The delightfully comic account of a British couple and their imported cats starting over in a new country continues in Bucket to Greece Volume 4. The atmosphere is tense in the Bucket household, with Barry and Cynthia, or specifically Cynthia and her vile mutant cat, having outstayed their welcome. The race is on for them to find somewhere to live before their imminent wedding. Harold's house has potential, but Barry needs Victor's help to take advantage of the obnoxious Brit.
With chickens to tend and local politics to break into, Victor discovers retirement offers little time for lazing about. He takes to the sea, repping on the lazy day cruise in the company of the ouzo loving Kapetanios Vasos and his mute sidekick Sami, and crams up on Greek aphrodisiacs to prepare for a gastronomic excursion. Victor schemes to rid the house of superfluous kittens, hatches a plot to ensure the local taverna isn't turned into a tourist attraction, and lends a hand with the search when Spiros' uncle Leo goes on the missing list. Spiros, courting the fragrant Sampaguita, introduces her to the exciting ex-pat scene of inedible foreign dinners; Milton is targeted by vanity publishing scammers, and a stubborn sheep stalks the streets of Meli.
The delightfully comic account of a British couple and their imported cats starting over in a new country continues in Bucket to Greece Volume 3. Victor and Marigold really feel the heat of May when the ever precarious water supply runs dry, and Victor suffers self-doubt over his burgeoning mastery of the Greek language. No longer cheffing at the local taverna, Victor keeps busy in the kitchen at home, experimenting with the glut of garden courgettes.
Landing a part-time job as a tour guide to Ancient Olympia offers an opportunity to pontificate to a captive audience. Victor is forced to put his foot down when Marigold demands a swimming pool and air conditioning, convincing her they pose hygiene risks. Fortunately the arrival of an unexpected visitor delights and distracts Marigold, until catastrophe strikes when a moron takes a pot shot at her beloved feline, Catastrophe.
With marriage on his mind, Barry plans a permanent move to Greece and joins Victor in an early-morning snail hunt, leading to the great bucket breakout. A now sober Guzim secures employment on the coast with a crew that rumour soon has it are homicidal bandits. Spiros, smitten with the fragrant Filipino caregiver he employs to live-in with his infirm uncle, persuades Victor to help him poach some potential house buyers from under the despised Harold's nose.
The delightfully comic account of a British couple and their imported cats starting over in a new country continues in Bucket to Greece Volume 2. It is now three months since Victor and Marigold moved to the mountain village of Meli, developing new friendships and marking their life-changing move with a traditional house blessing ceremony. Victor integrates into village life and improves his language skills by helping out at the local taverna, after sanitizing the place to his exacting hygiene standards. Barry's budding romance with Cynthia continues apace, whilst Marigold turns to a spot of matchmaking, arranging a dinner party for Meli's eligible bachelors and her best friend Geraldine who is over for a visit.
Following a late night brawl, Guzim goes on the missing list, creating a quandary for Victor as he contemplates the wisdom of bringing the disappearance of an illegal Albanian to the attention of the authorities. Victor experiences the ups of and downs of everyday Greek life; the up of the novelty of a sea dip in December even though the locals consider such behavior quite bizarre, and the down of being forced out of bed on a cold windy morning to bake bread for the village in an outside oven. As Victor settles into his new life he is haunted by the specter of his absconded parent turning up on his doorstep.
When our hero, Victor, needs a pseudonym to avoid embarrassing his wife after deciding to pen a book about up-sticking to Greece, he dusts off his original name of V. D. Bucket, the name he was stuck with after being abandoned in a bucket as a baby. As Victor adapts to his adopted homeland, he battles an obsession with the exacting hygiene standards he demanded during his illustrious career as a public health inspector, against the rather less exacting standards of rural Greece. His attempts to master the complexities of the language lead to a number of embarrassing misunderstandings.
Crossing paths with the local undertaker, Spiros, was a stroke of good luck for Victor and Marigold, since Spiros just happened to have a house to sell in the charming Greek mountain village of Meli. Of course Spiros didn't explain the strange arrangement of an Albanian living in the stone shed at the bottom of the garden, or mention the old lady's next door filthy habit of burning plastic every morning. He also failed to mention his late uncle had plunged to his death from the roof terrace, but did a wonderful job of selling them on the spectacular views.
