Mission Impossible!

A weird thing happened to us while walking Rocky and Bobby a few days ago.
Mark and I had just crossed a road and were walking along it when a van drove past us. I was aware the van slowed down as he did so. We kept walking but I instantly knew he was going to turn around and stop. So he pulls over and jumps out of the van and starts running towards us. Now in the UK at this point I would have been worried, even frantic, but here in Kefalonia I'm just very curious. What on earth does he want?
At this point we have stopped walking , and as soon as he reaches us, he starts jabbering in Greek. Well of course we have no idea what he is saying. He points at Bobby, our Jack Russell. I try to tell him we don't speak Greek but he just keeps talking. He then runs back to his van. As I watch him, Mark and I exchange glances as if to say "What on earth does he want?"
As I look back at his van, I catch a glimpse of a Jack Russell in the front seat. He returns with his Jack Russell in his arms, a bitch, and I think he's just happy to see another of the same breed. It's not like there are a lot of them on the island, or at least I haven't seen many owned by Greeks. We get caught up in the.... "Ah she's lovely" but he still keeps jabbering.
The next thing he does is turn his Jack Russell around and puts its bottom in our face and then points at Bobby! OK..... we get the picture now.......
We start laughing and I make the scissor hand movement to tell him Bobby doesn't have the equipment any more and it would be..........Mission Impossible!

Mission Impossible by The Piano Guys

Straight away he knows what we mean, says OK, waves goodbye to us and jumps in his van and he's off.
Shame really.....they would have been lovely puppies! Bobby, meanwhile, has been completely oblivious to all of the shenanigans and is unaware he could have had a good time if only the vet hadn't taken away his "dog" hood.

Bobby completely oblivious to it all!

September has come and gone. How time flies. All of our visitors have left. It was great to see them all.

Our son Tom and his girlfriend Lauren at Agia Effimia

Tony and Marie at home

Betsy and Steve at Agia Paraskevi (Exile)

My brother Barry and sister-in-law Vicky at the Bavarian Horse Riding Stables

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Michael and Viv at Antisamos.

We had good times with all of them. Here's one story......

We were in Exile on a beach (Agia Paraskevi) between Sami and Agia Effimia with friends Betsy and Steve.

Betsy, me, Mark and Steve

All four of us were in the water when there was a shriek from Mark. He'd been stung by a wasp. Wasps are notorious in Kefalonia and they will pester you even in the sea. When Mark was stung his glasses fell into the sea. These were his proper glasses not sunglasses, so straight away I dived down to see if I could get them, but it's virtually impossible to dive in the Mediterranean as you are so buoyant. There was a lot of splashing going on as I came up empty handed. Mark had left the water to concentrate on his finger which was ballooning with the sting.
At this point Steve said he would dive down and gave me his cap and sunglasses to hold and told me not to get them wet. He dived down.
I'm not sure exactly why I did what I did next - I can only assume it was all the commotion, but I dived down again after Steve. Steve came up empty handed and so did I. Again a lot of thrashing about in the water as we desperately tried to dive.
Steve then looked at me and said "Sharon - I gave you one job to do"........ I had dived under the water with his new cap and sunglasses in my hand!
Well at this point Steve, Betsy and myself fell about laughing, almost hysterical and we still didn't have Mark's glasses. Mark was nowhere in sight either. I'm sure people on the beach must have thought we were being attacked by a shark by the thrashing about and noise we were making! Still - it all came good in the end. We found Mark's glasses, Steve's hat and sunglasses dried out, and Mark's finger healed too. It's all good.

Agia Paraskevi (Steve and Betsy in the water)

Well, it's October now and we've been here almost 6 months. The tourists have all but gone and Sami has wound down. The roads are quiet, hotels closed and our dog walks in the morning and afternoon are just about devoid of any people. It's great! We have the coves to ourselves and the weather is beautiful - cool in the mornings and at night but a lovely 24 degrees and sunny during the day. We had a visit to Antisamos beach on 8th October and it was just gorgeous. Hardly any peeps there. We walked right to the far end and found a lovely deserted cove.

Cove at Antisamos beach

Having said that about the weather, we had a cracking thunderstorm (literally) the other night, a sign of winter around the corner. The lights went off on the whole island and it sunk into complete darkness for about 30 minutes. Eerie.
I've always wanted a wood burner. We have one in the villa and we've just recently sourced one ton of olive wood to burn on it. Hopefully this will see us through the winter. We just need to source the oil for the central heating and to heat the water as the solar panel will no doubt not be enough in the winter.

Wood stash!

We've also got a few tea light lamps for the fireplace which we have constructed with glass jars, shells, pebbles, stones, and urchins - the result of lots of beachcombing on the dog walks.

Wood burner lit for the first time.

We should be picking the rug up from Argostoli shortly, which will go nicely in front of the fire so it will start to look more homely.

We have an idea what to expect in winter but this will be our first - I think we're prepared!