"Pulling mussels from a shell"

......."They do it down on camber sands
They do it at Waikiki
Lazing about the beach all day,
At night the crickets creepy
Squinting faces at the sky
A Harold Robbins paperback
Surfers drop their boards and dry
And everybody wants a hat"

Phew! August is over and the end of the silly season!
We have had a deluge of visitors, just as Ele and Vanessa left………….. Do, Dan, Paul, Milena and Family arrived and then Gemma and the kids. One warm barmy evening, when our friends Bob and Bev popped round on their way home from work, we were throwing a BBQ and it resulted in 14 of us all on the balcony, eating, drinking and partying.


We enjoyed doing the usual sightseeing duties, and took Do and Dan to Kassiopi, then up to the Monastery on the mountain ........and then to one of Do’s favourite restaurants in Strinilas under the old Elm tree,
also a fish treat for Dan at the Three Brothers in Astrakari. Liz took them for a day out to Paleokstritsa for a browse round the monastery there, and then lunch in a village on the way home, away from the hustle and bustle of the tourist beaten track.

It really highlights different aspects of the environment here when we have visitors because obviously everyone’s needs and experiences are unique. From Liz’s Mum who is 80 next year to Arwen who will be 2 in October. There are challenges and issues every time we set foot out of our door.
Because, whilst the Greeks are very clearly, family orientated, they have no concept of good old British ‘health and safety’. Everywhere you go there are uneven steps with no handrails, or hand rails 3 feet high and nothing beneath them to stop toddlers falling off the cliff, unfinished roads, pot holes so deep you could hide in them, or great big ridges of concrete, left where a cement mixer had dribbled the last drops of its load onto the road surface, there are very few pavements and of course pedestrian crossings, painted on the road are “just for decoration”, there is at least one bar we know has a children’s playground right on the road side with a fence to separate the children from the bar area, but no gate to stop little ones running straight onto the road!
But whilst this is a challenging environment for my Mum, she felt as though she had stayed on a health farm by the time she left. She swam in the sea or the pool every day and did her exercises
And we managed to do quite a lot of walking. This is a very hilly island, so everywhere you walk is pretty demanding. Also the heat wave we have waited for all season has now arrived so it is very hot ‘n’ sticky both day and night. Paul and family arrived on the overnight ferry from Brindise at 5am, they were staying in the nearby village of Afionas, so we drove over at 8am to say hello and have breakfast with them. This is a great time of day to spot locals doing local things and we were not disappointed, there was a great photo opportunity for Keith with a little old lady and her donkey! We met Paul ‘n’ family, checked out their apartment, then drove down to the bay below (Agios Georgios) for food. We found a taverna on the sea front that offered full breakfast at a reasonable price; so 7 full fry-ups were ordered. Agios Georgios is a more cosmopolitan resort than San Stefanos, and they cater for more German, Italian and Dutch taste, so when the breakfast arrived it was eggs, English bacon, brockvorst, tomatoes and mushrooms!! Perfect start to a perfect Greek experience! Agios Georgios is a deep water bay, great for swimming straight off the shore and ideal for snorkelling, and perfect for sailing. We returned the following day, the sea was as expected, much colder than San stef, as it is a very enclosed bay and deep water but we all had a great swim, with Dan, Liam and Keith challenging each other to swim around the yachts moored in the bay. The sand here is very gritty and soft so sandcastles are out of the question and getting in and out of the water proved to be a challenge for those of us less agile, although Liam and Antonia were on hand to help the stranded onto the shore.

We had a family meal in a restaurant on netural ground between Arillas and Afionas, a taverna called the Night Owl. Which did not include a lot of the typical Greek oven dishes but was all charcoal grilled stuff, with some nice specialities of octopus stuffed calamari and souvalaki plus lots of local wine and Retsina, which I must confess we are starting to get a liking for. We all piled back to Paul’s apartment for a quick nightcap and a really sweet flute recital by Antonia, then home for a last ouzo on our balcony before bed. Paul and Milena walked over to our resort a few times and when Gemma and the kids arrived, a great inter family rapport developed. Caitlyn and Antonia played together in and out of the Athina pool; Liam mixed his time between playing with the girls and keeping Finley occupied. Leaving us adults to chill either by the pool, or on the beach and able to swim in peace in the increasingly calm and very warm sea.
Paul was persuaded by the older children that it would be ‘fun’ to hire a pedalo; so he was duly dispatched to cost it out; the deal was done and Paul, Liam, Caitlyn and Antonia set sail in a very choppy sea for an hour. They didn’t get very far but had fun taking it in turns to slide into the water and generally fool around 100 metres off shore, whilst Paul bailed the water out with his hat! One afternoon, Paul, Milena, Keith, Liz, Liam and Antonia decide to take a long walk to the far end of San Stef beach (yep, the bit where people take their clothes off)
As soon as we got there, Milena left her clothes on the beach and headed for the sea, as did Keith and then Liz; the youngsters were horrified and wanted to go back to where ‘normal’ people bathed, much to the amusement of the adults!

A visit to a Keith Mitchell gig is compulsory if you come and visit us here, so on Thursday night we all trooped down on mass to the Athens bar to do our duty and a good night was had by all. The last time Paul and Milena had seen Keith play was last Christmas in Harrogate, where the entire audience consisted of Liz’s family and our friend Shirley and her mate. So it was a treat and a surprise to see Keith work with a ‘real’ crowd.

Do, Dan, Paul and family left us on Friday, after we took them into Corfu town for a quick look round and an ouzo meze, then onto the airport. So now just a few more days of excitement and mayhem, (beach, gig, pool, beach, gig, pool!!!) with Gemma and the kids, then tranquillity for 10 days before the final countdown to our journey home when Carmel arrives from Oz and we travel home together through Europe and back to the UK.