Settling back in nicely thank you very much – and by the way, thanks for all the emails and messages of welcome. And a special thanks to our Symi friends back in England and Scotland who we met up with and stayed with during our visit. It’s always strange seeing Symi friends out of context, as it were. We’re so used to seeing them on the island that when you meet at a London train station or in an Edinburgh street, well, it feels odd. Nice but odd. Not saying that the friends are odd of course… Better stop now.

I’ve actually been in the house since Sunday night and haven’t ventured out yet so no immediate update photos to show you. (These here are from the archive folder.) This is because I’ve been getting things in order here while Neil gets the shop back to normal – ID photos, cards and generally tidying up, and catching up on orders from before we went away. Of course, if you haven’t already found it then Adriana’s diary http://www.symivisitor.com/adriana.html gives you recent pics and the Symi Visitor Out and About area has some shots from Panormitis day – and before and beyond. http://www.symi-photos.com/ 

July

I was trying to remember what I was doing on Panormitis day this year… last year we attended the festival in the evening with ‘the family’ as we were holidaying at Marathunda courtesy of George Kalodoukas, and the year before we were up in the clouds at Machu Picchu, the year before that (and preceding years going back to 2002) we were at the festival, the parade, the service and/or the market, apart from one year when it was very wet and a friend’s boat was sinking. But this year I was in Penzance; all pasties and pixies and proper shops. Who knows where we will be next year.

I’ve noticed a few changes to Symi since I’ve been back and in the little time I have spent out and about. Certain friends have moved house, more building work is going on as per usual, several summer shops have shut for the winter, in the harbour mainly – the village continues to be more or less a 7/12 affair, with only a couple of tavernas closing for the winter – and they may well open for weekend trade. The Olive Tree is running special morning and evening food themed events, the supermarkets are back on winter hours and the bars are open for business, though inside seating is generally preferred. Other than that, it’s business as usual.

The clarinet and Betsy the alto sax have returned home and the clarinet was played for half an hour yesterday – Moriarty the oboe lies dormant at the moment, and the piano needs dusting. But that will happen soon as we have two live gigs lined up already, for sometime in the next couple of weeks. And I want to write a Christmas piece for Boxing Day where all of us who are coming to our house for the day can play a section on our individual instruments. This will mean transposing for E flat sax and B flat clarinet, which will test the little grey cells as I haven’t done that for a while. But it will keep me out of the sofa for a while.

Tonight’s task is to revamp the new book, setting the chapters out in a different order and getting the history section back in one piece. I am still waiting for the second copy from the printers – the first had a printing error in it and until I see the new version I won’t know if that error was mine (highly likely), or the printer’s. It’s also rather chilly in the front room now. Ah well, winter draws on – and not on the washing line!