No links to sites with adult content accepted
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JANUARY WEATHER ...
Wet quite regularly, with a taste of the real winter rains yet to come.. The first snow on the Omalos Mountain range arrived a few days before the end of the month - making the views to the east from our Cretan Vista base superb on the clear days.
Carol Palioudaki
Want an answer? Ask an expert.
Above: Webmaster Carol Palioudaki from the 'living in Crete' website has agreed to field those occasional very difficult questions that we can't answer ourselves. Why Carol? Well, she is right now awaiting the publication of her first book of answers - 'The Cool Guide to Living in Crete'. The book is out soon - watch this page or Carol's own website - www.livingincrete.net.
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Astratigos Village life... Another letter..
Dear Brian,
Hello and good afternoon from a very bright and sunny Crete - almost all the doors and windows are open. The snow capped Omalos mountains look superb against the bright blue sky.
The tilers have finished! No - it wasn't me, they completed a very superb bit of tiling last Friday, having worked from 7am to 8pm most days. They then refused extra payment for extra work - when they quoted we did not include the toilet walls and raising the floor level another 10 centimetres at our behest. However, their refusal did give me the chance to fix 'yes' man Nectarios!
We decided to put an extra 10,000 drx in the envelope containing their money. This was detected immediately - both men re-counting and then trying to give back the extra back. Pam grabbed the two notes and then gave them each 5,000drx a bit forcefully. Michaelis tried to retaliate by removing (unseen he thought) the money from their envelope and then thrusting the empty at me saying "ok, we
don't want your money - tear it up and throw it away!" I tore up the envelope and flipped the remains upwards. Poor Nectarios hadn't seen the Michaelis cash-switch and thought it was their money!!! He turned a pale shade of white - placed his hand over his heart and said "Oh." A brief second of vengeance for the staff meeting, but oh, so very sweet....
On Saturday I bagged the remaining loose sand in clean empty plastic sacks that it had originally contained an extra load of white sand. I was beginning to feel that the only reason I bought the white sand in the first place, was so that I could empty the bags and refill them with brown sand. Our tilers returning at this point to move their equipment to the next job, showed
seriously undue admiration for my endeavors - and my overalls. Peasants......
There was a brief interlude the same morning when we received a 'phone call, apparently from the mayor of Chania, saying that two of our friends had some outstanding electricity and 'phone bills and that their house was to be sold to pay them! Panic!! Our friends are in England. None of our business but we feel that we must help. We got a Greek friend to call the mayors office... It turned out
that the original call and been from the mayors representative in Kolimbari, a friend of our friends (Greek again) trying to pass a message saying that our friends were about to be cut off from water and electricity because the bills had not been paid. And that they were selling their house....
We called our friends in the UK and I explained that their (other) friends had heard that they were in debt and had hoped to make a killing by buying their house at forced sale value!!!
Ole! All is well....
On Saturday I successfully swept the kitchen chimney in my best white trousers, creases and all - to prove that it could be done in around 15 minutes with no mess.. I then knelt down on the soot covered floor to get a better look inside the stove.... I am not sure what Pam thought!
On Monday Nicola telephoned from the UK with the news that the midwife had declared that in two to three weeks time Pam and I will become grand-parents for the first time. We are, of course sincerely indebted to the midwife for this information, and have suggested in return that she may make more money running a company which builds family trees...
It might also be less stressful to young people such as myself who, at the very prime of their young lives, are arbitrarily relegated to the ranks of the aged. By the time you next see us we shall be old...... Still, boys drink Guinness!
But wait a moment, before I reach the exalted heights of the aged there is just a little time left to complete the tiling job by taking the surplus tiles (no, we didn't break them all) back to their local point of origin, the very grand Terzis tile emporium at Chania. Being almost out of space I will keep that story for next time.
Picture Strip - Winter white Akrotiri peninsula.
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Site News.
German Language Version. Still progressing - we are now working very hard and will be putting this version of our site on-line very soon. A lot of hard work is going on behind these particular scenes. The main drawback being that my school-days German remained at that level... But then our interpreter, Gudrun Harms is German!
Getting Here.
For anyone interested in getting to Crete by car we have some interesting
variations on our regular theme planned -including via some of the more esoteric
Balkan countries and a couple of Italian cities - Venice and Rome for
example. If you are already here, doing the trips in reverse is becoming
popular.. Or how about coming (or going) by rail? But please, don't try this in a day, not by car anyway..
Cretan Vista Calendars.
Our 2005 calendar was successfully produced (as always) at the last minute, along with our Christmas cards (2004). The gallery will be on line by 18th February.
Books & Good Reading.
Still
growing rapidly and is now - a new introductory page is well advanced and is already on site prior to opening. Meanwhile, in addition to the books mentioned in the right hand column at the bottom of this page, two further books have already been added:-
1. Athens and Beyond by Dana Farr Louis.
2. Greek Gods by Alan & Maureen Carter.
Photo Albumns. (See homepage links).
One thing I did not leave behind at Christmas was my regular Minolta camera. Quite apart from the obligatory family photographs at Christmas - (and grand-children are super) - Athens was un-missable... A quick photo-stop at the main meat market en-route to the UK was, and I exaggerate not, absolute magic.
En-route back to Crete, a couple of days prowling our regular haunts - the Acropolis area and Plaka, with the addition of the Athinas street vegetable market, gained us further new pictures - you can do this in a day from Crete, but wait for the photo galleries!!
There are of course many other developments going on all the time - including new ones which I have to bite my tongue rather than reveal until opening day.
Are we listening, do we hear?
We are and we do. The continuously increasing numbers of visitors and complimentary e-mails seem to show that our visitors - 21,000 plus individual visits in our best month last year - appreciate our efforts.
Last month I confessed to being at a loss to understand the motives of
those who bombard with rubbish spam and viruses the e-mail of a free site, which
diverts any offered finance to sick and handicapped children, a bit difficult to
understand... Much of this has now stopped - Thank-you. But..
I still find it difficult. We do not compete with commercial sites and we
don't abuse the work of other people. Why then do the porn-pushers use our
guest book to add links to their own sites? Please, help us keep
our site kidsafe.
WEBMASTERS PLEASE
NOTE. If you have any of our work on your site without our consent - seek permission now.
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Out Soon - watch www.livingincrete.net
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MORE FUN & SERIOUS PLEASURE PLEASE!
To our visitors who have taken the time to tell us that they have found our site enjoyable/ informative/ helpful/ or otherwise complimented the site - very many thanks. We are trying very hard and it's really good to know that you like it". Besides, my wife notes that many of you are ladies! Please don't stop!!
GUEST BOOK LINK
NB. Please don't use the Guest Book to place website links - any URLs - or contact style messages, are automatically disabled/removed in the interests of minors. Questions can be sent to us privately at:
cretanvista.gr
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