We are in a routine. My assistant Tim is the Albanian grandfather. I am the Albanian grandmother.
For the first time ever I am harvesting olives after Christmas rather than before and I can hear chainsaws, twerkers and threshing machines everywhere. The hills are alive with the sounds of my neighbours harvesting in a far more industrial way than myself and reader T. We work at a rather slower pace.
Natch Jaya’s teachers celebrated the start of term with an INSET day. At 4 AM the snow lay crisp and even if not deep. By the time Jaya, roused daughter 2 and daughter 2’s boyfriend a lot of melting had taken place. But the trio still managed to create Sammy the snowman and dress him in a Wrexham scarf and Canada hat sent by this site’s manager Darren from the land of President Castro Trudeau.
We have had an early season booking and that means the pool is now open from 25 April onwards. we could open it earlier if folks wanted to book. It will stay open until September 30th or later on request. Most of July is now booked out but the rest of the year is still free and as the photos below show it is heavenly. Kalamata airport has direct flights from April and is less than an hour away. I head off in about a week to make a few running repairs and harvest some olives.
Yes, the Western media and politicians promising to back Ukraine until victory lied to you. I look at the situation in Kursk and the Donbas then at 1 small town Russia will capture this week.
However much the Church of England or Church of Wales infuriates me and tests my faith I have always attended Midnight Mass at Christmas. “Yea Lord we Greet You born this happy morning” I sing loudly and walk out into the cold night air filled with optimism and with my weak faith replenished. Gradually my own failings and the miserable state of the world weaken all those positive feelings and then it is Christmas again. This year I did not leave after the last carol I stormed out and I hope that our sparky new vicar understands why.
First, over mince pies (bought in) and home made brandy butter or cream plus mulled wine, potent and made with my special recipe, the 24 of us practised with “Away in a manger”. Then we headed off up the lane to see an elderly and, this year, bereaved, neighbour.
Before our Christmas Carol party my friend C took his chainsaws to the pear tree felled by storm Darragh. I had a play with smaller saw and have now bought myself one on Amazon allowing me to start work tomorrow on creating logs to dry for next winter.
The hideously ugly, modernist, hugely expensive cat box the Mrs bought from Ikea is still being spurned. She moves it around the house to wherever the cats are resting but to no avail. It needs to go on facebook marketplace on aesthetic grounds and because it can be sold as unused. Instead..
If the Mrs and kids had their way the Christmas tree would go up sometime in September. Having explained that a live tree should only be inside for a short as possible period to give it any chance of survival I relented and yesterday it came in. We have a carol singing party here at the weekend so I could not hold on much longer. At the top is an angel made by daughter Olaf 19 years ago when she was just four. It has survived.
I had thought that we had escaped unscathed but daybreak revealed otherwise. The old and very large pear tree at the centre of my vegetable garden had toppled.
The wood burning stove is eating through my log pile at a fair old rate. But, as you will see shortly, God has come to the rescue and I can now survive even the longest of winters. Such matters do not worry fat cat Quincey and his smaller sister Sian, asleep on my Christmas jumper. When these two were rescued from the cat rescue in Birkenhead they did not know how lucky they were.
Storm Darragh has been thundering through North Wales for almost 24 hours. The winds howl down the lane to the Welsh Hovel, the trees bend and indeed one is already down. You can hear the wind screaming at you and the rain is non stop. The river is now covering my orchard and over in England the fields are flooded.
The paper that told us about the Ghost of Kyiv, the defenders of Snake island, the Auschwitz style gold teeth and the Russian soldiers given Viagra tablets for industrial rape has fallen for yet another Ukrainian hoax. It brings you pictures of North Korean soldiers sent to die for Russia and they are birds!. Except…
On a day when Jaya joins me on the school run, after picking Joshua up from Kings we stop off at a BP/Asda service station. I get a black coffee and the kids share a sandwich and chocolate bar in a £3.75 meal deal. It is now a ritual. Today as I waited for my coffee to pour another Kings boy came up to Joshua and started talking.
