Flags Out! Paleo is Back in Business!

On Monday the 2009 Blue Flags went up. These testify to the cleanliness of the beaches in EU terms, and the municipality boasts this status for the three town beaches and those at Gramenon and Anidri. The 13th of July might seem a bit a bit late in the season.. but it's that sort of a year (and posssibly the new burden of assigning every last sunbed license in the country has been a bit much for Athens!)
Anyway, the arrival coincides with some other improvements.
Mother Nature has deposited a bit more sand at the far end of the beach and the supply and distribution of the sunbeds has expanded.

.. and out in the main street we have plenty of tables at the kafenions at night!

The road has a couple of coatings of asphalt and is just a bit bumpy round the manholes. The pavements are fully passable and there is a very high but white-painted kerb separating the two. Similar treatments are due to start in October for the "top" up to the church and the "bottom" down to the Livicon, and by next summer there will be granite pavements, street lamps, buried wiring and the dreaded "water feature" somewhere. The periptero (kiosk) -
will be moved, the statue - where so many of our kids congregated over the years- will come back, but the pair of public phones next to Yanni's is lying sadly behind the OTE and is not going to be returned to its former spot.
As for this year - no problems, so - if you can - get on over here with your euros and improving pounds to help the good folk make up for May and June!
(That's for Nikos who thinks the blog has been unfair on the place! Mmmmmm!)

.. and last week the Open Air Cinema started its season. At first it was groans all round! Along with the magnificent and ever-present "Zorba" we had "Prime" and "Robinson Crusoe" - shown frequently over the last two years and getting no better for it. Then - bliss and rapture!- two new films as you see.:- "Slumdog Millionaire" and "Benjamin Button".

(Our spies report that the wrong film ran for 10 minutes the other night, but hey!)

This week has also been jolly hot:- some perfect days followed by widy ones (moving round easterly now so inclined to sandblast). We got Yvette out from under her cover and went to Anidri yesterday and the Viena today.

Putting the Lid on it!

Yesterday at 7.20 am the building noises started. This is an hour earlier than we have been enjoying of late (including on one Sunday morning!) The reason was that it was roofing day on the neighbouring emergent apartment block. Breakfast on the bougainevillea-smothered balcony was not a peaceful affair.


Seven men were aloft doing things with the cement that was splurting out of the spout. The foreman was shouting his usual monosyllabic instructions (which have improved our Greek no end) and every so often a new cement lorry would appear down the makeshift lane!


We adjourned to the beach pretty soon to enjoy 34 degrees C and very little wind.- until 3pm that is- when there was the first gust and a sandblaster started. (We had only paid for the sunbed half an hour before - owing to Thomas from FYROM - the bed man - being distracted into new entrepreneurial activity - lugging drinks and a coolbox along the beach hoping for sales. His son had spent the previous couple of days trying an ordering service from the Jetee with little success)



Anyway! Back at the construction site concrete work was over by the evening and the sprinklers were on. People visited the roof up till midnight and now - this morning - an eery silence reigns (except for the sprinkler and flapping tarpaulin) Our friend Manolis the Builder filled us in on the family involved and said he is expecting to do the brickwork - but not until October - so we may not have too much more to endure this summer.

Having left London on 070707 we have now completed our second glorious year of retirement bliss and ex-pat living. Here is the breakdown on nights spent in Year 2.

(Chloe eventually reported in from Barcelona in the rain - having been in Jersey, St Malo, Fontainebleau and Paris - a chip off the old blocks! She met up with Chris and they are on their way to Benicassim near Valencia for another festival)

Watch where you walk!

Monday again - and the workers are back in the main street! (A bit more was done to the pavements during last week - including some planting in the holes that had been left, but the road itself had been left in a barely passable compacted state) Ruth came out of the hairdressers at 10 am and a thin layer had already been spread and combed. At least two vehicles had also been over it, leaving tracks on the unaffected road, as had a puppy!

It is looking as if there may be a satisfactory - if as yet unbeatified street by the end of the week.

Meanwhile we have been enjoying Glastonbury without the mud underfoot! Chloe and boyfriend were there in person (and missed the bus back!). We watched some great stuff on the laptop thanks to the BBC and our neat VPN trick!

Here is Bob, complete with sarong, verucca and red wine, wallowing in Neil Young!

..and on the subject of slightly organisationally challenged local government...

I failed to list in the "changes since last year" the massacre of the trees at the back of the beach. There is a rich account of how all this happened just after Easter in the Kafenion section of the new Paleochora Forum. Anything there from Nogbad the Improbable is worth a read!!!!

Weatherwise the last few days have been calm and very warm, but the previous four days were not:- a chilly West wind, overcast skies and on Thursday two showers!