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While Europe is suffering storms and now even snow, we are just getting back into our T-shirts and enjoy that winter actually never came. This is of course a bit egoistic of me to be happy about that, because we haven't got the amount of rain that Crete needs and I start wishing that we could get a few weeks of pouring rain to get us through summer without drying out. The nights are still quite chilly, but as soon as the sun comes up in the morning it starts warming up everything and I catch every excuse I can find to go out for a little walk, sit outside in the local kafenion and enjoy the sunshine - and a cool beer of course - chatting with some local friends while trying to improve my Greek, which by the way is still miserable!!
The last couple of months have actually been very bad. Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong - I must have been under a spell or something like that. First the lightning struck my house during a thunderstorm and my TV, my DVD-player went POFF together with my satellite box (fortunately I had unplugged my computer, I'm doing this automatically never mind the weather, since my PC is my daily bread, can't take any risks). Then my washing machine broke down, I had it repaired and it made just one wash and then broke down again. My tape recorder? POFF! When there were no appliances left in the house still working, every time I turned some light on the light bulb exploded. I started laughing about it, no use crying anyway.
One morning a guy driving in a hurry to get his daughter to school on time just crashed into my car parked outside. He was too much in a hurry to stop to leave a note, but fortunately he knew that 'this was the car of Linda's mother', so he called her later that day to explain. Since the damage was quite big we decided to let his insurance settle it. Two trips to Mires for the insurance guy to check the damages, a trip to Timbaki to make the paperwork at my insurance company, leaving the car three days at the garage to fix it, picking up the car and taking the bills to Timbaki, and now several trips to Timbaki to push them into settling the amount with the garage. Well, they will actually settle the amount with me, then I'll have to go to their bank to get the cash, then go back to Mires and pay the mechanic. Tons of wasted time....
When nothing more could go wrong, my cats caught the 'cat disease' (feline panleucopenia virus) and 5 of my indoor cats died within a week, one almost every day. Minimis, Frenzie, Fuzzy, Leo and tiny little Cookie are now burried deep in the sand under a bush in the Komos hinterland. The house was so quiet afterwards, of the cats only Billie, Niko and Silvie (Silly) were left. It was a sad time.
Besides, during this period most of my clients decided that they had plenty of time before they wanted to pay my invoices, so I had to slaughter my piggy bank to get through, and I fortunately also have some good friends, so sometime you could find us at the kafenion counting the coins in our pockets to see if we by common effort could get the necessary amount to buy a packet of cigarettes!
At Christmas, my daughter Linda took the kids with her to celebrate the holidays in Italy with the Italian branch of the family, so I was free to make whatever arrangements I wanted. So, between friends we decided to have an 'international Christmas dinner' at my house. I made a Danish traditional Christmas pork roast with red cabbage and sweet potatoes, Jenny & Dennis brought an English roast, Christine brought her German specialities - sausages and sauerkraut - and Andreas, who is Greek and not much of a cook, bought some blue cheese for dessert. We spent the most wonderful Christmas Day together, very relaxed and with a lot of laughter.
After Christmas everything seemed to sort itself out. My clients finally paid all the invoices, my washing machine ended the strike and without any reparation just started to work again. Petrus fixed my satellite box with a new power supply, Dieter had a spare TV which he didn't use anymore so I could have it, work came pouring in so the nearest future is financially on the safe side. Silly got pregnant, so I shall soon have a 'full menage' of little kittens again, and besides: One little kitten from the 'outside cats' (last of a bunch of five, of which four had disappeared) was so determined not to die although all odds were against her that I promoted her to 'indoor cat', naming her Baby.
Yesterday I took Baby to the vet to have her vaccinated (no more panleucopenia in MY house!!!) and Bella had to have her last vaccination as well. We managed to get my 'cute little puppy' on the scale: She is now 26 kgs.
And while everything is now back to normal I can concentrate on enjoying life here on this beautiful island, working every morning and in the afternoon taking long walks with Bella to the beach, enjoying the warm sunshine and the fantastic surroundings. Life is SO wonderful!
Glad to here things are getting better.
Yvonne