Leaving On A Jet Plane

Easyjet and Aegean are doing well from the Corfuhomefinders team over the next couple of days.

Susan is sending her youngest back to Uni before setting off to Athens herself for a weekend away.

Di's son returns to Uni and work in London, and my daughter goes off to pastures new in the South West of England.

Loraine's daughter returns to Corfu for her half term break from school in Scotland. And then Helga is off to Holland to visit her family.

Then we have to get them all back again for Christmas (apart from my son who is going in the opposite direction). We are all waiting to hear about the possibility of a direct Christmas flight, but in the meantime will be scanning the websites for the best deal from whichever area of Britain they are starting from.

Once we've sorted out our younger generation and Helga has returned, then it's our turn for holidays - our reward for the often 7 day week during the summer.

See you at the airport!
Sarah

Too Many Spiros'

It's a well known fact about Corfu that practically every third person is called Spiros and the only way to distinguish one from another is by adding that particular Spiros' occupation (Spiros the plumber), home town (Spiros from Doukades), or the identifying tag used on all government forms - father's name (Spiros of Yiannis).

A while ago Sarah and I experienced what has gone down in memory as "The Spiros Incident". We were on a carefully planned circuit of the north of the island, with various appointments carefully planned to gain maximum use of our time and minimum use of our petrol. We therefore had an arrangment to meet our first property owner - Spiros - on the roadside in Kassiopi, our second - also Spiros - outside our favourite cafe, and the third - yet another Spiros - in Acharavi. So far so good. The situation was a little bit complicated by the fact that we hadn't previously met the second Spiros, so asked for some identifying feature. He told me that he would be wearing a white "thingummy".

So off we set. Just before we were due to arrive at destination number one I received a phone call from "Spiros" to say he was waiting at the cafe. So we made a quick change of plan, thinking that we could stop at the cafe first (to meet the second Spiros who had phoned me) and then turn back to Kassiopi to meet Spiros number one, perhaps a bit late, but never mind. Arriving at the cafe, there was a Spiros, but it was Spiros number one, wearing a white shirt ("thingummy"?). By now totally confused, was this the Spiros who was supposed to be at the cafe but not yet, the Spiros with the white "thingummy", or the Spiros who I thought had telephoned to say he would be at the cafe? In my defence, all three had very similar voices, and the phone reception is not good in the Kassiopi area, but even so... We did finnaly get sorted out. There were two Spiros', in the end, both waiting at the cafe (by pure coincidence) and one waiting in Kassiopi. All three were wearing white!
Susan

Creepy Doll

A recent visit to the lovely village of Lakones led to Corfuhomefinders being given an old stone village house to sell. Village houses with gardens are rare indeed, and when they come with a sea view as well, as this one does, we feel entitled to get enthusiastic.

In need of renovation, the house could be made into a real beauty. It has not been lived in for some time, though it is still partly furnished, with its contents liberally sprinkled with flaking plaster and spiders' webs. It is quite common to find large stuffed animals, teddy bears and dolls taking pride of place in the "front parlour" of village homes. My photo shows the current occupant of the living room, who gave us a bit of a fright when we opened the front door!
Susan

A Favourite Walk

After a lovely Birthday lunch for my son, we decided to take advantage of the sunny afternoon and enjoy one of our favourite walks from Spartilas.

At the top end of the village is the area locally referred to as "Gabos" which describes an area of gardens and cultivated land. It's the place where all the village have their grapevines and grow their vegetables but on a Sunday afternoon we were the only people there.

To reach "Gabos" you go to the top end of the village,and on the bend at the top of the hill there is a tarmac road going straight on. If you don't fancy the walk back up, you can drive down here and park at the bottom, but we were feeling energetic and walked all the way. Once at the bottom of this road, the gardens spread out before you and you can either stick to the main road or venture off on any one of many little roads to the sides.

I didn't have my camera with me today, but in a couple of months (or weeks if this rain keeps up!) the lake in the middle will be full. The photograph above was taken in the spring when the lake is home to frogs and toads which make an amazing amount of noise calling to each other. At that time of year I would recommend wellington boots so that you can go to the lake edge to paddle and observe the wildlife.
Sarah