A little whitewashed house with a blue door and blue shutters on an unspoilt island in a picturesque village next to the beach with a taverna round the corner!
This was the dream of the Mole family in search of a piece of Greek paradise. But a beautiful view and a persuasive local prompted the impulsive purchase of a tumbledown ruin on a hillside with no water, no electricity, no roof, no floor, no doors, no windows and twenty years of goat dung!
In a charming saga of sun, sea, sand—and cement—John Mole tells of the back-breaking yet joyous labors of fixing up his own Arcadia and introduces a warm, generous and garrulous cast of characters who helped (and occasionally hindered) his progress.
Welcome to the village: meet Elpida who cures bad backs with a raw eggs; Ajax the canny, death-dealing butcher; beautiful Eleni yearning for Dusseldorf; Mole's mutinous and frequently sceptical family; and Hector, their dog, a mutant specially bred to frighten little children, who met his destiny on Evia.
An Englishman and a Greek village bond over bottles of ouzo, whisky and wine, finding each other sometimes bizarre, often baffling, yet always entertaining. Here is timeless rural Greece—catch it before it goes.
Visit John's website at
http://www.johnmole.com
John Mole has been at home in Greece for thirty years: like Odysseus making his legendary way home to his birthplace Ithaca, the island of Evia was the goal of his life's journey. It was better than Birmingham. He has had a varied international career, from banking in the USA and Athens to jacket potato restaurants in Russia. He is also a well-known author of comic novels and the perennial bestseller Mind Your Manners. He has British, Irish and US residency.
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