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| Friday, September 15, 2023 We arose at 6 am and decided to get some exercise by walking around the village. we had the strange impression that eyes were watching us as we walked along the deserted lanes. |
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On the main road leading back into the village, the house that began about a year ago continues to grow. We think it might turn into an hotel.
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| We arrived home just before dawn, after walking about 2 km. I got myself a mini breakfast of runner beans and liver. |
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| The lads arrived and started to prepare planks to make the Porch roof. |
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| I cut a plank to make a frame, which will fit into the bathroom window recess. The lads will paint it and staple fly screen mesh to it. |
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| At 9 am I headed for Haniá town to buy a 22 nF 630v capacitor. |
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| The journey was uneventful and I parked at the Apollon car park. I left the key in the ignition and took my ticket from the attendant. I walked the short distance to the "Tsip" (Chip) electronics store and paid the man 1 Euro for two capacitors. https://beskas.eu/el/piknotis-poliestera-22nf-630v-157298 I returned to the car park. There was no charge as I'd been less than 15 minutes! |
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| Back home, I fitted the new capacitor, soldered and cropped the leads and then plugged it in. |
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| Yaaaay! I sent a photo to our chiropodist to let her know that the repair was successful and then rode to the Café to meet Billy there. |
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| On my return, the lads had already painted my wooden frame, stapled the fly-screen mesh to it and fitted it inside the window opening. (The window hinges inwards.) The scaffolding is dismantled so that they can work on the porch roof. |
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| 3.30 pm. Iliana went across to the neighbours' house. Slow progress on the porch roof but now that the timbers are up I expect that the rest will go up quickly. Meanwhile, I'm watching YouTube videos. |
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| Saturday, September 16, 2023 I awoke at 7 am and took Iliana a pot of tea in bed. Then I put clothes in the washing machine. The lads arrived and I asked them to pollard the trees, which overhang my workshop. So Shkelqim clambered up the first tree with my electric chainsaw. Short video clip:
https://youtu.be/1pP-AQmXnx0 |
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| Down below, Nori sawed off fallen branches by hand and threw them into the field. These will all be burned in November when it's legal to do so. When that was done, I tied up the lines that I'd taken down and then I hung out the washing. |
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| The trees are now much lower but still provide some shade for the workshop. The lads have started to place tiles on the new porch roof. |
| I set off for Vrises on my mobike to buy new sandals because the Velcro loops have worn away on my current pair. On the way, I noticed trails in the sky. 
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| On the way down into the valley I noticed that a new building is being constructed. I think it might be a pumping station for the new water pipe. |
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| Further down the hill, another building is under construction. It looks industrial so, again, I think it is associated with the new water pipe. |
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| I bought new sandals from the Chinese shop and then returned home. (I normally wear size 36 but the nearest in stock was size 37, so I settled for that pair.) |
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| Iliana wanted to go to Monica's taverna in Gavalohori where there's a charity cake and coffee morning. So off we went. I had to cancel my lunchtime meet-up with Billy because, by now, it was too hot for him. |
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| On the way home I stopped to buy four more concrete tiles for our footpath. |
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| Sunday, September 17, 2023 I was up at 7 am to reinstall the porch LED floodlight. I'd planned to connect the PIR floodlight, too, but it was too hot by 8 am. |
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| The lads arrived to fit the seal between tiles and wall and to refit the fly-screen door. |
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| The finished wall. At 9 am, the lads went across the road to discuss a job for the neighbours. Iliana set off to walk in the direction of Georgioupoli and I set off in the car at 9.30 am. |
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| We arrived home just in time for me to hop on the mobike to ride to Litsarda and join Billy for a lunchtime chat. It was very warm. Strange, wispy clouds were evident. |
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| Back home, I ate the last frozen fig. When I freeze them fresh from the tree, they keep indefinitely and taste like an ice lolly. I had IBS type gut pains all day long. |
| Monday, September 18, 2023 I had porridge + fenbendazole for breakfast and then rode to Vamos to collect my monthly hydroxychloroquine prescription but the pharmacy was closed. I continued to Kalyves and neither pharmacy there had the pills. So I left my prescription there to be ordered. I bought a jar of sauerkraut from "Toko" and then rode to "Pripis" supermarket to buy traditional yoghurt. They didn't have the large ceramic bowls so I bought two small plastic pots of sheep's milk yoghurt. |
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| I rode to the electrical shop to buy a replacement doorbell button but they didn't have one in stock. So that's on order. At lunchtime I joined Billy at the Café for an hour. |
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| Tuesday, September 19, 2023 I had porridge with fenbendazole for breakfast and set off for Haniá. |
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| I parked outside the nearby shoe shop and walked round the corner to the "Gavrilakis" warehouse. Stelios recognised me as the strange foreigner who always gives him a 5 Euro tip, so he dropped everything to help. |
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| I gave him the dimensions and he found a suitable sheet and cut it to size with a huge guillotine. I asked for some screws and he gave me a bagful then led me to the cashier to pay. "Do you want a receipt?" I didn't need a receipt and paid cash, then carried the aluminium to the car and drove homewards. |
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| In Kalyves I stopped at Electrothermiki to collect the doorbell button, which I ordered yesterday. It hadn't arrived, so I drove home. |
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| Just outside our village I stopped to photograph this smashed car, which was facing the wrong way. |
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| This is the flyscreen door. The mesh has split at the bottom and the door consists of a flimsy frame, which has already broken once and I've reinforced the corner with a steel bracket. |
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| I drilled holes and screwed the aluminium panel in place. It makes the flyscreen door much stronger but looks a bit "industrial". Maybe Iliana can come up with an idea to make it less imposing. However, for now, the job's done. The door is stronger, flies can't get in, and it should also greatly reduce the amount of rain that usually floods the kitchen. |
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| The flyscreen door made a horrendous clang as the magnetic strip pulled it closed so I removed the aluminium panel and fixed Blu-Tack pads to it, as damping material, and then screwed it back in place. It's still noisier than I would like so, in the future, I might add some spray foam. |
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| Around noon I rode to the supermarket to date-stamp the mail and then continued to Litsarda for a drink with Billy and Kostas. We observed the occasional traffic chaos. |
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| On the way home, I could hear a noise that sounded like an exhaust leak. So, on arriving home, I took a 10 mm spanner and tightened the nuts on the exhaust pipe clamp. I needed a rest so I watched a couple of videos and then it was time for my weekly Skype conversation with my UK engineer friends. |
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| Wednesday, September 20, 2023 I turned off the mains power and connected the PIR floodlight. The cable coming out of the wall isn't long enough to allow me to use a waterproof box so I simply used self-amalgamating tape. The lamp is old and the PIR lens has cracked so, at some time in the near future, I'll have to replace it and make a better job of the wiring. |
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| I rode to Kalyves to buy yoghurt, bananas and to collect the kitchen fan vent cover that I'd ordered and the new bell push. It was chilly so I wore a pullover. On my return home, I put up the ladders and installed the aluminium cover over the fan outlet. Iliana set off in the car to collect a friend and take her to Georgioupoli for a drink. Cliff phoned to say that he had eggs for me so I rode to his house to collect them. Then I realised that it was after noon so I rode to the Café and chatted to Billy and the locals. As we were leaving, Brian arrived. A motorcycle rider had smashed into the side of his car as it crossed a junction. When he finally arrived home he discovered that he'd locked himself out, so he had called the locksmith in Kalyves and was now going to wait at the Café for him. |
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| He had already called Manolis the taxi driver to ask that he take Brian's visitors to the airport tomorrow. Luckily, Brian's car has comprehensive insurance. Chaos at the Café. The lorry can't pass between the parked vehicles so 85-year-old Manolis hobbles back to his yellow car to move it. |
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| The new bell push came with a filament bulb, which was unsuitable for my electronic bell circuit, so I soldered an LED and resistor in place. |
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| Then it was a simple, albeit fiddly, matter to screw the button unit to the metal door frame. The wire is stretched across foam insulation with render on top so I don't want to cut a groove or drill a hole. I'll probably just paint the wire white. Iliana arrived home as I finished. |
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| At 6.30 pm we drove to The Library Taverna in Likotinará because Iliana wanted to stick her Quiz posters in the windows there. We ended up having gin & tonics and sharing fried courgettes, while chatting with a German family (in German, of course). Back home in the dark, the PIR lamp failed to light. |
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| Thursday, September 21, 2023 Early morning - you can tell by the shadows. Iliana had already hung out the washing and I was sweeping away the "bobbles" from the damn Laurel trees. |
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| I rode to Kalyves to buy a new PIR LED floodlight, and a shaver adapter for Billy. While there, I bought sausages and collected my HCQ prescription from the pharmacy. |
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| Cliff phoned to ask if he could borrow my chain saw to cut up pallets so I topped up its oil reservoir and left it by the door. I rode to Litsarda for drinks with Billy. Back home, it was too warm to work outside so I sat in the office with the ceiling fan spinning and watched videos. |
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| At 4 pm clouds came over and it was cooler so I turned off the mains power, grabbed the ladders, bucket and tools and swapped the new lamp for old. Genie-us? BTW, I probably forgot to explain that the aluminium cover was a scrap piece, which I repurposed to keep some of the rain off the lamp and also to prevent the direct beam from annoying some neighbours who are directly in line. |
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| I used the existing bracket because the one that came with the new LED lamp was much shorter and placed the lamp awkwardly in front of the cable exit in the wall. I fitted the cables into the weatherproof box and screwed the wires into the terminal strip. |
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| I put a cable tie around each cable to prevent slippage and mushed Blu-Tack around to seal it. Likewise with the cable exit from the wall. I fitted the box cover and went indoors to turn the power back on. (I increased the brightness of this photo because the box was in shadow.) |
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| Finally, I secured the plastic weatherproof box to the wall, with a screw through an existing hole in the metal bracket. By now the clouds had gone and I was perspiring profusely, so I put the tools away and returned to my office with the ceiling fan. I'm tempted to give those rusty brackets a lick of paint, but that can wait till another day. |
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| According to the instructions, the PIR lamp can be adjusted to trigger even in daylight. I tried this but failed. So I took the cover off the box and measured the voltage across the terminal strip between live and neutral. The multimeter showed zero. To say that I was pissed off would be an understatement. The cable must be broken inside the insulated wall. How the heck am I going to fix that? I told Iliana about it. Around 8 pm Iliana went outside to get something from the garden. When she came back indoors she said, "I see that you fixed it". |
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| "What?" "The light's working." I went outside and the light came on. "How the...?" Then another light dawned. "I must have set the meter to 1000 vDC." "Aren't you the expert who published 'How To Use A Multimeter' on Amazon Kindle?" she asked, with an innocent smile. My dentist had told me at the last visit that a tooth needed filling but I delayed making an appointment during the building work here. So I phoned to make an appointment and he said "10 am tomorrow?" (Holy shit, OK!) |
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| Friday, September 22, 2023 I arrived for my dental appointment at 10 am but had to wait half an hour while another customer was being tortured. |
| After my procedure was complete, I paid 40 Euros and then rode to the nearby Post Office to buy stamps for Iliana's postcards to England. She had instructed me to buy one for 2 Euros and one for three Euros. I asked for these in Greek and handed over a 5 Euro note. The PO worker apologised and handed me ten 50 cent stamps. "It's all we have right now. But it's OK to overlap them on the card." I arrived home at 11.30. Iliana had already driven to Rethymno to spend the day with Maria. I sent her a text message to say that I'd remembered the stamps but... I rode to the Café and spent an hour with Billy and Kostas the drunkard, who speaks no English. I had to translate between them so the conversation was somewhat limited. I explained that my mouth was still numb in case I was slurring words. ("To stoma mou einai akoma moudhiasmeno.") Two friends, who had lived on Crete for a decade but had sold up and returned to the UK, pulled up in a hire car. "Hello, strangers," I greeted them. David and his wife explained that he's had a triple heart bypass and chemotherapy for bladder cancer. He's older than I am so it's probably just an age thing and nothing to do with the experimental vax. Back home, I did research till 4 pm and then had a nap. At 5.30 pm I ate yoghurt and banana. At 6 pm I opened the gates in anticipation of Iliana's arrival. At 6.20 pm I heard sheep bells and rushed outside to close the gates as the sheep raced up the street! At 6.30 pm, I heard Iliana close the gates again as she'd just arrived. No sign of sheep. Now at 9.20 pm I'm going to watch another episode of SG1. |
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| Saturday, September 23, 2023 My computer reminded me to check tyre pressures. I've mislaid the gauge so I resurrected an old digital one from China by fitting a new button cell. Every single tyre on the mobike and car was low on pressure so I used the small compressor to inflate them. |
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| Iliana decided that it was an excellent day to clear the shed/workshop so we set to removing stuff that we no longer needed and making piles. |
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| After all that exertion, I needed a shower so I left Iliana to sweep out the shed while I went to the bathroom. Some time after 11 am I rode to Kalyves and bought new water filters. Then I continued on to Armenoi to join researcher Bill for lunch at the Café there, amongst locals. As we were leaving at 1.30 pm, Iliana phoned to say that Sharon was delivering pies in the village square but there was no sign of Billy. So I phoned him but he didn't answer. I phoned Iliana to tell her but she said "he's just arrived". I rode home and prepared to replace the water filters. |
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| First, fill a bucket with water and then turn off the outlet from the reserve tank on the roof. Here it's shown in the ON position. |
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| Turn OFF the IN tap on the left (marked IN on the blue housing) but leave the red OUT tap open as in the photo. Now turn on any cold tap in the house. This relieves the pressure inside the filter bowls so that they can be unscrewed with the black plastic tool. Remove both filters and discard. Wash the bowls in the bucket of water. Place new filters in the bowls, ensuring that all gaskets are in place and screw the bowls back into place. The OUT filter is the finer of the two. |
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| Inside the shed, turn off the tap at the filter and unscrew the bowl. Wash out the bowl and the filter, which is filled with stones, and replace. Turn all taps back on, ensuring that there are no leaks from the filter bowl gaskets. Turn on the rooftop reserve tank tap last. |
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| Sunday, September 24, 2023 I was having bad dreams so I dressed at 6.30 am and took a walk around the village. On my return, Iliana shouted downstairs, asking me to put the white clothes in the washing machine. I did so and, while I was in the shed, I cleaned the top of the washing machine. |
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| Iliana hung out the washing to dry in the sunshine. It's going to be a hot day. We loaded the shed rubbish into the car and headed towards Georgioupoli for breakfast. Iliana drove; she stopped at a bin and I unloaded the rubbish. |
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| In Georgioupoli, we parked near the bridge. Iliana walked towards the harbour to visit the tabletop sale, while I headed towards Stelios Café Bar to order our breakfasts. Dora, the cleaning lady, was in the Café and informed me that it was closed because Stelios was in hospital. He'd been knocked off his bicycle by a car on the bridge. His wife, Georgia, was visiting him in hospital. |
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| I collected Iliana, told her the news, and we decided to have breakfast at the "Blue Moon" Café, which overlooks the river in sight of the bridge. I asked the owner, Yiannis, if he'd witnessed the accident. He said yes; the car had sent Stelios flying but he was on the mend, conscious and talking. I received a message on my phone to warn me that the temperature in our pergola had exceeded 35°C. |
| The rest of the day was uncomfortably hot and I stayed in the office with the air conditioning on. |
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| Monday, September 25, 2023 I awoke at 5 am feeling very uncomfortable so I dressed and then spent 25 minutes on the toilet with constipation. Having finally given birth to Winnie, I took a shower and then went for a walk around the village. My arse was red raw and swollen. |
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| Back home, Iliana was in a bad mood because she felt that she had to clean everything by herself and was taking out her anger on a rug. I don't know why she can't simply ask me to do things. I took over, hung the rugs over the fence and then blasted them with the hosepipe nozzle at 6 bar pressure. I left them there to drip. |
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| When they were light enough to carry, I took the rugs, one at a time, to the back yard and hung them over the fence, facing the sun. At 10.30 am Iliana left to visit the health centre to get a 6 monthly prescription for osteoporosis treatment. |
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| I noticed that my outside temperature transmitter had stopped working and the receiver was flashing "battery low". So I raked through my stash of batteries - and found the missing doorbell cover. Oh, well; too late now. I spent the rest of the morning sitting on my coccydynia cushion. By noon I was feeling better and rode to the Café for a drink with Billy. I bought cheese there and ginger jam and brown sauce from the supermarket. |
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| Back home, Iliana was just leaving for her "knit & natter" afternoon meeting. I rode to Georgioupoli and had a treat at "Sentouki" Café/shop with Tom & Angelika. I arrived home an hour before Iliana and sat at the computer with air conditioning set to 24°C. I watched a video about repairing binoculars, which prompted me to take Iliana's binoculars out of the recycling bag and repair them. |
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| Tuesday, September 26, 2023 Today is forecast to be less hot (no, not "cool") with bad weather on its way from the west. Iliana took a walk at 6 am. I had porridge for breakfast at 9 am. Neighbour, Dave, asked me if I'd be available to give him a lift tomorrow as he's taking his car for a respray. |
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| Iliana set off on foot for her friend's house. Sue is a retired nurse and will give Iliana her osteoporosis injection, one of the side effects of which is bone cancer. (She won't listen to me.) I went into the workshop with a crappy garden lamp and replaced the I.C., which had failed due to the ingress of moisture and a spider. These lamps can be made reliable by sealing them correctly. |
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| Wednesday, September 27, 2023 We have lightning storms swirling around the island but only a few drops of rain today. I unplugged the phone line in case of lightning. I had porridge for breakfast. |
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| I followed neighbour, Dave, to a garage in Vrises where he'd arranged to have his car resprayed and a spoiler fitted to the rear of the roof. Dimitris, the owner, speaks only a few words of English so I don't know how Dave would have managed had I not been there. Anyway, Dimitris wanted 300 Euros deposit and Dave had only 100 in his wallet so I volunteered to go back later with the balance of 200. I drove Dave home, stopping at the Café so he could buy local wine and olive oil, which is now TEN Euros per bottle! Doubled in price. |
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| Iliana and I drove to Kalyves where we bought groceries, dropped off electronics recycling, which has been collecting for months, and then returned home. We went via the garage at Vrises so that I could hand over the 200 Euros from Dave. Back home, I set about chopping runner beans and peeling & chopping parsnips and a swede, which I parboiled in three separate pans. I also parboiled a chopped up broccoli, which I put in the freezer on a plate and then bagged when the pieces were solid. |
| For lunch I ate tinned sardines and beans, followed by some vegetables and a slice of bread. Iliana went to visit the neighbours and I took a nap. When I awoke there was an email from Wendy with a link to her latest Afterlife Report, which I checked and then emailed her a few suggestions. I plugged the phone line back in. If I leave it unplugged for too long, the SIM card in the router becomes disabled. I'll unplug it again later. For dinner I ate two boiled eggs, baked beans, another slice of bread and a large, frozen fig. I've been really constipated for a couple of days so I'm changing my diet slightly. In the evening I did research and kept an eye on the weather. |
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| Thursday, September 28, 2023 Iliana left in the car to collect friends from the airport. I'd arranged to meet my insurance agent at 10 am to pay our house- and mobike insurance. So, with an eye on the clouds, I set off for Kalyves with 250 Euros that I was saving to pay the plumber. I arrived at the appointed Café next to the car park and ordered a coffee. Thanassis arrived a minute later so I handed over the cash and chatted for a few minutes. |
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| I rode to researcher Bill's house where he'd invited me for lunch. A friendly praying mantis had perched on his arm so I removed it and persuaded it to visit the garden where it belonged. |
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| Bill cooked lamb with a delicious honey & rosemary dressing, which I ate with broccoli. While we were eating, the rain began to fall; just a light drizzle to begin with. I decided to err on the safe side and leave before the rain became really heavy. So I donned my wet weather jacket and plastic over-trousers and headed home. The rainfall increased as I approached Vamos. |
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| Iliana had sent me a message to say that she'd been told that there were packages for me at the supermarket. The mail hadn't been delivered on Tuesday or yesterday so this must be the delayed delivery. I stopped at the supermarket to collect my parcels and stamp the rest. Then I rode home to divest my wet clothes, including socks and sandals. Yes, I'd forgotten to take boots. |
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| At 7 pm I heard a terrific noise and pulled my headphones off. It was torrential rain. The new drainpipe was doing its job but it was dumping much of the water from the roof onto the driveway. |
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| Inside the pergola, water was dripping from a roof timber support bracket onto the LED lamp cable and then to the floor. I used a pipe cleaner to divert the water away from the lamp. |
| Friday, September 29, 2023 at 8.50 am The rain has abated for now and the ground is drying out. We've even got sunshine (and hot water). Although lightning was forecast, we had none nearby but we could see it out at sea. Showers are forecast for later today. Despite the horrendous floods on the mainland, we had very little here on Crete. You can read the Greek news at https://www.pronews.gr but you'll need a browser with translation. |
