Friday, December 30, 2005

A brief 'Post Xmas' post

Life is good. We seem to have settled in to the new house quite nicely despiet a few teething problems such as a flooded living room, leaking window, failing central heating, buying a new kitchen, etc etc. Ha Ha, seriously, it is a lovely house and I think we will be happy here.
Christmas was nice, I only had two days of which was something of a culture shock but still, needs must.
Anyway, just a short one today, I hope my posts finds you all in good health.
Keep Safe
Simon

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Back in Zakynthos

So, we got back, cleared up a few finer details regarding the move, it is literally next door but we had not confirmed the price and there was a few things that needed doing, i.e, a repaint, a new kitchen, lighting to be fitted (and purchased). Not quite sure but I ended up paying for that. Not really my responsibility but if and when we move, at least I get to keep the fittings etc. It is a lovely house and so very much bigger than the last one. It has a balcony around most of the house with views of Kefalonia in one direction, Marathonisi in another direction and the hills in two other directions. It also has central heating which was sadly missing from the last house.
As I mentioned, I have recently started a book by Iain Banks. I must confess, I had seen his books for many years as they had quite funky black and white covers but I had never purchased one. Until I saw "Dead Air". It has gripped me in a way that resembles a few of the Dan Brown books. In typical "Simon" fashion, I went out and bought his full collection from play.com! I hope they keep my interest, ha ha. Well either way, I have them forever now and there is no rush to read them, despite the rush to purchase them!
I really do not want to tempt fate and tell you about earthquakes but suffice to say, I am happy! That is until on the news recently there was a warning that we are about to have an absolutely massive one which will surpass anything we have ever seen. New underpants please.
The saving grace is there is a website that I read frequently which has every earthquake around the world (here) and that states that it is impossible to predict when they are going to happen. I do hope that they are correct. I have passed this web address on to a few people and it seems to have captured their imagination so, as and when you look, we are classed as "Ionian Sea" although you will see loads for Greece.
Its actually quite weird, before I came here, I purchased a few books about moving to Greece and they want to ensure they make you fully aware of the potential problems that lay ahead, basically so you do not make a huge mistake. The "laid back / lazy (delete as applicable) attitude was one, the searing heat another, I mean loads of things. Yet I have not read a single article that warns me that we will get earthquakes every few days. That would have put me off for sure! With my hand on my heart, I currently see that as the only reason that I would move back to the UK.
Not sure if I will be posting again before Xmas, if not, I hope yo uall have a wonderful time and that Santa brings you what you want.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
x

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Long time no speak....

Oh come on, cut me some slack, I have been busy. I think back to when I first started this and I said that I wanted to write every few days. Unreal. I am down to once and month. So, this one will probably come in a couple of posts, they will include, a trip to the UK, a good concert, a trip to France, getting a cold (of course, I went to France!), moving house and a new found obsession with author Iain Banks. Probably more stuff as well but we will make that up as we go along.
This kind of serves as a useful reminder for me as well to ensure that I revisit these topics.
Before I start, an apology to those who read this from work. I let the staff down today, I was convinced it was my day off (and much deserved after five days without one) but I got it wrong. It was only when Matt (boss) rang to ask if I was ok that we even knew I should have been at work! Luckily I got a lie in out of it, a trip to town to pay the bills etc etc. Luckily they were very understanding and seemed suprised it had taken this long to get it wrong (our days off change each week). As I said to them, schoolboy error.
Poker is going pretty well as I am on a decent upward turn. I made a deposit in to PokerChamps about three weeks ago and already at a 350% profit. Nice.
The trip to the UK was ok, I arrived into Heathrow and was fearful as I had heard horror stories of 12" of snow etc. It was about 10pm by the time that I had arrived and it seemed warm enough. I drove up to Nottingham that night, got parked up and went to the hotel. Noisy, noisy aircon, noisy fire alarm. All added up to a free night!
The next day was spent wondering around town before realizing that the concert actually started at 2pm and not 8pm as it was an all day festival. At least I had not traveled half way around the world to watch a concert and missed half of it.... ayya.
Anyway, I got to see the bands that I wanted to, the end of Blue Tears, all of Vaughn, Danger Danger and Harem Scarem. It was good to meet up with Ted as it had been a long time (he is the singer of Danger Danger and lives in the USA. We have been on holiday a few times together, France, Belgium, Holland and also in the USA).
I actually missed the last band as I was so tired and also had not eaten a thing all day.
The following morning I got up fairly early and went to meet Tony (mindin) and watch his son, Louis, play football. He scored a couple of goals and also set three up if memory serves me. Not bad as he came on as a substitute just before half time!
Sunday night it was dropping Justine of at her Mothers and heading over to Birmingham ready for my flight to France. I couldn't find much to complain about so ending up paying for the hotel. That's is actually inaccurate, I got the stay for free using my reward points!
The flight to France was fairly uneventful but it was lovely to see them both again as it had been the best part of six months since they came here. Unfortunately my cold seemed to get worse again so I was not on top of it for most of the week which was shame. The weather was lousy and it rained most of the time but to be honest, that was largely irrelevant, the main objective was to spend time with my parents, not sunbathe! We went to a lovely Restaurant / Cafe where the food was ten euros a head I believe. They gave you more food and wine than you could shake a stick at and it was nice as well. Again, as I was feeling pretty crap, I didn't eat too much.
They have a new dog which looks like a teddy bear!
The week went by pretty quickly until the last day which dragged beyond words, mainly because it was spent sitting at the airport all day because of delay after delay. Just two days before, because I could not stand the thought of two more days in England, I brought my flight home forward by two days, to the Friday night. Now the delays were causing major problems as I had to get from Birmingham to Heathrow in about six hours. That was not a problem until the delays kicked in! To cut a VERY long story short, I ended up running from the plane to get my luggage, renting a car from Birmingham Airport and driving to Heathrow as no trains or buses would have got me there in time. We made with 50 minutes to spare! That was at least until it was delayed there as well!
So, we arrived in Athens at about 3am, luckily the Sofitel is only about a minute form the airport and we stayed for two days there including a few trips to stock up on new times for the new house.
More on that next time as I am tired and it is 1:20am here.
Until then, Keep Safe.

Monday, December 19, 2005

Poker Champs

A couple of people have asked me about the Poker Champs web site where I play now (as I am unable to play at PokerStars) and what my affiliate code is. It is: YDBUMFUQ

Simply go to the PokerChamps website open an account and when prompted enter my code.

You don't need to play for real money if you do not wish as it has play money games as well. Please do enter my code as it earns me a few pennies! Thanks.