August 2024

                                                           August 2024

 

I write this on holiday in Corfu. The sun is beating down and too hot to be outside at ten thirty in the morning. Corfu is 5 degrees hotter than expected. I am staying with the family in an AirBnB on the north of the island near Astrakeri. A splendid family home with swimming pool included and enough dappled shade from ancient trees creating a very pleasant place to sit and while away the heat of the day. I have been tracking the weather in Hayes quietly smug for the cool days and needed rain that will keep the pots and hanging baskets alive until we return home. We spent a couple days in Corfu town before heading off to Paxos and stayed at the delightful Bathas hotel then headed off to Antipaxos for a day trip by water taxi where I slipped on a concrete causeway between jetty and beach and quite badly hurt my right knee. 

<Paxos                                                                        Antipaxos>                                                   

When   back in Corfu we rented cars to get to Astrakeri. Two little Fiat Pandas just right for these narrow country roads. I dream of whizzing along them on two wheels, a 125 would be adequate, cruising, enjoying the sun, scenery and wind in my hair. I wonder if we could do a club excursion to explore the island? The holiday season starts at the beginning of May and ends in October. May or October would be the better months not being too hot. This brings me round to Observed Sunday at the beginning of the month. There was a reasonable turn out for holiday time. I was on the Kawasaki again as the Buell is still being sorted.

It is nice to have the El Cid back home then drove it to Bristol to see my brother Adrian to show off the all the new hood and fittings and on the car theme news of progress with the van. Developments and manufactured drive shaft from Louis Barbour sent to Ric Pembro who then posted them to me. Ric had to post the parts as timings with holiday and his commitments meant he was unable to deliver them so posting was the only option and I received them in a couple of days. I get so many parcels from that delivery service I am getting to know the delivery lady from Evri quite well.

 I have an 18 kg propane cylinder given to me in an exchange for a 5kg cylinder when the supplier had nothing else. It was so big and heavy it was fine for a static barbeque but too awkward for a mobile gas blow torch. It lasted for years. So long the supplier no longer supplied and FloGas had become computerised and had no record of me. From that experience I have now become a registered customer of FloGas and have an 18kg cylinder on my account. I have now returned an empty cylinder and was provided with some valuable information. The lightweight composite cylinder that I have with a clipfit regulator also contains propane and is available from Home Base has changed my way of thinking about gas cylinders. No longer will I require different fittings for each appliance just change them all to clipfit. This is the modified one for 6mm pipe.

It was the cost of filling the 18kg cylinder about £50 or buying a new 5kg and filling that about £80 or converting everything about £25. It was an easy decision to make.Having fun with the Pandas unfortunately I was unable to drive as I was unable to apply enough pressure to the brake pedal to stop. Gita did all the driving around the north part of the island. I must admit I found  balancing on pebble and shingle beaches challenging but necessary to get in the warm sea which was good therapy for my damaged knee. Such luxury to go to a sandy beach at Agios Stephanos. 

At the Eclipse restaurant overlooking the beach we had an excellent meal but our journey there on our own was exiting.

 Missing a turning at an early stage of phone navigation the resultant route correction turned out to be quite an adventure. A left turn sent us down a deteriorating road where the potholed tarmac disappeared leaving a stoney track. Narrowing to a degree that we were scraping bushes on each side twisting and turning up through olive groves. The track became rutted with rain water gullies. Stones were hitting the underside of the car. Only just enough ground clearance We were climbing still until faced with a wall of lose stones to finally climb off this track onto some tar. Loads of throttle. Front wheels spinning. Stones thrown everywhere as the Panda slowly climbed the wall. This shortcut took about twenty minutes, also sent the pulse racing. We later declined course corrections and preferred to turn back. It was a shame I did not take a video of this, it would have been good. Only a few days left of the holiday but more adventures still to be had but that is for September.