Embroidery Machines and Other News
Let’s start the week with a quick message for people living on Symi. I was asked to let you know that a friend has two of these sewing machines available for free, I think. (See photo.) They are standard-sized machines but are designed for stitching embroidery, such as you see on shirts and aprons. They are Brother PE-150 machines and are available for collection from Nimborio. If you are interested, send me an email, and I will send that on to the person giving them away for you. You can email me at mail@symidream.com
There, that’s that parish announcement done; what else has been going on? It’s been windy and a bit wet over the weekend, which has been both good and bad for the plants. The Greek government has lifted (slightly) some of the lockdown rules, but not by much, and the curfew is now relaxed a smidge, and, I read, some church services can go ahead around Independence Day (25th), and beauty shops can open. There must be a connection. They’re still aiming for mid-May to allow more flights in, but… Well, don’t hold your breath. Some people on the island have now had two jabs, I think the older age group are now being ‘done’ because they couldn’t be before, and the rest of us are still waiting and may be waiting for a long time. There’s lots of speculation around, a lot of hope, some frustration and plenty of ‘Ah well, at least we’re still alive, so let’s do what we can to make the best of it.’
Our house remains in the usual routine of wake, work, walk (more so Neil than me) and write, and I am up to 70,000 words of the first draft of a last in the series book, which, at this rate, is set to be over 130,000 words long before I edit it. I am currently in Brasov (Transylvania) in 1890, London, and Cornwall all at the same time, juggling threads in my head and bashing out between 3,000 and 6,000 words per day. Neil has been out photographing on his walks…
I have set myself a new goal of 20 minutes of exercise per day. Whether it’s a walk around the village, up and down steps, to the monastery and back on good days, or just leaping around the living room to prog-rock like a loon, it doesn’t matter, it must be done, and it all starts today. Hopefully, it will increase over time to, say, 21 minutes. I also have a goal of returning to the desk to write in the afternoons, which I’ve not done for about a year now. Trouble is, I currently have a heavy afternoon schedule in a kitchen, on a desert island and in various places around the world, as we’re well into MasterChef, Survivor and The Amazing Race. It’s easier to return to afternoon working when Neil is back at the bar in the afternoons, and we’re still hopeful this will happen again sometime this year. It will be hard for small bars and businesses, and no-one is too sure which will have survived the winter lockdown, so all fingers are crossed for everyone. We’ll have to wait and see what happens.
Meanwhile, remember, if you are interested in owning an embroidery sewing machine, email me, and I will pass on your message. (I’m just the messenger, so there’s no point asking me anything else about them. They are machines, and they sew; that’s all I know, lol.)
