"Get your motor runnin' head out on the highway"

There is a strange sense of ground rush (the sensation you get as you are about to land in a plane) During our last 2 weeks here the days are going much faster & the visitors arrive in larger numbers and we have to get ready to make for home.
During our last week here we have had 5 visitors, my friend Lorraine, who stayed with us and Helen, Martin, Paddy and Lorraine who all stayed in an apartment in San Stefanos.

So Keith decided not to do any gigs this week and take our last week off as a holiday and just hang out with them all. We have had such a fab week.

Most days have been spent on the beach or by the pool, only interrupted by having long lazy lunches and visiting our favourite restaurants for dinner in the evenings. We have been showing off all the new friends we have made out here.

On Monday we went to Costa’s in Roda, this is a traditional taverna and Costa has a Faulty Towers approach to his customers and we love it. Half way through the meal, without any warning he suddenly poured some dressing onto Paddy’s fish, luckily Paddy liked the dressing.

On Tuesday we went to one of our favourite restaurants where 3 Greek musicians play great Jazz and chill out stuff

On Wednesday we went to a pizzeria in Sidari, we have been here once a week every week since we got here because it fitted in so well before one of Keith’s gigs. It has a huge wood burning pizza oven and it is incredibly cheap. Lots of Gin & Tonics and loads of Wine and it was still only 10 euros each.

On Thursday we all went for the ultimate fish experience. We went to the restaurant we have mentioned before which you can’t get to by road. So 7 of us got the boat taxi and 15 minutes later, when we arrived’ we were told by a very hot, stressed owner in no uncertain terms that we would not be able to have a table that evening. But as our taxi had already left us we asked him (or should I say Keith & Helen ‘assertively persuaded’ him) if we could all have a drink before we phoned our return taxi.

He eventually came round found us a table & we were treated to a fish feast, whilst Costa plays at faulty towers this guy is the real deal! He glares at you, whilst chewing gum loudly when you are trying to order your food, barks at you if you want salad instead of veg or potatoes instead of fries! Even Paddy said whatever he brings I’ll eat it.
It was worth it!!! The biggest tiger prawns you’ve ever seen and Lobster in Baileys & Metaxa sauce with Spaghetti. Keith had a whole Red Snapper; Paddy& Martin had huge fillets of Red Snapper.

All this & the most amazing uninterrupted view of the sun set. We guzzled wine & beer the taxi came for us at 10.30 in the pitch dark to speed back to the main beach, a bit of skinny-dipping & a nightcap in a local bar then off home to bed. On the last day everyone had different flight times so we ended up just me, Keith & Paddy & we went to an old favourite The Delfino overlooking San Stephanos Bay quality food in an amazing setting, what a way to round up the holiday experience!

We have packed the car and we are ready to get our ferry to Venice at 7 in the morning

"..............Looking for adventure and whatever comes our way"

See you all soon

X

Reggae band in the Veggera bar!

In August much more effort is made to put on entertainment for the locals. Last week, in a beach side bar close to us, called the “Veggera Bar” they provided an amazing Reggae band from Athens.The Veggera bar is one of the coolest places to hang out, it is full of ‘beautiful’ young Greeks, on the beachfront, full of palm trees & umbrellas and at night there is a DJ with the best collection of tunes I have ever seen. This DJ doesn’t do any voice over tracks but any tune you ask for he seems to have it, & the music he plays is a sort of chill out rock, like early Chris Rea & JJ Cale mixed with Morcheba! Things you haven’t heard for years together with tunes you want to find out what they are so you can go out and add it to your ipod collection.

“Global Vibe” are a 7 piece reggae band with drums, bass, 2 guitars, keyboard, percussion & vocalist + a guest trombone player, white guys, some with “dreads” all from Athens but sounded like they came from Kingston Jamaica. They were due to start @ 10 we could hear them sound-checking from our house then @9.45 they started playing so we set off to see them. We didn’t need to rush, as the bar was fairly empty & we got great seats, they played 2 songs then stopped, they were still sound checking! Each of the 7 muso’s in turn asked the sound engineer (Yep they came with the full rig, desk multi-core, lights) for their sound to be raised slightly so they could be heard a bit better in the mix, but of course by the time he got to the last guy, the mix was as it was ½ hour earlier only generally a bit louder.In true muso & Greek fashion, time keeping was not an issue, they eventually ambled on stage @ 10.50 to start the gig, the place filled up & more people were on the beach, with plenty of space to dance.

It was all reggae, early Bob Marley, Toots & the Maytals stuff, some classic Ska songs & some, what I must assume were original Greek reggae songs, but they sung most songs in English with great Jamaican accents. It reminded me of a few years ago, when a crowd of us went to the cavern in Liverpool and saw a German Beatles tribute band, they all sang in English (with scouse accents) announced all the songs in English but when we spoke to them afterwards they didn’t speak any English (a bit bizarre.)Anyway “Global Vibe” were great, fantastic harmony’s, really tight rhythm section & the beach was full of people dancing, we left well before the end & we could still hear them playing from our home when we fell into bed, apparently it went on to the early hours & the band were seen leaving about 3 in the morning.

Chipero club
It would be wrong to call Chipero a drink it is an experience!
Chipero is a spirit, an illegal spirit in the same way that moonshine, raki or pocheen are. It is a mainly Albanian drink but it is also made in the northern mountains of mainland Greece, and arrives in Corfu via the Albanian workers who run bars & do a lot of the low paid manual work that the local Greek population won’t do.
Chipero is made from the residue left from wine making, all the pips, bits of leaves, twigs & unfermented grape juice are placed in a straw lined cauldron, suspended over an open fire, then distilled via a series of copper pipes & tubes leading through a large container of water to cool & aid fermentation. A clear strong liquid is drawn off, usually at least 40% volume & it is drunk neat!!!! It has an unusual smell to it a cross between petrol & the P20 sun cream that Liz uses,And is considered to be the elixir of life to those who know it well, offering apparently no hangovers or aftertaste just a nice warming glow as it goes down.

It is used, all over Corfu, Northern Greece & Albania as a cure for all ailments, as an after dinner shot, a first thing in the morning wake me up, & generally as an excuse for anyone who wants a “cheers” moment. A load of shot glasses are lined up on the bar, filled with chipero, then everyone downs it in one, with the cry of “yamas” & slams the empty glass down on the bar!

The chipero club at the “Tassos” apartments where we are living, is organised by Romeo, the Albania co- owner of the poolside bar, it is a group of old timers, by old timers I mean people who have visited this holiday site for several years & a few newer hangers on.Any time of the day you find chipero being offered up as a shot, but these guys, including a few women (chipero club is not a sexist organisation) drink it in the morning! They convene at the poolside just before 9am everyday, no matter how late they went to bed, and have a piece of cake a coffee & chipero just to start the day.
You can only drink chipero over here, not that it doesn’t travel, like the wine you bought on holiday & when you get it home tastes like cat pee. It’s just that you can’t buy it in the shops; it is kept in large demi-johns or old spirit bottles under bars or in a back room. Some of these chipero drinkers have tried to take it home, in 7up bottles in their suitcases & aroused the suspicions of the airport security people as the bags go through the scanners; it is promptly confiscated, maybe to be drunk later behind the hangers?Sounds an interesting club & I have seen them sat there with cake coffee & a silly grin, unfortunately we are never up early enough, to join in but I think my liver & kidneys are all the better for missing the experience.

Yamas!!!

Out and About, Creatures and More Amusing Signs

It’s nearly 2½ months since we arrived here & it’s still amazing & amusing to see so many contrasting things as we are out & about. Liz has had a fascination for trying to sight an old man on a donkey, something we used to see quite often when we first came to Corfu several years ago, and so she was very excited when we spotted one on the road from Roda to Sidari. It was several weeks before we spotted him again when we had a camera in the car, & we managed to get a couple of shots for posterity. I imagine when he has gone, the tradition of using a donkey for transport will not pass on to subsequent generations!

And we found the old couple in the mountain village selling home made honey, wine, olives and olive oil. We had bought honey from them years ago when the old guy slapped Liz on the bum, Liz insisted we stopped again to buy some honey & olives, he got quite excited when we asked him to pose for a photo & he managed to keep his hands to himself this time! She is now on the lookout for little old ladies, in traditional Corfiot dress, including headscarf and no teeth, (think she’s looking for a role model for future years?)

Also unique to these parts is the 3 wheeler truck, the engine is a cross between a motorcycle & a sit-on lawnmower. I often think this would be fun to own, to go to gigs in with my entire PA in the back but as it’s a single-seater cab so Liz would have to travel with the baggage as well! Mmnn!!

The wild life is not as obvious as you would first think, no foxes, rabbits or hedgehogs (although rabbit is on sale in all the butchers) & yesterday Helen saw a hedgehog crossing the road near our villa, moving about the same speed as a tourist, all the cars stopped for it (which is more than they do for the tourists). We have bright green tree frogs where we are staying, you hear them bleeping in the night like a car alarm on standby, we actually found one on the wall of our house one night.

We had lunch in Paramonas, on the west coast yesterday after a drive down to the south. This is largely a German resort, where last year, Keith famously ordered a Greek coffee after his meal and stirred it and drained the last drop which was like drinking sand off the beach mixed with tar! Not recommended! This time we managed to spot a very rare creature, not often seen on this Island, emerging from the sea onto a beach full of semi clad tourists. It was a man in a full wet suit. We half expected him to unzip the suit and step out in a full dinner suit 007 style.

One evening we came home to find a bat resting on our doorstep below the shutters, it resisted most attempts to move it, finally clinging onto the sole of a flip flop offered to it as a substitute branch, we left it in the grass next the house after posing for photos with us, & in the morning it was gone. The cig packet does not belong to the bat, we put it there to show you how small the bat is.

We do have an abundance of small lizards (geckos), which seem to be the staple diet of the local cat population, although they do scrounge from the holiday- makers when they can. There is also a stray dog issue in Corfu, wherever you go you see unkempt, scraggy looking mutts, a local rescue organisation exists but the number of dogs on the streets seems to be growing.

We try and wait to eat dinner after sunset (about 9pm) so that wasps do not attack us throughout our meal. We end up constantly wafting them away and looking like a bizarre Morris dancing troupe. But then as soon as the sun sets you have the Mosquitoes to deal with, and the whole ritual of lighting citronella candles and incense burners and spraying yourself all over with mosiguard, so you end up smelling like a cross between an old peoples home and an old donkey!! You have to be very vigilant out here not to leave anything around that could attract ants; they instantly appear for the slightest crumb. You find yourself constantly sweeping the balconies and verandas. (Liz in her black dress again) She is enjoying it so much I think we’ll sell the Dyson & buy her a “Ewbank” sweeper (readers under 30 check Google for a description of what a Ewbank is).

When you are driving around the Island and see this on the roadside it makes you feel a lot safer......

Here are a couple more endearing signs.............

Bye for now x

Sam-n-Nellie & other visitors

Visitors are like buses, you don’t get any for several weeks then 2 lots arrive within days!Sam and her friend Lilly landed in Corfu at 7am Monday morning, from Athens. They have been Island hopping for the last few weeks and they are going to spend 2 weeks in Corfu. After spending 3 nights at our house in Acharavi, they have managed to get a room in the Athena Hotel in St Stefano for 4 nights, and as they move to The Athena, Helen & Martin arrive for 2 weeks, an allocation on arrival package with Acharavi as the preferred destination. (They get the outskirts of Sidari 10 miles away!)After visiting their apartments at midnight we decide that they should stay with us and see if they can swap to a nearer apartment to us, or let Sammie & Lil’ take up the Sidari apartment when they have to leave The Athena.

In the morning Martin weighed up the options, stay in Sidari with its all night bars & clubs, foam parties & wet T-Shirt competitions, or stay in Acharavi with us, on a camp bed in our spare room? With maybe a bit of influence from Helen they decided to stay with us for the duration! So Sam n Lil got to party in Sidari for 4 nights & everyone was happy!

We are managing to fit in plenty of socialising around Keith’s gigs (4 x 2 hour gigs a week). All 6 of us went to Corfu town on Tuesday night & despite all the amazing shopping opportunities & designer clothes shops the only purchase made was some baklava for Liz.

We ended the evening with a beautiful meal in a square behind the cathedral, although in typical Greek style the service was slow, the 1st of the 6 meals arriving 20 minutes before Keith & Martins steaks finally arrived, 1½ hours after we sat down in the restaurant! But there was plenty of activity in the square, including some Greek dancers all in traditional costumes and there were lots of great people watching opportunities.

We had a wonderful day on Friday. After finding Sammie n Lil an apartment in San Stefano for their last 3 nights in Corfu, we dropped them off and the four of us spent the afternoon on the beach. Then at 6pm we went to Agios Georgios and got a boat taxi to a very remote fish restaurant not accessible by road. We had a huge platter of fish and king prawns and lots of wine and watched yet another beautiful sunset.

By the time the boat taxi came to collect us it was dusk, which was a fantastic sensation speeding across the sea when it was nearing darkness.

It’s great to have Helen and Martin over here with us; we are doing lots of exploring, lots of chilling on the beaches, lots of eating in restaurants and lots of drinking of wine. It’s just perfect really.

Don’t know how much longer we can stand this sort of pace of life though? We keep having to pinch ourselves to make sure we are not dreaming.
Only 3 more weeks to go until we sail back to Venice.

Keep the customer satisfied

Keith in the Spotlights

We love it here....the wine grows on trees!!!!


I’ve lost track off how many gigs we’ve done now, but it has been regularly 4 nights a week, although some venues have switched days, and occasionally it has been, “can we leave it for this week?” the work has come in & we’ve got paid! (Which is not what always happens, according to rumourmongers, when dealing with Greek bar owners) I think maybe other acts haven’t been as successful because they are trying to do a full show (the Elvis acts & the Rat Pack tributes) or they are using backing tracks (of which there are many) if you can’t adapt to the audience or play to what can be sometimes nearly an empty bar then you run the risk of either being paid off or told not come back the following week. (Can you imagine doing a gig in a “fat” Elvis costume in 35º heat with no air conditioning?)

It is true that all the bars, hotels & restaurants are having a hard time of it this year, everyone is trying to make the same living from less tourists & more bars than ever before. June & most of July, the tourist trade has been flat! It seems that now the school holidays are upon us the resorts are finally coming to life, but 6 weeks is not really long enough to make a living for the whole year.
The benefit to us Muso’s is that the bars will try anything to get the punters in! Especially live music. As long as when you play, more people come in & drink, than if just the TV was on, that is when you are seen to be doing your job. Although how these bars are surviving on so few punters & paying the bar staff & me, (who are also employed to “PR” the bars & drag people in off the street) I don’t know.

If you look closely one of the boards outside this bar says Keith Mitchell!!

In the UK the average gig is 45mins per set, with 2 sets a night, but over here you are expected to do 2 one hour long sets, it doesn’t sound much more, only an extra 15mins per set, but it does increase the number of songs you have to play quite dramatically! Also with the number of tourists depleted, if they are in the bar and its coming to the end of your 1st set, you know that the interval is the time you are most likely to lose them so now I’m tending to work through the whole two hours, which can morph into 2 ½ hours if people request songs, and if I am enjoying myself & the drinks are flowing!
A Tourist helps Keith sing Mustang Sally

I’m playing at least 40 songs a night now, sometimes more, mainly because I start off with a list of songs in some kind of order, but then people request songs, and I end up playing stuff that I’d forgotten I knew, or even working out how to play a song that is sort of lodged in my brain but I’ve never got around to playing it before! It keeps me on my toes & I enjoy working in that kind of free flow way.This approach seems to “Keep the customer satisfied”, they get to hear songs they want to hear, they stay in the bar longer, drink more beer, spend more money, so the bar owners are happy too.

30 degrees even when the sun has gone down, but the show must go on, and the bars don't put the air con on!!

Liz has been doing her bit too; about half way through each gig she has been going round the tables trying to sell my CD. This has been going quite well. If you sit in any bar or restaurant for any period of time you get a procession of people trying to sell you stuff! It usually starts with a woman selling roses, then people, selling balloons or cowboy hats. The ones that are the most interesting are the deaf & dumb cigarette lighter sellers. They walk into the bar put a card on the table explaining in several languages that they are deaf ‘n’ dumb they leave a lighter on your table there for several minutes, then come back & try to get you to part with several euros for a fire extinguisher (with a built in siren) or a mobile phone, (with ring tones) lighter. (How do they know they work?)Anyway one night while I was idly playing guitar at a gig, I decided that I would explain to the audience, about the bar sellers & that Liz would move amongst the tables without speaking to them, leave a CD on each table, she would come back later & collect either the money or the CD! This worked quite well we’ve had some good sales, the only problem has been that, as Liz is blonde she sometimes forgets to go back to the tables to collect the cash or CD!!!

Any Requests? …
“Can you play far away?” Yep!!!

Sammie and her friend Lilly are staying with us for 2 weeks as part of their 6 weeks Island hopping

So many beautiful sunsets,

P.S If you want to see more photos you can click onto Lizzy's photos on the right hand side of the blogger page

Love to you all, stay cool, we can't...

In search of the all-over tan

In search of the all over tan In a bid to get away from the noise & bustle of the brits on the beach, we often escape to more secluded beaches where people tend to leave ghetto-blasters lilo’s & clothes behind. & go Naked!! Almiros beach
Being hippies at heart this doesn’t tend to bother us too much, it’s not compulsory
& quite often it’s less offending on the eye than some of the locals & other Europeans (you know who you are) in their Speedo’s & thongs! However there does seem to be a certain culture that goes with this naturism.

The nearest “nudist” beach to us is Almiros, which is at the very end of the large bay that Roda & Acharavi are situated on. And whilst both resorts have sand or shingle with easy access to the water, Almiros is a deserted, rugged coastline, with sand dunes & on windy days almost impossible to get into the sea for the rocks on the waters edge.
This area seems to attract a gay fraternity, there does seems to be a lot more single men sunbathing (or with a friend) than on other beaches, we have noticed there are sometimes more cars on the beach than people, we think they may have chosen to sunbath in the sand dunes? But we haven’t been to look! Shingle gets everywhere!
Anyway coming back to the culture thing on nudist beaches, there seems to be as much posing going on here as elsewhere, for example, you find the majority of males or females seem to have completely removed all trace of any body hair, nice!!
The Alpha males usually aged 40+ seem to spend hours, standing, hands on hips, surveying their territory, occasionally walking down to the waters edge, usually as someone else is walking up the beach towards them. On the more commercial beaches @ Arillas & San Stefanos, you get a more family approach to nudism, but they too behave in unusual ways!

The women folk seem to spend hours making something similar to crop circles on the beach, with stones that they trawl up & down the beach to find, along with copious amounts of drift wood that they attach objects to, making sculptures, hours are spent creating huge constructions & sand sculptures. Its a sculpure Honest!!
But WHY WHY WHY do they do all this, bent double, legs straight like they are playing leap- frog? Anybody with clothes on would dig in the sand with knees bent!!
Also when these people go for a walk down the beach many of them will cover them-selves up by wearing a straw hat on their heads, Why? it must be to keep the harmful suns rays off their body or maybe as some sense of decorum.
Sometimes you see groups of people covering themselves & each other in grey mud, taking group photos then washing it all off again. "I have to say I love you in a Thong"
In the search for the all over tan, it seems just as intense as by the pool bar, legs & arms are held in strange positions & angles for hours, as obviously crevices that never usually see the sun have to be tanned as well as the usual bits.
Anyway enough rambling from me as you can tell by the subject matter of his blog we’re not going to post many pictures on this one, so it’s back to the beach, must get Liz to epilate my bum cheeks tonight!

life's still a beach

Its all Greek to Me

Its all Greek to me

My Greek is starting to come on now, I am trying to learn a new phrase every day. “Can I have the bill please”, “How much is that?” “see you tomorrow”, “what time is it?”, “how are you?” I can count to twenty, say the days of the week and I have been trying to learn how to tell the time

Signs outside bars and restaurants!

An example of Greek Humour
As we travel around the island we get great amusement from some of the signs advertising goods in shops & dishes in tavernas, I wonder if it’s just English they get wrong or do they do pidgin German as well as English, often it’s just slightly wrong with the odd letter out but sometimes it completely changes the meaning of the word.

Whilst driving around passing through the small mountain villages, you often see very elderly looking Greeks sat beside the road with a table full of Olive Oil, Honey, herbs and home made wine for sale. They wave at you to try and get you stop. Liz kept pestering me to stop but I think it was more to do with the fact that when we stopped and bought some honey last year the old Greek guy grabbed her bum.

Think we'll pass on Granmother's fish

Fire in them there hills

Whilst visiting the town of Kassiopi we noticed an unusual amount of small planes about (you may see 1 or 2 light aircraft on a daily basis) but there seemed to be a constant noise of planes flying over- head. Heading back to home we saw a fire in the undergrowth covering a large area of the hillside. The planes we had heard earlier were a form of seaplane, landing on the sea just long enough to fill up the floatation tank with water then flying over the fire & depositing huge volumes of water at low level then returning to the sea for another load.

Sea Plane carrying water to Fire

Hitting the target

New Greek Laws
Many things have changed over here, even in the 6 years we have been coming here, modern cars & scooters are everywhere, large modern villas by the coast, mountain villages are deserted except for very old local people.

All Greek drivers have mobile phones, usually attached to their ears whilst driving @ 20 miles per hour! But on the 1st of June 2007 a new law came out for motorists, they have to wear seat belts, no mobile phones, & motor bikers must wear a helmet, which they do, on their arms usually. This has led to a noticeable increase in the number of police you see on the roads. In previous years, on a 2 week holiday we would have seen maybe 1 police vehicle usually in Corfu town, but this year they are everywhere, even setting up road blocks to spot check for documents & seatbelts, this is causing some concern to locals as they can get an instant fine of 350€ & even lose their license for 10 days.

But generally they are still managing to resist these new laws, driving over-here is still just as crazy as it always was! Everyman, his wife, & his dog on the scooter plus shopping, etc. the other day we even saw someone carrying a huge tree home from a garden centre on his scooter.

Traffic is much slower moving, I don’t think we’ve done more then 45mph all the time we’ve been here, rarely used 5th gear, but if you saw the road surface you’d know why, although people do tend to slow down to about 20mph about 1 mile before their turn off or parking spot.

Pedestrian crossings (or should I say fancy yellow road decorations) were painted on in June, everyone ignored them then & now 2 months on, they have worn away so it’s just a place to cross where it may be less dangerous than elsewhere! One way traffic does work unless you are on a pushbike or an old guy on a scooter then you ignore it & everyone double-parks, even on road junctions & nobody seems to get upset by it, very much like Italy but without the horns blaring away. Rush hour Greek style
It still beats driving or should I say queuing on the UK roads!