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:

Today will be an in and out day. I shall be in for most of the morning, editing, and then nipping down to the dentist, then home and then staying in, reading. I’d fallen out of the habit of regular reading, so I am giving myself at least one hour a day with a proper book, usually on the balcony during the ‘quietening hour.’ This is the time, from about three o’clock onwards, when the day boats start to leave, and a general feeling of hush falls over the part of the harbour I can see. When the last one leaves sometime after four, there is then the ‘very quiet’ hour, when not much out there moves at all. There’s always an end-of-term feeling to the day down there, an aftershock of relief after another mad day of the nosey and the ecstatic, the bewildered and the frantic. Relief from the crowds who block the roads, follow their guides, do as they’re told and then become completely bewildered as to what to do for the rest of their four hours here. The ecstatic make the most of it in admiration of the sights, the architecture, and the climb to the village, or they enjoy the excitement of a safari made by bus or taxi, while the frantic are another story. They have planned, researched, seen pictures asked questions and know what they are doing: walk to there, quick dip, hurry to there, bus at this time, up to the top, find museum, find museum closed (should have researched more deeply), get out Google Maps to get down to the harbour, get lost, can’t find the cycle way or the two lane highway that Maps say is a road but is in fact 390 steps, but somehow make it back to the boat on time.

All imagined from up here, of course, as I am only going by memories of being down there at that time, but if that’s what is still going on, then I can feel the aftershock of relief from the balcony, and that’s when it’s a good time to read.

Anyway, what is it to be next?

That’s one shelf of the kind of thing I’ve been reading over the past eight years: History, mainly Victorian, and if you look closely, you’ll find some gems. ‘Dying for the Gods’ was particularly hard work, and sorry to say, I’ve forgotten most of it, but then it was specialised (human sacrifice and bog bodies in archaeology as background to a mystery novel). The book, ‘Plaka’, I picked up in a second-hand bookshop in Athens, and it’s all about the history of that part of Athens, with drawings and photos. It’s a Greek publication if anyone is interested in borrowing it. ‘East End 1888’ is particularly fascinating if you are interested in that specific year beyond Jack the Ripper. I’ve just finished, though, Agatha Christie’s autobiography, and I’ve been through all of these on this shelf, so I need to look for something else. That, after having my teeth examined, is this afternoon’s job. I may have to go to the next shelf, where I am once again tempted to read ‘Dracula’ for about the 40th time. Or I may have another bash at the first page of the Poe novel (I’ve never got beyond the first sentence/page – it feels like they are the same thing).

Anwyay, that’s me today. Who knows what tomorrow will be like? That page has not been written yet.

Not much to tell you about apart from my day-to-day, which I won’t bore you with because I didn’t do much yesterday. In fact, I was at home all day writing, reading and doing not much else. Meanwhile, though, Neil photographed this in the square.

They were only a few feet from his workstation table. The other day, I walked past a turtle dove sitting on the ground with one wing out, and I thought it had been damaged. I stood not two feet away from it, and was about to take a photo (which felt like rubber-necking an accident) but it stood up, waddled away and then flew off. Just sunbathing.

Plenty of that to do right now, with the temp a reasonable 28 to 30 in our courtyard shade, not that I do any sunbathing there or anywhere, come to that. Sunbed Wars continue apace on the beaches it seems. ‘Sunbed Wars’ isn’t actually a war as such, but it is an ongoing discussion between tourists and residents alike about the varying cost of a place to lie all greased up and pinking. There seems to be a fashion among the wealthy these days that a) because they are wealthy, only they matter, and b) they’re happy to pay €1,300 a week for a villa holiday because they can, but then get all hot under the Cavalli if a sunbed costs more than they think it should. They are perhaps the sort who revel in the fact that, on some beaches, one pays twice as much for a thing near the water as you do if you take one at the back. Like the age-old snobby thing of how you ‘Took the opera’ last evening, and ‘Of course had a box,’ while the poorer classes sat in the pit happy with their lot. ‘We were so close, when Bartoli gave us her Queen of the Night, some of her spittle actually reached us! Jeremy has not washed since.’ You know, that kind of baloney which angers me, and to which I say, ‘Ms Bartoli would not sing that area, dear, she’s a mezzo. Get your stories right.’

Anyway, no idea what that has to do with sparrows or sunbeds, where, I think the point was that Sunbed Wars rumble on as pointless as a never-ending TV show (The Blacklist, Payton Place, Eastenders), and I shall keep you informed if I hear anything more.

I’ve just been through my morning emails. The usual. ‘Hi, I’m a visibility specialist…’ Yeah? So am I, when I put my glasses on, so what?
‘Hi, Wilson. I am from Capital FM, and we do interviews…’ (No signature, a Gmail account, no branding, no point, and who’s Wilson?)
All that kind of thing, plus one from a grumpy bank manager in Dubai who has been awaiting my response to his last email so we can discuss this money thing. “… this is urgent, and it is in connection with surname.” I can’t help feeling that it should have come out as “… this is urgent, and it is in connection with {SURNAME}” because he clearly got his macro auto-fill thingy up the spout.
So, welcome to my first thing.

I’ve been noting some common questions of late, people asking if they can get a boat from Symi to Halki (not directly, no), and asking if there are any places to eat in the village (yes, and more to come). The windmill that was once a restaurant called ‘The Windmill’ looks as if it’s about to reopen any time soon, but don’t ask me who or what. There’s speculation running around the platia about what was the cocktail bar, the other bar, the grocer’s shop, the sandwich shop (all the same place), and what it will be, and I know as much as the next person who doesn’t know very much. The rumour is, it will be an eatery of some sort. That will bring the total of eateries to seven in the village. Can’t say I am fond of the word ‘eateries’, there are too many Es in it, and it sounds very close to catteries and batteries, which must mean I have an aversion to the suffix ‘eries.’ Not to the places themselves, of course…
As I said, welcome to my first thing.

There was another question about island life, and that was to do with payments for taxis and buses. Yes, we are in the same century as everyone else now, and yes, you should be able to use a card to pay for everything (as long as the machine is working, the internet is working, and the proprietor wants to carry on working), but for a €2.50 bus fare…?

You know, cash is very important, because unlike those bucket airlines where you have to pay for everything, churches don’t yet have those machines connected to the internet and banks, so when you pop in to light a candle, take some cash to leave in the box. Can you imagine if they, too, went the same way as Ryanair and the rest? Walk into church, swipe your card for a blessing of Holy Water, and again for your candle… Imagine in the CofE churches… You’re going up for communion, you kneel at the altar rail and realise you’ve left your card back in your pew, so you pause the anthem while you dash back and get it, then queue again for the second round where the vicar solemnly offers you ‘The POS terminal of Christ…’ so you can run your card through it before receiving communion. ‘It’s for the family, Father,’ you whisper. ‘Will you be doing a discount today?’ So much easier to put a 50p piece in the box by the organ so the organist will give you another eight bars of ‘There is a Green Hill’ than sliding your card through the slot and using the stops to tap out your PIN.

Silliness. The point is, always have some cash for things like the bus, the church plates or charity boxes, the cab you decide to take on the spur of the moment and so on. Otherwise, yes, everyone should be taking cards, and I, now, should be working, so I’m off to ramble some more elsewhere.
I hope your first thing has started well.