Rain, rain and yet more rain accompanied by a howling gale, and if the weather is like this when your house is being built there will be a delay as the lads are all in the kafenio smoking, drinking their tsigouthias (raki) and probably talking politics. We left it with the foundation setting so in the meantime you are haunting hardware stores busily choosing door furniture, kitchen units, showers, light fittings, tiles, paint etceteras. You will also no doubt visit marble merchants to choose marble for floors, walls if you want, kitchen units if you want. Marble in Greece can range from inexpensive to very expensive depending on your taste and your purse and is used extensively. But time passes and still nothing seems to be happening with your house. One day there is nothing but the footings and then, seemingly as if by magic, a day later you go to inspect and to your delight you see the complete framework of reinforced concrete, pillars and horizontal girders is complete. When they work fast they really do work fast but don’t be fooled, there’s a long way to go yet. There are reinforced floors to lay and stairs to build and then infill of brickwork between all the reinforced concrete. This is interesting because no way can Greek bricks be said to be uniform so you do get some odd configurations, but not to worry, rendering will cover that and no one will be any the wiser. By now a few more months have gone by and on your next visit you will see the roof is finally on. The carpenter though has not finished making your doors and windows if you’re having them in wood and, when they are finally delivered, it is possible someone misread the measurements slightly and they don’t entirely fit. Not to sorry, the gaps can be filled in. The reason for all this reinforced concrete is because of building regulations and the fear of earthquakes. In the old days Cretan houses were built of stone and mud and that was that. Your walls are now plastered and, while we’re still waiting for the doors and windows the painter might as well get busy and, if the plaster is dry, do his bit. He will be called back at a later date when his work has been trashed, as will the plasterer because the electrician has drilled holes in the walls for cables and the plumber likewise for pipes. Sometimes, if they’ve forgotten to put in hoses, parts of the reinforced concrete floors will have to be jack hammered to lay down pipes. It gives every appearance of playing it by ear as they say though I’m sure they believe there is method in their madness. Anyway, a couple of years down the line your house is all ready for you to move in with all your worldly goods, no doubt brought out from England at enormous expense and not without as few breakages and it is winter time again. There is still an enormous amount of builder’s rubble in what is going to be your garden and which the builders have forgotten (!) to clear away but now comes the real test. There is a lovely wood fire burning in the fireplace, the central heating is running smoothly and suddenly the heavens open and you now discover the roof leaks, water runs down walls, comes in under doors and around windows, Cretan windows open inwards not outwards, and it is wet towels, buckets and mopping up time. You shout and scream at the builder, it achieves nothing. You threaten to sue and it still achieves nothing. You discover he has not paid his men’s national insurance (IKA) and you are liable for it. The building inspector is not entirely satisfied with the work or there has been some irregularity that will require a small envelope exchanging hands if he is to agree that everything is passed okay. Without his certificate, if you ever wanted to sell your dream home, you would not be able to. Should you buy your house from one of the developers already to move into you gets what you pay for. You’ve been sold a pup because you have bought cheaply and so you do not have for example central heating. Such luxuries cost extra that you were not made aware of. Your house is not only miserably cold, it is damp. There is no such thing as a damp course here, or at least there hasn’t been until recently when I believe some English entrepreneurs have introduced it. In them there olden days if a Cretan felt cold when he went to bed he merely put on another sweater. And in all this I haven’t mentioned legal pitfalls, electricity, water, telephone, but these are a whole other story. In the meantime enjoy living the dream for a while before you decide to sell up and head back to Blighty as some have done.