Votsi and beyond

Had a couple of days walking the highways and byways to see what's changed on the island.  Unfortunately quite a lot!  They are extending the harbour front in the neighbouring village so there is currently a massive and rather unsightly dredger which seems to spend it's day hammering down the sea bed!  Apparently they were aiming to get it done by the start of the season....fat chance.  I can't imaging the Sunvil guests being happy with their idyllic setting being trashed for the summer.....

The weather was rather grey and cool for the first couple of days but has now warmed up considerably.  Sunday was a beach cleaning day where the local scout group, some locals and some expats all got together in groups to gather all the rubbish that the winter storms had brought in.  The day started fairly cool which we were all quite grateful for but it soon changed and we ended up boiling under a cloudless blue sky!

We've met quite a few of the people I got to know over the summer last year and various events are already being arranged.  The first BBQ of the season is a week on Sunday so I'll prepare my liver as Karen is hosting!

Karen and Kostas have gone away for a few days so have kindly lent us their car to explore further afield.  We had a fabulous day today exploring Gerakas (at the very top of the island), Kalamakia - a lovely little harbour village and Steni Vala where we had our first Calamari & Tzatziki of the summer... it's a hard life!


On the road to Gerakas

Kalamakia harbour

On paying the bill we were asked whether we could give a young lady a lift back to Patitiri.  We said of course and ended up meeting Nikki, the new vet for the island!  It turns out that she was in Steni Vala to release a young seal that had been being looked after at the sanctuary on the island. Typical, we missed the event by a couple of hours. Oh well, maybe next time.

April 2015 - Here we are again!

Having had such a great time last year on the island, I decided to do it all again this year with one major difference....Paul is here too for the whole summer!  He took voluntary redundancy from his company just before xmas and I resigned from my job in March.

The journey to Alonissos started at 13:30 from Chesterfield on the train to Manchester airport.  It went smoothly until Edale where we sat still for 1hr having got stuck behind a slow and then non moving freight train!  We had a lovely view of fields full of lambs and watched as 2 ducks managed to overtake us as they walked across 3 large fields before we started moving again!!  We eventually made it to the station and on to the hotel for the night before an early flight to Thessaloniki.  From there we caught the bus from the airport to the bus station intending to board the 15:30 bus to Volos.  In my best greek I asked for Thio eeseeteerio styn Volos parakalo (2 tickets to volos please), only to be told 'sorry, there are no buses to Volos during the day as the ring road is closed, the next bus is at 21:15 this evening (it was 2.45pm at this time).  So, we spent 6 hours in Thessaloniki bus station drinking ouzo and playing Yahtzee :) We eventually got to our hotel in Volos at midnight.  We'd been given a room with a large balcony and a fabulous sea view, which of course was totally wasted as it was rather dark by this time!  The morning dawned sunny and warm and we had a great breakfast at 7.30 am to get our ferry to Alonissos at 9am.  So, we checked out, went over to the port and discovered that the ferry was now leaving at 10:45.....on arrival to Alonissos we trooped up to our apartment to find the owners were out and there was no key in the door!  Thankfully 10 mins later they arrived all of a dither as they'd been told the ferry hadn't left Volos until midday so weren't expecting us so soon......Welcome to Greece!!!!!

Oh it's THAT kind of party - and That's all folks!

Well the days have carried on being a mixture of dancing, aquafit and lazing on one beach or another and the nights have been spent on my balcony reading yet another book on my kindle (approx. 40 at last count!) or meeting up with friends.  There was another ouzo meze night last week where we had some wonderful food including mussels, prawns, sardines, salads, various dips, artichokes and many more dishes, all washed down with the local brew, Tsipouro.  All this for 15 euro per head....no, eating out in Greece is not expensive!
It was a fun night, for some of us, at Milia Bay last weekend at one of the many music nights on the island.  One of the guys at the table apparently got major cramp in his lower leg so his lady was kneeling down rubbing his leg.  Unfortunately all we could see at the other end of the table was Mark leaning back in his chair with his hands behind his head pulling all kinds of faces while Lizzie's head appeared to be bobbing up and down in his lap!!!!  Well, as you can imagine, I got the helpless giggles, along with Netty & Lynne who I'd alerted to the scene at the other end of the table by nudging them and pointing out that I didn't realise it was going to be THAT kind of party.  We were soon crying with laughter while poor Mark & Lizzie were completely oblivious to the fact that they were the source of our amusement...sorry guys!
There was a fire in Panselinos on Friday afternoon (where I go dancing). Luckily no-one was hurt but there has been a lot of smoke damage so a big clean up operation was going on over the weekend.  Greeks and non Greeks alike all mucked in to clean floors, ceiling and glasses and hopefully things will get back to normal pretty quickly.
It's nearly the end of my summer in Alonissos and I am going to miss it so much.  I have had and am still having a great time.  My skin is perfect, although I think I need a new liver so perhaps one out weighs the other!  I'm off to an Art exhibition tonight and then planning a day on the beach tomorrow.  I'll be hosting the quiz on Weds...eek! A trip to Skopelos is on the agenda for Thursday and the Paul comes over on Friday to spend my final two weeks with me.  He's already got a BBQ and pool party to come to on Sunday and a couple of people to meet up with on Saturday night...no rest just yet! 
So, this has been my last blog. I hope you've enjoyed reading about my summer as much as I've enjoyed actually living it.  Thank you to everyone on Alonissos for making me feel so welcome and for all the invites to parties, nights out, days out etc but most of all, THANK YOU to my husband for letting me pursue my dream while he slaved away at work and looked after everything at home.
I have absolutely no regrets about stepping away from my job and would say to anyone out there, if you've got a dream then stop dreaming and go for it ....what's the worst that can happen? 

Yammas! (cheers)

Quiet....ish!

So, following my hectic week I've managed to slow the pace down .... a little anyway!  That's not to say the past 2 weeks have been without incident!! 

There is an amazing 'spit' of land at the other end of the island to Patitiri called 'Agios Dimitrios'.  It has stunning views from the beach and I have been meaning to visit all summer!  There is a bus that has been making the 40 minute journey twice a week so I hopped aboard on Sun last and soon wished I hadn't!!!  The bus was far too big for the 90 degree hairpin bends that had sheer drops each side.  One particular bend was just too much and we had to stop on the edge of the bend.  The driver put the bus in reverse and forward it went,,,to large intakes of breath from all the passengers (especially me as I was in the front seat!).  After another attempt at reverse in which it went forward again, a couple of girls asked to get off the bus so the doors were duly opened and off they got....quickly followed by the rest of us!!!!  Poor bus driver, if that thing was going over the edge then he was the only one going with it.  He finally managed to get it in reverse and back onto the safety of the tarmac to a round of applause from his cowardly passengers.




               Agios Dimitrios





It obviously wasn't my week with regard to buses as on Thurs the same week we waited and waited for the bus to pick everyone up from Leftos Yialos until eventually 2 cars pulled up.  It transpired that the bus had broken down and they had sent the cars to ferry us to another bus that was waiting half way back to Patitiri.  Why they didn't just send that bus I will never know...Greek male logic for you!!!
Karen invited me to a BBQ on the roof on Saturday night where a couple of local bouzouki players were going to entertain us.  I purposely didn't eat much that day as I had seen the kind of spread that Karen lays on.....the party started, ie the drinking, at 8.30 but men being men, the bbq wasn't fired up until 9.30 and wasn't ready to be cooked on until 10pm.   We finally got fed around 10.30 by which time I was starving hungry and half cut!!  It was a lovely evening though and I got to bed around 2am!  Tuesday night the same muscians played a the Black Cat in Patitiri so I popped along to listen for an hour or two.
The island is very busy apparently although I don't think it is that bad.  Although you can still get a table in the taverna's in Patitiri without too much trouble there is not a car or moped to be had for hire!! The poor people who have arrived without booking ahead are having to use the local bus or horror of horrors, walk everywhere....just like me!!
So, it's now 4 1/2 weeks until I leave the island for the UK.  I am making the most of the sunshine and will carry on enjoying the island until I leave.  It's quiz night tonight and will be my last as a participant as I will be hosting the next one!  That's it for now....if I get my pics button to work I'll update the post at a later date. Until next time x

All wined out!

Wow, what a week....I'm absolutely shattered having spent far too many late nights out drinking too much wine....so much so that I went to bed at 10pm last night!!!  Sunday had been that wonderful trip out on the boat so Monday was a day on the beach, Tuesday the same group from the boat went to Leftos Yialos to a taverna called Elionas to watch Akis and Yorgos play.  We had a great time and managed to get home around 1am.


me and the ladies at Elionas

Wednesday was Quiz Night so I walked over to the taverna at Roussoum beach and our team came in second, only 1.5 points behind the winners...pah! There is one more quiz and then it is my turn to host the one I have written!!  After the quiz (and half a litre of wine) I went to the Black Cat to hear Akis play but it was pretty empty so I gave it a miss.  Unfortunately I bumped into Nikki which led to a couple more glasses of wine and another late night!  I also managed to frighten the life out of Paul as he got a rather sloshed phone call which inferred I wanted to stay for winter and that I wouldn't be coming back with him in Sept! I assured him via email the next morning that I would be coming back and that it was just the wine talking.  I had a night off the wine on Thursday and then it was THE festival.  Panagia is the festival of the Assumption of Mary and there is a re-creation of a traditional wedding, lots of dancing and free wedding sweets, ouzo and wine along with goat spaghetti cooked in huge stainless steel vats over charcoal fires.  It seemed as though every tourist on the island, along with most of the locals, turned up for this event and there were huge swathes of people following the procession of the wedding party.

Panagia crowd

The Wedding Party





Once the 'wedding' had finished it was back to Panselinos taverna for dancing, food and wine and more wine and a bit more wine for luck!!  I went to catch the bus at midnight but the queues were ridiculous to I decided to walk home.  I went via the donkey track (very dark and very slippery with the cobbles) which was obviously not the best way but that's what happens when there is wine involved! Luckily I ended up sharing the flashlight of a lovely young couple from Athens and we chatted all the way back (45 mins walk).  There were hugs and kisses all round on our return to Patitiri and I staggered to bed at around 1am...again!

Saturday was another music night at Milia Bay and by this time I couldn't face any more wine so I smuggled in some vodka disguised as orange squash and just added Sprite.....much better! Yesterday there was a crowd of us invited to a BBQ at a lovely house near Leftos Yialos so I spent the day by and in a pool, eating lovely food, chatting to lots of people and drinking the odd glass of wine.  I managed to slope off around 7pm with Dave and Gerry and by 10pm I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer and went to bed! 

 

Gorgeous place for a BBQ

So that was my week, I'm attempting to stay in and off the wine, although Karen is back from Bulgaria tomorrow so god help me!! At this rate I'm going to need a full detox and another holiday to get over this one!

 

 
 

 

 





Unexpected pleasures

Over the past couple of weeks I've been out and about to various music events and have discovered a great taverna with fantastic views.  It's rather off the beaten track but well worth finding for the view alone. 

As you can see by the next photo, the people I have met are as daft as me which is probably why we get on!  This was an attempt at getting a nice photo of me during the evening.....I got photo bombed by Dave!!!!

 

A couple of days after this beautiful clear day we had an almighty storm which caused a rather interesting cascade of water down the steps across from my studio ... anyone got a canoe??

 

 

 

I went out with the same group the other night and was invited to join a few of them on a Caique (pronounced kyeekee) that a couple of them owned, Chris & Kate.  I gratefully accepted, thank you Kate)  and we had a fantastic day on the boat travelling up the coast to a little bay for a swim. I was very proud of myself as I was persuaded to swim from the boat in deep water, which I have always been afraid of (and no, I hadn't had a drink at this point!). We then sailed on to a village called Kalamakia for lunch and then back up the coast stopping along the way for more swimming....a gorgeous day and totally out of the blue.  I'm not sure life gets much better than this:)

 

Kalamakia bay

 

 

 

Alonissos has got Talent!

Last Tuesday saw the first ever evening showcasing the talented people of Alonissos.  There were some fabulous acts including Dave playing classical guitar and Anthony on ukulele:

 

Dave on classical guitar

Anthony on ukulele

 

As well as various other singers, dancers, comedy sketches, plays and poems...conducted in both English and Greek.

Netty & Annie 'There's a hole in my bucket dear Liza, dear Liza'

A greek (and English) tragedy !



The 'Illusion' Dance

Chester & Stelios














Everyone had a great time and money was raised for the local GITs (Greek Island Thespians).  It was a first time performance in front of a crowd for a lot of the performers so a lot of wine was consumed, both by the audience and the actors!!!
Well done to all.