I had an eerie moment in the courtyard yesterday afternoon. I was sweeping up the leaves from the permanently dying vine when something felt wrong, so I stopped and listened – and heard nothing. I mean nothing. No passing bikes, no chattering tourists on the lane, no boat noise drifting up from the harbour, no breeze, no chickens (!), no cats in heat, and not even the water pump. Nothing. And then, after a short while, a lone cicada dared break the unreal silence and another dead leaf fell from the vine. At the front of the house when I went through, the harbour was alive with boats coming and going, but as there was no breeze, the sound didn’t travel far enough to reach the back, so I could see the world hadn’t in fact stopped turning. It wasn’t long, of course, before someone roared past on a machine that needed attention, but for that short while, it was just me and silence. Wonderful.

From our last place, nearer the centre of the village, we used to be able to hear the power station working away, the sound growing louder and dimmer on the wind, until improvements began to make it quieter. Can’t hear that from here, and maybe you can’t from closer, too; I’m not sure. I’ve said before that we can sometimes hear the sea lapping at the Yialos quaysides, but that tends to be in the dark hours of the morning, and talking of sounds, we’ve not heard the owls so much this year.

Yesterday I also heard the band doing their sound check from the harbour main stage, a helicopter coming in and going away, various ferry claxons as they came and went, and the chickens started up later in the day. There’s often the sound of the dustbin lorry collecting from the bin store, a gentle chug and occasional crash of glass followed by a broom sweeping the road. Don’t get me started on the wildlife; ravens, sparrows, black redstarts, smaller twittery things in the various wild trees around us, and now and then a gull or two. All rather wonderful, but not as unusual as a moment of complete silence at three in the afternoon.

Anyway, that’s all I have in my mind this morning, that and the next chapter of a new story I am writing, on which note, I shall get back to it, and see if I can hear any more unusualness over the weekend.

The other day, we were talking about the number of places to eat and drink in Horio. Where, in recent years, there was something of a dearth, there are now 12. Some are cafés, others are restaurants; there are bars too, but I’ve not gone into the details of each, because, well, life’s too short and you’re quite capable of undertaking your own research. Let’s go on a quick walk, and please let me know if I’ve missed anything…

Starting from where the road from Yialos meets the road to Pedi, and you head up the hill into the village: Just there, on your right, you find The Secret Garden. Keep heading uphill, and you can veer off and up to the right to find the Sunrise (evenings and late nights only). If you stay on the main road and either cut through or go around the technical school, you will come to Ringo’s at ‘Kampos Corner.’ This is where the bus stops, and right behind that you will find Scena a little way up the slope into the village.

Just past there, on your right, is Taverna Zoi with its rooftop dining, and if you turn left at that junction, and pass the ‘American’ supermarket, you will find Niki’s kitchen. Double back and turn right at Zoi’s, and you follow the lane past the new Barra Resto on your left. Keep going to the square, and you find Lefteris Kafeneion (green chairs), and the Rainbow Bar (orange chairs). Next to this is Taverna George and Maria, and next to that, the Kali Strata Restaurant.

Turn right at George & Maria, and you will come to the recently reopened Windmill restaurant, Mylos. Carry on past that and down the hill, and you will be back at the Sunrise (on the left) and finally, the Secret Garden where you started.

You can add to this the two cantinas on the main road out of Horio, both of which offer spectacular views. Also in the village, there are two bakeries, three supermarkets, a corner shop and a peripteron.

Now, what have I forgotten…?

Ah, yes. These days during the summer, you are advised to reserve a table at all and any of the tavernas and restaurants on the island, just in case. Some are booked up in advance, while others might be hosting a large party or a baptism, or similar. So it’s best to investigate early and reserve.

I had a moment yesterday. Well, I had two. One was before I left home, when I had that half an hour between work and leaving for an appointment; that half hour where you can’t do much except hang around. I happened across a social media post where someone had asked a simple, legitimate question to which there was one simple and legitimate answer, but it took several replies before anyone had the decency to give that answer, which was ‘No’, but which, from a helpful human, also came with an explanation, and that was all that was needed. Before then, though, there had come opinions and unhelpful alternatives, several unnecessary pieces of advice, and then more opinions.

Why can’t people just answer the question? Why do some feel the need to denigrate the question, and thus the asker? The question was a very valid one, and was, basically, ‘Is there anywhere to leave luggage on Symi while you enjoy a day trip here?’ It also applies to anyone having to leave accommodation hours before a ferry, where the accommodation can’t accommodate your left luggage, as some can and some can’t. What do you do with your Louis Vuitton sac de voyage, steamer trunk and hat boxes? Okay, so not everyone travels with a husband like mine, but… No, there are no lockups as you find in cities and maybe on larger islands. The person posting this query also mentioned why they were after this service, and sadly, it’s this kind of detail that feeds judgmental commentators. ‘Why do you want to do that? Do this instead. We always do XYZ, and we’ve been there hundreds of times. Why do you have to bring luggage? You’re not going to enjoy doing that on Symi. You should do this instead…’ Atque ita porro usque ad finem temporis. (And so on until the end of time.)
Reminds me of Kevin Costner in ‘JFK’ reading trial transcripts and hissing, ‘Answer the question.’ Luckily, someone did, simply and without judgement or unhelpful helpfulness, and that was that. I scrolled on through other people’s lives and my moment passed.

The second started when I left home and headed down the KS to visit the dentist. By the time I reached our old shop, I was almost out of kalimeris and cheery greetings. In town, I called into the post office to collect a delivery, and as there was a queue, I went to check our PO box while I waited, and was hailed from behind the counter by, ‘Don’t go,’ and a few seconds later, my delivery was handed across the counter. This happens to all and anyone when there’s more than one person on duty there, so I wasn’t pushing in. And off to chat with the dentist and get those two temp fillings made permanent, and complete that massive opus, and off again to catch the bus. On the way, I had to restock the kalimera cupboard while weaving through the daily arrivals, and these greetings were from people I haven’t seen in months. Cheery greetings from taxi boat captains and their wives selling tickets to someone who last used their service in 2019; from a shop I haven’t needed to use since about the same time; a less informal greeting from Sotiris-the-supermarket that, as per, came with a risqué joke; and from young men and women who weren’t born when I landed here, and who are now running their own businesses. That’s when I had the antidote moment to the earlier one, and it put a smile on my face so much that I treated myself to a taxi home.

As the Baker’s Wife sings in ‘Into the Woods’:
Oh, if life were made of moments
Even now and then a bad one—!
But if life were only moments
Then you’d never know you had one.
Well, I had two; one virtual and not so pleasant, and the other, real.

Later came frappe hour in the square, which, as you can see, is currently a place for peaceful moments during siesta hours.

Continuing the theme of morning… Stick your fingers in your ears while I blow my own trumpet.

You never know what you are going to wake up to. Sometimes I wake up to the sound of liveliness in the harbour, if one of the later-night bars is still going at four; sometimes, it’s the sound of a large boat coming or going below, or the sound of the sea lapping at the quayside, because that can be heard from up here when the wind is in the right direction. Occasionally, I hear a ridiculously noisy motorbike passing the house, or the agonising strains of cat courtship nearby. Often, one of my first sights is the vine leaves in the porch, blown in there during the night. Usually, with tea brewed and loins girded, I get straight to work, and the first thing I get to see there are spam emails, bills and bad news.

This morning, though, the first thing I saw was a quote I can splatter all over the place with pride, because it was about me, and it was repeatable. This was in several groups on Facebook, where an erudite reviewer has spent the last several months giving honest and rather brilliant reviews of my Victorian mystery series (plural). All thirty books and two special collections of short stories. This chap is the Curator of Decorative Arts and Chief Curator Emeritus at New Jersey’s largest art institution, so I am inclined to listen to what he says, and what he said this morning, made the thousands of hours writing millions of words over the last ten years more than worth the enjoyable effort. Talking about me (as my penname) he wrote, among many other flattering words: “Marsh’s work is a monument in modern gay literature.”

It may not mean much to you, but to be called a monument is rather flattering, and having read all of his other reviews of my work, this is only one quote I could have pulled from many. So, that has brightened my day no end, and it’s only 04.40 in the morning.

The rest of the day will involve more writing, another trip to the dentist, and picking up a copy of my latest book from the post so it can go on the shelf with the others.

And if you want to know what this fuss is all about, take a look at my other website and/or my Amazon author page, where you can find the entire collection on Kindle, KU and in paperback.

It looks like the festival concerts are a great success, and there are a few more left to go. This week, if you’re on Symi, you can attend the wine festival on Tuesday, with music from the  Giannis Barbaris Band, and on Thursday, there is a concert from Symi’s own young musicians and their band, both being held in the town square. Also happening this week is the traditional feats of St Maria of Nimos, so there will be boats going back and forth to the island throughout that evening and into the night; everyone welcome. [Festival programme here. Scroll down it for English.]

The concerts at the weekend were well attended. The amphitheatre was packed, with the chairs at the back full, and festival goers forming large rings to dance on the main amphitheatre floor. People were still on their way home from a good night out when I got up early on Sunday, and it’s been a while since I’ve heard the harbour still going at that time of day. Both sides were full of boats; there were more lying off in the bay, and come the Sunday Panagia ferry and the end of the weekend getaway, well, I’d say that boat was totally full. Obviously, the church festival on the 15th swelled the numbers greatly, as they did on Tinos and other islands where this festival is particularly marked, and I get the impression that many people will be returning to work today with a sense of, ‘Phew!’

I see the opposite of this during my coffee break in the afternoon. I’ve fallen into my own tradition of heading down to join Neil at Rainbow around 16.00, and to sit there and watch the world go by until five. Only, there isn’t much world going by at that time of day, and sometimes it’s only a couple of us. I remember, when I started work at the bar in 2004, ‘Just for two weeks’, it was in late September, so the afternoons were busier. Over the following 12 years (because two weeks is a long time in Greece), I found July and August to be almost embarrassing; I was basically paid to do nothing because there were few customers during the siesta shift. Everyone was either at the beach or taking a nap, and my only customers were the occasional day-trippers with enough time for a quick snifter, or people on holiday who weren’t beach fans. It seems the afternoons are still the same. The evenings, though? Apparently they have been very busy, and that’s partly due to us now having 12 or 13 places to eat and drink up in the village where a couple of years ago we had fewer. I’ll put up a note about them, maybe tomorrow.

One thing I did do at the weekend was get distracted by a cardboard box. I know. So fickle! I was going for a walk, and dropping off the rubbish on the way, when I noticed a decent box, and thought, Ah ha! I took it home, cut it about a bit, and placed it over the water pump, leaving an airflow for the machine, and then bunged an old towel over it with an even older pillow on top as a muffler, and a couple of rocks to keep it down, and he presto! It made hardly any difference to the noise, but it’s helped a little. It’s only temporary while we wait for a new and hopefully quieter pump to come in before this one breaks down. It should be with us, ahem, ‘within the next two weeks.’ And we know what that might mean. Not to worry; the box has helped in the meantime.

I also had a look at our thermometer, which came from the Chinese emporium a couple of years ago. Convinced it wasn’t capable of rising over 37°, I put it in direct sunlight while I threw some water on the plants. Within five minutes it had climbed to its maximum, 50°, and was still climbing, so I put it back in the shade. Just think, while you’re sunbathing, swimming, or just walking about, you’re walking in temperatures of over 50°, and thinking, ‘It’s only 37,’ when, of course, it’s not. So, bear that in mind the next time you pay €10.00 to oil up and lie down. All I can say is eek!

Meanwhile, as you will see from the photos, Neil has been catching more sunrises in Pedi.