The Skiathos Bulletin Board

yvonne · Joined: 30 Mar 2006 Posts: 127 Location: london

Just got back too.....two trips in as many months - how lucky am I? What's that? Well before the name-calling starts, it wasn't all holiday and idling on beaches, believe me! (in fact I never got to the beach at all - not even once!!!! ) Instead I had two weeks of hair-pulling frustration; dealing with Greek beaurocracy (Notary, lawyers, planners, accountants, banks, and constantly crashing computers at the dreaded Tax office) I'm one step closer to the 'organised painting holiday' dream.....so, to all you budding Picasso's out there - watch this space!

Skiathos was as beautiful as ever. The few days of rain (so badly needed) brought the island alive, lush and green once again. The Bank holiday weekend, which just happened to co-incide with a religious holiday, brought hoards of Greeks over from the mainland and I don't ever remember the road being so busy. The town was absolutely packed (more like high summer!) But by the Tuesday, once the 8,000 or so had departed on the ferries, peace was thankfully restored.

I bumped into Zoi (Geoffs daughter) and she was happy to report how well he was doing. Another operation (planned for yesterday) will undoubtedly have set him back a bit but she was confident he'd be back on the island in about 3 weeks.

Sad news; (for those that knew them) Dennis MacGill passed away last week as did Pandalis (from the tourist office), tragically following a heart attack at only 47. I was so sad to hear that Dimitri Kandarakis , the carpenter from Kolios (who had carved a beautiful wooden crib 26 years ago for my new baby daughter) had died too - a memorial service was held for him last Sunday at Evangelistra.

Good news: Giorgos (from Infinity Blue) is now the proud father of a beautiful little boy and (for the Chelsea fans) Abramovitch's yacht is expected to grace the harbour for the 3rd (?) year (also, rumour has it that the 'Russians are coming' - having block booked the best hotel rooms and apartments the island has to offer).

There is also speculation that a wealthy Greek has bought a huge plot of land at Aselinos beach with the intention to build a whole village/ holiday centre there!

Personally, I'm all for progress but hope the changes dont alter the Skaithos we all know and love too much. If you can locate a copy of Jack Causton's Skiathos 'Blue Book' (I tried but its out of print) or one of Richard Buchanan-Dunlop's beautiful Skiathos poetry anthologies, you'll get an instant sense of how life on the island used to be and appreciate how important it is to preserve.....

Glad to be home - but counting the days to go back.....

Have a lovely summer everyone and many congratulations to all the newly-weds

Yvonne
Very Happy

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My Blog:Painting Holidays Skiathos, Greece:
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Ian · Posted: Sun Jun 10, 2007 5:46 am Post subject:

Welcome back Yvonne,

Lovely feedback, lets hope its not too long before you are back and leading painting classes in your lovely new olive grove ...
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Counting down the months to the next visit - Click here to see why ...