I have left Andros, so to speak, by leaving it in the Blog at Easter 1989, so I am now returning to it, to the early summer of that year.

I was keeping body and soul together by helping Alekos out with various building tasks, and one day he asked me to come with him to a lady's house where various things required doing. I don't remember the nature of most of these tasks, but one of them still sticks in my mind. The lady's house overlooked the main road that leads down to Batsi, and was separated from the road by a wall which she had instructed Alekos to pull down. I think the original intention was to use a hammer/mallet and hit it at the weakest point, and indeed, Alekos was wielding such a thing and more or less ready to give it the first bash when suddenly, as if fate had decided to smile, a caterpillar bulldozer emerged from round the corner and trundled along towards us. Alekos stopped it.
"Hey, Spiro," he cried, "give us a hand pulling down this wall."
"Right on," said Spiros, chewing at a matchstick. He didn't seem to be in a hurry to get his bulldozer anywhere.
"I think it might be difficult to position the bulldozer and approach it directly, so maybe one shot from the side to weaken it."
"Yeah."
They discussed technical details, while I was sent to the corner of the road to keep a lookout for cars and to stop them while the bulldozer did its work.
What neither Alekos nor Spiros had reckoned with was the mains water pipe which slipped down the hill immediately below the wall.
The ritual began with all the solemnity of a Greek Easter Service. The caterpillar trundled into position and then approached the wall and gave it the biggest whack it had received in a long time. Unfortunately, at the same time, it struck the water pipe, which cracked. Gushes of water intended for Batsi poured out onto the road and merrily raced away down the hill.
Alekos, not a swearer, uttered a stream of profanities that would have given old crones terminal shock, or at least make them retire to bed for a few days.
The bulldozer moved on, as traffic was starting to come into Batsi and the wall had not taken much whacking to crumble, while Alekos went and informed the sub-sub-sub chief of the Water Authority (Batsi) what was happening, and appropriate steps were taken. I think Batsi was out of water for all that day.