One Brick at a Time

Sorry.

I did mean to keep this thing up-to-date – really, I did. But… well, other things kept getting in the way.

So, what have I been up to these last few months? Well, I’ll start with the last week, and maybe I’ll write more about previous months, later – though experience tends to suggest I probably won’t.

Well, I’ve just got back from our annual jaunt to Greece. We go to a different part of the country every year, and this time around it was Corfu, which wasn’t anywhere near as touristy as I’d dreaded. Our villa was lovely (though the annexe was unusable due to problems with the electricity). Large, and with a lovely private pool. It took us a little time to find it, as it was tucked away as effectively as a Vogon planning application. The last part of the drive to the villa was up a dimly-lit mountain road, followed by a trek down a single lane (actually, “lane” is an overstatement), overgrown, unlevelled dirt track in the dark. Lovely accommodation, though.

Wasps were a popular, recurring theme while we were away. They followed us wherever we went. I say “followed” because I’m sure I kept recognising one or two of them. I was the only one to get stung (on my back, in the pool – stung briefly, then not at all) but other family members got bitten by insects of various shapes, sizes and planetary origins (seriously – some of them can’t have been from Earth – too weird!)

I got little-to-no reading done. I took my iPad to try to get through some submissions for work, but it was either in use by the kids during the day, or I was too tired at night. I also took a paperback – The City and the City – and I really enjoyed the 3 or 4 chapters I managed to get through on the beaches, in between ensuring the kids didn’t drown or kill each other with spades.

Oh, the iPad – what a life-saver that turned out to be! When the kids were unsettled on the plane, they were able to play games on it, draw on it (using drawing apps, not crayon), and watch endless episodes of Peppa Pig. And when we were villa-bound for one stormy afternoon, it kept them from killing each other (and us, them).

Rather than take loads of currency, or loads of travellers’ cheques, this year we took a currency card. The card (form Caxton FX – part of Newcastle Building Society) is a pre-paid MasterCard, specifically designed for travelling around Europe. You load it up with currency, and can use it to buy things in shops, restaurants, etc, and to withdraw cash from machines – the main advantage is that there is no transaction fee as there is with almost every other UK card – no paying £2.75 to use a cashpoint, or £1.50 for currency conversion at transactional level. Other than the 2 Euros it cost us to convert our remaining Euros back into Sterling at the end of the holiday, there were no charges whatsoever, which is pretty damned groovy. Definitely use that again, next year.

We ate out most nights, though we didn’t manage it on the last night, due to a flat tyre on the car. I was able to get the busted tyre off, but couldn’t raise the car high enough on the Fisher Price car jack that was supplied, to get the new tyre on. A call to the car hire company was useless (their advice: “find someone to help you”), so I called the rep. She couldn’t get anyone out that night as everywhere had closed, but she got a local out the next morning in plenty of time for us to vacate the villa. In fact, he turned up with a huge jack that lifted the car in two pumps, and the wheel was on within minutes. The old wheel had a slight buckle on the rim, from when the car had bumped in and out of a pothole in the road. His cost for coming out, fitting the new wheel, taking the old wheel away, fixing the buckle and fixing/re-inflating the tyre? 15 Euros! (About £12, or US$18). I gave him a twenty, and was more than happy to do so. If I’d managed to get the new wheel ion myself, and had returned the car to the hire company for them to do the work, I have no doubt it would have cost me hundreds!

The flight back was pain-free (once a crying Lana had been given the iPad on which to watch her favourite Peppa Pig), although delayed by about 2 hours. Better than last year’s 12 hour delay, though. Or was it the year before? Why am I asking you?

The beaches were all fine – one was glorious, the others were a bit shingly for my liking. Actually, I’m not really a beach person, but everyone else is, so I’m happy to go with the flow. And on the day it rained we went to a local palace, where they had opened a whole seven rooms to the public (really – stop spoiling us!). The palace was pretty much a shrine to Achilles, with statues and paintings of him, everywhere. We got drenched (it was pretty much textbook torrential) and stopped hunching our shoulders against the weather when we realised we may as well just accept the wet. Walking through the gardens, as wet as it is possible to be,  saying things like “Weather report says it might shower, later” provided our fellow stormees with much amusement.

Oh, and the ants – Jeeeesus, they were big fellahs! Ever seen the film Them? These ants weren’t as big as the ones in the movie (that would be silly – and a little worrying) but they were certainly big enough to give the movie ants pause for thought if it ever came down to a rumble. The Corfu ants had bigger bodies than our own, homegrown varieties, it’s true, but their legs were disproportionately big – almost as if they were wearing stilts to try to intimidate other insects. Or Doc Martins! That’s it – they were wearing bovver boots – Corfu ants are the skinheads of the insect world! It wouldn’t have surprised me to see small elves using them as steeds (except, of course, that would also be silly – elves are not native to Corfu, and they rarely vacation away from the mainland).

So, that was last week. Photos were taken, food was consumed, sun was worshipped (or, in my case, acknowledged with a polite nod of the head). And we spent about £200 less than we’d accounted for in our budget.

This week – cat to vet (blood in urine – not a pleasant sight, nor (I’m guessing) experience for the feline in question) and car in for service (going to be about £500-ish). That was yesterday. The rest of the week will be work, work, work. And I’m guessing there’s plenty of extra bits and pieces to do that have built up in my absence. At least I’ll never be bored.