB Song......

'..........And the engine rattles my bum like berserk
While we're singin' , 'Don't forget your shovel if you want to go to work!'

Up at the crack of dawn today……. and Liz was about to have an adventure!

Because of the shape and location of the beach at San Stefanos, a couple of times a week several tons of seaweed gets washed onto the shoreline. The local business owners need this moving, so they arrange for a man with a truck and a man with a JCB to come and shift it, early in the morning before the tourists arrive on the beach.

And where does it go? Into a land fill area up the hill behind our house, so at about 7/ 7.30 ish a truck full of seaweed goes past our house every 10 minutes or so for about 2 hours.

Finley loves trucks and tractors but especially JCB’s so he was in heaven when he spotted the activity going on all around where we live.

Liz being a morning person (now) decided that it would be a treat to take him down to the beach at 7am to get close up to the trucks. Gemma said she’d never seen Liz get dressed so fast at the prospect of hanging out with the truckers. And before Gemma could get Arwen and Caitlyn ready Liz was off with Finley to the beach.

As Gemma reached the beach 10 minutes or so later, the truck was coming down the hill past our house having tipped a load of seaweed and who should be in the cab waving to her?? …… Liz and Finley, she can be such a fast mover when she wants to be!
Apparently the two guys with the trucks were so taken with Finley that they let him sit in the JCB as well, he steered the machine and used the controls (on the drivers knee)

whilst it picked up the seaweed, then he suggested that Finley and Liz went in the truck up the hill whilst he unloaded his truck!!!

Liz thought it was a Shirley Valentine moment having misheard the line in the film about a boat and a truck? They all returned about an hour later very happy having had lots of photo opportunities and Liz had her ride in a truck!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGkseGFQLh4&feature=related