Christmas Update

Hello again everyone, it's been a while I know since I posted anything. Christmas has been a journey of emotions. It has been a time of thinking about those people who I would love to have been with to spend this time of year - the very special people in my life - family, friends & of course, Tony.

Despite the absence of these people I have still managed to enjoy Christmas. I spent Christmas Day at my house with my friend Debbie & her family. With preparing dinner & a buffet later in the day I kept myself busy. We enjoyed watching several DVD's too throughout the day, having selected ones to watch that would make us laugh, which they did.

Boxing Day was spent at Debbie's house & again it was a very enjoyable & relaxed day.
It's another hurdle passed & I hope that in years to come I may be able to truly enjoy Christmas again.

New Year will be another emotional time & will mark the start of my first full year here in my new life on Zakynthos.

I am missing Justine & Simon being here & am looking forward to them returning towards the end of January. I've been in regular touch with them & can report that as well as working (which is the main purpose of their trip) they have enjoyed whale watching & swimming with dolphins. I am really looking forward to seeing all their photos when they return.

Island Radio Prize Win

I bought myself a radio recently and have started listening to the Zakynthos English speaking radio station 'Island Radio'

During the run up to Christmas they have been holding a daily 'Advent Calendar Quiz' with different prizes every day. Basically, answer the 3 Christmas related questions asked throughout the day & text the answers in when told too.

I sent a text about a week ago but was not quick enough getting my answers in that day to be the first text received. However, yesterday I tried again and lo and behold, the answers were given followed by the announcement 'and today's winner is Sandra Booth from Ambelokipi'

Yippeeeeeeee - I've won a Swedish massage at a local beauty salon. I popped into the radio station today to pick up my voucher, I just have to call the salon to arrange when I want to have my massage - I might save it now until the new year.

Also while I was in town today I opened a Greek bank account which was a very straightforward procedure. All I needed was my passport and my ΑΦΜ (if you recall from previous posts, this is my Greek tax number) I understand the bank I am with have Internet banking available in English so I'll have to see if I can set that up now too.

Beach Clean Up

My friend Debbie arrived back in Zakynthos late on Monday evening after a 5 week visit back to the UK. She was keen to get down to the beach to check on a local stray dog, known as Splash, that frequents the beach & she has sort of adopted. So I joined her this afternoon, as Wednesday is now my day off & not Friday as it originally was.

I met up with Debbs & her 6 year old daughter at the Hotel Louis Zante Beach & we set off along the beach in the direction of Kalamaki. It was a fabulous day, bright sunshine & quite warm too. As we were walking we noticed quite a lot of rubbish on the beach. Debbie has often collected rubbish along the beach in the past, particularly so because she worked as a volunteer for Archelon, the organisation that works to protect the endangered loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) and any rubbish left, as well as being an eyesore, can cause severe damage to life & limb of the turtles.

We walked the whole length of the beach down as far as Kalamaki & as we neared Kalamaki we had started to pick up all sorts of rubbish along the way to put in the bin at the end near to the Crystal Beach Hotel. We decided that we would try to pick up as much as we could between us on the way back. We found several large plastic bin bags which we utilised by filling up with all sorts of junk, including plastic bottles, glass bottles, bits of polystyrene, odd flip flops, plastic tubes that were once 'glowsticks' filled with their toxic content & pieces of fishing net & line. We even found a rusted up skeleton of what was once a beach umbrella stuffed into a crack in a rock. I must say I was surprised at how much we managed to collect & you do have to wonder about the mentality of the people that leave their rubbish on the beach when it is such a simple thing to just take the rubbish away with them & put it in a bin.

Bearing in mind it's the middle of December, Debbie's daughter decided to take her shoes off & roll up her trousers & paddle in the edge of the sea during part of our walk back up the beach.

With the activity of rubbish collecting we were all feeling quite hot by the time we finished.

As we were coming off the beach Debbie spotted 'Splash' the dog & fortunately he looked as though he'd been fairing quite well. He'd been suffering with an injured eye up until Debbie had left for the UK but it had cleared up a lot which was good to see. Debbie pulled out the bag of dried dog food she'd brought with her & fed Splash & gave him some fresh water too.

Anyhow, we did our bit for the environment today & for the safety of the turtles in particular. We may have prevented injury or death to one of these beautiful creatures so it was well worth the effort & I'm sure we will do the same again over the Winter whenever we get the chance. I'm going to try to remember to always take a bin bag or similar with me now if I know I'm going to the beach.

Christmas Tree Finally Up & Decorated

Today I've put up the Christmas Tree at the third attempt. Why has it taken me three attempts - in a word - memories.

This is the first Christmas that I've spent on my own. I've always carried out the ritual of climbing up into the loft & fetching down all the decorations, putting up the tree & dressing it for 'us'

My own tree & decorations are in storage in England but Justine & Simon had said, before they left for Australia, that I could put theirs up in my house as they were not going to be back until January.
I went next door to their house & fetched the tree & decorations the other day & that's as far as I got before emotions got the better of me.

A couple of days later I had another go with the same result. I had more or less resigned myself to no tree. Then after I visited the 'Santa Shop' the other day & bought my icicle lights & saw how nice they looked I thought I'd have another final attempt today.

So as I said at the beginning - at the third attempt, I now have a really lovely decorated Christmas tree up & I'm really pleased that I persevered & got it done eventually.

Santa hits Zakynthos town

Yesterday I went into town and had to go into the Christmas shop, seen here on the right.
I'd passed it a couple of times previously but not gone in as I've got lots of Christmas decorations in storage in the UK that will hopefully be shipped over here at some point in time.

However, curiosity got the better of me yesterday & I went inside. Oh what lovely things, it was like a Christmas Aladdin's cave. Trees, lights, baubles & beads, hundreds of Santa's, sparkly things, shiny things, glittery things, musical things, all crying out 'buy me buy me'

So did I buy anything - well yes, I did. I bought a set of curtain style white icicle lights that twinkle on & off which I have up in my lounge window & they look so pretty. I also bought a lovely wooden Santa decoration with dangling arms & legs & a string of tiny wooden pegs decorated with Santa faces, little presents, Christmas stockings etc. I'll use the wooden pegs string to peg up my Christmas cards (that's always assuming that I receive any :-))

Justine & Simon will still be in Australia & are planning to celebrate Christmas, down under, on Bondai Beach.
I've been invited to spend Christmas day with Debbie, one of the friends I have made here. We'll be celebrating with her 2 daughters & I'm sure we'll have a very, very enjoyable day.

Christmas is going to be a very emotional time for me, of that I'm quite sure. I shall miss my family & friends & in particular my ex partner, Tony, who I've previously spent the last 12 wonderful Christmas's with.

Things change in life & you are often left asking yourself the question 'why?'. I've made huge changes to my life & I have to try to continue to move forward.

And, just in case I forget, I will wish everyone reading this:

***A Very Merry Christmas ***

Winter Wood Delivery

Up until now we have been using what had remained of last years wood supply & it's been going down steadily resulting in the need to replenish the wood pile. A notice written in Greek had been posted on a fence near to the Lidl supermarket which Simon had told me was 'Olive Wood For Sale' I went up there last week to take a note of the telephone number to hopefully be able to obtain an amount to see us through the Winter. My boss, Lisa, speaks Greek fluently so I asked whether she would mind making the phone call on my behalf to enquire about getting a delivery, ensuring I ordered pieces that would fit in my wood burner. Lisa agreed & it was arranged that I would drive down to the local football pitch to meet Dimitris, the wood man, this evening so he could follow me back to the house.
This is a commonplace thing to have to do here, with not having 'an address' as such. It's either that or try to describe how to get to where you live so it's often easier to meet up somewhere that everyone knows & lead them to where they have to go.
So at 5.30 pm I met up with Dimitris & guided him back to the house, where he off-loaded 50 Euro worth of olive wood, which will hopefully see us through. The wood pile looks a lot healthier now. As I'm writing this I have a fire lit in the wood burner, & two very sleepy, dreaming dogs lying very contentedly on my lounge floor & it's so very cosy.

Big Decisions To Be Made

I am almost 100 % sure that I want to make Zakynthos my permanent home. I feel that I've settled well & although I haven't yet experienced the whole of the Winter I think I'm fully prepared & aware of what to expect in terms of lots & lots of rain.

One of the biggest factors is that I've been able to make friends which was such an important issue for me. Secondly, my success in finding a job has given me a degree of piece of mind that I will be able to support myself. Thirdly, whenever I speak to people in the UK including people I used to work with, they tell me nothing that would make me want to be back there in fact quite the opposite. I still receive a daily email from what was my old UK local newspaper & I follow the link everyday to the website & read the news stories. They are always bad, someone stabbed, raped, mugged etc. Do I miss it - no I don't.

I've started to make more earnest enquiries about selling my UK house & think I will make a decision on that quite soon. I've also been looking into financial options, one option that's open to me is to take my occupational pension early, in effect take early retirement (wow!! that makes me feel old) This is an option that becomes available when you reach 50 in the civil service pension scheme I am/was in. The pension would be reduced from what it would be if I kept it preserved until I'm 60 as would the lump sum payment too but part of me thinks, I may not even get to 60 & I may as well start having a smaller pension from now, over a longer period, than wait & get more money but for a shorter period. The lump sum would also be a useful addition to have available for buying a property here.

DECISIONS, DECISIONS - I have a lot going around & around in my head right now.