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Everything and nothing kind of day

Here comes another fresh day on Symi after some rain last night, and possibly some more later today. The afternoon was nice enough and people were outside the kafeneion, though wearing jumpers. There has been some building work going on across the valley from us, below the line of windmills and I’ve been able to hear the machines breaking up the rocks from over here at my desk – must be a nightmare for neighbours nearer the site. But that machine seems to have finally stopped, I hope I’m not speaking too soon.

Here’s a view from the upper village taken much earlier in the year. The church you can see is Ag Athanassios.

Saturday is usually a working day for me but Neil has a big job on at the shop which means I’ve got to organise mundane things like shopping. We’ve also got some friends coming for lunch who have found some music written by an ancestor which I said I would play them later. And that means I have to practise it. And that means I’ve got to go and find the nail clippers as I hate playing when my nails are long; it was much easier when I bit them.

Brooms from the Clean Up Symi day that was organised by the Symi Visitor… when was that?

Tomorrow is definitely a day off, I always try and keep one day free for doing things I actually want to do. There are no Greek lessons, no music lessons, no work to do and, if I get the shopping right today, no shopping to do either. We have people coming for dinner tomorrow evening but Neil’s cooking so I can have the afternoon to myself.

One of Neil’s arty shots.

Symi FM and Radio Symi – notes from a radio station

I had an email from Symi FM radio station yesterday and said I would put up the details here. I’ve altered the English slightly (but not the meaning I hope) and this is basically what the email said:

Hi to everybody. Please focus attention on the issue of Symi radio. There is a bit of a myth concerning the Symi radio: Many foreign web sites designed by Symi friends don’t know about the history of Symi radio and are calling Symi radio the municipal radio station. We’d like to get the details concerning the real name of the radio station known and explained.

We would like to acquaint you with the knowledge that Konstantinos Papatheodosiou first pioneered the radio broadcasting under the radio station name, Star Radio in 1986. Until 2003, the station has maintained its name. Nevertheless, during the years 2004-2007 (approximately), the station liaised with the municipal authority. This is common knowledge to some people. However in 2007 this liaison/cooperation with the municipal authorities came to an end. The radio name has now changed to ‘Mad Radio Dodecanese.’

The municipal authority is now working with a new radio station located at Rhodos.

The problem (confusion) had come about because the municipal radio station was being called Symi Radio and not its real name: Agerifm. That caused disorder and brushed the history of the authentic radio station aside. As a result we moved on to immediate action and renamed our radio station to Symi FM (changing it from Mad Radio Dodecanese.)

So, what you might think is called Symi Radio (the one with the Friday night English language broadcast) is actually called Ageri FM and what was Star Radio is now operating as Symi FM.

I did some Googling to see what came up to make sure we have the correct links with the correct name. Typing in Symi Radio or Radio Symi brought up Symi Dream at the top, (oops) followed by http://starradio.googlepages.com which broadcasts as soon as you open the site. (There were some other ways of getting to it but they had pop-ups and so I won’t put them here.) So, I will alter our links and call the ANES sponsored one Radio Symi and the one that was Star Radio (Mad Radio Dodecanese) Symi FM until I hear otherwise. I won’t get any more involved except to thank the unnamed sender of the email for the information.

And now we return you to your scheduled programming:

A little piece of blue Symi sky and quite a lot that’s not

I was woken up by a thunderstorm at some point during the night, I’m not sure exactly when. I could hear it getting closer and was on the point of getting up to unplug various things when it moved away. Not long after that the alarm cat went off, I did try and ignore him for as long as possible but he is very persistent.

As you’ll see from these photos I just took from the roof there’s a lot of big, heavy cloud hanging around Symi today, it’s over the Vigla at the moment. But over in the other direction there’s blue sky too. The good news about last night’s rain is that none of it came through the kitchen roof. Yippee. Maybe there wasn’t enough rain, maybe it wasn’t the right sort of rain (whatever that is) or maybe the painting and plastic covering has worked. Time will tell.

The other news to follow up on from yesterday is that we didn’t go to the police station after all. Jenine had got there before us and rang to say not to bother going until next week. There was only one officer on duty and he had a lot (don’t know exact number) of refugees recently arrived who he had to ‘process’ and deal with. So European residents’ green/blue/white cards can’t be his number one concern for a while, he said.

I meant to put this photo up a couple of days ago. It was sent in by Symi Animal Welfare and is a photo of the first delivery of winter feeding food for the village animals, as donated by one of the island’s supermarkets.

Greek ‘lesson’ went well yesterday, there’s another one for me today and a sax lesson, a trip to the bank and lots of writing to be done so best get on. I can’t think of anything else to waffle on about anyway.

Some blue sky at least!

Changing weather and a full day

Well, I was going to show you the washing but the cat sat on it during the night and the clothes horse fell over so there was a bit of a  washing disaster.

We went gathering wood for the fire last night in the drizzle; there was some rain around for the first time in ages but not much. This morning there is the sound of distant thunder, or it could be the wind in the roof, but there are certainly clouds. We’re off to the police station later to see if we can find the boss in and deliver our papers for the registration cards we need. That should be a barrel of fun. Afterwards we have our weekly Greek lesson and lunch, so today is more or less sown up and booked. And there is still lots to do before heading out…

Horio

From the Symi Dream calendar.

Just a few photos today…

…as I spent yesterday at home researching the family tree (back to 1557 now).  Sunny, crisp and clear today with the bells waking me at seven (and the alarm cat of course) and a list of household things to get through.

In Horio

On the Kali Strata

Yialos, back in the summer.