ABOUT ME

I moved to Greece with my husband in August 2007 from the UK. We had taken holidays on Greek Islands for many years and had fallen in love with the country and decided we wanted to live here.

We started looking on the internet for a house to buy and it took us 6 years to find the house where we now live, after several trips by my husband looking at properties. We live in a small village in the Peloponnese.

We drove from the UK to here with 5 dogs and a cat in the car - plus essentials that we could fit in.

We left on a Thursday evening at the beginning of August, sleeping in the car when we could, and we arrived here on Monday afternoon. We missed the Ferry we had booked for the Saturday evening at Brindisi.

Don't travel in Italy during the first 2 weeks in August as all the Italians are on holiday - we were stuck in traffic for 5 hours just outside Milan.

We realised we were not going to make the ferry at Brindisi so we stopped at a rest area where they had showers (heaven) and a restaurant where we had a hot meal of lovely Italian food.

Pictured are the five Cavalier King Charles Spaniels (all related) that we brought with us!

We arrived with no furniture, just a blow-up rubber bed, some bedding, a few clothes and the essentials for ourselves and the animals.

We had no idea of where to shop but eventually found our way around - got furniture, etc, and our boxes arrived from the UK after about 2 weeks.

This photograph is of Sophie our cat who came from the Cats Protection League.

We have had a lot of work to do on the house and the garden but we have wonderful neighbours and have managed to get most things now done.

The first thing we did outside was to clear the garden and in our first winter here we rebuilt the working well which now waters all our vegetables, the lawn and surrounding shrubs and trees.

I think what we have found most difficult has been communication as we didn't speak Greek at all, and it is a very difficult language to learn - but we are getting there - slowly, very slowly!!.

I have had some health problems but the care I have received has been excellent and generally very quick.

We had only been to Greek Islands on holiday so we had not been to the mainland which is amazing. It is so vast and magnificent.

We live in a basin with mountains on 3 sides of us and sea in 2 directions 30km away. There is so much to see in the Peloponnese.

There is so much to see in the Peloponnese - endless history and beauty.

In September a few years ago I went to Nafplio to stay for a few nights so that I could explore the town itself, from there I visited Epidaurus, Tiryns and Mycenae.

I travelled from there to stay in Ancient Corinth so that I could see the archaeological site and visit Acrocorinth.

From there I went to Diakopto and went on the rack and pinion railway to Kalavryta - a wonderful experience.

We live only about 15km away from the site of Ithome (Ancient Messene) and try to go there at least once a year.

The excavations there are ongoing and every time we visit they have unearthed something new - it is amazing to see mosaic floors uncovered that are 2,700 years old!!

One of the things I love about Ithome is that there are no restrictions on where you can walk (unless there are excavations being worked on.)

Some winters are very cold, especially at night,(we even had snow in our garden one morning this year).

Sometimes we see snow on the mountains visible from the house - then I go snow hunting!

But we know what is coming in the summer!! This year has been exceptionally hot with temparatures at the beginning of July reaching 40C.

We have lost all our Cavalier King Charles Spaniels and Sophie our cat died last year at the age of 15.

We have been adopted by one cat and we have adopted 2 more. We also have a young bitch that we rescued who is a real character.

We had been feeding her Mum for 2 years. We have also had 2 Greek dogs but unfortunately they both died.

My grateful thanks goes to my husband for encouraging me to build this website and giving me hours and hours of his time in tutoring me, getting everything right and onto the internet.

Photographs of the animals from the top of the page are - the 5 dogs we brought with us - the ruby one on the end was Suki,who was mother, grandmother and great-grandmother of the others. Sophie was our English cat.

Anna was a greek "Geka" that we rescued when she was injured and had to have her eye removed, sadly she died after giving us 2 years of devoted love.

Skye is next, the daughter of Suki, then Freya who was Skye's daughter.

Willow, the pale ginger cat adopted us and produced 5 wonderful kittens.

Charley our last surviving Cavalier sadly died in the summer of 2015.

The cats are Tyke (the black one) who had a leg injury when he was a kitten, so he is our special needs cat - a couple of years later he also managed to break the same leg, however, it was impossible to keep a plaster on it so he limps even more!!

Poppy is the tabby, another one who found us a wormed her way into our hearts.

Then comes Mia who was another daughter of Skye and mother of Charley.

When we were driving here from the UK, Mia was one (with Freya) who kept climbing up to look at us when they wanted us to stop and let them out!!

Next we have Tia, a pup that we rescued from the road.

Her mum had kept her hidden until she was about 12 weeks old.

She is definitely our Alpha dog!!

In December of 2014 we took in her mum (who we called Foxy), who had been a village dog for at least 8 years, into our property because the weather was bad and she was very pregnant and obviously ill.

She gave birth to 4 pupppies on January 5th 2015 - but sadly 3 were born dead.

Foxy ended up having a hyserectomy and she stayed with us in the house in the winter but used to leave us in the summer for her village friends.

The surviving pup we kept and called Kyra - who is pictured here with her half-sister Tia.

Sadly she died in January 2019 after being with us for 4 happy years.

Kyra has grown into a very large dog and she is pictured here.

Although she is big she is really a softie - but she does frighten people when she runs at the gates as she makes such a noise!

We took in Sweetie and her 2 puppies in September 2016 when we had a flood in the village.

Thank goodness we did because the pups would definitely have drowned.

Pictured is Lucy one of Sweetie's puppies - she is a beautiful dog and is such a baby.

She will not have anything to do with anyone other than my husband and me!!

Then there is her sister Lily.

I call Lily my little hippo as she is built like a tank!!

The pictures below are of our beautiful Bruno Jura that we called Zoe. Sadly she died when she was 18 months old from a twisted spleen.

When we first had her she used to walk on her ears as they were so long. She did grow into them eventually - sort of. Still miss all the ones that are no longer with us.