Kindness of strangers

They say that strangers are only friends you haven't met yet, but I have to admit that this seems to be the experience of Corfiot people.

We asked our builder if he and his wife would join us for dinner one evening, so that we could get to know each other and make sure we were thinking along the same lines for our houses final finish and appearance.

Of course, we needn't have worried, they were a delightful couple - although there was a slight language barrier, we got along really well, and 'put the world to rights' in an most enjoyable fashion! We all enjoyed the simple but excellent grilled meats offered at George and Margaret's Grill Room in the North Eastern resort of Kassiopi.

Margaret has, in my humble opinion, the most gorgeous light, fruity locally made red house wine that I have yet to sample on the island. Served chilled in a metal jug, it is almost a rose, and slips down so very easily with the wonderful grilled meats and chunky homemade chips that the Taverna specialises in. Such simplicity sounds simple and rustic, but has to be tasted to be believed - Simon is virtually vegetarian in the UK, but he can't resist the local meat! It is absolutely excellent, tasty and rich - just as it used to be in our far off childhoods!

A phrase we've picked up from John Mole's excellent book 'It's all Greek to Me', that seemed to be easy to drop into conversation is 'Ti na kanoume?' - 'What can we do?', accompanied by an almost Gallic shrug!! This helped to break the ice and helped what we hope to be a great friendship to develop.

As is Greek custom, though we invited this couple to drive for over an hour along mad hairpin bends and blind corners, we were prevented from picking up the tab! I really hope that they will let us reciprocate when we return in October.... especially as we hear our builder's brother runs a very traditional Grill Room just south of Corfu Town!

Happy days.....

Long time...No post!

It seems like forever since I updated my blog, although back in Corfu our house is rising from the rubble and taking shape again!

When Simon and I returned to the island in late May, it was with some trepidation that we drew up at the bottom of the lane that leads to Ano Kato. We held hands, and with lumps in our throats looked upwards towards our house!




We needn't have worried, as our builder and his team had been hard at it throughout the Corfiot spring, pouring 25m2 of concrete on top of several tons of steel reinforcing mesh to create a hefty, and (hopefully) earthquake proof foundation on which to erect the hollow block walls.



The house is going to end up being somewhat bigger than we originally expected, as the original rubble walls were up to a metre thick, as opposed to the 300mm brick that they are now constructed of!

The house now has two ring beams to brace the structure, again another must for areas prone to earthquakes - in fact, a 5.4 magnitude 'quake was felt on Corfu on 29 June 2007!

Our wonderful builder was hoping that he would be able to start erecting the roof beams shortly after we returned to the UK, but we were able to see some of the wonderful cypress beams that are being used as ceiling joists - the roof will be having similarly sized timbers.

The builders on site hop from timber to timber, but I was not brave enough to try, although Simon did gingerly tread some boards that had hastily been laid for him to use!

Every time we looked out over the southerly countryside from what will be our verandah/balcony, it reminded us why we were undertaking this insane project, and why we cannot wait until mid-October when we will again be back in the gentle arms of a Corfiot autumn or 'Second Spring'