We’ve booked flights to go back to the UK in October.  We must be mad and we have told each other that every morning for the last five mornings.  The sun still shines here, day in day out it is a glorious 30 degrees, the pool is sparkling sun shadowed azure and wildly inviting and the days slide one by one into a soft and gentle autumn of clear air and crystal views. 

I think it will be a relatively short visit back to the UK, we have things to do here.  This lovely house is up for sale and we have new plans to draw up for the next one, we also have two amazing and interesting houses in the area to market for friends and the building construction website to get up and running properly. 

But, it is 10 months since we went home for a decent visit and the UK house needs to be checked before winter, gutters need to be cleaned out, radiators need to be bled, cars need to be checked and when all that is done there is family to visit and quickly hug before getting back on a plane again.

It’s going to be a shock though, not only with the horrible temperature drop but with the way the UK is after Turkey. The prices, the paranoia, the traffic, the prices, the depressing news and political correctness and did I mention the prices! 

So with flights now booked and paid for and a car waiting to pick us up in Stanstead we are on a rapidly ticking countdown to leaving and rushing around preparing things to be left…..pool, garden, outdoor furniture, bills paid etc etc.  And every day the sun shines and makes us wish we weren’t going and every swim we take in the pool makes us morose that it may be the last time this year and every time we drive down to town we marvel at the view out over the Aegean towards Samos and turn to each other and say “we must be bloody mad to leave this!”
posted 30-09-2007