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OCTOBER
WEATHER
..... Some
warm sunny days until the middle of the month, becoming quite windy and
followed by some severe stormy conditions... The temperatures generally
however remained unseasonably warm....
Chania
Webcam Current Cretan Weather
Link
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Beginning
the final
Phase
- Stripping the old roof
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We
were only £10,000 over budget. Only five months or so
before Pam retired and expected to move into our
Cretan dream. As we left for the UK we had no worries left.
The house was moving to completion - it would be ready...
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Astratigos Village Life.... Getting some..VII
(Continued from July - Previous click here).
At the end the last episode...
..."We were unhappy. But not being in the business of forensic accounting; having
to keep our dream in the
sunshine from becoming more of a nightmare; a home and demanding
jobs in the UK to run; plus a couple of demanding young teenagers to bring
up, it had to be a case of get on with what we had started in Crete. Get
things sorted without too much getting out of hand regarding our
retirement-to-be home dream. Get the work moving - 1990 was now 1991.
Planning permission was for two years. The clock was ticking".... |
But getting things moving
was much easier said than done. Our agent, although emphasizing that we
should start work (which was our objective too) also clarified that he was
already 'well behind' with another project because of problems with the
'disastrous weather' and that he didn't know for sure when we could start.
He also felt it better not to start a project before he was sure it could be
completed - and that therefore it was better to have the finances ready.
Presumably he meant that any delay would give us the chance to have funds
for the building work available to him before commencing.
A letter the end of February 1991 said that he had been planning to start
work in March or April - weather permitting and if he could finish three
other projects on schedule. He was still unable to say, in August 1991, how
much work he would be able to do before the Cretan winter of that year set
in. In the event it would be February/March 1992 - getting on for 15 months
after we had received the 'official plan' from the agent. And about the same
length of time since our original purchase of our Cretan dream and it's
associated other expenses.
We were a little disappointed to say the least, but did our best to remain
cordial and get things moving. By February 1992 we were all working on three
months estimated time for the completed building work - work was starting!
Albeit not in quite the way we expected. The idea of using retired
tradesmen, so enthusiastically put to us as a money saving exercise, had
been dropped - we were now to employ two British builders. What did it
matter. Paying extra IKA for them was nothing seen in the light of a
completed dream, we thought, by June 1992... We agreed to make the necessary
funding available - up to £20,000 during the estimated building period. It
felt very, very good. Our agent was again a star....
Between the beginning of
April and the end of May 1992 we poured in an additional £16,000 - if
we needed bricks, we needed to buy them. Cement - buy it. New roof tiles -
buy them. Roofers, carpenters, plumbers, labour, IKA, delivery charges, old
uncle Tom Cobley and all - do it! The estimated total was still around
£40,000 and we were equating the amounts of cash supplied to what we
imagined the stage of building we were at. Rightly or wrongly...
As it was to turn out wrongly. Oh, so very wrongly...
By May 1992 we had put in a
total of more than £35,000. That should have equated to, by our mathematics
about 87% of the work completed. The reality was somewhat different. We had
discovered quite early on during the 'building' that there were various
hitches - including our agent 'borrowing' our labour to work on his own
house and then refunding the cost - quite why he had charged us for the
periods in question in the first place was never explained. We also had to
purchase the equipment, from scaffolding to saws to spirit levels to spades.
Equipment we did not have to buy was 'hired' to us by the agent. All of
which added another 15% for the agent to the bill, and in addition, just as
importantly slowed things down...
But, committed as we were we could see no way out except persevering if we
were to succeed. The bills kept coming, the work proceeded slowly - to the
point where we wondered if the house would even be completed by the time Pam
was to retire in March 1994!
A crystal ball at that time would have revealed that it never would be - not
by March 1994 anyway - and had events not taken a turn for the worse late in
1993, forcing our direct personal intervention, 'never' might have been the
golden word...
In October 1993, more than three years after starting the project to
realize our dream in the Cretan sunshine, and having already committed more
than £53,000 (£10,000 more than the original 1990 guestimate) we took
a holiday to ascertain just what the exact position was regarding completion
by March 1994 now only a few months away.
We stayed in an apartment next door to our house from where we could see the
work proceeding. And proceeding it was - the stable shell was complete and
the builders were removing the original roof from the front house in
preparation for reinforcing the walls, fitting the new roof, the doors and
the windows. The house would be ready. The sun was shining. We were only
£10,000 over budget.
Little did we know, as we left for the UK at the end of our holiday, that we
would never see the front part of our house again, let alone live in it.....
(Continued next month) |
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In the News
Reviews...
PASOK take Greece...
In the General Election on Monday 4th, October 2009 Giorgos
Papandreou and the socialist party PASOK swept back triumphantly to
power. Kostas Karamanlis and New Democracy (Conservative) are reported
to have suffered their worst defeat in their 35 year history..
Link to Story.
And, as always in Greece...
The PASOK victory led to major
celebrations. Including one that cost one 59-year-old man his life when
a home made firework exploded in his hands...
Link to
Story.
But October 6th...
Prime Minister-elect Papandreou was
preparing to name his first Cabinet - whilst New Democracy had lost it's
leader - and also a prominent member Giorgos Souflias...
Link to Story.
By October 7th...
Giorgos Papandreou had named the new
PASOK cabinet team. And Kostas Karamanlis had resigned as leader of New
Democracy (triggering a new leadership contest)...
Link to Story.
By October 14th...
It was all over - Giorgos
Papandreou
had been sworn-in as Prime Minister of Greece and had laid out his
policies for a better and fairer democracy.
Link to Story.
Meanwhile, on a more mundane...
But equally important front, taxi
fares are once again on the up from 0.48€ per Km to 0.72€ per Km daytime.
(So how can my 25Km ride to the airport cost almost £65 - at the old
price?) Not good for tourism perhaps...
(item 1)
Link to
Story.
Whilst tourism should be recognised...
As the most important sector of the Greek economy - says Nikos
Angelopoulos, president of the Association of Hellenic Tourism
Enterprises (SETE).....
Link to Story.
But 2010 tourism may not improve...
Although 2009 was not a good year, with serious reductions in
tourist numbers - especially from key markets (Germany & UK) - 2010 is
not expected to be an improvement...
(item
1)
Link to Story.
Which is not good news for Athens Hotels...
Where there has already been a sharp drop in income because of empty
beds...
Link to Story.
Meanwhile, Macedonian Airlines...
A subsidiary of Olympic Air is, like Olympic Air, also rising like the proverbial Phoenix from the ashes.
A bit like Lazarus - the original 'Olympic Airlines' lives on -
commencing early 2010...
(item 2)
Link to Story.
Whilst Cyprus Air and Easyjet ...
Are both planning to use the new Larnaca International Airport from
November 10th...
Link to Story.
Here on Crete, H1N1...
Two schools were closed temporarily due to the H1N1 influenza virus...
(item 1) Link to Story.
Two arrested - weapons cache...
Two farmers, farmer and son were taken into police custody...
(item 6) Link to Story.
A salmonella outbreak...
Resulted in the closure of a Chania poultry farm...
(item 7) Link to Story.
A fatal stabbing...
Of a 79-year-old man in is home at Tsivara, Chania prefecture is
being investigated by police...
(item 6) Link to Story.
Two Doctors were convicted...
By an Iraklion court in connection with the death of a 9-year-old
boy - one was imprisoned for three years - the other had his licence
revoked for a year ... (item 4) Link to Story.
A drugs/weapons ring...
Operating from Athens and Larissa (mainland) and Nomos Chanion
(Crete) was broken by police...
Link to Story.
Two separate scooter accidents...
In the Chania prefecture sadly claimed three lives - one Greek man
and (co-incidentally) two 25 year old Bulgarian women...
(item 6)
Link to
Story.
But in Athens...
The Parthenon (Acropolis) restoration rolls on. Perhaps more
pressure for the British (museum) conscience. Voluntary repatriation of the
marbles would boost the British image...
Link to Story.
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