The back driveway of Kalithea Villa starts at the highest point of our land below the road and comprises a series of long curves which descend very steeply in parts. Initially we couldn’t understand why the edges had high haunches, with banking on the corners to compete with the ‘Cresta Run’, bobsleigh course. That was until our first storm! Water poured off the mountain, down the road, under our back gates and formed a gushing river down the drive. The way the house tucks into the mountainside has been cleverly engineered to ensure maximum collection of water and presumably, channeling the water so effectively, reduces the capacity of free running water to undermine the structure of the property. We are not on mains water, but rely on two reservoirs. The water from the back driveway goes through a mesh filter and two separate filter chambers into the secondary reservoir directly under the boatshed. Water from the seven flat roofs collects roof upon roof, is then directed through a simple filter system of stones and sand, and collects in the main 18,500 gallon reservoir under the kitchen and the kitchen patio. Water run-off from the front driveway is similarly filtered before it is directed to the swimming pool. We have had the water from the reservoirs tested and it proved purer than most bottled water and as good as standard tap water.
Set to the side of the house on a flat patch on land at the base of the lounge windows, the boatshed has commanding views over the straits and as such was named the Acropolis by the previous owners. Its lower position gives a slightly different perspective to the view from the lounge; it is not framed by the terracotta pot or patio walls, but does enable me to see slightly further around the corner of our mountain and thus to the tip of the Maleas peninsular. From our first viewing of the house I declared that this would be my office. Supportive as ever, Waldo renamed it the “AcropoLiz” and made the conversion a high priority in his list of things to do.
The building was open at both ends, reached from a slight ramp at the rear and with access to the garden and terraces from the front. In one corner of the 5.5m by 4m cement floor is an access point to the reservoir. The far side wall was half bricked and topped with five curved archways joining pillars along the wall. The inside wall had two such curves and the back half of the wall was solid brick and cement where it faced the mountainside. The curved sections at the top of the side walls had been made by pouring concrete into a wooden fabricated mold. Someone had taken the trouble to build into this precision curve a decorative meander or ‘Greek key’ design across the top. However such effort has been lost as the builders simply picked up and fitted these concrete sections at will and thus some have the design on the outside of the building, whereas others face inside. Along the front half of the inside wall is a stone bench which may simply be designed for sitting on or a feature made out of a need to buttress the wall against the mountain. The walls stand about 2.5m high and the apex of the pitched roof is about 3.5m from the ground. The roof is tiled with local terracotta tiles.
Given the driving winter rain that predominantly comes down the valley and the summer breezes which come up we decided to brick up the back wall and only have openings to the front. We planned to brick up the archways except the front one of the side wall. The front section of the building would be all glass with a small opening window and glass in the top section of the door. This would mean that I would have plenty of wall space on which to run bookcases, a small seating area and window space for my large curved desk. Here I could look to the side and across the valley or to the front and down the valley to the sea for my inspiration. I did wonder how much such an inspiration would be restricted to my ability to accurately describe ships, rolling sea mists, or bright azure seas or whether the ever changing vista would simply be a distraction. But time will tell.
We had visited Kyria (Mrs.) Anna at the local hardware store: a regular haunt of ours. Her husband Pangiotis would measure, manufacture and fit the double glazed windows and doors. We had received the written quotation on a previous trip to Kythera and ordered the goods to be ready just before our return arrival date. On our first day back we visited Panagiotis to learn that he had lost the scrap of paper with the measurements on it. He hadn’t thought to look at his copy of the nicely printed quotation which his wife had prepared for us! So he returned to measure up, and as usual it would be ‘no problem’. When we telephoned to ask why he hadn’t turned up on the appointed day to fit everything he declared that he had forgotten to ask us what style door we wanted and would we pop up to see his selection. We were quite surprised at this for neither of us could recall any options being visible in his workshop. It turned out that our choice was to have one big panel or two smaller ones and these could be a plastic ‘tongue and groove’ effect or plain glass. Panagiotis looked rather sheepish when Waldo asked to see our windows. He had not actually started making them yet, he wanted to come back and measure, again, just to be sure. But he assured us that everything would be fitted by the weekend.
The following Monday we were up early so that we could visit Panagiotis to find out why he had not turned up and then go to the builders’ merchants to order the rest of the materials and ask them to recommend a good, reliable brickie and plasterer. The peace and tranquility of breakfast on the patio was soon broken by a small convoy of men coming down our steep steps at the side of the pool, walking around the pool, under our patio and to the boatshed. Each was carrying an aluminium frame. I counted four. It was looking hopeful. Excitedly we finished our toast and coffee and walked down to see Panagiotis and his son lift the first frame towards its allotted space. Oh dear. The look of consternation on Panagiotis’ face was clear. He reached behind his ear for his pencil. The frame was too wide. Panagiotis marked off where he would have to cut and refix. Then complete horror shook his whole body as he realized that the frame was also not deep enough. He looked up and caught my eye; the poor man didn’t dare look at Waldo. Silently I held both my hands out in front of me with fists clenched as if I were holding the frame. My fists were level and I rotated them 90° so that one was directly above the other. The tension turned to smiles as the frame was turned and found to fit the space almost perfectly.
It took Waldo a lot of miming and finger pointing, and Panagiotis up to three fittings per window before we were satisfied. At one point the front window had been fitted inside the curve of the pillar such that the top section could not open as it jarred the edge of the pillar. Something had gone wrong with the door measurements and the concrete floor had to be channelled to make it fit. But the half day job was now on its third day and nearing the end to the point where Waldo felt we could leave them to it.
It never fails to amaze me how men in general and Waldo in particular know everything. The size of a brick, or how to work out how much cement is needed per square metre of bricks is just not the sort of detail most women carry around in their brains. But as Waldo had measured, scribbled and scratched his head I consulted my Greek dictionary. I wrote down the words for brick, sand, cement, plaster, brickie, plasterer and made sure I knew the phrases such as ‘when can you deliver?”, “how much will it all cost?” I knew the builders’ merchant spoke no English, so I had to be prepared. What I didn’t know then was that, unusually for this cosmopolitan island, nobody involved in the building of the AcropoLiz spoke a word of English and so my linguistic skills and Waldo’s ability to mime developed considerably.
The builders’ merchant was skeptical, he wanted to be sure we were ordering the right quantities. When we asked him if he could recommend a good brickie and plasterer he relaxed and immediately got on the telephone. About an hour later I found myself bouncing up our mountain track in a car with Andreas who was to be our builder. After a lot of arm waving, many cigarettes on Andreas’ part, I came to know the different Greek words for rough plaster and smooth plaster and to be able to say ‘I don’t really care which, as long as it doesn’t let spiders in’. Andreas telephoned the builders’ merchant to confirm our needs and we shook hands to seal the deal and agreed that he would come, with his Albanians, on Saturday. (Greek authorities used to bus Albanians back to their country, until it was recognized that they were a cheap source of labour, primarily to meet the building needs of the Olympic Games. Now that the building boom in Athens is over many of these men and their families have dispersed around Greece in search of work or have been forcible relocated. Thus, all over Greece the word ‘Albanian’ has become the synonym for ‘labourer’.) Despite it being Easter, Andreas and his gang would work on Monday and finish by Wednesday, a week away. In the meantime, we would arrange for the delivery of the materials and ensure that everything was brought down the steep driveway to the boathouse, ready for work. We raced off the pay the builders’ merchant, but he would not hear of it. After everything was delivered to our satisfaction, some time when we were passing we could call in and pay. We then agreed that the material would be delivered the following morning between nine and ten o’clock. I made it absolutely clear that the sand and loose chippings were to be dumped at the entrance to the top driveway. I even drew a little map for the last thing I wanted was to wake up to find our car blocked in the main driveway.
Satisfied with our efforts and released after the tensions of dealing with Panagiotis we decided to treat ourselves. For the first time ever we decided to lunch at our favourite beachside taverna. The first people we saw in the taverna was Panagiotis and his men, busy working their way through plates of fried squid, octopus, and salad. Just as the Greeks say ‘Ouzo without meze is not Ouzo’ so we say that ‘meze without Ouzo is not meze’. We ordered Stella’s special array of tasty titbits: small meatballs, small local sausages, chunks of feta cheese, slices of tomato and cucumber, fried slices of squid, a few prawns, dollops of fish roe pâté, garlic yoghurt with cucumber, and humus. We spent a delightful hour watching seabirds dive for tiny fish darting in the shallow water of the bay. We were making the most of the chance to relax for the next two days would be busy moving the bricks and building materials for Andreas. We were just on our last sips of Ouzo when a heavy lorry passed on the road between our tables and Stella’s kitchen. Waldo leapt out of his seat shouting ‘my bricks’. Watching the lorry through the village Dino, Stella’s partner, confirmed it was turning up our road. With no time to pay, Dino waved us on as we ran for the car. We caught up with the lorry about half way up to our house and spent the next hour supervising the delivery.
After moving some five hundred bricks Waldo recognized that it was just not going to be possible for him to move all the bricks, three tons of stone dust, ten bags of cement and fifteen plastic bags of lime. Controlling the wheelbarrow down that steep drive took too much strength. Not for the first time we decided we needed a little “Bobcat”. I resolved that once we sold our house in the UK, that would be my next combined Christmas and birthday present to Waldo. In the meantime we called down to see Eddy who lives at the bottom of our road. Eddy was out but his wife explained that his machine was awaiting a replacement engine to come from the mainland. We had had a few tons of earth delivered some months previously and went in search of the lorry driver: the earth must have been loaded with a machine that could shift our bricks. Unfortunately it was a grown-up JCB, far too big for our driveway. We telephoned our friend Goran, a local farmer. He didn’t have one, but he would find out who did. Sure enough he soon called back to say that George, who repairs tractors, had one. We went to see George: yes, he could move our bricks, but his “Bobcat” was in a field ten miles away; if we could find someone who could give it a lift to the house he would do the work.
It was late afternoon on Friday when Goran arrived with George’s bobcat on his trailer. He pulled up close to our banking and George drove straight out of the trailer, onto our bank and down the driveway. It took four hours of hard work loading the bricks and all the building materials, but the “Bobcat” made easy work of moving everything down the steep driveway. I put all the lights on outside the house to help George see where he was going as it was pitch dark by the time the final load was brought down. The last we saw of him was tracking up our mountain road in his “Bobcat” which had no lights. He travelled by the light of the moon and all we could see was the tip of his cigarette as he disappeared around the corner.
Breakfast the next morning was once more interrupted as Andreas, true to his word, appeared with his chief plasterer, the very handsome Manolis and three Albanians. It was clear that Andreas had not expected Waldo to move all the bricks, stone-dust, lime and bags of cement. Waldo is a small man and does not look particularly strong. I told Andreas that Waldo has honey in his tea every morning, and Kytheran honey is known to be the best in Greece – clearly it works. As if in response Manolis appeared asking Andreas where he wanted the full bag of cement that he carried in his arms as easily as if it were a household bag of sugar. It was a treat to see the men work. They knew exactly what they were doing and took pride in the finished job. As long as coffee, water and biscuits were forthcoming about every two hours they worked tirelessly. Andreas kept disappearing, but is was clear he trusted the men implicitly and they did not betray that trust and worked steadily.
Whether it was Andreas’ disappearances, the men’s liking for my coffee and biscuits, or just the size if the job it was touch and go as to whether they would finish by the time we were leaving the coming Friday. I had told Andreas that we were leaving for the airport at 11.30, but by the time Takis the taxi-driver arrived Andreas was nowhere to be seen. We were very concerned that we should pay our dues on time. Halfway down the mountain we met Andreas, bemused that we should be leaving so early when the ‘plane wasn’t due to take off for another hour, and anyway it was always late. I leaned out of the taxi and told Andreas that we were very pleased with the work and had left the money in an envelop with Manolis. He just smiled. He was pleased that we liked his work. As for paying, ‘no problem’ we could have given him the money when we were next on this island.
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