I Have Returned!

I'm HOME, I'm HOME, I'm HOME.... !!!!


And it feels wonderful!!


Our great, good friends, Sammy and Roy, met us at the airport with a thermos flask of margaritas and helpful hands to cart back the three suitcases and two boxes (PLUS hand luggage) we returned to Corfu carrying.  (Yes, airlines ARE charging more for extra International luggage, in fact in steerage economy class we were each only allowed ONE suitcase- of the appropriate weight!)

AND sooo, our lovely friends brought us home and left us with a dish of homemade lasagna and a container of salad with homemade dressing!  In our exhaustion we each ate a huge plate of homemade food and crashed into our own bed to sleep for about 10 hours!

How lucky can you get???

For me it's always nice to be home, or even to come home after a party or a visit with friends or family, but after a varied and difficult six weeks of work and emotional intensity, it feels amazing.

I want to see everything in my house and do everything that I see that needs doing, and then do nothing at all and touch all my stuff in every room and plan great projects.  I also LOVE lying on my bed and feeling MY sheets and pillows and mattress all around me.

So many silly things appeal to me: standing outside at night and listening to the owls and night birds; smelling the last of the jasmine in the heavy humid air; marveling at all the growth (and overgrowth!) that's taken place since T left a month ago.

Of course, as always here in Corfu, the house has thrown a tantrum and broken something while we were gone.

Shortly (four days!) before T left the well pump died.  T replaced the pump - with the help of several of our neighbors strong backs (oh how I wish I would have been able to see that exercise in amusements!!!)  Only to discover that it was not just a burned out pump but something more.  The well is either clogged up with mud or dry!!

Fortunately- as he was leaving the next day to fly to the states- he was able to make a deal with our new next door neighbor who was just connected to the municipal water system, and so during the past month we were (and still are) temporarily connected to HIS water system to fill our new 1600 liter plastic cistern.  Not an ideal solution to the problem, but a workable emergency solution.

Now that we're back though, another solution must be hammered out.

On top of that bit of annoying luck, the pool decided to leak vast quantities of water and so our neighbor-friend who was taking care of it for us, had to shut it down, as he had to keep draining the new cistern in order to refill it. (leaving our housesitter with no water!) GAh!

So that pretty much brings us up to speed on Life in Corfu.  T has carefully spent the weekend meticulously replacing each individual "problem" valve and gasket, as well as sealing every potential weak point in the overflow drain.  For the moment it seems to be holding water and doing just fine.  But who kno-ows?????


So that's my current update since we arrived...  Now on to two other topics.

First: Thank you so much dear Fly in the Web , (at the wonderful blog French Leave) for giving me the Heartfelt Blogger Award, for blogs which make you feel cosy and warm inside... it's nice to know that even though I spent the past month or so on blogging "french leave", as it were, I still have wonderful blogging friends who remember me!

I am pleased not to be considered an "edgy" blogger.  (well except for that part about being on the edge of the "insanity demented cliff", otherwise I feel pretty easy going.)

I like being warm and cozy.  (I AM a warm and cozy sort of person!)

I do love the blog French Leave, because it usually makes me laugh out loud at least once a post, and it gives me a sense of community as well, because in spite of it being written in France, the politics and bizarre encounters could be happening here in Greece (or even Chicago for that matter!)  True we don't have Carla, but we still watch our "peeps in power" slip on the banana peels of influence.

Fly is a brilliant observer of everyday absurdities.  (And she writes well too!)

note to fly: I was particularly fond of your comment Saturday, regarding the few French footballers who knew the national anthem! and I DO like your suggestion that changing it to "money, money, money" would probably make more sense!!

I would like to send this award on to a few charming blogs that also make my days warm and cosy. (I will honor with a mention Turkish Delight who sent it on to you, Fly.  I won't bury dear Ayak and send it back along!!! But she definitely deserves the award!)

First,  Moments of Mine  The lovely Wanda fills her blog with such wonderful simple pleasures of life- her family, her surroundings, food and home. Every time I visit her blog I feel welcomed by some facet of her life.  [Happy Birthday, to your Andrew!]

Cheryl, at Rice Beans and Pastichio is my dear facebook friend and wonderful blogger from Thessaloniki.  Her lovely family and beautiful photography makes me smile and feel like visiting!  (I really enjoyed the Linden Tree posting...) Thanks for all the nurturing you do everyday!

Last - for the moment anyway, I'd like to send this award to my favorite Vegan blogspot Maple Spice.  Debbie makes being a vegan vegetarian (something I am NOT) look so yummy and cosy and warm and comfort food-like, I can't visit her site without smiling and wishing I could pull it off! (Debbie is currently in the process of moving to Ireland... Good luck and most happiest of happiness there- I do understand about the moving process having just 'bobbed to the surface' after successfully moving my mother across the continental United States!)

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The second thing I was going to write about today, will have to wait as I've spent most of the afternoon at this as well as grocery shopping and fixing food for the hungry (well.  OK,  lunch.)

So stay tuned for tomorrows installment of "how I spent the past six weeks" (after we went to lunch in Taos,  New Mexico...)

Actually I was just going to write about the taking the train from Santa Fe to Chicago part.  See you tomorrow!


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