Cocktails

Just as I started to write this, I was disturbed by dogs barking so I went outside to find that Ursula and Tony had arrived to continue the tradition of Cocktails. Fortunately they had their chairs in the car as I only have one suitable seat for anyone except the most agile. They regaled me with tales of their visit to the remainder of the island but said that they were glad to be back in Paleochora. I don’t know how long they plan to remain on the island as I suspect they will soon depart to visit relatives in Athens.

 I am watching a cheeky little mouse make his way into the Tesco Bag for Life where I have left an assortment of dry items: rice, spaghetti, pasta and so on. They are destined to eventually go to the dogs but are now being used as bait. At the bottom on the bag is the Tin Cat mouse trap containing chocolate biscuits. I looked at it yesterday and felt sure they have found a way into it to steal the food and then leave. I will have to take photos of the food layout to be sure.

The Great Pallet Wall of Grammeno is where the mice have made their home as well as the large cable reel laying on its side which serves as a large table. Standing near to the table, it is possible to watch the mice in the pallets as they leave to cross over to the cable reel or even to under Dave’s house. I believe he is planning to charge them rent. I plan to remove the GPWG when I finally get to talk to Georgia so they will either have to relocate in front of Erica and Janne or all crowd in under the reel table or Dave’s house. Dave could soon become the Rachman of Grammeno.

Yesterday morning, during our walk, we encountered an American gentleman standing on the beach where we go swimming. He was on holiday with his wife and was telling me he has relatives in South Carolina. He is from Georgia himself and flew out from Atlanta. He told me he lost his son in the Middle East, in Iraq, a couple of years ago. We got talking about the US’ global ambitions and their desire to dissolve the British Empire in order to create one of their own. He has been coming to Crete for many years and also has a condo in Mexico. He is a young man of 79 but I didn’t find out what he did when he was working. In the evening we ran into a couple of Wops who were very interested in the geology and Dave. The older guy recognised Dave as a Staffordshire and asked me about the provenance of the remainder. I replied that Boris and the Small Dogs were just ‘dogs’ and nothing particular other than all being Terrier based.

During our cocktail hour a few drops of rain fell from, what had been, a relatively clear sky. Ursula and Tony decided to leave at this point and I gathered up the Small Dogs and went inside to have some food. A little later the rain began in earnest so I nipped out to bring in a few things which I preferred to remain dry. The Small Dogs’ beds were not completely covered and so Fido’s bed was quite wet in places. I decided to keep them both in with me for the night. Then there was a drip, drip, drip from the large roof light which only seems to happen when there is heavy rain. I took off the covers surrounding the interior trim, removed the lamp units and tried to locate the source of the water. No matter how hard I tried, I could not find it so just decided to leave the pot and the floor cloth to catch the drips. I can see that I need to remove the entire interior trim in order to find the leak. Given the amount of sealant I used to install the unit, only this time last year, it’s going to be interesting to find it.

What with mice and spiders, it’s a constant battle. Only last week I removed all of the spiders and their webs. I had let them stay during the summer as a backup to snare any mosquitoes which made it past my outer defences, however, I needed to see some new faces so decided to evict them all. By evening, they were all back and by the following morning, had created a whole new infrastructure. As for the mice, the new traps should arrive fairly soon and everything I have is now in pots or jars and I plan to improve my anti-mouse defences as well.