Sanders Blog

May have to do a few hours at work this week although heavy snow is forecast to fall over the Pennines on Monday night so I may have to find things to occupy myself on Tuesday. Only eight weeks until we fly to Greece for the Easter Holiday. Although we booked the Olympic Airlines flight nearly a year ago, there are other details to finalise.

Fly Saturday evening. Arrive Sunday morning. Hotel Electra in Athens for Sunday. Up at 5.00 am on Monday and taxi down to Piraeus (40 mins) where we will board F/B Agios Georgos at 7.00 am.  It sails at 8.00 am and stops at Kithnos and Serifos before arriving at Sifnos by 1.30 pm. Stavros will have left us a car in the Port carpark with the keys in the ignition. We will drive to the house (3 mins) and open all the shutters & windows. The underfloor heating will go on to air the house and the sheets will go in the drier to make sure they are perfect. The fridge will be switched on and we will go out to buy basic provisions and have lunch at Simos Restaurant – usually pork and potatoes with lemon sauce.

We will stay in the house for ten nights and the do the return journey to Piraeus and the Electra Hotel for two nights. Pauline likes to do some shopping in Athens before we fly home on Saturday evening. The time lag makes this quite advantageous. Leave Athens at 19.30 and arrive Manchester 22.00. Not bad for a four hour flight.

Still, better do a couple of days teaching before we go.

February 9th, 2009

Hard going to work after the larks of the past week. And the sky is so grey and leaden. Thick snow and sheet ice still surrounds our school building in Lancashire and our home in Yorkshire. To add to the fun, it has started snowing again tonight.

February 10th, 2009

Burnt my hand tonight. Ow it hurts! Happy Birthday to Kevin – 66.

February 13th, 2009

Hard Week – Lots of Bad Stuff in it. Drove straight down to Surrey to see Pauline’s Family on Friday night. We were exhausted. It was lovely to see them all but we were just too tired to really enjoy it.

February 14th, 2009

Woke up to a glorious morning – sun shining, blue sky. Went out to watch the boys play rugby – on to a coffee shop with Phyllis & Colin

and then off to help Phyllis with her computer and email. It went well. In the evening, we went to our favourite Italian Restaurant. We had Stuffed Pepper starter with Sea Bass and vegetables for the main course. It was all washed down with Montepulciano D’Abruzzo. Wonderful.

Heavy snow is forecast. Light flurries during the day but tonight it is coming down hard and covering the road. Tomorrow is supposed to be worse. We will see. On Sifnos the forecast is for clear skies, warm sun in the mid 60s for the whole week. Oh well.

February 3rd, 2009

Two days at home. What Joy! Today, a snow plough got to the road linking Quarry Court to the world by just after lunch. Even so, the roads are littered with cars and extremely icy. If we had managed to get to the M62, it was clear but our Exit – 22 to Oldham was blocked. Our section of the M62 is the highest motorway in Britain.

Even if we could have got to school, it would still have been closed. Our school campus is vast and on three different levels. It takes twenty minutes to walk from one side to the other. It would only take one child to slip and injure themselves on one of dozens of sets of concrete steps outside for a major compensation claim to be made. We cannot afford that. Nor do we have time to get the school grounds cleared before children arrive. And what if they damaged the concrete when they fell on it?

February 4th, 2009

Thursday will be our fourth day out of school this week. The building is open for those staff who want to go in but the campus is judged far too dangerous for young people in these litigious times. What a good decision.

I’m off to the heart specialist anyway so I don’t care. Atrial fibillation is what I’ve been diagnosed with. I think we used to call it heart murmur. Let’s hope it is nothing more serious.

February 5th, 2009

The BUPA heart specialist decided that there was nothing wrong with me although he didn’t like to say it but he thought I was a bit over weight. Nice man. Although school is open tomorrow for children, parents have been advised that the campus environs are very dangerous because of ice and snow. The children won’t attend for two reasons: firstly, their parents don’t want them in danger; (They would rather they were out playing on the road.)  secondly, it is Friday and no one goes in for one day. I’m going back to the BUPA hospital tomorrow for a second round of tests.

I’ve been looking at an e-book reader for Pauline to dowload novels to and me to download The Times to while in Greece. They are still quite pricey but might be convenient. Antbody got any experience of them?

February 6th, 2009

Been back for my Echo Cardiogram today. My heartbeat was regular; my blood pressure was perfect and my heart valves were all healthy. The consultant said I had the heart of an Olympic Rower …………………..who had been dead for twenty years. Got to go to school this afternoon.

February 6th, 2009

Managed two hours in school without too much difficulty. Only 523 days to go. Spent the day watching football and rugby (Got to keep fit you know.), creating the Bob Album and emailing an aging hippy called Martin who works in a bookshop in Stroud in Gloucestershire. The last time we saw him was two years ago having lunch with us in our Greek house. Ruth has been lovely this week and taken an interest in my medical bulletins which, thankfully, have been fine.

Just watched a  harrowing play on assisted suicide with Julie Walters in the main role. I cried for an hour and a half. If only I could have got there a couple of hours earlier and said goodbye to Mum. It would have made so much difference to me if not to her. I do miss her so.

January 26th, 2009

Ofsted will finish with us by Lunchtime tomorrow. We who are in the know already know what the verdict will be. On a 4-point scale of Excellent, Good, Satisfactory, Failing, we will be damned with faint praise – Satisfactory. Do I really care? With 535 days to go – not a lot!

January 29th, 2009

Been laid low with a terrible cold in spite of my ‘flu jab. I am a sickly specimen. Even had to have Wednesday off work. Going for a heart scan next week.

January 31st, 2009

Finished the week feeling slightly better. I sound like an old codger. I suppose I am really. Two weeks to go until Half Term.

In these dark, dog days of January, it is hard to raise the spirits. My retirement counter says 544 days to go. And yet we will be flying off to Greece in just less than 11 weeks. We are already thinking about booking Hotels in Athens either end of our Easter trip. We fly Olympic on the Saturday night but there is no ferry on Sunday. (See ferry timetable) We have to stay in Athens and get the boat on Monday. We stay at The Electra Hotel in Athens. it is a delightful, 4* Hotel on Ermou Street in the centre.

We have been staying there for quite a few years now. I first read about it in a book written by Austin Kark who was the Head of the BBC’s World Service.

He was married to Nina Bawden the children’s fiction writer. He had been stationed in Greece in the early ’60s and, when they were both rich and famous, they had decided to buy an old property in the ancient coastal capital of Nafplion and to renovate it. Each time they flew out to Greece to check on progress, they had to stay in Athens and they chose the Electra Hotel. Kark’s book started me on the ambition to buld a house in Greece and to stay at the Electra Hotel.

Just as a sad post script to that tale, Austin Kark was killed in the Potters Bar rail crash in July 2006. His wife, Nina Bawden who is in herself 83, was knocked unconscious and broke her pelvis. She has campaigned for victims of the accident ever since.

January 20th, 2009

Dear old Mr Pericles Panagopoulos, owner of Blue Star Ferries & Superfast, has been released by his kidnappers but for the reported ransom of 40 million euros which, at today’s exchange rate is £37,000,000.00. Just a snip!

January 21st, 2009

Just heard this afternoon – Ofsted in on Monday. Can life get any better? Oh to be in Hellas.

I have only one observation today: Man. United 3 – Chelsea 0.

January 12th, 2009

It has been wet, windy and dark all day. I long for my house on Sifnos.

January 13, 2009

The founder and chief of Superfast Ferries and Blue Star Ferries, Mr Pericles Panagopoulos, was kidnapped yesterday from a coastal suburb of Athens. The kidnappers subsequently demanded a ransom of 40,000,000 euros.

      

Athens is becoming worryingly lawless – anarchic maybe – and the right wing government of Costas Karamanlis have got to get a grip super fast.

January 15th, 2009

The Greek newspapers or εφημερίδα are beginning to echo my sentiments. Now a young policeman has been shot by an anarchist group call ‘Revolutionary Struggle’. The Greeks, who are highly dependant on tourism, realise they have shot themselves in the foot. Karamanlis has reshuffled his Cabinet and it appears that the Left Wing are still not strong enough to topple him.

 

At the same time, the Greek economy is being painted as the basket case of Europe and there is a move from within the country to leave the Eurozone. I do hope not!

The week has started well. I woke up to find an email from Jonathan Kelly in Boston, Massachusetts. He lives there with his wife, Kathy who he met in Repton nearly 40 years ago and his two dogs. He also has two grown up children. He is well and happy and sends the family his best wishes. What shocked me is that he looks exactly as I remember his father 40 years ago – right down to the jumper and the background of boats.

I also received a lovely photo from Dave Beasley of himself in his garden/small holding. I can’t believe he’s gone grey.

January 5th, 2009

Today is supposed to be the most depressing day of the year across Britain. I can confirm that. I went back to work.

January 6th, 2009

Stavros phoned today. He had arrived back in Sifnos but he was suffering badly with gastric flu. Nikos had been sick at the airport and on the plane and they had stayed at a Piraeus Hotel before getting Agios Georgios back to the island.

January 9th, 2009

Found a lovely little Italian restaurant in the backstreets of our home town. Strangely for an Italian restaurant, it is called Mona Lisa and it is owned and managed by Greek-Iranians but the cooking is wonderful. Like a typically homespun Trattoria, it is small, quaint and in a basement.

It is informal, welcoming and crammed into a small space. See this local review. We had:

Crostini with salad and olives
Deep-fried cheese
Chicken breasts in cream and garlic with seasonal vegetables
Hot chocolate pudding with ice cream
½ Litre House White
½ Litre House Red

The whole meal came to just about £45.00. It’s hard to believe nowadays. No wonder we had to beg for a table.

January 10th, 2009

The week has finished bitterly cold. It is only -3°C today but it has been down to -5°C over the past few drives to work. Greece is about 11°C – day and night at the moment. Still cool but acceptable.

This is the week when my previous Blogs have petered out – but not this time.

Do you remember Keith Venables? His family lived next to Grandad Coghlan and Peter Stimpson in Well Lane. His Dad, Peter, was on the Scout Committee with Mum and they became friends. Keith left Repton Primary in 1959 – three years before me – and then he went on to Etwall and the Staffordshire Police Force for thirty years leaving in 2000. He now lives on the Greek Island of Kefalonia where he is an entertainer for seven months each year. How do I know all this – I found his posting on Friends Reunited.

Looks a nice island. It is particularly popular with wind surfers – which tells you something about the weather.

December 29th  2008

I emailed Keith via Frends Reunited and got an immediate reply. He remembered the first three children – Ruth, John & Robert – and asked after us. He has been living in Greece – Kefalonia – for the past seven years and a couple of years ago bought a villa. He supplements his police pension by doing some sort of entertaining in bars or hotels in the summer season. Keith left Repton Primary three years before me so he must be 60 years old now.

  

At least Keith doesn’t have this. Rioting continues in Athens in spite of snow in Viotia, north of Athens, on Saturday.

December 30th, 2008

It is 30 years ago today that Pauline & I were married. We were anxious because when we woke up that morning there had been a very heavy snowfall and the men who gritted the roads were on strike. It was touch and go whether anyone one would arrive. Pauline’s Family phoned to say that they couldn’t get across the Pennines.

We set off for the Registry Office in Huddersfield accompanied by Chris & Kevin Dagg. Fortunately, both families made it plus lots of friends.

    

The wedding was followed by a ‘Blessing’ at Meltham Mills Church

       

and then wonderful eats, all made by Pauline , back at 164 Huddersfield Road where we spent another happy five years before moving to Slade House in Helme.

December 31st, 2008

What a end to the year. This morning I was diagnosed with Atrial Fibrillation or irregular heart beat. I have to have a heart scan and they want me to take Warfarin – a blood thinning agent. Pauline is terrified that I will suffer a brain bleed because of it.

Happy New Year everybody.

January 1st, 2009

Today I launched the new Sanders Website. I hope to develop its content along with this Blog over the next 30 years. Something to look forward to, eh, Bob?

   

January 2nd, 2009

We drove over to see Stavros in Hull this morning but we just missed him. When we got home, he had left a message on our answer phone to say he was on the train back to Luton Airport for their flight on Easyjet back to Athens.

The Times reported this morning that Stelios’s father had died. He was born in Cyprus in the Troodos Mountains and, subsequently named his company Troodos.

Pauline & I were there in 1994 – 15 years ago.

January 3rd, 2009

We have finished the holiday by pressing on with our house refurbishment in England. We came home from Greece in the summer, where work is now largely finished and anything that needs doing can be taken care of by Stavros, saying we must do something to freshen up our house in England. We have really got on with it. New bedroom furniture in Bedroom 2 and in the Dressing Room have been followed by new carpets throughout the house and new windows right across the front of the house.

Quarry Court

December 25th, 2008

Welcome to the Hellas Blog on Christmas Day 2008. A particular welcome to all the Sanders Family and those closely associated with them.

December 26th, 2008

Boxing Day – Who needs it? Spent today driving around the Moors in weak winter sunshine. They remind me so much of Greek Island scenery – desolate and brown, undulating and punctured by volcanic rock erupting through the heather.

      

At least the girls looked good.

December 27th, 2008

Spoke to Stavros about our log burning stove – a Jotul. We bought it in Halifax and had it shipped out to Sifnos. I don’t think Stavros has been confident about installing it because the stove – a F250 – has stood in the lounge for nearly four years uncommissioned. The installation instructions are in Norwegian and he is Greek. At last we have linked him up with a Greek installer and the job is going ahead in January ’09.

         

All I’ve got to do now is find some logs on an island with few trees. Any ideas?