Today’s reality check is for those who come to Symi, stay in a swanky new Airbnb or quaint, traditional property, a top hotel or a revamped mansion, in search of ‘the authentic Greek experience.’ You want authentic Greek? Then pay us a ridiculous sum per night to stay in our house during the winter season.

Yesterday brought the need for some new investigations. For example, ‘Where’s that coming from?’ when entering the bathroom and getting dripped on, and then noticing water trails on the kitchen wall. Before the investigation could begin, dry towels were needed to soak up the ingress, and they are few and far between at the moment, being otherwise occupied in the porch, lean-to and under the windows. Once the passing deluge had passed, I identified the issue before it returned.

The apothiki above the kitchen has a door, and there’s a gap between it and the step. This was fixed with a fill-in slat of wood plugging the gap, but this had worked loose, and now it’s expanded, and the frame started to rot, so it doesn’t fit; thus, the rain was coming into the storeroom and through the floorboards, which are the kitchen ceiling. On the outside of the door is a ‘step’ created by the original house owner out of some old pieces of railing, a dollop of cement and some wood, long since rotted. Behind this now skeletal arrangement is a plain cement wall, with the edging sealant well crumbled away. Hence, rain works its way inside the storeroom and through the cement wall outside, both directly above the bathroom door. Using all the skills gained from the ‘Home Maintenance Book for Boys (1965)’ of my youth, I found some old piece of heavy pipe, a length of discarded wood, a damp towel and a couple of bin liners, and set about a temporary fix. Rolled towel plugging the door’s gap, piece of wood shoved up against it to hold it in place, and the whole thing wrapped in the bin liners. As for the open cement patch, which needs more skilful attention, the best I could do was cover what remains of the step and hold it down with the heavy pipe. That done, the rain stopped, but the dripping continued until the now soaked internals had bled through, and the lintel will need re-rendering or whatever it’s called when the plaster and paint have bubbled, dried and fallen.

And then, rejoicing in my triumph with a cup of tea in the sitting room, I thought the new deluge had brought hail, until I found a waterfall pouring from front window to shelf to sitting-room floor, at which point, I found myself misquoting Jonathan Harker misquoting Shakespeare in ‘Dracula ’: My towels! quick, my towels! ‘Tis meet that I put them down.
These new Waterworld adventures go on top of the other new one found recently: the pointless but leaking aircon unit in the attic directly over the bed/bedroom below. Another towel lost to home maintenance.

All these things are, in theory, the responsibility of the landlord to fix, but as it took him five weeks to get us back onto hot water after the tank burst, there’s not much point in reporting them. It’s better to get them secretly seen to, even if by myself. Certainly, a lot faster. ‘Yes, I am repairing these things when I do work to the house,’ is not a helpful answer when you’re paddling up your passage, especially because, when he does finally get around to doing this work, we will have to move out. (Then, the rent will become unaffordable, and the house is more likely to be sold anyway, so we’ll be homelessly looking for another place to live, but that’s, hopefully, a story for the distant future.)

So, my authentic Greek experience jobs on this idyllic holiday island for today, weather permitting and after work this morning are: 1) dry all towels, 2) devise a better fix for the apothiki door, 3) ponder how to plug a concrete patch on a wall between door and flat roof, hidden by a cemented-in metal contraption, 3) figure out where the lean-to trickles are coming from 4) check overflows and gutters again, 5) remove dying vine branches, twigs and leaves so they don’t plug things up, 6) discover where aircon leak is coming from (I nearly forget that one), 7) go shopping, 8) stay dry.

And people ask, ‘What do you do in the winter?’

I’m sure I’m not the only one who got woken up at 03.30 this morning by the Greek government. A severe weather warning is in place for, as the announcement pronounced it ‘Rho-ades’, and that, I assume, means us. It wasn’t even raining, though it has been and may be later. It’s been a rather damp weekend all round, and Thursday’s washing is still trying to get dry in the lean-to. We did manage to get out though, in the brief interlude of Saturday afternoon when it was too warm in the sun to wear my Crombie and Austrian felt Hunter, but I did anyway, because there aren’t many days in the year when I can. And the outfit was useful on the way back after dark, least of all because, with the light behind me, it gave me the silhouette of Cary Grant. Obviously, that was only a shadow. Usually, it’s too wet or too warm for such an overcoat, and too hot or too windy for an Austrian felt Hunter, which, contrary to popular belief,sis not a newspaper headline. ‘Austrian Felt Hunter Shock!’ and in smaller letters, ‘Hunter Fires Back.’
Yeah, well, it’s the first time in ages I’ve not wanted to be woken at 03.30, and yet, there we are. I just had a look at my usual weather forecasts, and although they both show rain all day, the wind isn’t too mad, and there’s been no news of cancelled or delayed boats today.

So, what will the day bring? Hopefully, another chapter on the new books after the usual admin work is done. Admin, which includes spamming and deleting around 10 emails asking me if I’d like to discuss my ‘writing journey’ with total strangers who run spurious book clubs and pretend to work for book publishers and agents, who want to invite me to a non-existent book fair in Buttflock Idaho, or appear live on a Zoom to chat about my ‘writing journey’ with six blank screens, and whichever I choose, to pay good money for doing so. What the Hull is a writing journey anyway? I sit down, glower at a blank screen, think of an idea, and write it down. The journey here is a few paces across the hall (old towels down ready for the drips), light on, laptop on, a quick look at my ever-dwindling photo collection, a half an hour wittering this off the top of my head, and then taking a tea break…

But, in more interesting news, this weekend is the annual festival at Panormitis, and although we’re not planning to go, we may end up being taken there by our youngest godson who is coming back from Rho-ades on Wednesday in his car. Now, when did that all happen? He, like his brother, has just spent seven months working flat out through the season, though he got days off, unlike many summer workers. Mind you, on those days off, he went into work to cover as a swimming pool guard, for which the hotel gave full training. It’s going to be great to see this young person who we settled into his own apartment a year ago as a nervous 18-year-old, and whose first priority in life has always been to own and drive a car. He wanted to; he worked for it for a few years, and now, he’s achieved it. He did tell me what breed of car it was, and I think he built a model of it at the kitchen table a couple of years ago, but cars now aren’t what they were ‘in my day.’ At 19, I was driving a Morris Minor, and that had been an upgrade from a Renault 4 with a dashboard gearstick, a front bench seat, and a handbrake you had to pull out from under the dash and hope it never came off in your hand. The Renault 4 used to take hours to struggle up the Dover docks loop (Jubilee Way) and on up the hill to the Deal road, as it was only a 750, but when I upgraded to ‘Doris’, with the headlights operated by a foot pedal and a steering wheel the size of a hula hoop, it came with a huge engine (1,100 cc), and I fair flew along. Zero to sixty in nine minutes was a huge adventure.

And talking of flying along, it’s now 4.07 and I am late for work, so I’d best get on. It looks like we’ll have another couple of rain-bound days at home before the sun is back, but it also looks like it’s going to be fair for the festival weekend, which is good news. Except that good news means I’ll have to take the opportunity to get outside and cut back the vine, clear the courtyard and generally tidy up out there. More admin work, but of a different kind.

Yesterday, after some morning rain, the skies cleared and the sun was back; the temperature outside crept back up to the low 20s, though remains stubbornly lower than that in the house, and in my ‘office’, first thing in the morning in particular. Because of the rain, I’ve had my shutters closed, so when I get to work, usually around 03.30 when it’s dark, I still think it’s nighttime when I emerge for a leg-stretch and tea-refresh a few hours later, only to realise it’s light. Keeping the shutters closed helps keep the cold out, and walking back into the real world takes me from the past (I’m currently in 1904) and back into the present.

Because Neil’s off to visit the grandchildren in a couple of weeks, and because he’ll be in Scotland, some additional and new clothing was called for, and that meant, for reasons of low finance and lower expectations, we popped into Mr Chan’s Emporium of Affordable Delights. This is housed in the building that was once the village social (and, apparently, gambling) club, later a taverna with a good reputation for its chicken with prunes and a back terrace with a view of the telegraph poles all the way to Pedi, and which now sits above the private paediatrician’s surgery. Where we once attended a WI dinner dance and fundraiser, is now full of racks of entertaining clothing in Asian sizes and a cornucopia of plastic items, some of which are of use. At first, I thought there was a sale on because there were four customers in the cavernous shop and the proprietor was bouncing from one to the other like a pinball, enthusing about anything that caught the eye, holding up alternatives and shaking his head when one took a garment from the rail to hold it up for inspection. He has a wonderful eye for one’s honest clothing size, so when you do that thing of saying to yourself, ‘I’ll slim into it,’ he, in a language known to nearly 18% of the world’s population, but to none in the village, tells you by use of ancient Hokkien sign language that you need this size, and he is always right. While I considered a jumper in XXXL size (medium in European sizes), Neil was after a waterproof, and as Mr Chan is also a predictor of weather, there were several loaded racks of them to choose from.

That’s another thing about living in Greece, as it must be in other countries. There’s this tendency for shop assistants to follow you around and offer advice. This is partly to make sure you find what you want and to be on hand if needed, partly to try and sell you something, and hardly at all to make sure you don’t run off with a piece of moulded plastic worth €1,49. Some shop assistants and owners have the persistence of a fly, and others (like me when I worked in a shop in Yialos where I was instructed to stick to browsers like a pop-up advert), stay back and are too polite to interrupt your browsing. We discovered last evening that the proprietor in question not only speaks ancient Wenzhounese but also understands directions given firmly in Anglo Saxon.

The upshot was, a new and rather stylish (for here) waterproof came with us to our next stop, the bar. This one jacket, though, cost more than the top, jeans and joggers Neil bought a few days go. The total then was €32.00 for all three, and yesterday’s bill, €34.00 for one. ‘Never knowingly undersold’ indeed.  The price wasn’t an issue, because he used his tip money from the summer season, and still has a 20c coin left over; unlike the godson who worked at a restaurant and once gained over €70 in tips in one night, barkeeps are awarded less from their customers, but every cent counts these days.

After that, we spent a couple of hours in the bar with two friends, and two televisions showing news, game shows and a variety of alarming advertisements, before heading home along the lane where two out of three streetlights were out, probably due to the recent rain. And here we are, now at 04.18 and the writing day starts again. Back on Monday, but if you’re one of my beloved readers, my author blog will be up on my other blog site tomorrow. Have fun!

If you follow any of the various Symi pages on social media, or follow friends who live here, you won’t have failed to notice that yesterday was something of a damp day, to say the least. It’s still raining this morning, but it’s due to clear up later, and we may not have any more for a day or so, when it’s set to come back. We’ll see.

The Oxi Day parade still went ahead, though in limited form, with the solders and officials attending the service and the commemoration at the War Memorial, and let’s face it, if Greece can stand up to Mussolini in 1940, it can stand up to a deluge. There are a couple of You Tube videos from Symi TV showing the river of muddy red water coming off the hills behind Yialos and flowing into the sea under the bridge, and here’s one of them:

You can find more from Symi TV on their YouTube channel.

There are other videos going around showing other usually dry riverbeds in full flow, with the topsoil washing into Nimborio, for example, and through the mountains. As far as I can make out, no-one was hurt by the weather, though a couple of mopeds didn’t do so well. Our bathroom roof and porch are holding up, but the lean-to has water running down the walls, and we’ve got some ingress via the pointless aircon unit in the attic directly above the bed, so after going to bed, we got up again to put down towels up there, and I’ll take a look at the problem once the rain stops.

Apart from a quick dash to the shop between showers, it was a day for staying in, writing and making tomato soup, as you do when you don’t want to spend the entire day on the sofa. The day before, I found a simple recipe for peanut butter biscuits, which I did in the air fryer, and yeah, they’re fine, but you may as well eat a teaspoon of peanut butter with a side order of a teaspoon of sugar and let your internals do that baking. What with the price of groceries being what it is around here, it’s cheaper to buy a packet than it is to make them yourself. But it’s something to do.

Another thing I’d like to do is visit the immersive Titanic exhibition currently showing at the Goudi Digital Theatre in Athens, but sadly, that’s not in my rather bleak winter budget forecast. As I’m on things I’d like to do, I’d also like to see a ban on adverts such as this one: ‘Writing a book used to take years. Now it takes one afternoon — and $19. Your story, Amazon-ready by tonight.’ Sickening, but the debate about such things I will leave for my other blog.

In better news, I had a message from our landlord last night to say the new house contract is ready, and the terms are the same as now for another year, and as it’s all now on Taxisnet, all we had to do was open the program and accept. Except I’ve never been able to get into my Taxisnet, though big sis Jenine can, so she was able to do it for us, giving us another year here unless the house is sold or he wants it back. Breathing space, at least, but it also shows how much better and more transparent Greece is becoming on such matters. A problem only for those trying to avoid tax or be in some other way dishonest.

Right on cue, the thunder has started rolling in again, so I’d better post this now in case I have to unplug the internet.

The storm, such as it was, looks like it’s fading away, but may be coming back, and that reminds me of the business about cats, because that never goes away. Yes, that old chestnut.

I saw a post earlier which I thought summed up the problem in a succinct and sensible way, from an islander’s point of view. It very discreetly pointed out that the problem of stray cats isn’t helped by holiday makers who come for a short time and then leave, telling us who live here what they think should be done while proposing no solution. Many people do tell us what should be done, and most of those things have either been done, are being done, or can’t be done, but those who do do them quietly put up with the accusations of not doing enough, when they have few resources to do anything. All we can do is roll eyes and say in the manner of a film character: ‘You think we ain’t already thought of that, mister?’

As you might detect from the overuse of the verb To Do in that last bit, this subject always causes a bit to-do with those who temporarily do, those who would like to do, but don’t, and those who think the whole thing is doodoo. One thing’s for sure; the subject is never going to die off like the dodo.
Here’s a chicken leaving home for a day’s work:

As you can see, the generosity of locals or holiday-home owners who live here part time and of many shorter-stay visitors is as generous as it can be. Someone near us has even supplied a shelter. Others put down food every day and pay for it from their own limited pockets. That’s great if that’s what they want to do, but not everyone is as inclined to help animals, just as not everyone can afford the money or time; just as some people who might be able to would rather put their time, money and support toward, for example, the schools with no heating, no decent books, and very few resources. Others may prefer to support their families, and instead of buying food for stray cats, buy ever-more-costly food for their family, or medicines for their ever-failing grandparent or child. And many permanent residents have to accept that they can’t help, but still have to pass by the sight of homeless kittens and the smell of those who didn’t make it. (Not, note, on their way from €120 + a night Airbnb perfection to their flight back to comfort.)

Yeah, I know, a contentious matter and it always will be, but what gets up my nose like a bad case of gone-off snuff is when people decry permanent residents who don’t/can’t offer to help a random stray animal a holidaymaker has fallen in love with. Sadly, in today’s world, time is just as much a currency as currency itself, and no, I can’t give up a day to take a failing kitten to Rhodes so it can be seen by a vet, even of you do offer to pay for it. What about the other 101 animals who won’t make it through the winter? I suppose the bottom line there is, if you feel that strongly, sell up, rent or buy a permanent home here (and good luck with that!), set up your own charity (ditto), put your own pressure on the authorities (ditto), and put the rest of yourself where your mouth is.

Meanwhile, if you’re interested, some of the island’s windmills are for sale for a few million euros and would make a wonderful cat sanctuary. Any takers?