November 2013

Friends who own property here and in the UK dashed about getting their olives picked and processed before they headed back to GB for the winter, it seemed the first weekend in the month was D-day. The oil return for most was very poor from as little as 6% to 13% but it was early and the spring had been cold and wet. We expected friends on their long journey homeward from Crete to pop in for a couple of days to catch up on things. Perhaps the arrival of some enormous spiders, one that insisted on trying to walk through the front door every time it was opened, or the snake asleep in the wood pile that should have warned us that all was not well with the weather? Sunday early hours we were woken by a dull thud of something hitting the car, it being dark at 3am we couldn't see that it was but noticed the wind was gusting strongly. Thanking ourselves for dropping the canopy on the pergola we went back to bed. The morning showed us our plastic dustbin had struck the car and was resting in the lavender, we had glass oil bottles all over the place, none broke amazingly, and the cover by the wood pile was horizontal in the wind flapping fiercely. We couldn't stand out the east side of the house. A text message arrived to tell us our friends were stuck on the ferry as it couldn't make port. The following day was as bad and our friends eventually had to tell us that they simply couldn't make it as they had to make a run for the French coast to catch the ferry to Dover and in a high sided camper van that trip was going to be a nightmare.

The weather calmed but got colder and the boar invaded the garden digging up huge tufts of grass, knocking down fencing, which they did so often we decided to leave it down until March and then rebuild it, and the thistles exploded into growth. A second cyclone arrived and the temperatures dropped even further to just 7-10c in the day and 3 at night. With the house cooling rapidly we decided to light the central heating in the third week, 2 weeks earlier than the previous year, with everyone saying that the cold weather wasn't due until January it had caught us all on the hop. The only thing to look healthy was our Caci tree that produced loads of fruit, so much a branch broke in the winds.

We became cat sitters for Freddi who came to stay for three weeks or so. She settled in quickly but the boys were not so keen. We had to keep them apart for almost 10 days as she hissed like a kettle and swore like a trooper when ever one came near. They replied in kind. Towards the end of her stay they were a lot calmer but weary of each other and out side she did get chased a lot. They made a fine sight together, PK huge silver and grey stripes with blue eyes, Mach1 dark tabby with yellow eyes and Freddi ginger tabby with green eyes.

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