Outside the house a
furious gale force buffeting of wind is throwing things about and the
power is dipping on and off as electricity wires are momentarily
touching and cutting off the supply. I have been in and out tying
things down, retrieving umbrellas, removing sun blinds and closing
shutters to keep most of the furious onslaught of hot winds from the
south at bay. However, inside the house everything that is not fixed
down is swaying about and the noise is a bit scary! We will await
going out and about for an hour or two, to see if things calm down a
bit. I wonder if this is one of the tails of the hurricanes which
have been in the news.
Mr C and Mrs C are
enjoying some down time after a bit of a squash. A crisis situation
in the UK brought a brother to stay for a couple of weeks to bridge
the gap between looking for somewhere to live and pension arriving in
the bank. Housing in the UK has become so prohibitive lately. We
all spent a couple of days scouring internet sites with him looking
for affordable places to rent which were few and far between.
This does not bode well
for many pensioners here. The most recent posting from Gov.UK (via the British
Embassy) informed us definitively that S1 health
funding would only be available for 6 months after Brexit. The rush
of people returning to the UK for life-saving medication and health
care will be an extra crisis for the local authorities to handle with
little or no funding from central government. After the kindness we
have received from the Greek system in spite of their financial
difficulties, the attitude of the British Government has been
chilling and I feel ashamed of what is happening. This is not the
Britain I grew up in post WWII, these are not the values I hold dear,
how can all this be? Everyone seems to be so frightened of
mob rule that they are adopting a regime to encompass the line of
least resistance, so that the country is to be run by tax evading
mobsters instead of some statesmen holding firm with any sort of
moral compass. I can barely believe it. I have now turned off and
blocked all news from Gov.UK, because it has become a list of
threats and no help to us.
While my brother was
with us, we discussed Philotimo. A wonderful Greek concept of help,
love, support for others without any expectation of reward.
Entrenched within the Greek national tradition in their quiet and
noble way, the Greek people we know demonstrate this trait
and show their welcome and hospitality as naturally as breathing. We
do hope some of it rubs off on us in the time we are here among
them. We intend to stay put as long as we possibly can!
We have been trying to ignore
Facebook and the Six O'Clock News, but things are now closing in on
us. The folk who tried to live in a warmer climate and eke out a
modest pension in their senior years are being denied what they paid into for all their working lives unless they return to the UK. The drop in the pound has made the cost
of living higher here, even though Greek costs have stayed the same,
our doctors and access to medication will cease and many of us will
be forced to leave our homes here because of Brexit. If those at home are
having a bad time already and think “Huh, serves them right!”,
just remember that a new mass influx of elderly, homeless and poorly
will make things worse for everybody in the UK. The housing crisis
will not improve. Hospitals will still be under stress without
access to medical professionals from Europe who have gone home in
droves. None of this will be an improvement for the man in the
street. The only people to win from this will be rich and super rich
people who trade on the foreign exchange markets or who keep their
mega bucks in off shore accounts and don't pay taxes. If they had
been forced to pay tax (as the EU had recommended) it would have
helped to cover the costs of schools, roads, hospitals and
infrastructure. Avoiding paying tax by all the giants of industry,
commerce and the media is what all this push for Brexit has really been
about.
Don't be fooled, we
have all been ripped off and so much damage done to our country in
the process but there is always hope. My hope is that Britain
resists threats from the mob, stands firm in the tradition of free
speech in parliament and overcomes, confuses and confounds any malign forces that would try to destroy all that is truthful, responsible
and right.
In spite of all this pontificating, the wind is
still gusting outside, the power twitching and the router needs
rebooting for the third time today! Keep safe!
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