Despite our set criteria, we ended up falling in love with a modern house built in the style of Frank Lloyd Wright. In fact some pieces of furniture in the property are copies of some of his interior decor and others are in the Bauhaus style. It has a plunge pool and is set in some 10 acres of land, mainly terraced with some 40 olive trees but mostly scrub land in need of attention. The surrounding garden has palm trees, huge agave plants, lots of oleander, bougainvilla and jasmine as well of fruit and nut trees: orange, pomegranate, vine, pear and almond. We have electricity and telephone but are not attached to mains water or sewage. Thus we collect our own pure water from the seven rooves of the house and store it in two large sternas. We have three bedrooms, a large lounge, large kitchen, a spare room used as junk room, Waldo's office and spare single bedroom. The hall is massive and spans two storeys as the entrance to the house is at the top level with a mezzanine floor. Waldo has a huge garage large enough to park 4 cars and a workshop. I have me eyes on the old boatshed which will become my office. But what 'sold' the property to us was it's isolation and view. Half way up a mountain we can see just one house at the bottom of the valley. The rest of the view is up the valley, across the valley and down to the blue sea, across the straits to the Maleas peninsular of the Peloponnese. The silence is heaven.
The joy of taking ownership of the house we have named Kalithea (Good View) Villa soon paled into grey cloud of panic at the thought of what to do next. Our plan has been to sell our twenty-six roomed ex-children's home, house in South Wales and move to a two or three-bed roomed apartment. This would serve its purpose for the few years until I retire and we can move to Kythera on a more permanent basis.
Now Waldo and I are very alike; we are both hoarders and we are both repositories for our families’ large furniture as they downsized from sprawling farmhouses to modern, easy-to-manage properties, and we seem to have claimed much furniture left over from previous owners of houses we have bought. In fact, in our thirty-nine years together, we have only ever bought two three-piece suits, one oval bed, a set of bedroom drawers and vanity unit, a pine kitchen dresser with matching table and chairs, a ‘fridge and a washing machine. Except for the first three-piece suit, we still have and use it all. But each room of our three-storey Edwardian home is crammed with furniture, clocks, favourite vases, candlesticks or china given to us by Aunties Mary, Betty or 'Big Elsie'; grandmothers’ cast offs and the gifts of well-meaning friends who see our family clutter on display and, believing that we collect such items, buy more to be displayed and gather dust.
The idea of sorting our furniture to fit into a small apartment was something we had been putting off. But we could not keep our heads in the sand any longer and decided to divide things up into three lists: to go to Kythera, to our new flat in Cardiff and the final list was itself sub-divided into three: to be sold, sent to a charity shop or binned. The tasks of sorting, sifting and throwing were not appealing: Waldo found more and more reason to be in Kythera sorting out Kalithea Villa and I was always busy in work. Eventually I decided the time had come and set myself a target to clear out at least one large bin-bag of rubbish every week. I started filling up our dining table with various pots, vases, china ornaments and sets of china that I thought had a value. There were some nice art-deco pieces, a Clarice Cliff jug, a Belleek dish, Pool pottery, a Swansea pottery tea-service and a few other pieces which I believed had value. I’d seen enough TV programmes to know that a set of six cups and sauces with a chip or piece missing was better split into a set of four complete pieces and the odd cups of saucers sold in job lots. So I sorted and sifted and carried precious crates of goodies to the local antique market. I’d already spent Saturday after Saturday walking these markets eyeing up specific stalls and observing the manner of the stall holders. Thus each selling trip had a cargo destined for a specific stall holder: china tea services for one, Toby jugs on another trip, art-deco pieces on another; coronation mugs and paraphernalia and so on. It took three months of Saturdays and Sundays, spreading myself among different markets, not making myself too familiar, calling out different stall holders to the boot of my car each time. But, with the exception of one cup and two saucers I cleared everything and had more money in my ‘Kythera pot’ than I had hoped for.
Waldo sometimes accompanied me on these trips and we started walking into the realms of the furniture sales. Each time we returned home we would walk around our house pricing items of furniture and decided what we would sell: a chaise longue, a walnut faced étagère, a glass fronted display cabinet, an Edwardian swivel vanity mirror, the large top book case section of a writing desk, various small cabinets and tables and a large glass case containing two stuffed pheasants. How to get rid of them was the next challenge. The cost of transport, the risk of items not selling and the fact that the auctions were not particularly frequent eliminated the auction house option. I even contacted the TV programme ‘Cash in Your Attic’: we were interviewed, accepted, had items valued, but then put into a forthcoming series which was too far away for our needs. Eventually we plucked up courage and chatted to a furniture stall holder in one of the antique markets. To our surprise he called to our house after work that evening, agreed to buy absolutely everything we had for sale except for an oval, walnut inlay table, and came to collect the items the following day. It was swings and roundabouts on the prices, but on balance we had slightly more than we had hoped for, and he had solved our transport problem. We were happy with the outcome and our Kythera pot was expanding.
The next stage in our development was to start selling at car boot sales. The first one was a frightening experience as we were clearly identified as rookies and mobbed as we were unpacking the car. But after a few horrendously early Sunday morning starts we were accepted and plied our trade. We soon recognised that sixty percent of our takings for the day would be taken between 7am and 10am before the sale opened to the public, for it was the dealers and ultra-keen buyers who came in the early hours. The next few hours would drag by and account for about one fifth of our sales. Then there would be a final spurt in the last half hour as everyone was packing up, this was a time I came to hate for this was when the meanies and the desperately poor came with their ploys of ‘you don’t want to take that home with you’ or ‘you won’t sell that now’ and they would offer pittances for anything that took their fancy. I soon started working the displays each week and anything that hadn’t sold in three outings was consigned to a charity shop or the bin. We’ve still plenty to get rid of next summer and we are finding ourselves clearing the knick-knacks from Kalithea Villa to grace the boot sales of South Wales.
Each piece of furniture and precious item with ‘value-for-life’ was earmarked for Kythera. We measured spaces for the Welsh Dresser, Victorian bookcase, teak units and various tables and display cabinets. Then we set about finding a removal company. We pondered over the exorbitant prices and debated the pros and cons of using a small local company or a large international one. In the end we plumped for the latter on the grounds that their international experience would stand us in good stead for removal of our precious belongings to the relatively remoteness of Kythera: a decision which proved to be completely misplaced and an utter waste of the ‘extra’ cost.
Perhaps the first warning signal should have come when the sales representative for the company insisted that he had seen the island promoted in his package holiday brochure the previous year; we knew that the island does not feature in such brochures. But we passed this off as confusion with perhaps Kerkyra (Corfu). We pushed on with the conversation and planned to the last detail the events that would have to take place between us signing the contract and receiving our goods, unbroken in Kalithea Villa. We agreed specific dates, some with accepted minor variations when men would pack our goods and load the 11,000 cu.ft. container, deliver it to Southampton dock, for the ship to leave port, arrival at Piraeus, custom’s clearance, delivery by another ferry to Kythera. We then had the momentous task of sorting our the insurance, a minefield of expense based on complicated mathematical formulae which, for example, adds pounds to the cost of insuring a set of six glasses over and above the individual rates. Because we were not moving household goods such as kitchen equipment and bedroom furniture, most of our contents were classed as luxury items which carried a premium and so we spent ages reclassifying them. I had to count every item and on the basis that only if the ship sank or the container went on fire would my 1,851 books be destroyed, I gave them no value.
When Waldo returned to the removal company office with the completed insurance forms he double checked on the timings and agreed with them the dates that he would now book our air tickets to ensure that we would be on the island to receive our goods. Waldo was actually going to the island three weeks before me, I would join him the week the container was due and help sort out the house before traveling to the island of Lefkas where I was speaking at a conference. A week later I would return when my cousin and her husband were then joining us for two weeks holiday.
The packing went well. Two older ex-employees were pulled out of retirement for the big job. On the third day two young chaps arrived as reinforcements; but between conversations on their mobile telephones and tea breaks they did not pack much, no more than six cases between them. I was very pleased that the older men had only allocated books for these irresponsible boys to pack. On opening these boxes I found a jumbled mess; if they couldn’t get same sized paperbacks in order what chance would my expensive china and glass have had? Loading the container was not helped by the fact that it took place on the Monday after we had had a new lawn and brick pathway laid over the weekend. Everything was taken out of the front door, over the newly laid path now covered with wooden planks, up the ramp to the van, through the van and over the ramp from the back doors to the container. The container lorry, removal van, lorry with the new lawn turf, the flat bed truck with the rollers and other garden equipment, together with an assortment of the men’s cars, our two cars and our camper van, evicted from the garage, meant parking vehicles on both sides of our road across our frontage and the neighbours on both sides of us, blocking the driveway to four flats. They are all elderly people who have no need to rush in the mornings, but we had to wake them at 7.30am to ask them to get their cars out if they wanted to go anywhere during the day. It was 18.30 before we waved goodbye to our container.
As agreed, the removal company contacted us a few days later confirming that the container had been loaded on the ship bound for Athens. Then we heard nothing. A few days after the due time we telephoned to find out if the ship had arrived and Waldo had the response that “Kathy deals with this sort of thing and she is on holiday for two weeks”. After a number of telephone calls and visits to the office the local manager informed us that they really only dealt with removals within the UK and didn’t really know about foreign moves: they knew nothing and were not interested. Calls to the company’s London head office were just as disinterested and all they could give us was the name of a shipping agent in Athens. Nothing of the promised service promoted when selling their contract was forthcoming. When Waldo made contact with the shipping agent the only records she had were for half a container of goods in the name of Edwards and going to Crete. Twice or thrice daily telephone calls to the removal company provided no further information over the next two weeks and our stress levels and tempers were rising rapidly.
Athens was closing down normal services in favour of the Olympic Games and Waldo was due to fly out within days when we received a distressed telephone call from a man in Piraeus who declared that he had been trying to contact us on Kythera but we never answered the telephone. The carefully planned and agreed programme or indeed any paperwork had not been forwarded with our container and it had taken him days to be given our UK telephone number. Transport to and from the port was now being closed and we would have to wait until after the end of the Olympic Games before our container could be moved.
Two days later Waldo arrived on the island when there followed the silliest period of this so-called professional international company’s service. The local office in Cardiff had forgotten to inform us that in Greece we would have to be responsible for going to the custom’s office in Piraeus and personally signing the documentation in order to have the container released. This was eventually sorted by a complicated arrangement involving our solicitor in Athens, a local hotel’s fax machine, the Kytheran police and a personal courier on an Olympic flight from the island. The next hurdle arose when the Piraeus agent declared that they would empty the container and load the goods onto a lorry to be driven to Githion for the ferry. To minimize damage, we had paid extra for the unopened container to be delivered to Kalithea Villa. This professional international removal company’s local agent eventually agreed to do this, but not until Waldo had taken a trip down to the port to greet the ferry and seek the clearance measurements for the doors to the hold, to be sure that the unit could be successfully loaded and unloaded!
I arrived on the island; the conference in Lefcas had been cancelled due to the Olympic Games. Two days after watching the closing ceremony of the TV, we had a telephone call from Piraeus to say that our container would be arriving early the following morning. I got organized and ensured that I could provide the anticipated 4 – 6 men, our friend Keith, Waldo and I with lunch. Then I stuck the sheets of paper, which listed the 196 boxes and items packed, onto a big board and marked them up with the appropriate room against each number.
Bright and early the next morning we watched the ferry go down, expecting the telephone call within half an hour or so. An hour later Waldo set off in search of the lorry: with two roads on the island it is difficult to get lost. The job had been subcontracted to a haulier who was justifiably proud of his bright new, shiny 35ft Globe-Trotter articulated vehicle. In fact it was so new, he wasn’t terribly sure how to drive it and Waldo had to walk in front of him to indicate the wide arc needed to turn into our road. Despite Waldo’s insistence that he follow him at exactly the same speed, the driver failed to take the second corner properly and the lorry became stuck in the sandy dry earth. Luckily a local man was nearby with his caterpillar tractor and Waldo had to negotiate with the house owner whose driveway building was delayed for the emergency. With his car trapped on front of the lorry, Waldo jumped in Keith’s car and they set off to the nearby boat repair yard where they sought out a steel hawser to link caterpillar to lorry. This hawser Waldo linked to lorry and tractor, for the lorry driver did not know where his towing connections were until Waldo showed him. Eventually, four hours late, with lights flashing and horn blowing the red lorry appeared around the corner of the road to our house. Everyone in the village now knew that our furniture had arrived. Goran the local pig farmer had turned up with his tractor and trailer, ready to help move furniture up the mountain if necessary. George from the supermarket had sent his two strapping sons over the mountain to ask if we wanted help lifting and carrying. With the lorry mobile, this help was now rejected in favour of the removal company’s ‘professionally trained removal men’ – who turned out to be four willing Albanians who had greeted the ferry in the hope of gaining a few hours work that morning! Haggling with them was the cause of the delay from the port.
Everything was unloaded into the road. The driver and the professional removal company representative – young man with a mobile ‘phone – stayed in the cab, ready to move once the lorry was empty. It came as some surprise when we made it clear that the packages had to be brought into the house and the 100 metres from the road to the front door and then seven levels of steps would not make it easy. There was a flurry of activity and I despaired as my plan of the men calling the number of the package for me to respond with the room direction failed as it became evident that the men could not read the number of the package in English or Greek, or probably Albanian. So Keith came to the rescue and it was fortunate that the hired helpers each had different coloured sweaters on. Thus the next hour rang to Keith’s shouts of “Red 146’ or ‘Orange 24” and as the man in question appeared down the steps to the hall I would direct them to the appropriate room.
With the rush to get our property inside the house coming to an end, the driver stirred himself. He then realized that the mountain track was too narrow to turn and so Waldo drove him further up to a turning place, clearly identifying how he should back into the space to be able to drive out. If he drove in, with the weight behind him, he would be stuck. But the driver clearly believed that horsepower was everything, he was more concerned with the overhanging branches which might scratch his shiny red paint. I caught a glimpse of Waldo taking off with stepladders strapped to the top of our 4 x 4 Lada and armed with a saw to cut away possible offending low branches.
On his return the driver was ready to leave, they were booked on the afternoon ferry. It was then that Waldo exploded and showed the young man with the mobile ‘phone our contract, which clearly stated that all goods had to be unpacked and put in place, and that all rubbish had to be taken away. All the men poured into the house in a flurry of angry voices and grumbles. As the big driver started attacking the packing on my lounge suite with a Stanley knife I joined the noise screaming ‘stop’. Eventually the heavy furniture was unpacked and in place and most of the packing paper collected. The driver then refused to put this into his lorry; he didn’t want to clutter it up. But Waldo was insistent.
I felt sorry for the Albanians who had worked extremely hard in the heat without being allowed lunch or respite. I had plied them with water and packed up some bread, cheese and fruit for them to take away. They waved avidly as the lorry eventually went down the mountainside. It was totally representative of this ‘professional, international removal company’ that a day later we discovered that most of the rubbish had been thrown over the roadside into a clump of trees at the edge of our garden. Then, three days later we had a telephone call from a garage about ten kilometers away, saying that he had an envelope for us. This turned out to be all of the insurance details and consignment sheets sent from the UK office, and which had been missing. We had insisted that all correspondence was to be through our UK address and explained that the Kythera address was a location address only as our postal address on the island would not be needed. So, following the efficiency level that we had now come to expect they were late in their dispatch and so couriered it to our location address. Like attracts like and the courier company, operating to the same efficiency and customer care levels as their contractor, had merely dropped the envelope into the first premises they found “open” from the port, and didn’t even bother to come as far as our village.
The managing director of the company would, no doubt, view this version of his ‘professional service’ as some sort of fairy story. But for us, it has the happy ending that characterizes such tales. Our treasured belongings are here with us. Three minor breakages of furniture have easily been repaired. We now have the familiarity of our own home around us. I still have not unpacked all of the books, but this can be done at our leisure. Our memories of our removal are full of the help that we had from the Albanians, from local people and from friends on the island.
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