Nafthalini

A crazy-mad day! Kon came round before breakfast to check out the lambs – their mother is feeding only one and has rejected two, which I am bottle-feeding. Kon showed us that if you hold the mother's head still it is possible to plug one lamb in either side and she won't kick them away. This requires either two people or a halter attached to something stationary. Spousie is due to go away again on Tuesday so we need to set it all up and make sure I can manage single-handed before then. It was also recommended that in addition to a daily plug-in to mother, I give each lamb a full baby bottle twice a day. It made sense therefore to go and buy a second bottle from the pharmacy.

It is extremely bad manners not to offer someone a drink if they pop round and so we sat round the kitchen table while Kon drank a bottle of beer. We asked him if he knew where we could get a pelt cured. He told us it can be done in Volos but he had no further details.

After he left and still before I had stopped for any breakfast I nipped into the village to get a second baby's bottle and plenty more milk and while I was there I I popped into the hardware store to see if either George or Nikos knew where in Volos we could get a pelt cured. Apparently this is an old-fashioned practice, nowadays people just buy colourful acrylic rugs from the van. Then George remembered old-fashioned Christos the Albanian who knows how to cure a pelt. He called Christos who said he'd go straight round to our house! I called Spouseman to warn him of an impending unannounced incoming.

My next port of call in the village was the carpenter's shop to see if I could get a couple of sacks of wood-shavings to use for bedding in the sheep-shed and also the hen-house. His truck was there which looked positive, and then I saw the carpenter himself. He wore an expression I couldn't quite interpret so I bid him good morning and waggled my sacks hopefully at him. Yes, he could, but it was a bit awkward, he'd got his good clothes on and he'd get a bit mucky. He could put overalls on but his father-in-law had just died you see . . .
“Oh for heaven's sake man! Forget it! I'll come another day. I am sorry”

When I got home there was a large car blocking the drive. Christos the Albanian? Surely not! Car far too posh! No, it was M the Brit about to head off to UK for a couple of months and would we please resume usual winter cat-feeding duties. Sure! We were regaled with some anecdotes that amused M and then he was off and we could start breakfast. It was noon. As I nibbled on a bread ring Spouseman put an egg into boiling water and there was a knock on the window, Christos the Albanian. Spouseman stepped outside telling me his egg had four minutes remaining. As the fourth minute closed Spouseman stepped back in through the door and told me that Christos was going to do the pelt here and now and it would be polite if I kept him company.

On his way to ours he had cut seven fresh stalks of 'bamboo' and these were deployed to stretch the pelt as tight as a drum in the shape of the international symbol for real leather. He told us to hang it up in the shed for three months with some naphthalene hanging alongside to keep away flies and to keep it out of the reach of cats and rats. He said when the sun is shining we can bring it outside and sunbathe it but we mustn't let it get wet. We are to call him in early March.

He didn't want any money but we invited him in for a drink and he was happy with an ouzo. Actually, he would have been much happier with more than one ouzo but we were getting bored of his chit-chat and wanted to progress with our own things. It was 2pm. This was the only photo I took today.