Ancient Olympia

We were tourists for the day and went on a bus trip to Olympia. The recent fires came within a very short distance of the site. Here are some photos:

It's been a long time ...

Our lazy life in Zakynthos has been continuing much as before.. with one or two exceptions!

David's mum has just spent a week with us. It has been wonderful to show her our beautiful island. We visited Keri, in the south-west corner, drove up the eastern coast to Port St Nicholas and the most northerly point, and down the west coast to Maries. She especially enjoyed seeing David perform in Tsilivi and Argassi, as well as relaxing with her book in the sun on our terrace. We had one overcast day and it rained that night, but had wall-to-wall sunshine for the rest of the week.

Here are some pictures:

Margaret's visit

Afternoon out to Shipwreck Bay

Forest fires

First the fires as viewed from our house, then we inspected the damage on a drive through the mountains.

All quiet in Alonia

The village of Alonia and the resort of Alykes are quiet again now that Chris and Andy (the Tusk boys) have gone. We had wondered whether David would lose his regular solo gigging slots since he had to cancel some of these for 2 weeks while the boys were here, however, his week remains practically full and he is gigging on Sundays (solo, Deano’s Place), Tuesdays (The Ride, Lagana), Wednesdays (swing with Dean at Deano’s Place), Thursdays (Legends, Argassi) and Saturdays (Admiral Hotel, Argassi). There is a chance that a sister hotel to the Admiral would be interested in employing him on Friday nights and we are going to look into that.

I’m studying every day and since I’ll have to complete an advanced ancient Greek module when I start Maynooth, I’ve been reading the few texts I did bring out here with me. I’m also STILL struggling through the many literary theory textbooks I brought! This is all good foundation work to continue with before I start into writing my commentary again.

To cool down we frequent the beach at nearby Amoudi. The village of Amoudi is quiet with a few hotels but the holiday makers seem to be mostly Greek. Right beside the beach there is a tavern which is busy during the day, not so much in the evening, and serves great food and a half carafe of wine is only €2!! A lovely way to spend the late afternoon, before returning home and getting ready for work, is a swim followed by a snack and a glass of wine!

We haven’t been speaking much Greek as it’s not necessary however we have started to talk a little to the elderly man who lives next door. So far it’s just "yassas" (hello), "ti kanete" (how are you?) and "einai zesti" (isn’t it hot?) but we hope to expand on this before long!

Karaoke