I have no idea what to ramble about this morning, as I did very little yesterday. I had one of those stay-at-home days, and I have to say, it was very relaxing. Just pottering around, doing some last editing on an MS, wandering to the balcony now and then to look at the view, then to the kettle for a cup of tea, and around the ‘grounds’ (the courtyard) to check on the plants and water them. A wash load, some reading, later, after lunch, more reading and an archaeology programme on TV, then a quiet evening in. What those tourist itineraries call ‘A day at leisure’ as if the rest of your organised trip was work.

I finished reading a book comparing the work of contemporaries, Sondheim and Lloyd-Webber. Like just about every other book in the house, I’ve read it before some time ago, but it was better the second time around. It only goes up to the year 2000, but still a fascinating read for anyone interested in musical theatre. What’s next? We have loads of books in the house, including holiday reading paperbacks bequeathed by people who insist, ‘No, you must read it. Honestly, you must. You will love it.’ Which usually means, ‘I loved it and therefore so must everyone else.’ I’m immediately put off by the enthusiasm of the recommender, and I don’t very often read novels. I know ‘they’ say you should, so you get ideas and a flavour for other styles and so on, but I have found very few modern ones that I like. That’s why I write what I would like to read.

I write to entertain, not to identify the ‘human condition’ because I still don’t know what that means, and I don’t read so I can crow, ‘Oh, I read The Gulag Archipelago last night. You must read it…’ I read either for education (history books, biographies, Haynes manuals about Tower Bridge, and other research), or purely for entertainment. The trouble is, I’ve read just about everything on my shelves from The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (1930s illustrated copy; lovely), to Dracula (I have five different copies, including a limited-edition anniversary reprint), and from Koven’s study of 19th century Slumming to the History of the London Horse Cab.

There is one book on this shelf that I’ve not returned to, the Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, by Poe. And that’s only because I have never managed to read the first sentence without passing out from lack of breath; I think it’s at least two pages long.

So, as you lie on your sunbed down in Pedi (hence the photos), make sure you read something erudite and meaningful, like Take-a-Break, or the Reform Manifesto (always useful in case you need the loo and there’s no paper). No, what you must read – and promise me you will do this – what you must do is read whatever you want. Just read – as long as it’s more than your Facebook feed, just read.

As seems to happen more often these days, I start the day with one intention and immediately get swept off to something else. This, for example. I open up this website and find that yesterday’s post isn’t showing, only the one from the day before. I refresh the page (Ctrl+F5), which should bring up a post titled ‘Vehicular Ramble’, but things stay the same. I asked my handy chatbot thing on my host dashboard about this yesterday, and it told me all was well and I needed to do XYZ, which I did, and again, ‘all is well’, only it isn’t. So, I start today with one thing in mind, and then have to go off on this tangent to try and put things right.

Which I may have done now having de-optimised this and unplugged that, and ‘he said and she said, and who brought the subject up first?’

So…

I ventured into Yialos yesterday, heading down the steps while Mr Blackfoot took the bus. I scooted around the back to ACS to collect a package or two, bumped into Jenine, caught up on godson news, had chats with various other people I’ve not seen for weeks, and had a Vap Lemon at Pacho’s. When here on holiday last century, Fanta Lemon was my thing because it tasted different in the sun than it did in the gloom of East London. I haven’t had one for years, but I ended up with a different brand that was, perhaps, even better. Then, to lunch as a treat, and we were treated to a lunch at Merakles, which is always a treat, even when you have to treat yourself. Then, back up the hill in a taxi, which meant driving through the onslaught of day trippers wandering blithely along and in the road…

Here’s a thing. On the way along the quayside yesterday, the police car was coming in the opposite direction, and this numbskull tourist still thought the road was for him and not vehicles, and although the police car was crawling (not curb crawling you understand) so as not to hit anyone, and although it didn’t have its lights and siren on, it was still a pretty obvious bug white thing coming towards him, and this idiot was walking towards it, in the middle of the road, and then wonders why, when he didn’t get out of the way, he nearly got run over. He even appealed to the car as if to say, ‘What you playing at, man?’ when he was entirely in the wrong… I mean… Honestly. (He’ll end up as a character in a book before long.)

As it turned out later, the cops were after people driving motorbikes without wearing a helmet. They’ve caught a fair few of late, and rightly so. They do, though, need to have a word with our top dignitary, who, like a tourist, blithely uses the road for all to see, without wearing a crash helmet when on his moped. Now, what kind of example is that to show the young and the daring who, now and then, end up in a bed for life because they weren’t wearing a helmet? Uh-huh.

But that’s another story.

As is the one about the three large red day trip speed boat things that come in daily. Not only are there now three, but they also stop off at St George for a swim (passengers, not boats), and are, apparently and naughtily, encroaching further inshore, thereby ruining the tranquillity of one of our most unspoilt bays. It’s the summer, you see? The best chance of anyone making the money they need to survive happens in the summer, but to the detriment of what brings people here to spend their money? It’s a balancing act, I guess, but one which I see more and more out of control each year.

Anyway, that’s my rather negative first thing thought for today. Now, at least, I am off to do my final final read of my final draft before proofreading, finally.

Thanks to everyone who sent himself their best wishes. He’s now got the rather medieval name of Neil Blackfoot, though he is again mobile and almost back to being as normal as whatever normal is.

As for today… I need to pop down to town and pick up a delivery from Skroutz, and that seems like the perfect opportunity for a quick lunch somewhere. We may go down by bus, which will probably be a first for me. At least, I can’t remember the last time I took the bus down rather than walk down the steps, so if we do, that will be an adventure in itself. I expect there are still many who remember the old Symi bus, the green transit van which was, for some of its afterlife, parked up by the side of a road (can’t remember where, and I expect there was an earlier version I don’t know about). We’ve had various coloured and sized buses over the years, and as you get older, you rely on them more and more. At this time of year, it does an amazing job running every hour from morning to night with only one hour off; same route, same time, with an excursion up to Leoni for Sevasti Studios and others if you ask nicely. I can’t tell you the times, but there is a timetable at the bus station.

The ‘bus station’ isn’t one of those municipal concrete buildings where the dodgy and bewildered hang around outside the public toilets, but a charming little place near where the Sebeco ties up, now complete with shelter and benches, and with a kiosk nearby. You can also take other buses from there to Panormitis and across the island, and there are now more minibuses on the island than there are mules, I reckon. Several businesses are now running tours and journeys, as well as renting cars and scooters, four-wheeled farm vehicles and electric whatnots. Soon, there will be no more room for any more road vehicles, and we’ll have to have hover-vehicles that fly above the road so they can avoid the congestion. Can you imagine? Driverless, flying taxis and rent-a-hovers getting lost all over the place, ‘dial-a-ride’ Uber hover cycles flying overhead and trying to find a parking spot in the last existing piece of free road on the island. ‘You’re late!’ ‘I know, I had to park at Marathunda and walk back.’

Of course, things will be worse in August when the entitled Scorpioni come to stay in their once-a-year three-bed houses locals can only dream of living in. They’ll bring their latest petrol, diesel, gas, electric, banana skin, whatever-fuelled vehicles and complain that there is nowhere for them to park, and how dare that happen on ‘their’ island? Makes one shudder at where it’s all going and where it will all end up.

Meanwhile, I’ll use Shank’s pony until Shanks won’t have any more of it, and then I will rely on the good old, stalwart Symi bus in whatever manifestation. And, of course, the taxi drivers where we’ve always had a great service and a good old chat about the weather, the roads, and the families as we’re whisked to altitude in style. Today, Blackfoot and I will see which to use after we have had lunch ‘down town,’ as it usually depends on the time. Is it cheaper to wait for the €2.50 bus and have a €4.00 drink while waiting, or spend €6.00 on a taxi to the village? Walking up at one or two in the afternoon in summer is not an option for me these days, it’s a risk. Have a great day, and remember, if you’re driving, don’t forget to take the car.

Weekend events? Rather quiet for me. Well, apart from Friday morning when I was many things. A writer editing a draft MS, then, unexpectedly, a triage nurse, chef, personal shopper, assistant barman, and waiter, because Neil tripped on a pothole and took a purler. Nothing broken, just banged about, and now, a very blue-black ankle and foot, but again mobile and again able to work. And no, this was not a typical tourist tumble fuelled by too much entertainment and not enough attention to detail. It was while taking someone’s rubbish to the bins for them at ten in the morning, and on a familiar route too. Which just goes to prove that although you know what’s around the corner, you never know what’s around the corner. Anyway, all fine now, apart from the colour scheme and bruised ribs, but a message to all to be careful on the flat (as this was), and even more careful on the steps.

It’s not so much that the terrain is dangerous, though it is in places; it is more that the landing pad is made of unrelenting stone, and no matter which way you land, it’s not going to be a soft touchdown. Years ago, not long after moving here, we were chatting to someone who had been here for some years, and we were talking about the dangers of getting home at night through the upper village lanes where, then, the lighting was pretty dismal. Worse, if there was a power cut. This person insisted they had never had a problem moving around at night because they had their ‘Symi night-sight vision.’ In other words, they were used to it. A couple of days later? Same person now with added scrapes, twists and knocks. Luckily, nothing broken and only the myth of ‘Symi night sights’ shattered. So, beware.

In the past, we have known people arrive here for their holiday, only to be sent back to Rhodes the next day to be plastered thanks to being plastered. We’ve met people who have, on declaring themselves in their found paradise, celebrated too much, and then found themselves lost at the bottom of the mousandra steps wondering how they got there. Mind you, we’ve also known people who were so taken with the place, they announced with all certainty that they were going to return and live on Nimos so their children could live wild and drive four-by-fours over that islet for the rest of their lives. (There are no paths, and only one ruined house on Nimos.) Others have declared they are so happy here after two days, they no longer need to take their prescribed medication, and two days after that, having tried to set a campfire in their hotel room. One turned up at the Town Hall expecting to be able to marry the bin man they met that morning. And don’t get me started on the man who bought a horse, rented a farm, and ended up stealing some military laundry and, having abandoned the horse, left the island, only to be discovered in Kos with guns in the back of his car. Long before this, he had gained the title of ‘the twat in a hat.’ We get them all here, but we also get the innocents. Those who, through no fault of their own, take a fall as Neil did, and land on the unforgiving stone in an awkward position, and damage themselves. So, always be cautious. Always go slow, use a torch at night, and be careful. Oh, and better have insurance too, because you never know when a pothole will leap out at you, or a step that you were sure was there will not be there.

And with that Monday morning lesson done with, let’s move on into the week and see what befalls us next.

Yesterday, I popped into town for a dental appointment and nearly came home with a composter. I was minding my own business, waiting to use the ATM, when I noticed activity around a pile of boxes behind a white van on the other side of the road. Now, when I used to live opposite the Waste Market in Dalston (East London), activity around the back of a white van meant something interestingly dodgy was going on. Not so here. On my way back from the dentist, I noticed the action was all still happening at the white van, and was about to politely ignore it (as was safest to do in Dalston) when I bumped into Jenine, who asked me if I wanted a free composter. It turns out that for those who are on the municipal grapevine, read the right Facebook pages, or generally have their ear to the ground more than I do, that there is a scheme afoot to give these things to households for recycling garden and other waste. (The South Aegean Solid Waste Management Agency (FoDSA) is running the initiative.) I wasn’t in a position to take them up on the offer right then and there, and to be frank, we’d never use one, so it would only go to, er, waste.

After that, my day suffered very few highlights, as usual. I think the most extreme thing I did yesterday afternoon was brushing my office carpet – and that’s not a fun job at this time of year. I spent the afternoon reading, and having hot flushes as the humidity was coming in waves; fine one minute, high the next, rinse and repeat, and not even the rumbles of distant thunder in the early evening could calm it down. (No rain, sadly.)

Anyway, I am nearing the end of the final draft before proofing of the 12th book in the third series, and that is my job for the weekend. So, plenty to look forward to, including, I hope, a few more of this kind of pre-dawn scene: