A day to go north

The terrier's pointing to the wind from the south bringing rain and deep grey sky - the first real signs of winter after a summer reaching into November. This morning as we packed our cases and ticked our check-list, it felt a little easier to leave.

The full plane bounced upwards through grey-white to the familiar blue again; no land to be seen beneath undulating plains of cloud all the way to England; then a train to Victoria and coach to Birmingham, and taxi home to Handsworth; on our kitchen table a lemon I picked this morning in our garden on Democracy Street.

Fireworks were exploding somewhere behind the roofs, in part for November 5 but, in Handsworth, mainly for Diwali - from the third to the seventh of the month. We'd enjoyed 'November 5' in Greece, combining it with Halloween, last Saturday evening, down at our friend Sally's stables a kilometre below the village...

...a fire of eucalyptus, foliage and leaves, the distinctive scent mixing with the enticing smell of meat grilling over carefully tended charcoal, to be enjoyed with cowboy beans, corkscrew pasta, and village wine; above us stars and a glow to the east as a young moon coasted the Trompetta Ridge. After the fire had died down Lin and I walked back to the village, its twinkling lights above us on the dark road, the air growing warmer as we climbed one of the narrow paths up to Democracy Street. Before sleeping we added a few touches to our wardrobe project, having stripped all the paint and filled cracks and holes.

But for detail - nearly done!

We cannot complete the work without drawer and door handles and some more trim and a new pane in one of the 'windows', but we're pleased with what we've made over the last two months. We find ourselves just sitting on the bed enjoying looking at our handiwork - recalling problems and solutions, recalling what we'd learned since building a dresser downstairs during April three years ago.....

The construction of a dresser with doors and shelves inside the ever uneven tilted alcove of our dining room presents Linda with especial problems. Being inclined to precision, more mathematical than I, she prefers the objectivity of the set square and the spirit level to the subjectivity involved in creating an illusion of symmetry and straightness through a willing committment to the uneven. What squabbles this engenders! How invaluable the breaks for gardening, cups of tea, coffee and sweet cakes - brought round by an amused, and slightly bemused, Leftheris observing "Problema?" [Back to the future 22 April '10 dining room  cupboard completed]

Before we left, the evening before, we walked in the village. Lin saw a beautiful snail working its way gracefully over a low wall, feeling the air with its tentacles.  These are its 'eyes' but they made not the tiniest flinch from the camera's flash.

Corfu slides

A few of the photographs taken and images captured since we first touched down at Kapodistria Airport amid thunder and rain in September 2006. It's a vaguely sequential set - showing maps of the island, the village of Ano Korakiana, work on our house there at 208 Democracy Street, Οδός Δημοκρατίας, before and after - various journeys by plane, ship and train to and from Corfu, views over the local landscape

Our washing in the wind

 - from the village -

Prophet Elias before Mother Greece

and from other parts of the island to mainland Greece and Albania - beaches strewn with plastic rubbish, fly-tipping in the woods, friends, the weather, our boat Summersong, different places in the beautiful town - The Liston, the Old Port and the new, the narrow streets and pot-smashing on Easter Saturday.

Also videos of events - Carnival, Vassilopita, Easter lamb-roast with our best friends in the village - and a skype chat with Alan Barratt from Agios Markos who, last year, transformed our house by replacing its balcony, so oddly demolished by its previous English residents, creating a wonderful curved porch to his own design beneath it. There's also a constant source of enthusiastic fascination - research into the history of the British Ionian Protectorate (pause the film to read the longer paragraphs in this presentation at the Durrell School one evening last year):

An August storm seen from Democracy Street

and the quiet that follows

Σαλιγκάρι

Peering at the street sign on the right you may just see the snail.
Our little σαλιγκάρι in Democracy Street! Hope is her name.

Our request:

Outbound ferry from Venice to Corfu on 01 April 2008. Airplane type seat
Return ferry from Corfu to Venice 08 May 2008. ATS

Reply:
Dears. We 'll contact you again on Monday. Thanks and have a nice weekend. Panos Skondras, Hellas Ferries Centre Ltd.

* * *

Lin's been working on this seagull, commissioned as a Christmas present for a Brighton and Hove Albion fan - nearly 4" from beak to wing tips. He's been elegantly parcelled up, christened 'Drew C. Gull' (client's called Andrew), and will be mailed tomorrow. She must have been working on him for over a week. She works by needlefelting white, grey and black merino wool roving, adding blue striped towelling from a beach robe, making the bird's beak and legs from a pipe cleaner, all sewn together with a teddy (needlefelt), a Christmas tree (cake decoration) and a candy cane (Fimo) into his sack of gifts. Few things are made here. I'm delighted by her handiwork - for example this family of teddy bears sent as Christmas presents to the Greek side of the family last Christmas.