A wet, cold Scottish Winter; a house filled with builders; getting used to working again; the credit crunch; viral infections; bloody awful television; worry about the boat; - all these things have driven us back to Greece to do a week's work on Tiercel .
 
We left Scotland on Thursday 26th after enduring the series of petty humiliations imposed on the flying public in the name of "Security" . Easyjet delivered us to Athens at 21.00 hours. The flights were OK but the new Easyjet seats were probably first patented by the Spanish Inquisition as a very refined form of torture for really hard core heretics. On arrival in Athens airport we hobbled through the rain to the Airport metro station only to be told that the metro was closed and we would have to find a bus. OK it was 9 at night and chances were that the buses would be quiet, so no problem there then!
 
On boarding there was standing room only. The bus (a long bendy type bus) was full of a mixture of travellers, homeward bound airport staff and those rather odd people that always seem to be on late buses and trains, A quick look down the bus was rather like a close up view of the Muppet Show audience.
 
After enduring an hour of this we arrived at Syntagma Square where, after braving the traffic, taxi touts and kamikaze dogs (Athenian strays take a peculiar delight in trying to bite the wheels of speeding cars) we got into a taxi and were whisked off to our hotel .
 
Life now became very pleasant indeed. We had decided to treat ourselves to one of Athens nicer, smaller hotels - The Art Hotel. On arrival we were welcomed into this delightful, eccentrically furnished hotel by an American Greek night porter who was not only absolutely charming and helpful but also upgraded us (at no extra cost) from our el-cheapo, basic room to a luxury suite with Jacuzzi and a balcony that the pope could only dream of for his palace.
 
The night porter had told us that breakfast started at 7 in the morning but, when we told him we would have to leave at 6, promptly arranged for the entire cold buffet breakfast to be ready for us an hour early. We came down to a breakfast choice which would have satisfied an army of particularly picky gourmands.
 
The hotel had arranged a taxi to take us to the metro which was again closed so we caught the bendy bus again. Our flight to Leros was the perfect antidote to the unpleasantly safety and security conscious mainstream airline industry. The security checks were minimal and, on the aircraft, the staff failed to notice that passengers both took off and landed with their seats reclined and that many had large suitcases blatantly sitting on their laps for the whole flight . Coffee, fruit juice and chocolate croissants were served as we flew across the impossibly blue Aegean sea and ruggedly contoured islands.
 
On arrival in Leros we got a taxi to the boatyard where we were welcomed with open arms by the owners son and, by the yard manager, with a look of sheer panic because he thought we might be there to launch the boat. The yard/marina is absolutely crammed with boats and the main lift is taken up by a ferry which was lifted for a quick scrub but was found to be rusted through below the waterline and is now being patched up rather rapidly. This bout of maritime constipation is causing major problems for owners who need to launch their boats.
 
On boarding Tiercel we found that she had survived the winter in fine style. Thus we were able to start our program of work without distractions.
 
It was wonderful to get on board, feel as if we had never been away and completely relax, probably for the first time in months - it was like being re-united with an old friend.