Village Clean Up

We are in the middle of the height of the tourist season and even in Droushia there is more activity and more people around and today George's family arrive followed closely by George and Pam themselves for an extended stay this time.  The day broke with a fine sunrise coming up over the hills - it heralds another hot day ahead of us.

George and Pam's villa is ready - it is clean and the furniture is out, fresh flowers in the vases and the fridge is being stocked with essentials and Charlie is giving it the once over - checking out what will be his second home for the duration of the Kailou's stay - he gets spoiled by them and then is unsettled when they leave. No loyalty in that cat when it comes to food and company!

Pam has a cat bowl in the kitchen which is a bit of a giveaway that she is feeding Charlie as they do not have a resident cat!

All that weight Charlie has lost is going to pile back on when he gets tucked into George's chips which apparently he loves!

This afternoon was our seventh village clean-up.  People seem a little confused as to why we do this.  John and I do it because we like to take a regular walk around the village and so why not take a bag with us and pick up any litter - then we support one of the village tavernas either before by having a drink or afterwards if we are having something to eat.  We love the village and want it to look at its best - we have an excellent village cleaner but he can only achieve so much and keeps the centre well groomed but the approach roads and little side roads are a different kettle of fish altogether.  I don't know what motivates the people who join us - hopefully it is for the same reason but suffice to say John and I would go if it were just the two of us which is what we thought would be the case today as two of our group Klaus and Diana have injuries and Rob dearly wanted to sit down for the start of the football season - it being his absolute passion.

We were rather pleased to be joined by Malcolm and Norma and Diana came for the exercise although couldn't bend to pick up litter but doled out the bags and gloves and was chief photographer for the day.  It was very warm even at 5.30pm so we did a slightly shortened version of our second clean and took in a road we had not been down recently - good job we did as the road was particularly grubby and strewn with litter.

Even though we were a small band and it was a shortened route we still picked up plenty of rubbish - it is a little disheartening but some of it looks to be quite old so maybe there is not so much fresh stuff joining it - we can only hope!

On our way round I was stopped by a lovely lady called Helen Yianni who comes back to the village in the summer from her home abroad - she follows our Droushia activities with great interest and we have been asked to join her for coffee soon - will have to schedule that in before all our visitors begin arriving.

As we approached O Stathmos the weather turned a little strange with the sun disappearing behind some grey clouds and there was a bit of a mist starting to roll in.

Bambos invited us to sit for drinks under the vine and we were hot and sticky to accepted gratefully - a nice cold, ice cold shandy was just the ticket and many thanks to Bambos as he would not let us pay - this being his contribution to our efforts with the village.

We don't mind if the locals don't choose to join us as long as they acknowledge what we do and hopefully appreciate it.  We had free water at Kaponas Grill House when we started and in two places en route were invited in for coffee so that is good enough for us.

Our final port of call was Vrisi Cafe where we get our post and where Andri now seems to have taken charge and is knocking it into shape.  There is now an official menu with prices and it is clean and tidy, open and inviting.

I had asked her in advance if we could have pittas with lounza and halloumi and chips and that is exactly what we had and very very nice too.  Plus, love her, it was Andri's birthday and I bet she could think of better places to be.  Still whilst we were sat there some visitors to the village came in to eat which was good.  It makes such a nice change to have somewhere you can get a decent snack and know it will be open.

We were pretty full from the pittas when Andri turned up with her signature dish - crepes.  Chocolate crepes and some delicious vanilla ice-cream - her gift to us for our hard work - not sure we did a big enough walk around the village to warrant a pudding like this.

I stuck to the ice-cream as I am not a lover of chocolate except when it is in the form of a bar of chocolate and in particular Montezuma's which, praise the lord, George's family brought for me.

Malcolm, Louise, Sophie and Aleysia all arrived safe and sound this evening - good news.