And so begins another seven-day working week. Can’t wait. But first, a big thank you to everyone who sent anniversary wishes last Friday and over the weekend. We had a lovely afternoon at the bar and an evening with friends. As a special treat, Neil didn’t have to go to work at the bar in the evening, which he has been doing at busy times of late. Instead, we had a meal out at George & Maria, followed by, for me, a late night (10 pm).

Talking of busy times, September on Symi is a popular month for northern European visitors, and already, many familiar faces have arrived for their two or more weeks, and as always, it’s good to see them. It’s also good to see and hear regular visitors meeting up while welcoming new visitors and sharing their experiences, thoughts, and their love of the island, hopefully encouraging return visits next year or in the future. What is always a very sociable island becomes even more sociable at this time of year and on into October. The day trip boats continue to arrive, with several each day, and the connections between islands are more than at any other time of the year. Except for today’s Blue Star which had to be cancelled as there’s a shipping ban due to high winds further north, and there’s a strike on Wednesday in protest at a nasty incident in Piraeus last week, but that may not affect the local services (ANES and Dodekanisos). The yellow bus is being repaired so we have the silver one, but the bus is keeping to its schedule, and the train is still running, as are the taxis, the bike and car hire businesses are open, and you can always use Shank’s pony to get around. Shanks being a new business hiring out mules because they are more eco-friendly than cars.

Only joking, sadly, but now is also a good time for walking as the heat is less severe, particularly in the mornings and evenings.

As for me, I have a quiet week planned with my usual writing shifts to see to, and a first draft to turn into a second. Neil continues to use the gym, and dive when he is able, work in the afternoons and sometimes the evenings, while I plan my list of odd jobs around the house. You remember that list of things to do that’s been hanging around for a few years? Well, I will soon start on the first of them; masticing some gaps between the porch roof and lean-to where the rain trickles in. After that, and assuming it’s a success, then there will be flat roof painting, another anti-leak strategy, followed by balcony-varnishing to protect the wood, possibly trap-changing beneath the kitchen sink, but most importantly, fixing the balcony door so we can close it before the weather turns.

But that’s not all to be done this week. I don’t want to open all my presents at once, and will let the to-do list fester while I work my way through it gracefully rather than with the temperament of a bull in a china shop, which is usually how I go about my running repairs, thereby making things worse.

Heigh ho, heigh ho, it’s back to work…

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We arrived on Symi 21 years ago today for a planned year abroad to see how we got on. We’d left Paros the night before on a ferry that arrived and departed 90 minutes before the time stated on the tickets, spent the night ‘sleeping’ on the floor of one of the lounges, lost a sleeping mat to a needier kleptomaniac while watching the sunrise over Kalymnos, wandered around Rhodes with our two rucksacks and one laptop, and taken the hydrofoil over to Symi in the afternoon. We stayed our first week at a property near Lemonitissa (variously and incorrectly pronounced by some as Lemonitsa, Lemonatisa, and even lemonytits), before finding ourselves homeless outside the Rainbow bar one afternoon, and before Anastasia of Olympic Holidays’ fame, and later, Sue, came to the rescue.

Since then, we’ve done all sorts of things, been to all sorts of places, been involved in owning a business, tap dancing, concerts (very occasionally), watching our local godchildren grow up to be fine young men despite our best efforts, getting married, and I have continued my creative shenanigans by writing novels, just as I promised at a promotion interview once when back in the real world. ‘Where do you plan to be in five years?’ (Yawn.) ‘On a Greek island writing books.’ I was, and I still am.

At the time of moving here, I was 39 and Neil was 35 (we arrived on his 35^th birthday), and now look at us. The two old muppets who sit in the theatre box and say things like, ‘What was that show all about?’ ‘I’ll tell you what it was about. It was about 20 minutes too long.’ And now, we’re doing things like this:

Well, he is, and was yesterday, visiting a wreck site with his diving buddies (no photos because it was a training dive), while I continue to tap dance away on my keyboard. This next photo shows the dive boat returning. You may have to squint to see it, it’s that white dot just below the wake of the departing Stavros.

Who knows what will happen during the next 21 years? For now, we’re more than happy to carry on carrying on, and will be carrying on later to celebrate Neil’s birthday despite his present still being somewhere between here and France after two weeks. I am getting on with some editing, while he’s planning to go to the gym. (I know, bonkers.)

I’ll be back next week, but wanted to leave you with this… meme, is it called? Does it need text to be a meme and is it pronounced meme, meem, meam, meemee, me-me, and where on earth did the word come from in the first place? The pair on the left aren’t the same as the pair on the right (me and one of our godsons), but I put it together for International Guncles Day with the caption, It starts like this… and ends up like this. (In a restaurant in Prague, and if you want to know what a guncle is, ask a young person.)

See you next week.

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