Earlier in the morning, K had taken on the Log Burner, emptied the ash pan, which was full of rusty water and stuck the insulating rope into the door of the wood stove with the tube of cement supplied by the hardware store (fingers crossed)! Whenever we ask questions about these sorts of things in the village, we know we will get a battery of conflicting advice and the vehement discussion, arm waving and loud argument which will last all night and probably go on for another week. Some locals offered to deliver some logs so with a bit of luck we hoped to have a warm fire in the house as evening fell and were thankful for such good friends.
We found a kind of garden centre/agricultural supply place and took a quick drive around Roumeli, which we had heard was the place where lots of ‘Eenglishe’ had bought houses. It was very high up with steep roads and tracks with newbuild houses on a fairly large and ornate scale – so the views over the olive groves, fields and the sea were spectacular but I would not like to have to drive up those narrow, unfenced roads on a regular basis as it looked a bit dodgy to me. The scenery on the road today was wonderful and the mountains have more snow than I have ever seen before. Even the road verges are bathed in yellow flowers and I notice that there are buds on a lot of trees. We kept spying fallen trees and twigs for kindling but thought it would be too damp to be worth gathering. Another year we would be more organised.
We arrived home with some pots, window boxes and a large bag of potting compost which I plan to plant up as soon as possible because this little house definitely needs some plant cover!
In the afternoon, some friends of Kimon dropped off the wettest load of logs we have ever seen and K was cross because he would have to store them for next year for them to be dry enough to use. I can hear him tossing them onto the roof of the shed and muttering to himself outside!
However, we have still not sussed out the phone situation as the options are hard enough to work out in English, but doubly difficult in Greek and we do not want to get tied into a contract which works out to be more costly than we can afford. We have two more places to visit yet before we can make a decision.
I had almost primed myself for a disappointment but you never know. I had covered two easy chairs with warm tartan rugs in readiness for a restful evening in front of our own roaring fire. After selecting some dry wood and kindling K set about lighting the enormous stove. It gave off a good blaze straight away and he shut the door expectantly. Almost immediately, thick grey smoke started billowing out all around the door and the bottom of the chimney. A quick inspection confirmed our worst fears: the chimney was blocked and would need to be cleared before we could enjoy a pipe and slippers evening or even relative comfort chez nous. K’s sister is spending a week or two in Athens and has offered to let us stay at her house in Rethymno if we would like - a very tempting proposition until the weather gets a bit warmer.
I reluctantly retired to the kitchen to serve up some very hot and filling pasta to warm us up as the sun went down. We may have to spend the evening at Christina’s taverna again but a glass of the roughest raki will soon warm us through. Yassou!
No comments:
Post a Comment