I had thought it was good time to take Vinnie out for a pee break, but lightning and thunder and pouring rain means the little guy will have to cross his legs a little longer. Its so wet out there I’m afraid he’ll get washed away by a current!

They’d been predicting showers for the last 2 days. Not a drop in sight. Then today, the skies opened up like there was a damn up in the sky that finally broke.

It poured this morning, stopped for about 2 hours during which I took Vincent for a paddle, then it began again. Not just rain, but lightening and thunderous thunder. (ok, I get why the word ‘thunderous’ now…)

I wonder if it rained at all on Paros? I wonder whether it rained at all in Parasporos specifically. Paros is a small island, yet the weather can differ greatly from one area to another. Its bizarre.

Right now I’m thankful we live on a hill. I hate to think what this rain is doing to the low lying suburbs of Athens… For those who don’t know, Athens used to have rivers. We had a huge one in our area… But sometime in the 50s or 60s some idiots decided, in their infinite wisdom, to pave them all and make them into roads. Great idea. Now every time we have big storms people’s houses flood. They obviously didn’t know of the cities around Europe with gorgeous rivers running through them…

I’m a bad person.

I really am.

When that kind of things happens I always think “what did you think would happen when you bought/built in a river bed/on a wetlandp/on the side of a river subject to flooding?” But people don’t think like that. They think “hey, this land is going cheap cause they drained a swamp, lets buy and build” then cry when their home is washed away and blame the government… Then again, why did the government give permits to build on flood land? Maybe they should blame the government. No one takes responsibility for anything any more anyway.

I’ve always tried to buy on the higher side of a slope. Maybe not at the top, but not down the bottom of a valley for sure.

Having said that, our land on Paros is in a valley, but at least the house is above the winter creek… there is a bit of land lower than where the house will be built… a slight slope. Not my choice. I wanted it higher up, but the engineer said this was the best place to build, taking into consideration the sun, wind, etc.

Too late to change it now. Let’s hope its ok… there is enough slope to the land for water to run off down into the creek. Which IS a creek… its the old creek bed which my grandfather’s people used as a track to the beach. Only passable on foot or by donkey back then, totally overgrown by protected native plant species now. It will never be a road now.

I gotta go look outside and see if there’s a break in the rain so I can take Vincent out.

Better go find his life jacket.

z