WEATHER LOOKING UP

After our cri de couer recently for some "proper" weather we have been rewarded with some good days this week. Night time temperatures that haven't sunk below 13�C and day time temperatures nudging 18 and 19�C has made for a beautiful couple of days where we have been able, at last, to get out and tidy our own small world up after the depredations wrought by the evil southerly winds and rains. More importantly we have been able to relieve the incipient claustrophobia that had begun to set in. Just being able to get out into the open air and move about in some comfort has been one of the most welcome reliefs. The skies have been opening up early in the morning these days revealing what my mother used to refer to as "enough blue to make a Dutchman's trousers".

Today, for example, we got out to Rethymnon (the last time we were there we came back like drowned rats) in sunshine. No jackets, no umbrellas, no soaking, no misery. No rivers running through it. We were free to wander and to window shop although now that many of the shops are decked out in the gaudy tat of Xmas there was not much of real interest to see. Greece has ramped up the whole commercial nonsense of Xmas in the years we have been here and very depressing it is to witness.

We bought a new toy for the Farmboy Twins while we were there - a tool for pulling tree stumps and the like. The boys are aiming to shift some the very large stones that still litter the farmland - bigger even than they can lift between them and this "two ton puller" appears to be exactly what they wanted - and all for 10 euros! It doesn't take much to make them happy boys. We also picked up a spare blade for Ceddie's tree saw - that gives each of them a "new" Japanese turbo-cut saw in time for olive harvest - whenever that happens. We are ready and fully prepared, we await Georgi's starting gun!