Today (morning)
We remember the date of the first heavy rain here last year because, well, it’s a date that sticks in many people’s minds: the 11th of September. We were wondering if it would come at the same time this year but no, it came a day late on the 12th. I think ‘rain’ is perhaps too weak a term to describe it, ‘monsoon’ a better one. A bit of a cloud started building up over Papagianades and it started spitting in the morning. This increased to a heavy shower by midday and then by about 2.00 o’clock the garden was under about an inch of water, the water butt was full and streams were running down the paths here. This continued to about 5.00 and then began to peter out. It was a heavy downpour but not in the league of some we had when in our first year we stayed for the winter.
On New Years Eve 2007 we had a monsoon that lasted for 10 hours. To celebrate this date we drove down to Makrigialos at about 6.00, when it was starting, got thoroughly soaked running from the car to the Status Bar, and remained in that bar until about 4.30 in the morning. During the journey home I didn’t go any faster than about 5 miles an hour, carefully negotiating streams that had carried rocks all across the road along with about three car-killer boulders, all in a visibility that ended about five feet in front of the car. The cherry on the top was when we got into the house and Caroline complained about having wet feet. Water was coming in at the base of the bedroom wall and had flooded that room, the hall, and had created a little water feature over the step into the kitchen.
No leaks this year (so far), which I’m quite glad about since it also looks like it’s getting ready to piss down today.
Off to Ziros today to pay the water bill, and I have to muster up my best Greek to try and tell them that we’ve been overcharged for three years. Here, just like in Britain, they have a waste water charge. It comes to 15 Euros every two months for our waste water to go into the big village pipe and away. However, our waste water pipe just opens onto the messy ground opposite our house and isn’t actually attached to the village pipe. Should be fun. I’ll probably get nowhere.
I’ve passed page 300 of The Departure’s 446 pages. Peter Lavery has been quite vicious with his pencil again. I reckon that if there was ever such a thing as the perfect paragraph, he’s of the opinion that it’s something I’ve yet to write. However, I don’t resent this. I’ve learned huge amounts from this old-school editor with his University of Dublin classical education. And I do wonder how things will be for new writers now as editors like him are becoming more of a rarity.
Righto, no success with the water bill. Apparently you have to pay for the waste water pipe even if you’re not connected to it. It seems totally areshole to me, but nowhere near as bad as the £1000+ we have to pay in council tax in Britian each year for, effectively, getting our rubbish taken away.