Corfu Sunset

John Waller

Description

Just retired John Waller and his Danish wife decide to renovate their near-derelict holiday home. They gain control from their neighbour who has pumped sewage on their land. In a frenetic summer they build a road up the mountain and a pool, veranda and new roof for their villa. A party is held to celebrate a great Greek victory.

Sujets

• Travel writing

Informations

• Publié par: Yiannis Books
• Date de parution: 07 janvier 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783013081
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

CORFU SUNSET
Avrio never comes
John Waller
Illustrations by John Chipperfield
YIANNIS BOOKS England
YIANNIS BOOKS
Acknowledgements
I thank my friends and family who have supported me in this project and to David for his editing. I thank the many readers of Greek Walls who have asked when do we get the sequel?
CORFU SUNSET. Copyright 2005 by John Waller
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher except for quotation of brief passages in reviews.
Published in 2005 by YIANNIS BOOKS Strawberry Vale, Twickenham TW1 4SJ, UK
Typeset by Mike Cooper, 25 Orchard Rd, Sutton SM1 2QA, UK Printed by Antony Rowe, Chippenham, Wiltshire, UK
232pp ISBN 978-09547887-1-1 ISBN 978-1-7830130-8-1(eBook)
Corfu Sunset
Avrio never comes
Prologue
Part One - Preparation
Making new Greek friends
Entertaining old friends
Taking control
Part Two - Construction
Excavating the mountain
Creating a crisis
Building the road
Planning a party
Installing the pool
Motivating Pavlos
Part Three - Completion
Sprinting to the finish
Celebrating the victory

For Nikos Mechanikos Papavlassopoulos And the great Greek workers
THE CHARACTERS
THE LOCALS Spiros Belvedere Apartments Grammenos Our neighbour Dr. George Pink Palace Grammenos Son of: Spiros Pink Palace Grammenos Pink Palace founder George Texaco (now Shell) Grammenos Source of all information Caroline George Texaco s wife George Georgy Porgy Grammenos Sinarades taverna owner Fotis and Tassos Doukakis Of Theodoros taverna Michael and Of Romantic View and Anna Pangalis Romantic Palace Spiros Mini-market Mazis Elected local councillor Councillor Nikos Papadatos Councillor PC Poulis Neighbour below Spiros and son Alekos Alamanos Community plumbers THE WORKERS Petros Kardakis Original engineer Spiros Zervos Petros Kardakis s partner Nikos Mechanikos Papavlassopoulos Our engineer and Anna and his architect wife Zacharias Our first wall builder Nikos Bulldozer Grammenos Hero Hellenic Republic Pavlos (Paul Newman) Final wall builder George (Segal) Pavlos s partner Nikos Builder Merianos The best builder in the area Marinos Lorry driver and waiter Alexos Hirdaris Rep. of pool company Polish Valdek, Christos, Albanian Christos Swimming pool installers Vassilis Proskyr/Yiannis Concrete provider/manager Spiros Moskou and Sasha Tile provider and secretary THE OTHERS Agalis and Rob Daughter and son-in-law of: Elena Manessis Friend for 35 years Costas Tsivanides Our lawyer Amalia Our accountant Fred Lumberjack and gardener
Looking back from below the mountain of Garouna to our once virgin hillside, we were shocked, appalled and dazed by a great Pink City that had grown up behind the Pink Palace. Spiros Pink Palace Grammenos had come a long way in twenty-five years. It was impossible to be too angry with the development as it had provided a home away from home for tens of thousands of students, many from the United States. I was sure that they would always have happy memories of our lovely island.
PROLOGUE
Wednesday 13 June 2001
Seven beeps and a long blast on the horn: are we sinking? I m not usually superstitious, but it is the 13 th of the month. My mind leaps back to last year, when a Minoan High Speed Ferry hit an island in the Aegean and sank. I haven t felt anything and I don t think there are any islands here in the middle of the Adriatic, but I m still worried. My wife and I follow the green family group signs, and arrive on deck. Phew! We can relax again. Minoan Lines is just having a lifeboat drill. The crew, who are wearing life jackets, wander around, looking bored. It seems that they should be looking for passengers in their cabins but, today, they miss this job out. Instead, they meet up with those who want to see the display and have a discussion. Greeks are good at having discussions.
Someone points to a lifeboat but the officer replies: No, we won t launch one today .
This is not because they don t know how to - I m sure they do. Nor because it would spoil the paint - it s because we have to beat the rival Strintzis Lines. Why on earth both lines are scheduled to leave Venice at the same time and arrive in Greece at the same time has always baffled me.
This time we win the race. Jannie and I take this as a good omen, as we too are engaged in a race. At the same time as the Greek government is struggling to complete its mammoth Olympic construction project in three years time, we are starting on our own Olympian project in Corfu - three months to build a road up the mountain to our villa and reroof it, construct a swimming pool and build a veranda and an extension.
We will then have a home to match the beauty of the island and our idyllic situation, surrounded by olive tree covered mountains above the long sandy beach of Agios Gordis, overlooking the open Mediterranean to the west.
I think back two years to when we decided to renovate our house.
PART ONE - PREPARATION
Making new Greek friends
A week after my retirement in April 1999, Jannie and I flew to Athens on Easyjet, hired a car and drove up to Corfu. With more time on our hands, we wanted to see whether we could live in our house outside the main tourist season.
For years we had visited the island for just a couple of weeks each summer. When we built the little villa thirty years ago, we called it Iliovasilema , Sunset . Then a neighbour, Spiros Grammenos, arrived to the north. He built his guest house Belvedere Apartments jutting out from the mountain, rising four storeys from the road below and blocking out the sunset in July and August. As we looked towards the dying sun, we would see Spiros, spying at us from the bridge of his ugly construction.
Arriving at the house late at night, we had our usual concerns. Any Albanians squatters in residence? No. Any electricity? Yes. I should have been relieved but I feared this was going too well.
We went into the sitting room and looked aghast at a long trail of dust, one centimetre high. We had been invaded. The trail led us to the spare room, the one that was eaten by termites many years before. We saw a large brown lump on the bed. Then it dawned on us, the lump was part of the roof. Something had been up under the tiles, eating the timbers. We entered our bedroom. No tell-tale trails or lumps, but a column of ants entering and leaving the light switch above the bed. Jannie switched the light on - and we heard the hiss of thousands of ants being electrocuted. However, the intruders had the last laugh. The light went out; the ants had shorted the switch.
As I fell asleep I decided that, for us to live in Corfu in the spring and autumn, we must first of all replace our sieve with a new roof. But this would cost money, which was more of a problem now that I was not working. Living on a pension demanded economies and Stelios s excellent Easyjet airline was the first. Our second saving was a visit to Fast Food Vassilis in Pelekas, the village to the north of our own, Sinarades. The red gingham clothed bistro tables, delightful d cor - garlands of plastic vines over a multitude of mini-mirrors - and soothing Greek music welcomed us. But it was the two course meal for two that completely won us over. Including half a litre of wine, it cost only 2.80 . We could live here for ever.
Vassilis was charming, Eleni was delightful - as a regular I had earned a peck on both cheeks - and their twin girls were perfect. One looked like her father; the other like her mother. Not surprisingly perhaps, they didn t appear in the 1999 Egon Ronay Food Guide. The starter - pita bread and tzatziki - and the main course - chicken, sausage or pork with chips, salad and home-made tomato sauce - were combined in a convenient package. But who cared at that price. The house wine tasted like a Chardonnay, but it couldn t have been as Vassilis had grown the grapes. The music was classical - clarinets from the mountains of Epirus.
Greece, we were now to discover, is different before the tourists arrive. April is the walking and talking time of year. We walked to Pentati, the village we can see across the bay from the villa. Spring flowers lined the lane; butterflies - their wings still pristine - flitted from bloom to bloom; cicadas started to rustle; lizards lazed in the sun. Everything was bliss - almost.
Looking back from below the mountain of Garouna to our once virgin hillside, we were shocked, appalled and dazed by a great Pink City that had grown up behind the Pink Palace. This was hidden at road level by the two storey replacement to the original roadside building, which sat on an enormous retaining wall, perhaps eight metres high at the downhill end. For the first time, up high, we could now see its offspring, pink blocks containing hundreds of rooms for backpackers. From afar the complex appeared to have eight storeys. At least all the blocks had pitched roofs tiled in the traditional fashion. Spiros Pink Palace Grammenos had come a long way in twenty-five years. It was impossible to be too angry with the development as it had provided a home away from home for tens of thousands of students, many from the United States. I was sure that they would always have happy memories of our lovely island.
We filled up with petrol at the Texaco service station on the ridge between Sinarades and Agios Gordis. As it was April, the owner had time to talk. He introduced himself as George Grammenos. His name didn t surprise us as half the villagers of Sinarades had the same surname. George was short, swarthy and unshaven with a roguish twinkle in his eyes. I congratulated him on his excellent English.
I married an English girl, he explained. He smiled at a tall, willowy and pretty young brunette, with a broad smile, who had just walked in. This is Caroline, my wife.
We met when I was working at the Pink Palace, she added.
I am John and this is Jannie, we ve had a house here for twenty-seven years.