Feline photos

We've got a lot of cats, really a lot, like 15. They have sort of accumulated over the last five years and it seems quite normal now. Because we have an acre of garden and the weather is good a lot of the time they spend most days sleeping in the forest, eating, sleeping a bit more and if they are being useful killing the odd rat or two. And they do have a large utility room with comfy cat beds for when it's cold or raining. Joyce, Sebastian, Niles and Luka are more inside cats and as I type this are dozing gently on the sofas.
Maybe if you are not a cat person they all look the same but I was thinking yesterday how you can tell so much about a cat's personality by their expression. For example, this is Alix. She's a bit of a loner, bit crabby and quite aloof:

and Ferdinand is a young male who is at that difficult age and rather demanding:

I bottle fed Luka from three weeks old and even though he's two years old he's still a mummy's boy and loves me a lot:

and finally Wilfred; we don't know how old he is as he just turned up in a terrible condition a few years ago and had obviously been in the wars. He's kind and gentle but still has a slightly depressed air about him:

Don't worry, I'm not going to run through the remaining eleven! Well not today anyway.

60 minute makeover ( I wish! )

After a whole month in England having a wonderful time seeing family and friends, and eating far too much, it's back to island life. We spent most of yesterday at our church community centre which we've been helping to create over the past few months.
When we started it was an empty couple of rooms that needed a complete makeover. In the absence of a reality TV team it's been a major job but the end is in sight. Guy climbed up a very, very high ladder to fit speakers, a projector and screen (following instructions from Father Avraam!) . I made helpful comments.
There are big plans for the centre - apart from coffee after services and holding meetings and talks there will be a small library, youth groups and a summer creche. And when the kitchen is finished we will provide meals for some of the islanders. I wish I'd taken photos before we started as the change is amazing. But this is what it's like so far:

Check out the sweat! It was very hot 

Now which bit goes where?

Happy priest with new sound system

Hot

Men making fire

It's so hot here, 40C yesterday afternoon. We went out on the boat with a couple of friends and headed off to a small beach on a neighbouring island for a barbecue. Being on the water was absolutely the best place to be, and then we spent most of the day just wallowing in the water thinking how lucky we were to live in such a beautiful place. The only hitch was the disposable barbecue we had didn't want to light so Guy and Chris spent a very very long time trying to coax some life into it while Nicky and I made helpful suggestions. It managed to cook a few sausages but gave up on the pork chops.
I'm up early this morning (6am) as it's the only time of the day when you can get things done around the house without melting. So now it's off to feed the hens followed by a spot of ironing!

Haircut

I finally got round to giving Nancy a haircut. Her fringe was so long she could hardly see and after every walk I had to spend ages getting bits of twig and forest out of her coat. Also it's so hot here she is more comfortable. It took a long time and lots of treats to get it done and I think she looks beautiful!

Before

After ( this is her long suffering look)

Seeing the world without a fringe

Happy Anniversary

Two years ago today we were all in Dublin for Jennie and Shane's amazing wedding. Happy Anniversary!

Messing about in boats

We've had a wonderful fortnight with Jennie, Shane and Shane's parents June and Brian. The weather was great and the sea calm enough to go out in the boat without me shrieking in terror at any waves.

Chaos

Milou, the young dog we look after occasionally is back for a short visit and it's a bit manic here. All the cats apart from Joyce have decided that being in the house with a crazy dog is not a good idea and are sulking outside. Joyce is sitting determinedly on the back of the sofa looking at Milou with great disdain and every now and then swiping at her with sharp claws. This sets Milou off on a barking frenzy which in turn starts the other dogs off. I am sitting on the balcony with a cold beer trying to ignore it. Difficult. Thank goodness we don't have neighbours to complain about the noise.

                                           Joyce pretending dogs don't exist

Hide and seek

Some of my chickens lay where they're meant to - in the nesting boxes and then there's a group of naughty hens who (despite having had their wings clipped) fly into the garden and find secret little places to nest in. So we play a daily game of "hunt the nest". And then once we find it and take away piles of eggs they promptly find somewhere new, and so the game continues. I've just found the latest one. There is one very angry hen out there now complaining dreadfully that they've been discovered!

Last class

Today I taught my junior class for the last time. I've been teaching them for three years and they have been funny, smart, naughty, challenging but overall incredibly rewarding and I've learnt so much from them. And hopefully they've learnt quite a lot from me. After three years they are all pretty confident English speakers and their favourite game is I Spy which they try and persuade me to play with them whenever they get bored with grammar lessons.Here we are all together before we went to buy ice cream.

The hanging chair

When we moved here almost 5 years ago some friends who were leaving the island gave us their old  hanging garden chair, they had had it for many years and it's been patched up and taped together many times and until it finally falls to pieces we will keep hanging it up in the summer. It's the kind of chair that people just gravitate towards and then sit in, gently swinging back and forth with a dreamy look on their face. Unless you are Clara in which case it's a fab swing! This year I decided to make new covers for it and have used a beautiful piece of fabric from a shop in Maine called On Board Fabrics. The chair is also extremely popular with the cats but to avoid all cat type accidents the cushions will be brought in at night!

Gardener's Delight

The garden is at its best this time of year, the roses are amazing and their smell takes me right back to England. We have a bottle brush bush which gets bigger and bigger each season and seems to attract all the honey bees on the island.

 In just a few weeks the temperatures will climb and the only things that really thrive are the geraniums. So for everyone who thinks that Greece is too hot ( you know who you are!!) why not visit us in May and enjoy our garden glory.

Stranger Danger

With the arrival of summer comes tourists. For the next few months our quiet forest existence will be disturbed. Not by the visitors themselves, but by the vociferous barking of the dogs as they catch sight of strange people enjoying a peaceful ( until the dogs see them) walk in the country. Carter's bark is as huge as his size and Nancy has perfected an extremely piercing terrier yap. Barking is accompanied by a couple of laps of the balcony where Carter usually falls over due to his clumsiness and the slippery tiles. The whole episode usually only lasts a few minutes and then peace descends once more. Until the next time.

May Day

A beautiful sunny morning today with the sea looking like milk. Standing on the balcony and listening on the radio to the weather forecast for the British bank holiday made me realise why we chose to live in Greece.

It's May 1st and that means barbeques, picnics and being outside. Everyone puts flowers on their cars and there's a real holiday feel about the island.

We ate an enormous amount of barbequed food with our friend Father Avraam and his wife Evgenia. If he wasn't a priest he'd be a chef, he LOVES food!

Cruel to be kind

I feel awful but it has to be done, Ferdinand has a bad ear and this is the only way to stop him making it worse. He's not happy.

A lively visitor

We have been dog sitting since Friday and things have been pretty lively here as a result. Milou is an adorable 10 month old Jack Russell / Staffy cross BUT she is not house trained, is very very bouncy, barks at cats and wakes up during the night. Carter is incredibly patient with her and tolerates her puppiness whereas Nancy is disgusted with her presence here and has been under the bed since she arrives, only coming out for meals and walks. We try to wear her out with lots of walks and here's a cute shot of her having a siesta with Guy (who looks like he's recovering from surgery of some kind!)

Things are growing here

 Our vine is growing so fast right now, by the time we get to proper hot sun in June it should be giving us much needed shade.

And the other thing that's growing is my sock! It's the first one I've done and after a few false starts I seem to be making progress. Not quite sure whose foot it will fit, it looks a very odd shape but I'm really enjoying knitting it.

and one last picture of the vine plus Rufus the rooster and one of his ladies

disadvantages of a seagull

I spent a long time this morning scrubbing away at the terrace to try and remove seagull poo. Jonathon has been with us since September now and his wing feathers are growing again but his flying skills are still a bit rubbish. He can take off, do a few rather pathetic flaps and then nosedives into the ground. His only other vices are pecking (quite hard) at shoes and trying to get in the cat flap. But on the positive side he is very curious and likes to see what's going on, plays with the cats and has a really sweet way of holding his head on one side and looking at you. We would quite like him to fly off and join his own kind soon though. Maybe Nancy and Carter could persuade him.

That time of year again

Exams are looming and my poor students are spending hours on mock tests, and I'm spending hours marking them. The first one is on May 8th which if past experience is anything to go by means they will start revising in earnest on May 7th.

Calorie alert

Eleanor gave me this fab cookery book for Christmas and I've been working my way through it much to Guy's delight. Today I made these Cherry Chocolate Cupcakes which are delicious. The only problem is that having lost a few kilos in the weeks before Easter I'm now in danger of piling them back on again.