WORST WINTER EVER

OK, it's official (in my book). This is the longest, nastiest, winter ever. We have had rain, more rain, freezing rain, power cut offs and regular soakings, colds and 'flu. And the bathroom roof leaks. Boo!

Mr Crozier had a nasty fall and damaged his ribs along with a badly cut leg. Having fallen when Ma Crozier was in town for the morning, he stayed on the floor until her return. Despite daily dressings, the cut did not heal and he ended up in hospital for a week on IV antibiotics and a minor clean up op. In case you don't know, families have to provide all the hands-on care in Greek hospitals. So that I was still doing all the daily dressings, washings, clothes changings and bed makings, but away from home in ghastly weather. So exhausting and a challenge to a mending ankle! Now home again, the rain keeps falling with thunder and lightning going on for hours and the router needs to be turned off at regular intervals inter-dispersed with lightning tripping out the power in between. We will soon be on to our third wood supply of the winter as the log burner is the only thing to stand between us and the elements without central heating and power supplies being so unreliable. ….... Any chance of help with winter fuel payments if you retire abroad?  No, not for us, although we paid for it along with everyone else. The prefecture of Chania declared a state of emergency as the storms were so bad.

Utterly, utterly ... had enough of this winter of discontent.

The backdrop to this is the need to get all sorts of documents that we never needed before to prepare for a possible hard Brexit. If the UK is no longer in the EU, none of our EU docs or UK docs will give sufficient security for us to be treated as we were before. Gov UK via the British Embassy, keep sending us emails to tell us of new information which are couched in 'government speak' and really difficult to sort out. Once you glean through the links and paragraphs, nothing seems any different from the last email. As a precaution, all our driving licences were surrendered and new Greek ones applied for at great cost. A trip to the Police Station to convert our existing residence permits to ones denoting settled status is 'strongly recommended'. Some Police Stations are welcoming and easy-going … but not ours. Our local Wild West Police Station is requiring all depth of jobsworth paper trails. We need five years of Accountant's certificates, house and land documents along with photos, passport copies, original permit and over 5 years of utility bills. We are all tearing about in between storm clouds and drenchings to comply with bureaucratic stuff. Our Accountant helped us with our documents and recommended taking a Greek person with us to act as a translator. We also realise that the IKA book, recently queued for and updated will necessitate another trip as Mr C's passport was renewed recently and the numbers will not add up. Greeks are frankly non-plussed by all this activity initiated by the UK, not Greek Government. Getting able bodied people backwards and forwards is irksome enough, but getting K up and down stairs to various offices is really difficult.  Joy it is not!

Half the filing cabinet to take with us ...

Such comings and goings to hospital with bags and supplies and the regular soakings resulted in the loss of my local bank card. I had moved so many bags, bowls, bandages and food backwards and forwards, I had no idea where it could be and turned every bag and basket upside down. So this resulted another queue at the Bank, a trip back to get an Accountant's certificate plus passport in order to cancel the lost card and get a new one. After lengthy queuing, the nice lady supplied me with a new card and just as I had signed various docs and packed all my papers away, she asked me for my mobile number. I reached into the phone pocket of my bag and just spotted an extra zip tucked away behind the flap – the little purse with my original bank card inside! Bother, bother, bother!

Perhaps this is a message about all the frenetic activity we are involved in at the moment. Nothing we can do or re-arrange is any better than what we have already. Just wasted, wasted effort for something so much worse for everyone!

B*!!*x to Brexit! Hopefully there will be an end to all this and life will settle down again.

We know that under the olive trees of our region are the yellow clovery flowers and anemones growing wild. We can't wait to get out of doors to enjoy them again.

Roll on Spring!