It's the middle of April, Easter  is just 2 weeks away and we are still  in lockdown. Under normal circumstances we would be preparing to leave our winter home and get going.  We are still  waiting for the Greek government to decide when we can all start moving around and the tourists will start coming. The celebrations for Easter won't be happening for  a second year running although we have heard that families will be getting together privately to cook lamb, eat, drink and pray. The pappas here has said he will open the church  - it would be so nice to hear the bells, we haven't heard them for months.

The locals are very angry at the  moment. They are restricted because of lockdown and cannot freely move out of their municipality nor between islands. And they have every right to be angry, and Andreas and I are too as we have learnt  that a coach load of Israeli tourists have arrived on the island and are staying on the south side in the Cavos Bay Hotel in Armenistis. How can this be so? It is not right on so many levels.

The weather has been very unsettled and there have been a couple of spectacular Southerly storms with waves breaking over the marina wall and causing quite a bit of anxiety.  While I was away, one storm was very big and Andreas did not get much sleep for a few nights.  One wave that broke over the wall was so big it caused a tsunami that broke over the dock and took our dinghy with it as it receeded!!!! 

Some days we have woken up to the saloon being very cold and  have  immediately fired up the heating. Other mornings, like today, there is no wind, the sun is very warm and I will be practising my yoga on the dock - the first time in weeks!!!. But all in all it has been a very mild winter and I have only worn a hat and gloves once. Now the flora and fauna is bursting into life and we wake to the sound of bird song.   For a few weeks we went to sleep listening to an owl, gently toowit-towooing somewhere up on the cliff. The colours of the flowers is breath-taking and they seem to appear literally overnight.

We have the usual 'to do' list that seems never ending.  Normally we hit it hard during the winter months but this year we  seem to have lost our  mo-jo and now realise we may get the all clear to be able to move mid May so we really do need to get cracking.   I want to rub down and re varnish  the companionway steps. After 14 years they are looking worn. Not a job for cold damp days but once the weather has settled and it is warmer I can start.

The windlass that I humped all the way from the UK on my last visit in February (at great cost to my poor aching back!!!) needs installing and I have made it quite clear that we are not leaving until it is in, up and running.  My days of heaving  up anchor chain and anchor are well over !!!!

We are considering upping our  level of solar panels.  We currently have 2 giving us 100 watts of energy.  There is a solar specialist here who can help us upgrade to 150.  It is simply a question of ordering one panel from Athens to replace the panel that was damaged some months ago (but still works) . The biggest issue is the mounting brackets which are hideously  expensive, have to come from UK and to make matters worse it now seems that due to Brexit, we have to pay tax on goods arriving from home.

The new battery charger that I brought back from the UK on my visit last  November, to our horror, did not work when we installed it. We clearly had a circuit issue as the odds of 2 chargers both having exactly the same problem are millions to one. But now, we have found an outstanding electrician, brother in fact to the solar specialist,  who came on board and within an hour sourced the problem and fixed it.  So we now have a spare fully functional charger as the problem was in the control panel and not the charger unit itself!!! To our delight, he has said that he can install the windlass for us. This will save us the trouble of having to get it done on the island of Leros which was the original plan. All we will need to do there is a power wash of the hull and polish the top sides.

The other big job that we both hate is re-organising all our storage  space.  There are items we thought we would need close by but now realise we don't and things we didn't think we would need close to hand that we do.  This is a job for a quiet dry day when we can empty all our lockers out onto the dock and do a complete re-org. But we need to psych ourselves up for that one!!!

Then there is the usual cleaning. We will power wash the decks, clean ropes, service the outboard, the engine and the generator and hose down the main sail. We just need a departure date in our heads to get the motivation to do all this stuff!!!!

Muse for this post:   Wrong is wrong,  even if everyone is doing it.  Right is right,  even if no one is doing it.