Our Greek Odyssey

Hanging on

Fri, 27 Jul 2012 18:27:38 +0000

Well the furniture was duly collected on Wednesday and was packed neatly and very efficiently into the van by two young lads who were alot stronger than they looked.
Not only were they quick, they were also very pleasant as well. So, things got off to a good start but from there they have gone rapidly downhill leaving our plans in a proper mess.
After losing out on the camper we planned to buy we found another one but the owner refused to sell to a foreigner because they wanted the vehicle to stay in Greece – I know…go figure! Then we decided to borrow a friends vehicle but when we looked at the ferry crossings they were full on their ‘animal quota’ and wouldn’t have space for the cats. We couldn’t hang around so decided to put the animals into the local vets cum pet shop cum boarding kennels and head off without them with Sean coming back to collect them. So far so annoying but it was a plan of sorts. However nothing is simple and the car was deemed unsuitable for a long drive across Europe so we arranged to buy another vehicle and head off in that………not so fast……….this is Greece. We found the car in the next city where it takes two days to get the paperwork transferred over to the new owner so we paid the garage yesterday and told them when we needed to have it…….now they say it will be ready Monday or Tuesday or possibly Wednesday! Greek bureaucracy does not run smoothly, everyone must have a go with their rubber stamp and charge you handsomely for it as well of course. We only found all this out a few hours ago but we can’t hang around on the off chance it will be ready by Tuesday because we could end up arriving in Ireland after the furniture! So now we’re booked onto a flight to Manchester from Athens on Sunday and then over by ferry to Ireland the following day. Obviously that means we then have a car in Greece we don’t really want but Sean will be out a week or so later to see a client in Skopelos and then he will get the joy of the road trip across Europe in the company of 4 cats and a dog He’s not looking forward to that very much as they are all rather vocal.
It’s a good job we have the world’s best Vets just down the road www.petandfarm.gr Not only are they the most animal friendly people you could ever wish to meet but they are some of the nicest people as well. They are happy to look after our animals as long as necessary and didn’t even want to charge us as they knew what a mess we were in but Sean insisted on payment in kind and so they now have our air conditioning unit, filing cabinet, shelving, metal trolley and surveillance cameras to keep an eye on the place. We’ve also promised to look after their website for life (we’re working on it at the moment which is why it has that unfinished look!). They take in any stray they find and try to rehome them and even came and collected a dog which had followed me and Junior home from school. She then had puppies which they are trying to rehome as well. Greece needs more people like them and then maybe the animals wouldn’t get such poor treatment.
So the animals are fine, we have a plan and Junior and I will be in our new home soon. Sean still has quite a few trips back and forth to Greece in the coming months but will then be able to call Ireland home as well.

Packing tires everyone out!

Sat, 21 Jul 2012 07:10:20 +0000

Nearly off

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 09:59:16 +0000

Well the furniture gets collected next Wednesday to start its journey to Ireland but unfortunately our plan to buy a campervan and transport ourselves and the cats across Europe has met with a slight hitch! Sean was going to Athens to buy the van today but it’s already been sold and now we can’t find another one! So what we’ll be doing next Wednesday in an empty house is anyone’s guess!

End of the Odyssey

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 07:06:58 +0000

We’re at the end of our Greek Odyssey now and will be leaving the country for good next month. Even before the economic crisis took hold we were unhappy with Junior’s schooling and just as we moved out here for her, to enjoy a carefree childhood, we are now moving to give her a better standard of education. She’s at school at the moment for her last day and had a weep yesterday when she said goodbye to her class teacher who has taught her for the last two years’. Her class bought her a lovely necklace with different charms on to represent Junior (including a mushroom to show she’s a vegan!), the children all drew pictures which the teacher made into a little book and they all wrote goodbye messages in another book. It’s all a bit overwhelming for an 8 year old but she’s looking forward to her next school which she will be starting in September in Ireland. Obviously that’s why we went over to Ireland last month, to find a house to rent and a school for Junior. The house is typically us i.e. down a long and winding private track surrounded by fields! Junior loved it straightaway and just ran around the garden saying she wanted to live there – not that that swayed us at all, it was the location that sold it. I love peace, I love listening to the noise of nature, I don’t enjoy listening to the sound of other people shouting and mopeds going past all the time which is what we have at the moment.
We know lots of people who are leaving or have already left Greece, not just expats but Greeks too and everyone who we have told about our impending move has said it is the right thing to do. Yes the country may recover but how long will it take and at the expense of what? Education? Parents already pay millions of euros in private lessons just to get their children through school. We don’t want Junior to have to spend her spare time being taught things she should be taught during the school day.
It’s the right move at the right time, now I just have to finish the packing and sort the animals out

Birthday break

Thu, 31 May 2012 07:31:08 +0000

We got back from a brief trip to Ireland the other week, another country dealing with austerity but seemingly managing. I was shocked to see houses boarded up on estates where they obviously couldn’t afford to finish them or sell them but people we spoke to were generally optimistic and were tightening their belts and carrying on.

We set off on our trip on my birthday and I had the dubious pleasure of spending the day in 3 different countries. We started in Greece, had a stopover in Bergamo, Italy and eventually got to Ireland in the evening. Flying Ryanair does usually leave you with quite a hefty waiting time in between flights but we didn’t mind as Bergamo looked like a pleasant place to visit.
Unfortunately it was raining and Junior was complaining of an empty stomach. She was momentarily distracted by a ride on the funicular up to the old town but soon began moaning again about the need for food. Italians seem to eat earlier than Greeks so every place we entered was full – not good. We eventually managed to get in to a place and I had a very enjoyable pizza which I was supposed to be sharing with Junior but which she said felt ‘like leaves’. After eating one slice she consumed the entire bread basket instead!

After sauntering through the rain (we’re the brightly coloured pair to the right!) we decided to get the bus back to the aiport and as luck would have it we chose a bus stop outside a Gelateria – what’s the chance of that? Being Italy they of course had soya choices and I had a plain cone whilst Junior had strawberry. Once she became overwhelmed with the ’strawberryness’ of her choice she set her sights on mine which, being a good mother, I handed over, albeit grudgingly.
We arrived in Dublin late evening and had booked to stay in the Holiday Inn Express near the aiport as it had been a long day and we all needed a rest. Next morning Sean took the complimentary coach from the hotel to pick up the hire car at the airport. Good old Hertz wouldn’t accept a debit card and as we don’t have credit cards (don’t believe in buying things we don’t have the money for), they refused to hire us a car. Unfortunately for Sean they’d driven him to their compound to collect a vehicle but refused to drive him back to the airport as he wasn’t ‘a customer’, leaving him to traipse down busy roads back to the hotel which took him over 40 minutes. Nice one Hertz.
We went back to the airport en masse and hired a car from Budget who had no problem with a debit card. Before long we were in County Wexford where Junior was born. What were we doing there? Well, that’s for the next post

Greece on the ground

Mon, 07 May 2012 18:09:42 +0000

Everybody seems to have an opinion on Greece these days but instead of the usual comments about the weather and the scenery, we tend to get questioned more on the financial situation. People want to know what it is like living in Greece in these rather uncertain times. Obviously our experience is going to be different to a Greek family or expats who have retired here and have a pension from abroad. However, one thing we will all have in common is seeing the change around us. There are more beggars on the streets, more businesses closing down, prices going up and people struggling to make ends meet. We know people who haven’t been paid for months’ and others working 2 or 3 jobs just to be able to pay their bills.
And now, with the election over, what will the future government look like? Will they be able to form a government at all or will it be back to the polls again next month?
The sun may be shining and the sky may be blue but you can’t live on that can you?

Surprise guests

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 08:01:59 +0000

The swallows are back in their nest just outside the door and are busy repairing any damage and warding off unwelcome guests. Unfortunately their frenetic flying resulted in an incursion in to hostile territory – well it’s hostile when you have 4 cats!

We were having lunch in the kitchen and I jokingly said that the swallows were so loud it sounded like they were in the living room! It appears they’d flown in the front door and couldn’t work out how to exit again. Sean opened the window and one flew straight out but the other appeared more interested in the wall than the outside. We just left it alone………and kept the cats away………….and eventually it flew back to its nest. We’re now keeping the doors closed

Greek Easter

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 13:22:40 +0000

Took this yesterday on Easter Sunday in Kato Gatzea – it was certainly a wild one!

It didn’t however prevent Junior and myself from taking off shoes and socks and running through the waves. Sean didn’t join in as I think the cold would have been too much a shock to his system!

Renting in Greece

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 06:34:46 +0000

With the worlds economy in the state it is, it seems that more and more people in a host of different countries will spend the majority of their lives living in rented property, either through the inability to get on the housing ladder in the first place, or through losing their homes due to a change of circumstances.
We’ve rented property in England and Ireland without any problems and know of people who live happily in their rented homes for years without any disruptions. Greece however is a different matter. We’re in our fourth rented property and each one has been a nightmare in its own special way. This is not just peculiar to us, we’ve not just been spectacularly unlucky, we’ve heard tales from other people of their unreasonable landlords and sub standard houses. Whilst the owners of properties seem to be more than happy to take your money, they seem to be rather unwilling to pay out anything on upkeeping their property.
When we moved in to our current house there were no plug sockets in the kitchen. Not a single one. How can you put a kitchen in without any power points? Sean had an electrician friend come in and put some in as well as a point for the electric cooker. He then found that some of the other sockets weren’t even earthed and were therefore potentially dangerous. The electrics are, to put it kindly, mildly eccentric! If you put the washing machine on then you can’t have any other electrical appliance on otherwise it will trip a fuse. More than two heaters on at the same time? No chance. We have four UPSs connected so that our things don’t get fried when the power goes and then comes back on again. Madness.
When we chose this house it had just been renovated and so the garden was like a building site but we were assured it would all be sorted and made into a pleasant space for Junior and the animals. Nearly 2 years’ on and it still looks like a building site but they’ve planted some trees! Why would you plant some trees in the middle of a wasteland? When Sean mentioned the state of the garden last year they said they wondered why we hadn’t sorted it out! After explaining that it’s their house and we’re only here temporarily and therefore why on earth would we spend money on making a garden for their benefit they conceded that was a fair point but still nothing has been done to remedy the situation.
After the leaking roof and subsequent mold on the ceilings and walls they said the house would be redecorated at Easter………….last Easter………….still waiting. We know there is no point in asking for the things to be done, they’ve got no money.
Renting in Greece? No thanks.

March already

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 10:03:24 +0000

Carnival has finished for another year and apart from dressing as a pirate for school on Friday, Junior didn’t seem so enamoured of it this year. We were going to go to the carnival procession in Volos on Sunday but she decided she didn’t want to be just watching and being ’static’ – her wording It’s probably a good job we didn’t go as we had a friend driving over from England and he had that many problems crossing borders and bribing officials that Sean was on the phone to him most of the day.
Clean Monday was an ideal kite flying day; windy and freezing. We headed to the beach and had our most successful kite flying expedition to date.

You can tell from the sky what the weather was like! Junior’s interest soon waned once the kite was flying and she instead turned her attention to collecting pebbles and building a sand cathedral. It seems a castle wasn’t enough – maybe she’s been too long in a Greek Orthodox school.
It didn’t take long for that threatening sky to turn into rain and so we beat a hasty retreat home for coffee and cake.
With the state of affairs in Greece at the moment, we’re always amazed that people continue to open new businesses. Competing with the empty premises up for rent in Volos are new coffee shops and places to eat. I guess they figure people will always want to eat and drink, and whilst they seem to be full when they first open (probably because of the novelty factor), I can’t see them remaining full for much longer. We’ll go out for a drink on Saturday but we don’t eat out as often, sometimes leaving it a few weeks before treating ourselves.
Another recent development is the proliferation of security signs on houses. Just walking Junior to school I’ve noticed quite a few places with new security firm signage on their gates. We’ve heard from other people that there has been a spate of burglaries in the area we live but of course they never target houses with dogs. I knew there had to be a plus side to the noise of constant barking!