'And if you gaze for long...'

We had become almost used to the occasional pungent eggy smell outside the back of the house. While working on rebuilding the steps to the garden, Lin said “Clear some of the Canna lilies next to the wall. Cut back the Yucca. Let’s see what’s there.”
From a space around the roots of the cleared plants that was hardly half a cubic metre, I dug out, with spade, trowel and hands, a mess of black damp earth mixed with plastic bags, plastic cups and empty water bottles – debris that had drifted off through an 18 inch alley between our wall and the neighbour’s apothiki, escaping into our garden beneath a rusty iron mesh laced with chicken wire.

The abyss

With bolt cutters I removed the skirting of this ineffectual barrier; found a tighter strip of mesh from our inventory of might-be-useful odds-and-ends, and between us fashioned a more effective barrier to block debris from the gully. The rubbish cleared, we found the source of the smell – a noxious black trickle that must have been escaping from our neighbour’s soak-away - foul water that had impregnated the rubbish I'd removed and bagged, making the smell from the leak even worse.
Do we mention this to our neighbours? Dilemma. The leakage is into our space and we have no wish to complicate a near perfect relationship. Better to sort it out and then perhaps mention 'a little problem' we've sorted.
“Yes. Let’s leave it for the moment. See if the leak can be sealed”
Using the hose at high pressure, Lin swashed out the concrete-floored space below the gully and swept it down the pipe we’d laid several years ago – in place of an open ditch - to take our washer water out of the garden.
She set to lining the cleared space with a concrete screen walled with pieces of marble. The difficulty was to find a moment in the day when no water was run from sink, loo, washer, or shower from next door. Mid-siesta seemed best. For three days Lin worked at it, abandoning the steps project. It was clear that the leak, if stopped in one place, would make another way through the porous bricks and mortar of our shared garden wall.
“You know what? They have concrete all round the other three sides of the soak-away but they've left the wall between the two gardens as the fourth side”
Lin left a small space at the foot of her lining to allow the leak to continue, as she blocked up other potential holes and cracks in the wall with cement, including ones above the water level “from which I suspect some of the miasma escapes”.
How to stop the final trickle? I bought some quick drying cement. During what seemed a hiatus in water usage Lin applied the mix to the lowest leak. The work had  dried in minutes. The result looked good; the space clean and smooth. Already the smells seemed to have lessened, as though the blocking operation was ensuring that the porous wall was filtering out the worst effects of the leak. Next morning Lin inspected.
“Oh no! It’s still leaking”
“We must get more quick drying cement. But Lin, it doesn’t smell nearly as bad now”
“That’s probably just luck”
She was disappointed.

E-mail from Corfu

Dear Lin, The front part of the roof has now been pointed up with cement, to give a neat finish. The wall inside and the plasterboard wall have been taken down, and the arch started. ... We should start on the floor and stairwell next week. That will all be belt sanded down and left until we can find something to put on it instead of varnish, ... consensus is that varnish will scratch. I have a builder friend over from UK says there's something called Russic oil, which you put on by cloth very thinly then leave for five days before applying the next coat. This seals and protects the wood from stains and scratches. Outside, the garden area is 90% completed. The orange tree has started to produce lots of leaves, but no branches. We can wait and see what happens. We should also start and finish the steps next week. I think Squeak is pregnant, so am keeping it out of the house. If it is a boy, then it is just getting fat from too many biscuits and sandwiches. Will keep you updated, Best regards G, M & B

Garden at 208

A place for the rubble at 208
Originally uploaded by Sibad.

Thursday, April 26, 2007
Where in a sokaki of tightly linked buildings do you put the building rubble? Our solution is to move it to part of the garden. This is the before picture.
We’ll be going home Tuesday afternoon. Our roofer said “Your roof will done by then, but check your neighbours don't mind noise on Sunday." It was raining this morning, the work secured with a sheet of plastic. Extra tiles, mortar mix, insulation, wax paper were delivered and stacked this morning.

We’re thinking we’ve now got a mix of people doing work we can afford and with whom we can keep in touch by e-mail, who trust us enough to cover cash flow delays, and who understand our wishes. After the electrics, the renewing of the kitchen, hall and downstairs bedroom ceilings and the roof comes making one space out of the two front upstairs bedrooms, with the wood stove and flue moved to its eastern wall, and the stairs widened. Then we could have the garden part tiled – over the flattened rubble.
Word of mouth led us to holiday flats in Pyrgi being refurnished. We salvaged a cane sitting room suite with cushions and a low table, drove it home, and lifted it upstairs with a rope over the balcony.


Wednesday, April 25, 2007
I cycled into town and did some work at the Arco. The weather has gone cooler and is slightly overcast with spots of rain. Missed my bus to AK so cycled all the way there via Ipsos – with only a couple of breaks for some of the local ginger beer. Drove back to Ayios Markos to collect a sturdy plastic table I’d seen by a waste skip.

The roofing is coming along well. Lin paints almost without a break. With a loaned jack hammer I knocked down the first and largest lot of breeze blocks and made holes for the rain to get away in the ones we’re leaving. Amy called from home. Our neighbour came round and we chatted about the odd things the previous owners and their builder had done with the place – including cutting down two lemon trees and an orange tree - leaving the one in the picture - and removing a side balcony, the door on to it and the outside steps to it, removing rain protection from the side of the house as well as a pleasant part of it, and creating a problem of what to do with the rubble. Lin and I discussed replacing the steps – perhaps iron ones and putting back the upstairs door. Our neighbour showed us two bricks from his house – one with 1590 and another with 1711 inscribed roughly on them.