As you can see from this photo, it’s all go in the village at the moment.

In fact, it’s not. Not really. The days have turned warmer again, the wind has dropped, and the skies have been clear. More importantly, the sea is calm, so the boats are not currently disrupted. It’s around now that you start to see posts in ‘the socials’ from people in a panic because the November timetables are not out yet, or what is showing may not necessarily be what’s going to happen. This is something to do with permissions and concessions, and no-one receiving their definite word about what subsidies they will get and not finding out until nearer the end of the month. I looked yesterday, and there were no listings on the Blue Star timetable beyond the end of this month, but that is what usually happens around now. The timetables will be up again soon, and apart from possible changes around the time of the Panormitis Festival (when some boats go to and from that end of the island instead of this one), it’s likely we’ll be back to what we had last winter. For the past X years, we’ve relied on the Blue Star three times per week, and that’s likely to remain the same. He says, not knowing for sure.

Anyway, the chances are, we won’t see boat arrivals like this for much longer:

If you zoom in (it was taken from a long way off), you’ll see that the Sea Dreams looked to be full of happy day trippers enjoying the late October warmth. The day before, I randomly counted three larger day boats in the harbour, and we also had visits from the Sebeco and Panagia, an indication that Rhodes is still busy.

Here at the house, we (i.e. Neil) has started painting up the flat roofs to help stop the internal showers. I did the sanding and filling after work, so I am helping a little. I also do a lot of invaluable directing from a distance. My next big home job is to cut back the vine, which currently looks like it’s on its last legs, or its last roots. It’s best to get the turning leaves off before they blow off in the wind and end up in the gutters, thereby blocking downpipes and forcing the water up and over the soffit board, beneath the rafters, and down your internal walls. At least, I think that bit’s called a soffit board; it’s been a long time since I did my housing studies degree. So long ago, in fact, I think the most modern building construction we studied was the round house. Might have been the cave. Can’t remember. The point is, winter preparations are well underway in readiness for the next rain.

And as for today’s ‘plug’, this will be of interest to everyone who likes reading mysteries and thrillers set in Victorian times, Victorian London in particular. Like now, London then was a place for the rich; if you were poor, forget it, because it forgot you — apart from some well-meaning charities. Crime was rife, as it no doubt is now, though these days, there aren’t so many people selling babies and poisoning husbands, but you never know. This is a collection of books by indie authors with Victorian London as a theme; at least it was meant to be. By the looks of some covers, they’ve let in all kinds of other mysteries too, but at least I know my series starter is in there, and that is set in 1892, so I’m well in. Which reminds me, I must get back to 1904 and the Greenwich foot tunnel mystery.
Have a click, have a vada as they say in Polari, or varter as they said in Latin, because there may be some reading there that will take you through the rest of autumn.

https://books.bookfunnel.com/victoriangaslight/xz2nu27auk

Today’s plug comes with a couple of lovely views, as seen yesterday from the top of the village not long after sunrise. That’s the time when the hills turn a shade of pink. It’s a slightly different shade to the colour they become towards sunset, when the hills on either side of the Pedi valley are a glorious dusty something somewhere between pink and… I just popped off to find a colour chart to find the exact shade, but it wasn’t possible. I don’t think it has a name yet.

The plug is more of a reminder. Yesterday, I told you about ‘We are the Monsters: On the Road with Lindsay Kemp’ by Kinny Gardner; well, today is a reminder that you don’t have long to order your Symi Dream Calendar before the C word is upon us: Christmas.

I’ve already ordered a couple, and as usual, the images are a lovely reminder of Symi throughout the year. The date boxes are big enough to make notes in, and this is the only place where you can order them: Symi Dream Calendar 2027.

Somehow, Neil has again managed to keep the price low (as low as possible without giving them away), and again, there are 12 unique images from around the island. Some people collect these, frame their favourites and get a recycle out of the calendar, which sounds like a great idea.

As for other parish news… The road to Pedi (and partly from Yialos to Milos) is being resurfaced, so access is limited in places. There’s never a good time to do this necessary work, but now is infinitely better than that time when we had many more visitors on the island, and people were wearing plastic bags on their feet on the way down the hill. There was pitch or whatever it is in tyre and footprints all around the village for weeks after that debacle. No idea how long it will go on for, but if you use Facebook, visit Ράδιο Σύμη – Ειδήσεις (Symi live news), you can read the report there. If you don’t read Greek, you can use the Chrome browser and right-click on the text to find the ‘translate’ command, and it will come up in English. Other web browsers may also offer you this, and there are other ways to translate from Greek to English, such as 25 years of trying to learn the language but being too lazy to bother too much. Ahem. Moving on…

Guess where I am going today? Yes, back to the chair and drills, but it should only be for a few minutes. We started patching up the flat roof yesterday with some sanding and scraping, and some mixing and slopping on of what is known locally as ‘mud’, which, yes, looks like the stuff, but actually fills the cracks and dries hard before the concrete paint goes on. Hopefully, this will stop the ceiling shower in the bathroom, but we also have a running-wall shower or two in the porch and lean-to, and although we’ve cracked-filled and painted there over the years, we still can’t stop the rain coming in that way. Further investigation yesterday revealed no further clues.

Anyway… I’ll let you get back to ordering your Symi Calendar 2027 before they sell out (they won’t), so you can get some in as seasonal gifts. Depending on where you live, they should arrive within a few days, although here it takes about three weeks; then so can a quick drink with friends at the bar.

We are the Monsters: On the road with Lindsay Kemp

I am going to be pushing some products this week (that’s not a euphemism; I’m talking books and calendars), but first: A few things to do on a rainy day in Symi:

Leave home at ten, walk down to Yialos, have a chat with a few people en route, attend a dentist appointment, pop into the pharmacy for a flu inoculation, and, again, be home within one hour. Thigs didn’t stop there, though. Oh no. Not long after getting back, the phone rang, and as I was expecting a call from my mobile provider, I answered it to find someone from the electricity company. ‘Would you like me to speak in English?’ she asked. ‘It would be safer,’ I replied, and laughter ensued, as did a chat about our program/contract, which had lapsed. The upshot was cheaper rates, but a €2.50 increase in the basic plan (with some going to environmental projects), so as long as we carry on as normal, the overall price should reduce slightly.
That done, another call arrived five minutes later, this time from the mobile company and their rep over in Rhodes. Now, my mobile bill has been half the price of Neil’s for about 10 years because I signed up to an offer. During that time, the bill had only increased by €2.60 a month, whereas his for the same service has gone up substantially more, and I was expecting a price rise. Apparently, my contract ended a while ago, and would I like to renew for the same services, but at €2.00 a month less than I was paying? Er… Yeah, fine. (Ask no questions.) So I came out of the morning only €0.50 down on the start of the day, and with no toothache. Yay!

Another cause for celebration is the release of a friend’s memoir about working with the Lindsay Kemp Company. I was lucky enough to read this before publication, and it’s a fascinating, humorous, poignant and honest telling of life on the road and in the company, and, in particular, with the hypnotic and mesmerising figure of Kemp at the centre of a revolving and now lost world of courageous creation, endless travel and ongoing dreams.

Knowing how you like to support the creative, I thought I’d mention the book and drop in the link. This is to Amazon UK, but the book is available worldwide, and it is already at number one on the Amazon seller list for ballet, classical dance, and opera – as the Kemp productions contained all three.

I’ll be ordering a copy, and if you want to do the same, you can find it by clicking here, and there, you can read the blurb and back cover before diving into true stories of British and European theatre. Oh, and you will read some eyebrow-raising true tales of this innovative innovator of the total performance, and his wonderfully creative and eccentric troupe.

We are the Monsters (Amazon paperback)

If you were thinking the name rang a bell but… As well as his own creative work, Lindsay appeared in The Wicker Man, Derek Jarman’s Sebastiane, and Jubilee, and Todd Hayne’s Velvet Goldmine. He was also a mentor to Kate Bush and David Bowie, among many others.

And for those who think the author’s name rings a bell, Kinny appeared in all four of my musicals, and we created cabarets and revues together. For those who were there, he also sang on the balcony of our Symi Dream shop along with our godson, Harry (who was five at the time). However, I think his work with Lindsay Kemp was of slightly more national importance

In all the excitement of I don’t know what, I forgot to tell you that the Christmas lights are already going up. A friend sent me a message on the eighth to say she’d seen the cherry picker on the main road near her house, and now, the lights are going up on other stretches of the road too. That can only mean Christmas is around the corner, though it is a long, slow curve of a corner that’s going to take another ten weeks to navigate.

There’s plenty to do and note before then, but in immediate ‘news’, the storm of the other day has passed by leaving a chill, and the rough weather wasn’t as rough as it has been in the past. I managed to get to my teeth appointment, and what an hour that was. I’d been looking at the skies, doing that thing that British people do by staring at it and saying, ‘It’ll clear up,’ because it’s bound to at some point, or ‘It could be worse,’ because that’s also true, but at ten, I set off beneath silent storm clouds and a few drops of rain. It’s always advisable to take the Kali Strata and other potential slip hazards with care after it’s been raining as it is when it’s hot. The stone can become slippery no matter the weather, so I took my time. I stopped to say a quick hello to a couple of people in a café, wandered around the back lanes of Yialos because although I like to be early for things, I never want to be that early, and arrived at my destination in time for a quick chat before taking the chair. Fifteen minutes later, I’m out again with the first part of another root canal seen to (no pain but done with the rumblings of a thunderstorm happening dramatically off stage) and a follow up appointment for today, and off I toddled towards the bus stop, receiving a severe weather alert on my phone on the way.

We’ve been getting these for a good couple of years now, usually as the thing the electronic voice is warning about is taking place, or ten seconds after the earthquake, or, in this case, during the rainless thunderstorm. There were no boats going that day, so the harbour was quiet by recent standards. Some locally staying folks were out and about in cagoules and frowns, gathering in the cafés to wait for the world to go by, and some of the tourist businesses were taking a rare day off as they’d not seen one since May. The bus was still running, but a taxi was about, so I shared it with a friend who arrived at the rank at the same time as me, and was home exactly one hour after I’d left.

That reminded me of the time I took the early boat to Rhodes to pick up my biometric residency card. On arrival, I bought breakfast from Gregory’s in Mandraki, before waiting at the front of the queue at the immigration office. There, dead on eight, I went up, got seen, got my golden ticket, left, walked around to the commercial harbour, got on the Sebeco, and was home before lunch. All very odd. I expected the trip to take all day, and I had a ticket for the Blue Star in the afternoon, and was braced for passing the time with unnecessary shopping, and a long afternoon hanging about a café waiting. You see? As proven by the tap replacement of the other day, things can happen at speed around here, though that may often be more by luck than by design.

Cue dodgy segue: My design today is to get some work done before skipping lightly back to Yialos and the chair to have the teeth work checked, pick up a flu jab on the way home, help someone send their self-published book up to Amazon, and then take the rest of the day off. And possibly the entire weekend.