waterworks
one of the big things in Greece is water,the people speak of it as the french do wine,its the basis of life and it is a joy-except when you dont have any. So with not being able to empty the pool until pipes were fixed -cant leave it empty in the sun- i couldnt use the water for anything but garden purposes which is fine as i have put about 30 tons of water on the new trees and plants which will hopefully get them through the drought period. The roof collected about 50 tons into the tank(sterna) but of course that is in use by the house on a constant basis so its down to about 25-30 tons now. and of course the pool needs about 60 tons. so to fill the sterna and the pool need in excess of 100tons. It sounds a lot but the average person in greece uses a ton(1cubicmeter) a week and of course in places like the usa domestic use is over triple that. Its 20€ a ton to have water delivered.so i decided to try and get the water from the spring down the road.Lividaki is its name and its famous for being the best water this end of the island-better than bottled all the old boys say- and also in full flow in june. The beaches below the house have had waterfalls and springs on them until just a couple of weeks ago and there are many cold water outlets under the sea. So there is no shortage of water just have to stop it running away.
Also a family have a small cottage about 3 minutes down the road and he has a pipe up to his house from the spring.but i havent seen them around all year. So i hatched a plot with nicos the plumber as it turns out he was at school with the wife from the cottage so he was to ask if we could add on to their system. Eventually he found the man(Lakis) and he agreed a pump was ordered from athens and we set it all up. First we had no luck at all but discovered that some hunters had managed to pepper Lakis’s pipe with shot so eventually we replaced pipe all the way and after 1 1/2 days toing and frowing managed to get it working. So i am drawing approx 400 litres per hour up 300 meteres of pipe and after 3 days the pool is half full. Just bumped into lakis this morning though-very nice man- and he says that we have put our pipe slightly off his land onto a neighbours land(how can you tell there are no mrakers!) and that he is a difficult character so may have to get the boys out and move the pipe.The water is beautiful though and its a bit odd to have a pool full of spring water a bit cleopatra-ish!








































