It’s so cold! I knew it would get colder as December / January approached as I’ve read “100 Days Of Solitude” by Daphne Kapsali.
(By the way, you can get that most excellent book on Kindle during December for just £1 / $1 so go and treat yourself)
Daphne lives on the tiny island of Sifnos, dividing her time between London and Greece. Sifnos is slightly further away from the equator than Stoupa (but not much). After reading Daphne’s book, I checked before we came so I was part prepared.
However, I didn’t really factor in not having any central heating – I’ve not lived without central heating since I was an impoverished art student back in Brighton in the early 80’s. It was the year it snowed heavily and I spent my time wrapped up in a duvet, huddled round a coal fire, while reading books like “The Corfu Trilogy” and “The Magus”. Dreaming of warmer climes.
How funny that I’m now in warmer climes but they are quite chilly!
I swore back then that I would NEVER live somewhere with no heating again but here we are. We have hot water (mostly) and a fire in the living room but the rest of the place is perishing all of a sudden.
My friend Andy did warn me, having toughed out a winter in Cyprus. He said that once you got chilled to the bone, it was nearly impossible to get warm again. I looked at Cyprus on the map and thought “How can that be? It’s nearer the equator than Stoupa!”
I must confess, I thought, “Oh well, he was probably in a great big mansion so it was harder to heat!”.
How do the locals cope I wonder?
Do they build the holiday homes differently, with no heating but just fires, because no-one in their right mind would stay over the three months around Christmas? People do look a bit surprised when I tell them.
Daphne kindly sent me a link to a shop in Athens that delivers things like radiators, de-humidifiers and a wide range of electric blankets – so I’ll be ordering one of those shortly.
Sarah wants a hot-water bottle instead so that she can bring it upstairs to the sofa where she sits with her laptop. A hot water bottle is one of the only things we have found so far that Katerina’s DOES NOT STOCK – yes, you read it here first! There IS an item that cannot be found and bought in Katerina’s Supermarket.
In the meantime, the usual round of industry events I usually go to at this time of year is starting to look very attractive!
The Internet Marketer’s Cruise in the Caribbean in January? Lovely!
Ditto Traffic & Conversions in San Diego in February – very warm then. Don’t mind if I do!
Not to mention SuperFastBusiness Live in Manly Beach, Sydney, Australia in early March. Oh go on then, force me!
But no, I’m determined to see this through. I will finish what I started.
I came here for two main reasons and neither will be served by running away from a bit of cold.
The second reason – to decide what I want to do with my future and to put that in place – is coming along apace. Now I’ve re-discovered my tribe and brand hero, I’ve decided on a signature coaching programme. I’ve named it, I’ve even got an inkling for the logo / graphic design.
You can follow along as I document the creation and launch of that on my personal blog at NicolaCairncross.com.
Documentation of a process or journey is a great way to a) prove something works, b) hold yourself accountable to take action and c) create a crowd of people following your progress and rooting for you, even if you don’t know where you are going to end up.
It’s the one thing I tell people who want to make a living online but don’t know what to do or where to start. Start a blog, on any platform and start documenting your search, to get going initially, but nobody ever does it (or if they might start, they never stick it out past a month or so).
Talking of accountability, the one thing I repeatedly resist doing is creating video (even though I don’t actually mind doing it) so I’m committed to doing one every weekday.
Facebook Live video gets so much more traction than just a post or a meme, unless those things have puppies or kittens in. It’s a great way to get more traffic from the 3000 odd people who have Liked my Page to my blog post and from there, into the survey and then my mailing list.
If you are interested in seeing how spontaneous and natural these videos can be, you can catch the daily Facebook Live videos from the Balcony here – even on the days it’s showing the temperature as FRESH on the outside thermometer.
Bear in mind that it was an actual heatwave even by Greek standards – 40 degrees – when I was here last July with Steve and Phoebe. It was too hot to sleep even!
So, no matter how cold it gets, I’m not going to crack, I will create and launch this new programme. I will blog every week day (possibly every day) and I will do a Facebook Live video every week day.
When my new camera arrives, I’ll be filming our daily lives and somehow, uploading the video snippets to Google Drive so that Phoebe can work her editing magic for me.
Think Casey Neistat but with chickens instead of skateboards – it should be fun!
I’m trying hard NOT to buy myself a drone for Christmas!
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