It's the final countdown

Just 12 days to go until the big move. I'll be going from a place of undeniable comfort to somewhere with no kitchen and a temporary bathroom. That's the least of my worries. I'm now wondering how WH and his gang are going to fare moving us in my absence, I have a long standing engagement elsewhere and will be awol on the big day. I'm sure they'll be fine and get a great job done, whether I can ever find anything again remains to be seen.

Psychiatrists play God - Again.

Cartoon unashamedly pinched from Dr Speedy's Nice Blog

NHS Blogdoctor is on the case again, this time railing against the influence Psychiatrists have on the NHS in a post with a wider theme, that of the Rise of the Healthcare Professionals.

This quote from the Times yesterday (26.06.08) particularly took my eye:

People suffering from mental illness are frequently being misdiagnosed or receiving inadequate treatment, according to a group of leading psychiatrists. The doctors say that patients with serious problems are often referred to psychologists and social workers rather than clinicians and do not receive the medical therapies they need.

“If a GP suspected a patient had cancer, he wouldn't dream of referring him to anybody other than a cancer specialist. A cancer patient might need jollying along, but what he really needs is the correct diagnosis and treatment. That's what he gets from a specialist. But patients with mental illness are not automatically referred to psychiatrists. If they only see a social worker, there's every chance that mental illness, or underlying physical illness, will be missed. Patients are getting a bum deal.” (Professor Nick Craddock)

Now substitute the words 'mental illness' with ME. See what I mean? Looks like now the psychiatrists are too busy treating people with ME, which of course as we all know is 'all in the mind', to be bothered to treat their own patients.

Education in the kindergarten

My back garden has been renamed the nursery right now. Baby birds of all descriptions are vying for position on the feeders, teetering on the edge of branches and pestering their poor parents to death. At first it was the blue tits which caught our attention, six babies and their two extremely harassed parents, flew wobblingly from washing line to willow tree in turns. There were lots of crash landings and several false starts. Goggins lying in the sun on his favourite chair looked up, puzzled. He seemed to be saying 'Did I chase those once? Should I remember what they are? Are they something I should be interested in? Never mind I'll just go back to sunbathing.' The babies didn't know about cats anyway and just ignored him too. Even I stood less than 3 feet away and they just looked at me as though I was some sort of mobile perch.

Next up came the sparrows. Their training ground was fence to washing line, washing line to magnolia, magnolia to fence. 'Whoa there, maybe I'll try a suet feeder. Missed it, Oh OK I was really trying for the mock orange. Overshot that, OK, fence it is then." Their parents found a ready supply of kid-sized meals on the suet feeder and flew backwards and forwards from feeder to gaping mouth all day long.

The greenfinches were in hiding lest Misty and Nelson should find them. Apparently my wayward cats prefer the taste of greenfinch, or at least they did last year. So far this year there have been no catches at all, my tellings-off must have done some good. When temptation got the better of them, the greenfinches too brought the family to feast at the all night diner. More aggressive then the sparrows, they dislodged them and ruled supreme for a few hours until their arch rivals the starlings flew in.

Starlings, now that's another proposition entirely. Since they appeared, the garden resembles Saturday night at a rough wedding reception. They don't fight the other birds however, the stupid starlings fight amongst their own family. Drunk , or overstuffed with peanuts and suet, they squabble, taunt, push and shove. The noise is amazing, you'd think from the sound there were fifty out there, but no there are only 5 at the most. The parents try to bring them into line but their wayward children peck them instead. squawking and hissing and flying at each other. Then a fight between three of them breaks out and away they fly in winged combat, leaving the feeders in peace, just right for the little coal tits to fly in, grab a nut and retreat to the top of the willow before the angry starlings return.

In the midst of this mayhem, the goldfinches swing on the niger feeders and watch everything. No one else likes their food so they're happy. Well mannered and cheerful they ignore the rest of the rabble and twitter to each other companionably. Two little siskins too remain from the flock which arrived in late December, they must be breeding here but no sign of any babies yet.

It's been a real education this year, more babies than we have ever seen. It's hard to believe that 23 years ago no bird ever visited, there were no trees, no cover and certainly no free food. poignant then that this will be my last season in this garden. The new one awaits, barren and cheerless save for a lone robin who defends his territory from the apple tree. Time to make some changes then and ensure that next years babies are just as well fed.

To Let

I just knew it was too good to be true. My much longed-for, stress relieving, poorly managed property let has fallen through. In fact I am now told it was a non starter at the outset. So why did it take the agent 4 days to tell me?

Answer being he is hopeless. What to do now, that's the question, leave it with the second, even worse agent or move the agency again? On the one hand it might be third time lucky. On the other it's all so much hassle.

After 23 years I am sick of sight of this house, the sooner I am out the better, at least round the corner I won't have to see it, even if it now remains empty for a while. At least I will be spared the awful cleaning up for viewings I have endured over the last 12 months of letting, selling, then letting again. So I'm still moving folks, but I'll still have the worry (and the bills) of this place.

Peaches, Pelion and English Pubs.

Sinking my teeth into a juicy peach from my latest grocery delivery I noticed that they had come from Greece. This lead me to thinking about last year's holidays and driving round the peach orchards in the Koropi area of Pelion. The smell was fantastic although we wouldn't have been able to scrump any if we'd wanted to, all the trees being behind 2 metre high wire netting fencing. We did buy loads from road-side stalls however and peaches were the dessert of the day, every day, at our bolt-hole in Kalamos.

I'm missing Kalamos a lot. Even our recent trip to Corfu hasn't deadened the ache. It's probably all made worse by the fact we can't go back to that actual little villa, the owner needs it for his own growing family now they have fled the nest and will be using it for weekend visits in the same way as all the the other local houses are used.

We also both miss Argalasti, where we often found ourselves in the dying light of the day, sitting in the square with a hundred other families, lazily eating dinner or sipping the local sour cherry juice. It was noisy and boisterous. Whole families of locals sitting at adjoining tavernas, shouting at each other as only the Greeks know how. Just imparting a bit of local news has all the outward signs of an impending argument to English eyes. All the children played in the central part of the square watched over by parents of all descriptions. The younger ones ran round the tables and screamed, the older group played a kind of Greek 'What's the time Mr Wolf'' lead by two precocious 10 year old girls who both wanted to be in charge. Young teens hung around on the outside of the gathering, giggling in the shadows, the boys taunting the girls and tinkering with bicycle gears, the girls posing on the walls and looking coy. A short distance away the late teens sat outside the Gyros Pita takeaway, eating, laughing, smoking and listening to loud music, breaking rank occasionally to hail friends roaring past on mopeds. Everyone knew each other. News was imparted and confidences picked over, meals were shared and served out by the elders, children were called to eat and stuffed with fish and bread, only to run off again cramming their mouths with chips as they went. The men collectively sighed over football results and the local elections, old established positions reinforced. Diatribes on the state of the nation given by old men, ouzo glass in one hand, cigarette in the other as they shared plates of octopus, olives and hard cheese. All the time the kids ran round, one fell over and four mothers rose as one to comfort the injured party, two more speaking harshly to the unfortunate scamp who had pushed him.

We love it there, every night this place comes alive as the whole community comes together as one body to enjoy the warm evenings. Contrast this then with last night in our local pub here. A fine Sunday night in the only pub in the village. It was near empty, a sanitised version of 'Ye Olde English' with formica, Farrow and Ball and Madonna on the stereo. We chose from a menu which has not changed for at least 20 years other than the addition of pre-packed chicken curry. Our fellow inhabitants of the lounge were a family having a sort of mini reunion, some lived here, others had moved away. We did know them all but they preferred not to mix outside their own group, speaking in hushed tones lest we should hear what they had to say. They kept themselves to themselves and so did we, not wishing to be seen to be intruding. Across the counter a glimpse of the other room, the bar, usually inhabited by the youth of the area. Two chaps in their 30's sat baiting the usually terse landlord. Suddenly a loud voice from an unseen other, "When did Sunday night in the pub get to be so bloody quiet? And boring." There was no answer. We finished our meal and left, there was nothing to keep us there.

That's the sort of time I miss Greece the most and this year, especially, Kalamos and Argalasti. I've got to go back, permanently. Watch this space.

PS Blogger formatting seems to be playing up AGAIN. If this post looks odd it's them not me, honest.

On the move

It's official, after 12 months of total insecurity, disillusionment with the housing situation and the inability to sell my house, I'm actually moving. In less than 3 weeks.

After having very poor service from my letting agent yesterday I called them up to give them the proverbial rocket. Just as I was about to fire them completely, they actually decided to ring the lady who had viewed last week and get some feedback. Wow, some feedback! She wanted it and had been unable to contact them. So I do have a tenant after all. Really she wanted to move in by July 1st. Given that is only 10 days away I postponed until 14th. So yesterday afternoon finds me buying carpets for a whole house, re-jigging schedules and chasing the depressed painter and the singing plasterer. WH press-ganged his usual support team for the move itself.

This weekend I am away at a show and in 2 weeks time we are both off on a jolly involving those Hayseed Boys, some relatives and meeting a close and much treasured friend in person. That gives me one weekend to pack the house and the other one to move. We have no kitchen and no bathroom at the new place so we'll be camping for a while.

One thing is certain, it's going to be busy round here.

Braindead

I don't have the brain power right now for a lengthy post, suffice to say I am probably busier than I have been for the entire last twenty years. Last weekend I was at a marathon festival locally, it didn't rain and the weather was almost pleasant. It could have done with being a tad warmer but otherwise it was OK. Now I have the clearing up, a house which looks like a bomb site and WH's dreaded VAT to do. We *might* be actually moving house shortly too. Now there's a thing. More news on this later. Tomorrow we will have owned our second house a whole twelve months, it would be nice to live in it sometime.

All this and I am actually feeling reasonably well. Tired maybe but not that desperate bone crushing, nerve tingling, fiery pain I had for so long. I've been off my treatment for almost 3 months now and things are definitely looking up. I'm well on my way to a 3 stone weight loss too, necessitating some serious clothes shopping. My new hobby perhaps, but right now I just don't have the time.

If I could just slow down I might come to appreciate that feeling of doing stuff, wells loads of stuff really, and afterwards feeling, well, OK. It's taken me almost 16 years to achieve this and I want to savour every moment.

More snippets from last week

"I'm singing you my butterfly sitting in the car song" - Grandaughter aged 4.

We found a dormouse living in an olive tree in the garden.

In a restaurant the waiter insisted in calling me Momma. Was it my size or my organisation skills which prompted that? Or maybe because I paid the bill, for 11.

Grandaughter managed to turn upside down in her inflatable in the pool. "I forgot my arm bands wasn't I silly?" Dad jumped in fully clothed and hauled her out whilst the assembled group breathed a huge sigh of relief. Daughter 3 remarked he had managed to preserve his cigarette which was still between his lips. "Well you try and relight that then".

Asking for a 'Greek' breakfast in San Stephanos we were offered 'Full English' full stop. What on earth is going on?

Two cats spent the night on a chair outside my window. They hung around for breakfast and shared a lizard. After that we never saw them again.

Collecting the hire cars we were given the keys in order of the driver's name. 4 days later we discovered we were all driving the wrong cars! Note to self: In future check the documents as well, even if they are in Greek.

One whole watermelon is just about big enough for 11 people for a whole week. The pips get everywhere though.

In 30 degree heat I can walk and walk and walk. And swim and swim and swim. Am I better than I was? You bet.

What I did on my holidays

Went on a glass bottomed boat.

Watched the sun rise, twice.

Listened to scops owls.

Ate chicken souvlaki at a restaurant I hadn't been to for 8 years and it still tasted the same.

Swam at Sidari beach and it really is the warmest water in Greece.

Went lizard hunting with the Grandkids.

Watched a young jay drink from our pool.

Taught some of the Grandkids how to hold a crab.

Ate hot cheese dip and crackers.

Sat 2 hours in a restaurant waiting for a power cut to end. Dinner never tasted so good.

Watched my 3 stepdaughters giggling and laughing together like they hadn't for years and years.

Went to Mouse Island and Pontikonisi.

Sat on the Liston with a frappe and people watched.

Saw a Grandad with the biggest smile ever.

Fell asleep to the sound of waves on pebbles.

Snatches of conversations

"Nanny, can I have a oghurt and semonade to drink?"

"All the little houses are getting bigger and bigger through this window"

"Is that a shark or a sardine?"

"I've turned some stones over there, I looked under some here as well, and do you know what Nanny? There aren't ANY pigging crabs"

" Ugh, it's all antsies and they're carrying their Magnix all over"....."Yes I know they look like eggs, I just said, they've got their Magnix"

"Well he can just put that big lobster down and show someone else, I don't want to see it."

"Of course I tried some new food, I had 4 sorts of hotdogs and funny bread, so that's five."

"Do you know, Denmark and Germany get all their electricity from windchimes."

"I'm so brave I'm going to jump in that stream and catch a turtle right now. Oh no I don't think I will, it's all slimy"

"I'm going to live here for ever, well if I can bring my own bed and a tv"

"Aunty, you can just get straight back in that pool and come out the proper way. BY THE STEPS, right."

The holiday is over, now the memories start.