After the olive harvest comes the pruning and firewood preparation. These logs will be stacked and saved for some future winter. This is Yianni Benzini from the petrol station cutting logs, Dimitris from the supermarket looking perplexed at me whipping my camera out and Mrs Benzini in a pink scarf finding it hilarious.

People who don't live here assume that Summer is the busy time and that Winter is not. They would be wrong. Before the olive harvest the land had to be cleaned, then the olives, now the wood. We have to get our car to the island next door for a road worthiness test before the end of December or there will be a fine. Prior to that we must get the car serviced and new tyres put on but the mechanic is busy with his olives. We must also have the old car taken to the mainland, deregistered and destroyed or it will receive a fine for not having the same test. These things all need to take place in the correct order and they all take a certain amount of time to arrange. The clock is ticking.

Meanwhile, we are still awaiting the roof-rack we requested in July.