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