11 days till Open.

Well time has flown this week folks and how has your week been?

Work has begun on the bar and to be honest its mainly just cleaning and a lick of paint as i did quite a bit to it last year.
My washing machine is constantly on the go, 14 loads so far one after another and with 5 more to go.
I didn't realise how much there was to wash, ceiling material, wall material, curtains, cushion covers, seat covers, its all gone through the wash. Its been round more times than........than......than.....the magic roundabout, couldn't think of anything else, i got writers block i think. Good job the weather is warm and sunny and has been since we arrived on the 8th April, i can get all this washing dried and in within 2 hours ready for the next load to go out.

Zakynthos town is having a new road laid, YAY, thing is its being done badly by the looks of it so could be worse than the original road but lets wait and see. The side with the cars on has already been re-laid.

On the subject of Zakynthos town its quite sad to see that some businesses have closed which have been there since i first come to the island in 2001. These were businesses that were always busy, well known and good value but now just all locked up, a few are on the port road so that's not going to look good when tourism hits the island.

Its very strange you know how people react when they first see me.
When i see ex-pats its like "OH, Your back!", with the look of shock. Where do they think I'm going to be? What do they know that i don't?
But when i speak to the local Greeks and Albanians its "Hello Kevin, we were saying Kevin will be back soon, how are you?"
I always get a great welcome from my neighbours on the old road, they now think of me as one of their family, such nice people.

My house is now dust free, at last. Its quite a big house to clean. The balcony that goes around three sides of the house collects all the dust from the winter months so that needs washing down 4 times, then the 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, utility room/hallway and living room/kitchen need sweeping and mopping 3 times and that's without the display cabinet, god i hate that thing. Due to my lovely customers buying me tat to put on it i now have to polish the tat then take the tat off and polish 11 shelves. Its a pain in the ass i can tell you.
Haven't cleaned my bikes properly yet, poor things.

Biscuit is becoming very needy but he still lovable.
Biscuit is a Pygmy goat just in case your a first time reader. Now as soon as he hears my motorbike pull up in the courtyard he's straight up on his balcony for his treat. You can here him calling "Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom" well it sounds like Mom, he can't say Dad.
I've never wanted kids and now i got a needy Kid. Get it, Kid = child, Kid = Baby goat and because its a Pygmy goat it will always look like a Kid it will never be a Beagy, beagy, beagy, beagy hiya BUCK! See what i did. I took a 1970's-80's TV reference and used it to tell you a adult male goat is called a Buck.

On the subject of animals i have 3 puppies who i found sleeping by my bins outside my house. I was leaving the house and saw three puppies run across the road from my next door neighbours house about 100m down the road. When i came back they were all huddled together by my bins. They look very healthy so I'm hoping they belong to the house up the road and they go back there. If i stayed on the island all year round i would take them in as my own.

Well its just a tiny update but a update none the less.

I have decided to end my updates now with a thought or fact for the week, so here's the first one.

Did you know you share more personal information with Facebook than your own government but you don't realise it. Glad i don't use it or need to.

Serve All, Love All, Peace All, Kevlar Out!

A quick after thought. Lots of you know i do medical trials for Cancer, Parkinsons disease, Diabetes, Heart conditions. So you can see what sort of things i do here is a documentary for you to watch if you ever get bored. Enjoy lol. And by the way i used to be signed up with Parexel, not anymore.

I AM HERE!

OK I'm here. We had a weeks holiday here first and now I'm all alone again and time to get the bar ready.

So much happened in one week, more than in winter.
OK so firstly had the passenger from hell sat next to us and we had booked front row seats so even though paid top wack for the seats the passengers aren't any better. He was effing and jeffing for 40 Min's before we took off as we were delayed due to police waiting for one passenger to get to boarding then stopping them from boarding and had to wait till bags were offloaded.
The stewardess was excellent the way she handled him and was going to get him taking off but he calmed down and kept on muttering under his breath, KNOBSTER!

Famous people we already met in the first week Will Mellor & Family was on our flight over and the legend Dick Van Dyke was in Solomos Square.

He loved the island he said.

The Legend Dick Van Dyke

Get to the house very tired at 3pm Sunday after only having 8 hours sleep since 6am Friday.
House was all safe and secure but very dusty as left windows open for 6 months with only shutters locked close but at least no mold unlike the house in Bochali. So we got to work cleaning what we needed to just so we could relax.
Monday finished off all the house then got to work on the bikes. Took a while but both got going once cleaned them up and charged batteries.
Something strange comes our way. We heard a noise. Went out to look in our garden what we had this year. No rabbits at all. Lots of very healthy looking chickens and the noise was coming from..........a Pygmy Goat.

He now comes up on to his little balcony the other side of our balcony when we call his name.
We have called him Biscuit, the reason being the first thing we fed him was a Digestive.

He so funny!

He has become very demanding though and now gets on his balcony and calls to us without us even going outside.

Had our first very very cold beer of the season and it had to be at my favourite place to relax after a Saturday night from bar when i close at midnight with my favourite beer. Bar 34 and a cold Levante beer. I will be stocking all the Levante range this season.

Had a couple of nights in town with lots of nice food and bottles of wine and just kicking back before i started on the bar today......well......i went and looked at it lol.

Had a nice walk all along the sea front from Zakynthos Port to the outer edge of town towards Tsilivi and what did we see..........DUCKS!

I think that when Sir David Attenborough retires I'm ready to step in his shoes with all my contact to wildlife.

In all, our first week was excellent what with staying in Zakynthos town for part of it at The Phoenix Hotel. Had a great room and got it cheaper than normal rates as they know me now from having my daily coffees there and staying there last October.

Unfortunately its on to business now for me and if I'm being very honest I think i have taken Oceanic as far as i can. The next step would be to add food as the bar has a food licence but i don't want to be involved with food. I got it to No.1 in Kalamaki, then No.1 on Island, then No.1 for the whole of the Ionian and finally this winter Oceanic was No.1 for whole of Greece until Tripadvisor change how the rating system works but that's fine, i got it there.
So no challenge anymore for me and i need a challenge when it comes to work, also my personal life in the UK is better than ever before so i think its time for those words "LET THE OFFERS BEGIN!".
Now as explained before, I'm open to offers, if no offers, then i keep it, plain and simple, i won't be walking away.  I know businesses in Kalamaki that are still open now with the same owners who have been trying to sell for over 5 years but asking way to much. Some empty businesses are looking for €30,000 and that's before you even get open and rent, so with Oceanic its a bargain for much much less than what a closed bar would cost and its fully functioning already..
But again, I'm open to offers and in no rush. I still have plenty of running in the old legs yet.

So just a little update for now and then more next week as bar gets set up.

So until then........

Serve All, Love All, Peace All, Kevlar Out!

Almost time to go but before i do.......two words..........CARDIFF DEVILS!

Well this is my final update from the UK. I would just like to say a big HELLO! to my new blog readers from Indonesia, Ukraine, Finland, Switzerland and Russia. How you doing?

So this update will be a big salute to the most awesome Cardiff Devils that has made this winter such a great one by becoming consecutive EIHL champions.

I first saw the Cardiff Devils in 1986-87 and to be honest i had seen a few NHL games which included a very little known player called Wayne Gretzky, ever heard of him? or Mario Lemieux maybe? Lets say at that point in time the Cardiff Devils were the equivalent of a Sunday morning  parks football team compared to the Premiership but don't forget this was a whole new beginning so that's fair enough. Many don't know this but British ice hockey league began in 1903.

After watching them through the 80's whenever i could and in the 90's also working alongside them they developed in to a force to be reckoned with within the British Ice Hockey league.

Step forward to the present day and the new era of Cardiff Devils team and supporters have been born  along with the back bone of the club, the devoted passionate Red Army.

Never has any team from any sport made me feel emotionally proud and that's saying something as my heart beats Welsh rugby.

I've never known a team to be so accessible to the fans. They don't just wave to them from the ice then bugger off until the next game, they meet the fans, they talk to the fans, have a drink with the fans at the bar and sometimes get drunk with the fans (Trophy winning nights only of course, wink, wink).

I've said before, if there were no fans there's no need for a team and this team leave it all on the ice for their fans, blood, sweat and tears. 

Now you can't talk about a team without the fans either. If you had to put a picture next to the definition for the word "Dedicated" then there would be a picture of The Red Army. They play each pass, they feel every hit, they savour every goal, they hurt with every defeat. These a real fans, not fair weather followers, they give their all win, lose or penalty shoot out.

My past two winters going to Watch the Cardiff Devils at the IAW have been my most memorable supporting them (apart from 1996-97 season).

There are 3 reasons for this:-

1/ A professional technically skillful team that give it their all to win and entertain at same time.

2/ A fan base that would give there last vocal chord and breath to spur their team on to victory

3/ The intro videos that on occasions have made me very emotional and proud of our team, city and country.

To show you the what i mean about the intros i have added two videos for you to watch. Even as i uploaded them and watched them again the hairs stood up on the back of my arms. These well crafted and superbly edited videos were the creations of one man and his name is Paul Sullivan. All i can say is outstanding! These are better than the WRU intros and I've seen allot of them at the Principality Stadium, hate that name, The Millennium Stadium. Real thought and hours of effort bring us fans these perfect works of art in motion.

Firstly The intro that Paul put together for our first home game after winning the league in Belfast when they brought the cup home with them, this was put together with only a 2 day turn around, amazing.

Secondly this is the Devils last video made by Paul after qualifying for the play off  finals which take place in Nottingham this weekend 7th/8th April 2018. Enjoy!

I may get Paul to make me a Oceanic Intro for when i step through the doors in to the bar as i open.
No, wait, I don't have any TV's in bar, nice idea though along with dry ice for me to step through.
No, hang on, That would be like stars in their eyes, OK scrap my entrance.

Now on to my crap poor pictures from my regular seat at the Devils last home game this season. It is a great view we have.

You get to see so many goals at this end of the arena and this season there has been so many.

Well that's it for this season of ice hockey and i will be watching the Play off finals on the sunny island of Zakynthos before i start work on the bar but between you and me blog readers i would prefer to be at Nottingham watching the games live there instead of live on a laptop, sipping a cold beer with the warm sun on my face.
Zakynthos has an ice pad, perhaps i could start a Zakynthos ice hockey team. As you know folks i bought new skates this winter to come out of retirement, well, just to go skating.
This is a call to all you Greek ice skaters, hang up your gyros cutting knives and cocktail shakers and join me in the Greek ice hockey revolution, we shall take over more ice hockey leagues than Agamemnon did countries.

We are Elite, We are Strong, We are Oceanic Titans.

So what is in store for Oceanic this year, not allot really. I did so much last year and people loved it that I'm just going to tweak it slightly not as much as other years and run with it. Added some new unique cocktails and some classic ones added also. Not many rock stars have died so not to many t-shirts added to the collection and i have decided its back to me running the bar as i set out, its a lifestyle. I had been so stressed out in previous years that i got to hate the bar but slowly over the past 2 years it got back to the original plan of what Oceanic was all about.
Also i have made another big decision as its the right time what with everything in my life falling in to place nicely and i have always said i would never retire on the island.
I will be selling Oceanic.
Now, now, now, before we all go throwing ourselves off cliffs saying "Oh no what will we do now" I haven't decided when. Of course i always consider offers, anybody would and i have had offers over the years. When i decide I'm going to sell i won't be walking away from bar until it does sell either, so if it takes 5 years then so be it but there is no way i would walk away from it and let someone step in to a business for nothing which i built up alone over years of hard work. As for how much, i'm not greedy or stupid, all i would want is the money i originally put in to it when i opened it 12 years ago so its a bargain for a fully functioning business ready to go without anything needed. So watch this space for when i say "Let the Sale begin!" but not yet though so don't panic.

And finally......

A fluffy animal story.

This is Dr. Duck. He's not really a doctor but i found him outside a doctors surgery which is nowhere near a lake or pond. Dr. Duck said having to wait outside a surgery for a appointment was Quackers. What? That joke would have been hilarious in the 1930's.

This furry little fellow is as you know my favourite animal, a Squizzle. This one though did worry me a bit. He hopped towards me and when i turned and stopped he stopped, when i walked away he followed. This went on for about 50 metres easily. Now i can add a Squizzle to my list of stalkers I've had.

Well that's it for the UK updates folks, feel a bit Vanilla about going back this year, can take it or leave it either way I'd be OK. Going to have a little holiday for a week then crack on with the refurb as i have plenty of time to do so this season, i may even add plants to my front of house plant pots this year, they only been empty for 5 years so think its about time don't you?
And i promise you all as i know you ask about him Kevin the Minion will be out and about on his adventures and we will be re-visiting the mad axeman, we have unfinished business.

So until my first update from the rock...............

Serve All, Love All, Peace All, Kevlar Out!