Agios Nikolaos Harbour | 0930 hrs | Yes, the horizon’s squint but I’ve tried several times to fix it so…
I had just settled on my AirBnB sofa, with a glass of Cote Du Rhone (bit early for red, but I can’t be arsed to drive down the Valley) to watch Jeff Berwick & Lucy doing their latest walk’n’talk, when I suddenly got struck by The Muse AND Guilt at the same time. Painful.
Yes, lovely readers (and Chris D. from the other side of the world), just at that very moment I felt the urge to write a blog post. Chris was very nice to me on a webinar about my three latest blog posts, so I do feel encouraged. So I got up, brought my glass over to the little table in the corner and here I am.
The last three posts were monsters, creatively speaking, involving many words and pictures and I’m working up to my next one, all about what happened in Mexico and that’a a tale of disaster, adventure and delicious prawn tacos, so I’ll probably write that over the weekend.
I wasn’t going to write today, having wrassled myself into exhaustion with various new car documentation then government and utility websites regarding my new flat, into which I move on Wednesday. Amazing views, but I’ll save that till I’ve got pictures.
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At one point, I thought I might have to give up and go to the pub in the village here, I was so incensed and discombobulated. When I confirmed my tenancy, I was offered the chance to set up my power with Scottish Power, who presumably are the current suppliers. They made me so hopping mad by offering me 100% green energy (with a suitable picture of a wind farm) at an inordinately outrageous price, that I nearly lost the plot. No option to choose cheaper not-so-green energy then?
Don’t you know who I am? Scottish Power particularly should know…
(In case you don’t, having missed that blog post or maybe I didn’t finish that blog post series) I’m the 22nd great-granddaughter of Robert The Bruce, the first King Of Scotland (left).
This means I’m also the granddaughter of all the Stuart Kings and, through Robert’s mother Margaret, granddaughter of Christian I, the first king of Denmark, Sweden and Finland (right). Now he was a looker!
Not that the Vikings are offering gas & electricity deals, more running headlong into the arms of the WEF at the moment.
I clicked SKIP in my fury, before realising that not ONE other energy company was going to offer me an account. Come to that, when I realised my error, going sheepishly back to the Scottish Power website, even they didn’t want to offer me a quote online.
Anyway, I’ll tell you the outcome of that one in another post, if you can bear the excitement. Today I wanted to make a start on what I’ve learned on each leg of my journey. My late partner Steve had several pithy sayings, one of which was ‘Every Day’s A School Day’ which somehow made one feel better about cocking up somehow. So here goes mine for Greece…
GREECE
I’m pretty much greek myself now, I’ve been there so many times. It really does feel like home now and I know so many people in Stoupa and the surrounding areas that it holds few terrors for me.
Bar the usual insects, of which I only encountered a few this trip. A large buzzy thing drove me out of the bedroom at the second accommodation, Stavros Apartments (highly recommended if you want something basic, clean, affordable, traditional and very near the beach). Lovely people too and Alexandra chased said buzzy thing out for me.
This was my view from my bedroom when I opened my shutters in the morning btw.
However, at my first place, I did run into an old adversary, a complete lack of both internet and mobile signal, so no data. While I was able to piggyback onto a local hotel (naughty) this stopped me in my tracks with regards to blogging so I just gave up on that, thinking that you have all seen all my photos and videos of Stoupa before. Suffice it to say it was as beautiful as ever.
So what did I learn while in Greece?
- That I’m not so scared of the dark as I was, for sure.
- That I’m feeling my age – my feet swelled up and even on the biggest settings of my Birkenstocks, I had to go barefoot for nearly two weeks until much water drinking brought them down again.
- That you should ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS break in new Birkenstocks before wearing them, the blisters added to my misery.
- That people do remember you and if you were friends before, you are still friends. One barrelled up to me on my second night and with no chat preamble offered to lend me a car for a couple of months while they were in the UK. All I had to do was drive them to Kalamata Airport on their departure day.
- That even people who are on the opposite side of opinion to you when it comes to Covid, are able to shelve their misgivings and we could spend time together without mentioning it. More to come on that topic another day.
- That when you discover people who you never really knew before are 100% on the same page as you, on lots of different things, it opens up new friendships which can also shortcut a lot of the ‘getting to know you & your values’ time we usually spend with new people.
- That I always want to form my own opinions about people, rather than relying on what other people say, as you never know both sides of a story if it’s third-hand.
So that’s me for tonight, I feel good for having done that and made a start on the ‘what I learned’ part of the process.
I was going to share another couple of gratuitous pictures of my favourite place in the world – having lunch at the very upmarket Stoupa Restaurant.
But the internet has stopped loading pictures from my Instagram so you’ll just have to go there to have a look! I’m back to Jeff, who looks at world events in a humorous way, so he never brings me down while keeping me up to date on World events.
Talk soon & I welcome your comments, questions and shares!
Nicola
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