Comes the power cuts and electricity
challenges – as well as the odd disappearance of the DSL
connection!
The day after my previous post, on a
bright sunny day, the power went off from 8 to 1 (ish) in the
afternoon! Supposedly they “fixed” all sorts of problems, and
our power was supposedly 'good to go'.
Then we had rain and lightening and thunder...
~~~
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| storm damage |
Currently, we only have partial power-
1 phase of a 3 phase system- as a transformer near our house was hit
by lightening and sadly appears to be dangerously broken. I say
dangerously, because some of our neighbors (who are also with only
partial electricity) watched the shower of sparks arc all night long
from their living room window!
Several neighbors have no electricity,
and one neighbor hasn't be affected at all. (I think out of spite we
may all descend on his house for dinner!)
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| a tiny problem |
I am sure soon, we'll have no
electricity “if” they decide to come and fix it as they will
probably have to shut it down to work on it.
(Of course I say “IF” because when
one of the neighbors called to report the problem, he was told “there
IS no problem!”, in that charming Greek way, as they are wont to do
whenever “foreigners” call with problems. They usually presume
it is a minor problem of fuses that we apparently don't know how to
change or maybe even master fuses tripped and left unattended. We
now have a Greek friend calling to report the problem and hopefully
-eventually- someone will come out and see IF there is a problem. I
just hope it's before the general strike next Tuesday!!)
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| good thing the flue is clean |
Still we manage quite comfortably, and made our first roaring fire in the fireplace to cheer us up.
Meanwhile, the house is criss-crossed
with cables to provide electricity to the fridge and freezers as well
as jury rig a connection to the dryer so we can dry the “dog
towels” (the poor puppies NEED to go out and play in the rain and
MUST come in the house- soaked to the skin!- and sleep for a while).
~~~
Which brings me round to what my post was
REALLY going to be about today...
In all the hectic craziness since our
return from Istanbul (see, NOW I'm going to tell you what really
happened between my post about our wonderful trip to Turkey, and my
time in Chicago!)I felt I should update you on some of the things that happened to make me not post...
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| Amazing Balou |
Sadly, our great and wonderful Bernese
dog, Balou died in early April, from a malignant growth in her neck
that had become inoperable. We were devastated, and if it would have
only been me, I would have probably decided to never get a dog again,
as it hurts so badly when you lose them!
T on the other hand had been talking
for a couple of months, about getting another dog to keep Balou
company- a puppy this time,-and he had found what was purported to be
a Chow - German shepherd mix, he'd fallen in love with.
So at the end of April, we went to pick
up what we thought was one 3 month old puppy.
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| such sweet babies |
Long story short, we ended up with TWO
puppies, because the second (and last) puppy would never have got
adopted as she was very timid and fearful and didn't look anything
like a shepherd.
I decided that it would be cruel to
leave her behind so... (how do these things happen??) we ended up
with two puppies.
After we got them home, we realized
that they were great “medicine” for missing Balou, and they made
us laugh constantly, and were smart and wanted to try and learn from
and about us.
We also discovered that they were a
bit older than advertised, by about an additional six weeks! The
Chow and the German Shepherd parents must have been small by all
standards as the pups are very much mid sized dogs.
Their names are Rosie and Ginger.
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| Rosie |
Rosie is the intrepid one and has a
HUGE amount of energy (we refer to her as the “mad bee” when she
starts her flat eared sprints around the garden and us – and
Ginger). Rosie “looks” the part of watchdog, but she is very
friendly and will come to the fence and greet anyone. The dog has no
discrimination. She is fascinated by everything and never wants the
walks to end. She is totally motivated by food and can be trained to
do anything – with enough chicken on offer.
 |
| Ginger |
Ginger is very stand-offish with
strangers and barks and growls and is pretty much a great watch dog.
She is at heart though, what could be termed a “couch potato”
dog.
With us she's a big slob and will always slide from a sit to a
lie down if she can. She tolerates going for “walkies” but
mostly because it seems to please Rosie so much. She's not very
adaptable with strangers and hates when we have company. She does
things because she wants to or she feels sorry for us. She is NOT
motivated by food or treats.
 |
| holding paws while cat watching |
They are completely devoted to
eachother and play fight, play hide and seek, doggie tag and of course tease eachother constantly. If one is
out of sight of the other they go “hunting” for the other one.
They've completely settled in and even were silly and fun company when our first
houseguests of the year arrived mid May.
Sadly, right after our friends left
(around the 22 of May) I was thrust into the panic of my mother's
brain tumor and booking my flight to Chicago to be with my mother for
her surgery.
When I returned in August, I was
worried that the puppies wouldn't remember me, or that they wouldn't
pay any attention to me, and I'd have to start from the beginning
with the basics. NOT SO! They greeted me like a long lost friend
and everything's gone swimmingly since I've been home!
Three weeks after I returned from the
States, T flew back to the US to visit the boys and his brothers and
sisters and cousins. We'd originally planned to fly together for the
visit (it's been ages since we've traveled back to the US together,
just for fun!) but that was before my mother's problems, so we
adapted, and split our trips.
T left and it was me alone with the
dogs... we had a great time together, and I needed to be alone in my
own space for a while. They were very sympathetic and gave me
cuddles when I needed them.
They slept in their doggie beds in our
room at night and snored so I wouldn't miss T, too much.
So finally it brings me round in an odd
way, to our "right now" life in Corfu.
Things change, and they remain the
same.
Apropos to nothing at all, there was a lovely performance in the old town in the square by St Spiridion's Church. Here are some pictures...
There was much laughter and fun by everyone in between dances and folk songs. They were all accompanied by guitar and fiddles and tambourines, as well as triangles and handclapping. 
On our way, we came across this window display
