Finally arrived in Corfu!
15 June 2015 | Paleokastritsa, Corfu, Greece
Graham
At last, we have finally arrived in Corfu! It has been a somewhat epic journey which started in Saudi Arabia on the 13th April when packing commenced. Returning to the UK for a four week stop at mum's who very kindly allowed us to receive our boxes from Saudi, re-pack and combine with our other possessions cracking the ceilings below mum's loft (!) before being collected by a lorry and departing for Corfu, estimated arrival on the 18th June. As to where we are going to put everything, we have absolutely no idea! Far too much stuff for two people I suspect, but we'll see. The most important items in the boxes are our woodworking tools which we require to build a new kitchen interior and all our own furniture as we don't actually own any furniture with the exception of a coffee table that we bought 15 years ago in Cyprus. We have really been welcomed into the small local community, even though our ability to converse in Greek at the moment is extremely limited; we are working on that slowly! The next step is to get a Greek Residency Card so that we can buy a small car...to collect the timber to build the furniture... but that requires the EHIC card with me here which is a bit of a shame as it is in the UK! We have 90 days to register with the local Police station before we become unofficial 'aliens' so I'm keen to resolve that one soon. Cooking is being done at the moment on two small portable Camping Gaz stoves purchased at the local supermarket. This results in all cooking being done on the Veranda on a small, low coffee table - a bit inconvenient but a great view! Once the replacement kitchen is built, we can get a decent arrangement and cook in the kitchen! We have bought a few small items to get us started over here and also a very powerful Karcher K7 Jetwasher which has been immensely useful in clearing many years of moss and dirt from the paths around the house. Our neighbours have already been commenting on how much better the place looks now that some maintenance is being done. There is a massive amount of work to do and I suspect it will take quite a few years to get everything done. At the moment, it's one step at a time. The first job is to build a sofa so we can sit down in the evenings on a comfortable chair! We have been around numerous coffee shops, bakers and bars photographing furniture to get some ideas on what to build and now have some thoughts and designs together. Now I just need the wood, and a car to collect it... :-) Once this is built, we can start on the kitchen. This will be our first ever major tiling and woodworking project so it will be interesting to see how it all goes. I suspect it will look fine, but will take a considerable time to complete compared to a professional team doing the job. However, we can develop some new skills in the process and I might even end up building and selling furniture one day! So for now, it's mainly gardening and general tidying up. Thursday, boxes arrival day, will be very interesting I suspect!