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Sailing to Pirate Island
It would be a fabled island. Guy, Dave, Oliver and I set out in Summersong from her little home port of Ipsos; motoring without wind from the aquamarine shallows into the deeper blue of the Kerkyra...
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"Back to reality"
"Oliver! To make castles you must add water to your sand" I mistook the old bloke with a flat cap, a fag in his mouth, shuffling by my borrowed chair in the airport car park, for a local."Kalimira""Are...
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Tilth
“I’ve just had a woman complain my compost is full of worms! She was all the way down towards Benitses. Asked me all sorts of details about the compost and then ordered one bag. I delivered it. Next...
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Agiotfest 2015
For a seventh year my friend Paul McGovern runs his music festival at Agios Ioannis in the centre of Corfu... *** *** *** This is a quote from page 12 of the first chapter - The Ploys of Cunning -...
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'...στοιχεία ερωτικά, σκωπτικά και πολιτικά ανατρεπτικά...'
The laic sculptor of Ano Korakiana at work by Jan Bowman A catalogue on the internet for Aristeidis Metallinos` Ο Αριστείδης Μεταλληνός I left Ano Korakiana in June telling Angeliki, his...
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A small hitch
In early June Dr Savannis gave Linda a posy of a carnation, myrtle leaves and something else whose name I didn't catchEarly September in beloved Greece Small irritation. I forgot to pack my sketch...
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Late summer in Greece
Our balcony is festooned with grapes. I eat them pips and all. Down at Piatsa with Mark we were canvassed at the weekend by SYRIZA's MP Fotini Vaki. I took the opportunity to give Richard Pine's...
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'The cold outside'
"Welcome home" said Mark over my phone "A beer at Piatsa?" It was long before the film of Zorba the Greek, a few weeks before Easter 1957 - ours had been on April 8th (I checked on Google). Greeks held...
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Being a tourist
I’ve just hung out a tub of washing in the garden. I find this more satisfying than, as in Scotland, shoving spun-dried washing into a tumble dryer for forty minutes or hanging things on the washing...
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Love
Birmingham to Corfu - 1100 milesEvening – less than two weeks ago - Lin and I drank red wine outside Piatsa, Lightning and thunder roamed back and forth behind Trompetta, now and then a forked flash...
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ΔΗΛΩΣΗ
ANO KORAKIANA – CORFU 10.12.15 I would like to thank my dear friends SIMON and LINDA BADDELEY for the valuable and disinterested assistance they have given me in bringing to public notice the works of...
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He who shewed mercy
I find the words of Job's helpers timeless in decrying my own thoughts and - so help me - perhaps actions, when trying to think of something to say to someone who's suffered a great loss. Easier to...
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Top Down firelighting
We've removed from the kitchen in Handsworth a fully functioning 66k Parkray coke stove and boiler - over 45 years old - and replaced it with a new 5k inset wood stove. We seldom used the old stove....
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"It wasn't a merry Christmas in Greece..."
Τέβε - Insurance & Pensions Fund ~ Aristeidis Metallinos 1981 (cat.112 marble relief)Greece faces into yet another unhappy year Another general election is almost inevitable within the next three...
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A greenhouse
Every morning. Rain. Grey clouds and rain and gusting wind. This grisly weather has been going on since we came back to England seven weeks ago. Our plane took us away from daily blue skies, blue...
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'Κορακιανίτες και Ένωση'
I've just seen an intriguing post on the website of Ano Korakiana quoting the current Mayor of Corfu, John Kourkoulas, throwing light on a puzzle presented near the time Linda and I first arrived in...
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Work
Hannah and Oliver at our house We have recovered wood turned out by householders when Handsworth Helping Hands (HHH) were doing a Skip-it Don't Tip-itday in Putney Avenue. It was full of staples, bolts...
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Primaries
Winnie with Oscar on the winter plot Daffodils and crocuses. There's still no snow, hardly even frost; instead warm gales from the Atlantic blowing things over, and more and more rain...Another green...
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Bringing people back to Black Patch Park
'In August 2003 a campaigning group called The Friends of Black Patch Park (FoBPP) was formed to challenge proposals outlined in Sandwell Council's Unitary Development Plan to zone two thirds of the...
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Green kryptonite
What a difference a day makes. Over 24 little hours I stayed up late. Early Tuesday Lin drove me to Digbeth Coach station from where the 777 service got me from Birmingham to Luton Airport by 4.30....
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