I realise that I haven’t been posting regularly for a long time now. It seems that when I’m ‘up’ I’m creative and fun and have lots to share, but when I’m ‘down’ (or frustrated, or stressed, or life just gets too much for me) I’m quiet and don’t feel like sharing. 

I often get critised by non-greeks who move here to live in the beauty of Greece and its islands – the brilliant blue skies, the light, the sea, the culture, the people. These people get annoyed at me for not absolutely loving it here and for complaining, for not appreciating how lucky I am to live ‘in paradise’. In fact, years ago my brother and cousin didn’t want me hanging out with their wives cause my bias against Greece would rub off on them.

Don’t think I just plain hate Greece – I don’t. Greece is part of me. I lived here for years when I was younger, but Greece and I have a love-hate relationship. More hate than love some of the time, but its inside me. I especially love Paros, there are parts of Athens I love and other parts I appreciate. Its just that life here is not easy if you have to work under greek conditions in order to live… for someone who was used to living in a country where most things made sense. Here nothing seems to make sense – and perhaps I’m just too stubborn to accept it and live with it.

I could go into the story of my life and the deep down reasons I’ve disliked (and even resented) Greece since first moving here as a 10 year old many years ago, but its a long story involving a child who felt like she was ripped from a town, a life, and a family she loved, moved to a foreign country far away against her will, where she knew no one and who’s people were cruel to animals. And who sincerely believed she would never again see the people and places she loved.

Right now I’m fighting to keep it together and find a way to be who I am/want to be and live the life I want to live, while living and working in this country.

Wages here suck. I’d never be able to get anywhere as an employee. Not on a single wage, even owning my own house. I’d survive, but thats it. No extravagant shopping, no trips, nothing. If I was content to just go to work, walk my dogs (more on that later), cook, eat, catch up with friends now and then, and have no hobbies bigger than fit in my lap, I could be content in my little house in a small life on a beautiful island.

But I have hobbies, interests, passions, and ambitions, that require space. I paint on canvas, rocks and marble, I draw on paper or any other surface I find, I make sculptures, I make art from trash, I groom dogs, I sew, I make jewelery, and baskets, I remake dolls, I want to work with clay, I want to get back to remaking furniture and I miss my power tools. So I’m frustrated because I don’t have the space. Not many people understand that – my house is fine ‘for a single person’. 

I am happiest when I’m making things. I am most happy when I’m making stuff I want to make for myself, and then being able to sell them after. But unlike most countries, Greece doesn’t have weekend markets or other avenues for sellers to sell stuff. I miss being able to make stuff and take part in a market now and then!

Working in a job 6 hrs a day 6 days a week (aka a part time job), then grooming as often as I can in the warmer months, fitting in whatever painting I can when I’m not too tired, is not what I dreamed living on a greek island would be like. For one thing I envisioned living here once I’d retired – no need for a job to hem me in – so I could create and do things I enjoyed.

Living the dream means not having to work for under 5 euros an hour in jobs you don’t like.

In Australia I built up a grooming business slowly, making a name for myself by grooming 3 days a week and working part time, till I took the leap to make it my full time job. I could do that cause it was considered a hobby and, since I was paying taxes on my real job, I didn’t have to declare my hobby income. Ditto with anything I sold at the odd market or online.

Here, unless you want to risk a huge fine for earning black money (there is no such thing as hobby income here), you have to register a business, which has monthly costs whether you earn anything or not, not allowing you the luxury of building up a business slowly. For now I have registered a business and, having no space, I go to people’s houses to clip their dogs…Its not ideal. I feel like I’ve taken a big step backwards to how I started years ago. Even then I had the space for a grooming room in my own home…  I don’t have the money to jump in and rent a space here, fit it out and tide me over till the business can support me.

So I stress over how to balance the need to earn a living while building up a grooming business without a space to do it in, and still be creative. 

Dealing with taxation, government rules and regulations etc is frustrating. Add in dealing with the medical system for mom, and getting just about anything done… everything in Greece is frustrating – as my post about mom’s drama with the ferry showed. UGH. 

Can you believe that we have to vaccinate our dogs every single year for rabies? The same vaccinations they give in other countries in Europe last 3 years… but here, its every year. Why?

I mentioned dogs. Plural. 

I adopted a purebred miniature poodle who’s mother (an 88yr old woman) had a stroke. He is 7 years old, white, his name is Phoebo (my version of his name, cause I laughed when Phoebe on Friends wanted to name one of the triplets after herself). Phoebo is loving and cuddly and cute, he gets along with everyone, people and other animals, then turns into Cujo if you touch him where he doesn’t want to be touched. He’s a disgrace to me as a groomer…

I adopted him cause a biting dog will end up being tossed aside or euthanised. And he bites hard. He means it. I suspect that he’s been beaten for biting and thats just made him worse.

By the time I got him he’d been away from his home for at least a month, living in a boarding kennel where the people in charge were fearful of him. He’d been adopted and returned twice cause he can be quite vicious when he doesn’t want you to do something to him.

Second day I had him I thought I’d clean his eyes with a damp tissue and he attacked me, not just biting the hand which held the tissue like a normal bitey dog, but launching himself at me, biting me in the crook of my elbow. 

OUCH.

Its been two weeks now. I’m in training by a trainer I’d never have been following normally. But then I’ve never had a dog like this before, and I’m a groomer with a rep for handling difficult dogs! The rules are different to anything I’ve ever done before. With this groomer/trainer its ‘no lap. no sharing the bed. make sure he knows you’re the boss. he needs to know you have the power but won’t hit him.’ Perhaps he’s right. My way of loving and gentle ways isn’t working. I thought it was the few times I did something he didn’t like he went bezerk but didn’t bite. Then this morning he bit me again.

Sigh.

I can’t let him win. He’s such a sweet dog. I need to make him a better dog.

z