Yesterday, I mentioned the Symi Dream calendar for next year, and that it was now available to order online (only). I’ll be coming back to this subject nearer Christmas, but there’s another new Symi-based artistic creation to consider in the meantime. I’ve not read this, but I read the first book by this author, ‘Heaven.’  Both are set partly on an imaginary island that takes little imagination to see it’s Symi under another name.

Many novels written with Symi as a background focus on the landscapes and delights, the romantic walks through ‘valleys of fertile green’, and along sandy beaches that don’t exist, and tbh, several I’ve read focus more on the way they are written than what they are written about. Some are just dreadful. I once read a Mills & Boon set on the island, and all I can say about that is, Eek! I also read a big fat published novel riding along on the coattails of ‘The Da Vinci Code’ when every other book was about Knights Templar and conspiracies, lost scrolls and mysterious clues, and this one ended up with the hero and villain fighting atop Symi’s Kastro, chasing each other to the cliffs of St George ‘nearby’, and there was someone walking along ‘The sandy beaches of Marathunda.’ Anyone who knows that beach knows you will find no sand, only pebbles, sunbeds and goats. (And a great taverna.)

Anyway, there’s a new book out that’s different because it sugarcoats nothing, and although it’s not about Symi as such, parts of it are set on an imaginary island under a different name, and it’s clear we’re talking about here. It’s talking more about the characters, and one man’s life in particular, and part of that includes ‘Symi.’

The author has also written and published a set of short stories set on the island, and I believe this edition is to be reprinted later this year. I thought you might want to check them both out. As far as I know, the new one is available on Amazon, Kindle, paperback and in Kindle Unlimited, though I am not sure of the status of the first one, ‘Heaven,’ so you might need to search around. (Note: looks to be unavailable right now.)

Here are the links to Amazon.com (which may tell you the book you want is not available; if it does, it’s because you need to go to your nearest Amazon store, I.e. Amazon.co.uk, or Germany, France, Canada, etc. Anyway, if you are interested, you can head off and check out the blurbs and see what you think. (Other books about/with Symi are available. Just because I mention something here doesn’t mean you are going to like it. The value of shares can go down as well as up. Please get an adult to help you and use only rounded-ended scissors. Terms and conditions apply.)

‘Heaven’ by Ann Butler Rowlands (currently being reprinted, but you might find it on eBay.)

‘The Sailors, Their Bears, and the Left-handed Women’ also by Ann Butler Rowlands.

First, though, here’s a first. It’s 03.30 in the morning — that’s not the ‘first’, it’s been that time before — and I am taking my cup of tea into my room to start the day (also not a first), and I hear a noise in the courtyard. I investigate. This involves standing in the porch listening, turning on a light to hear better (odd how that helps), and then working out that the sound is running water. The sound of the water pump has become a constant since the lad moved in downstairs with his mother. Either he or she has a thing for washing, or simply running the taps from eight am to eight pm with only a few breaks in between; Valantis should be fitting us a newer and quieter water pump sometime soon, but that’s another story. The sound I heard was that of the mains water filling the tank.
‘Yeah, so?’
The thing is, for that mains water to be running means that someone has turned on one of the locked stop cocks along the mains system. That’s usually only done around 7.30 in the morning and left on until the early afternoon or sooner if the reservoir is low. I’m not complaining, not when the mad water usage from the flat below averages around 300 litres per day by my reckoning. (We use roughly 100 a day between the two of us.) What it all means is that whoever now turns on the mains for our area of the village was up and about and at work at three-thirty in the morning; far beyond the call of duty. Thank you; a little intriguing good news before I even reached the desk.

Now I have, though, I can tell you about yesterday. I managed to get some work done on the new first draft before setting off down the steps to collect something from the courier, pick up some post from the post office, and head to the dentist, only to discover we’d mixed up the days, and I was expected on Thursday, not Tuesday. Didn’t matter; I had other things to do, and, as it transpired, I still need another couple of days of tablets to take away the nasty that is not completely gone yet before drilling can commence, so after a few desultory photos to fill these pages, I treated myself to a taxi back up the hill.

You might remember the other day, when trying to escape the midmorning harbour crush, the taxi was unable to get through the throng, so we had to wait? We were slightly earlier this time, but still, a day trip boot had just arrived – one of the noisy red ones that looks like a mid-cut trainer (sneaker if in the USA), and the road was thronged with wobbly-legged tourists just off the thing, which is essentially a speedboat with an inflated sense of self. There were plenty of raspberry ripple legs and torsos, Instagram pouts and hoisted sarongs on show. Other more intimate places were exposed to catch even more rays, and wide eyes were everywhere but on the oncoming traffic. We passed through the first wave without injury to sunburn or sedan, passed the several cars, large minibuses and small coaches waiting around the bus stop, avoided the tour parties jostling for position in the shade, the port police directing traffic, the mopeds weaving through whatever obstacles no matter what, and the growing queue of those waiting to board the soon to arrive Sebeco, the on coming traffic, and the dodgy parker who’d ‘only stopping for a second,’ and waited behind mopeds whose drivers had also stopped for a quick chat, and finally, emerged beyond the slope, ready to hit second gear.

Not to be. The incoming traffic was held up by the outgoing traffic plus newly arrived white-and-pinks from the Panagia, traipsing round the six-foot wide section of road squeezed between building and sea, but we inched forward, breathing in at times, laughing about some joke or other, until finally, finally, having passed the second traffic control officer and the last day trip stragglers who still had half a mile to walk, we found the freedom of the open road. Which smelt slightly of sewage, because, let’s face it, the harbour in August with an additional few thousand water users pouring in every day… Well, our drainage system isn’t exactly in the first flush of its youth. According to yesterday’s driver, the treatment plant is finished, but when it will be up and running is another matter. Meanwhile, that familiar aroma remains at certain times of the day. Anyway… I made it back up to the peace and quiet of the village for a large breath of fresh air, and was welcomed home by the water pump screaming because something downstairs needed washing for a fifth time that morning, and took the rest of the day off.

The Symi survival lesson for today? Avoid the harbour during day-trip hours, and make sure you write down the correct day for your appointments.

There are events to look forward to in the Symi Festival this week. On Wednesday, there’s the festival of Megalo Sotiris, always a well-attended evening halfway across the island, up in the forest, with church services, then later, food and dancing. The last time we went, which was many years ago, we went in the back of a flatbed truck. This used to be a popular way of attending events in the hinterland churches, particularly for those like us with no transport. On that occasion, there were several of us who had put our heads together and persuaded one of our number to borrow a truck and drive, and we set off after dark to drive up to the monastery. Apart from the event itself, the drive there and back made for memories because it’s not until you get out of the village and around the mountain that you realise how dark the island is (was). The display of stars was unlike anything we’d seen for years, what with living in London and Brighton and such places. The sky seemed so close, you felt you could light your cigar from the stars, but as I didn’t and still don’t smoke cigars, and as I would never entertain lighting anything in a Greek forest in August, no-one did.

Now? I expect you can arrange to get to the church by flatbed truck if you ask around, but with so many coaches and minibuses now on the island, so many visitors with private cars, motorbike hires and the like, I imagine getting there will be easy, but parking may be an issue. I also assume there will be the fire services on hand because there is traditionally outside cooking at such events and permission must be sought from the council and services before striking a match; and rightly so.

Also in the Symi Festival this week: a concert on Thursday by Christina Salti. Christina Salti is a popular Greek singer known for her energetic and polished Laïko-infused pop music. With a strong presence in the Greek music scene, she has collaborated with numerous prominent artists and maintains a significant following.

Then, on Saturday, a performance of ‘Romeo and Juliet… for Tears and Laughter,’ a play by the Symi Theatre performers.
On Sunday, the Symi Women’s Association present an evening of traditional dance with music supplied by Michalis and Iakovos Misos (of the Yiannis ‘Rainbow’ family). These events are to be held in the town square in Yialos.

The rest of the Symi Festival Programme, click here.

The Symi Dream Calendar 2027

On a side note, the Symi Dream calendar for 2027 is now online and available to buy, though you can only buy it online. We still get people asking if Neil can do a passport photo or if they can buy a calendar from the shop. We’ve not had the shop for over 10 years now, dear, so the answer is no.

As usual, the calendar features 12 of Neil’s Symi images, and a grid large enough for basic notes. We’re using this year’s at home, and the entries over the last couple of weeks have been ‘dentist, 10.30’, ‘piano’, and ‘dentist, 10.30’, and that’s what it says for my week ahead too.

If you want to view the calendar and see an online preview, head to this link,

https://tinyurl.com/SymiDream2027 or click this image:

I’ll put a permanent link in the side column as soon as I can remember how to do it.

Well, that was a weekend of lovely weather, not too much wind, a little more humidity, but nothing too unbearable. I popped down to the dentist on Friday as arranged, but things were not to go according to plan. We were to start on a root canal in the upper right quadrant, but for a day or two I’d had an ache in the down stage left area which, on Friday, had developed into a full-blown rage, lump and inability to open my mouth very far, so there was to be no drilling that day. Instead, it’s been a case of antibiotics and waiting while the stage left infraction is dealt with ahead of the upper right issue, and when that’s done, it’ll be back to stage left for drilling and rooting out down there. I woke up on Saturday looking rather like Joseph Merrick, unable to speak, and suddenly, after all these years, understanding what Michael Crawford was on about. Still, we had a lovely morning view over the weekend…

The Michael Crawford thing? Well… When he created the role of the Phantom for Lloyd-Webber’s musical, he insisted the mask be made for one side of his face only (so he wasn’t, um, masked by it when facing a certain direction), and that the lyricist should remove from his lyrics as many words beginning with P as possible. That was because, with a fat lip, prosthetic or otherwise, it is very hard to say words beginning with P without ‘popping’, or if not using a mic, without spraying, or… Well, it’s just a hard letter to use when you’ve got a lip like you’ve been slugged in the Dog & Duck during a dispute over a pint of mild.

Tablets, thankfully, were on hand, and today, although I still have the painful lump around the gum and chin stage left, I am able to say P words, albeit with a slight wince. Back to the chair tomorrow morning to see what’s what, what can be drilled and begun, and if I am not rushing, to take some photos for these pages along the way.

Other than that… The Symi Festival started with a concert in the main square on Saturday, and there are some videos from Symi TV, though I can’t find a way to embed one here as I did last week, but I’ll keep trying. The harbour continues to be busy during the day with Insta-pouts aplenty, wannabe ‘influencers’ having their pouts photographed in front of statues they care nothing about, and only occasionally do intrepid explorers make it up to the real beauty of the island, the village and its history. I caught a taxi back up on Friday, and

the driver told me we had to wait a few minutes before setting off. There was no point trying to drive around the south of the harbour when a day boat had just arrived there. ‘We lose about two hours a day because of this,’ he said, as a matter of fact rather than complaint. He meant, two hours lost to waiting. Waiting for the meandering gobsmacked to filter out thinly enough to make it safe and possible to drive on the road. As many have said, tourists leave their brains in Rhodes, and think roads are paths and churches are nightclubs, what with some of the clothes they’re hardly wearing as they approach hallowed ground… And so on.

We finally set off, weaving through, watching out for, and avoiding. I could never be a taxi driver down there, not at that time of day. I’d be hollering out the window, squashing feet beneath the wheels to teach a lesson and lessen frustration, and who knows what else. Symi taxi drivers, though, are of a more relaxed, Greek nature, and simply smile at it all.

Things are slightly eased at these times when the port police get on their two-way radios and become human traffic lights, one near the bus stop, the other at the bottom of the hill. This ensures no-one gets bumped into the sea on the narrowest part of the road. (Why has that not been widened? It’s only a car’s width across. Would making it safer encourage even more cars? Probably. The debate goes on.) I foresee permanent traffic lights at these places soon becoming a Symi fixture – and that would be a first for the island. Another sign of its rising status among the top over-touristed Greek islands to visit.

Anyway… at the end of this dull story, I got home and muddled through the weekend unable to eat either stage left or upper right, but only down the central line, and here we are; bright-eyed enough to start the week, a little doped up still from the painkillers and anti-this-and-that tablets, but all is made well, because Neil bought me flowers to cheer me up. Here’s to a great week ahead.

Lovely way to start the weekend: toothache at 03.00. Well, gum ache really, so just swollen and a dull throbbing, and my midnight feast of an anti-inflammatory tablet should see me through to late morning when I am due in the dentist’s chair for a root canal, which may now have to wait… Hey! But at least I can still walk there and back. At least, I could the last time.

You’ve always got to look on the bright side, and once this morning’s visits are out of the way, I should have a few days with no ‘extras’ to interrupt my morning work routine, such as popping out for this, or going to pick up that. Mind you, since I had to change credit cards for security reasons, I will have to pop down to DHL next week to collect the new one. Do we still have DHL here? If not, the delivery will be passed on to another service and will still get here. At least, it did last time.

We’ve had a bit of a battle these past two weeks, what with water issues and other bits and pieces. We’re not as badly off as the house over the road that has no water (as mentioned yesterday), because the pressure is too low – and no wonder when we have new high-end tourist accommodation opening up where the apartments come with their own built-in terrace jacuzzi or plunge pool. Read that again. Built-in pools. On terraces/flat roofs. On an island under an official drought notice. Where some people get no water for basic living. Where some people don’t/can’t flush the toilet until absolutely necessary, and stand in a plastic bowl in the shower to catch water to flush with, and generally save as much water as they can… So that the wealthy tourist can sit in a small pool on their roof and watch the sea, all the while pretending they are on Santorini – which, it seems, is what some people want the island to become. You’ve got the money for a classy holiday? Good on you. It’s not your fault some businessman is using local residents’ meagre supplies and infrastructure to fuel his income. And, I assume, in my naivety, that the council will be charging said apartments extra fees or whatever, and using that income to bring in more water for the islanders who support the island all year round, to replace that wasted on Mr & Mrs Cash’s rooftop ‘pool.’ (Times several, because this isn’t a lone case.) I wonder what this has done to the island’s protected status, and if other homeowners, having seen the strict rules bent for one, will bend their own and start putting in things that are ‘illegal’ according to the archaeology services that protect the island.

I could go on, because I am as inflamed as my gum at the moment, but I don’t know all the facts, and have only seen images which might be AI-generated like the false advertising for that windmill accommodation last year. Lit all around by pretty lights, lovely terrace, all mod cons… Er, no. Across the other side of a building site, having very few amenities like no washing up bowl or kitchen furniture, no table… toilet in a cupboard under the stairs… “Doesn’t matter, they paid €120 a night for it, and we made some money.”

The sooner I get my gum deflated and some more painkillers in my gob, the better, eh? Right then. I’m off to 1895, rural Kentish life, blacksmithing, and the trials of Oscar Wilde. Have a great weekend!