Monday morning

Here we are on the other side of Easter with a few photos from the weekend. The weather has been warm. It was 30 degrees the other evening, so we were able to sit with the windows open for the first time in many months. That helps when the dynamite goes off, and the house shakes, as the shockwaves enter via the balcony, shimmy you along the sofa a little and disappear through the open front door. There was plenty of dynamite and, apparently, lots of fireworks on Saturday night. We tried to stay up for it, but being early to bed, early to rise folk, we slept through it. Hard to believe there was any noise at all when you look at the morning view from the same, still open windows.

Neil was busy baking a cake for two days. I was at work on my manuscript (and will be for a while), taking a couple of short walks up steep hills and doing very little else, and woke up late on Tuesday to another quiet morning.

I also had one of those advice emails from some Greek government website that might interest you. From 15 May, the government will allow any tourist to visit the country if they have been vaccinated or can provide a negative coronavirus test. However, restrictions are still in place for the Orthodox Easter on 2 May – travelling to another prefecture is not allowed, and a curfew is in place. From 3 May restaurants will be allowed to seat people outside. Schools will reopen on 10 May.

I’ve not been out yet, and it’s 7.30 on Monday as I write, so I am not sure if Lefteris kafeneion will be open from today, but its chairs and tables were out and being prepared at the weekend, so I assume it will be open later today. Yiannis is still away, so the Rainbow won’t be opening just yet, but Neil’s ready to go back to work as soon as he is needed. We have four ferries operating now at various times, so travel to Rhodes is much easier, although I’m not 100% sure what restrictions are in place for that. I shouldn’t need to go over for another couple of weeks, by when I should know more, but restrictions are being eased, and vaccinations are continuing.

That’s my catchup news this quiet Monday morning, and the rest of my day will be spent working on the manuscript, popping up the hill to collect the remainder of a cake, and probably slobbing on the sofa again ahead of starting the new-season routine on Tuesday.

Happy Easter

It is Easter weekend in Greece, so I shall take Monday off and be back with you on Tuesday. The bangers and dynamite have started, there’s a donkey tied up beneath our front window, and Neil is planning a cake. After Easter, the tavernas and bars that serve food are preparing to open again with several restrictions in place. The Sebeco ferry service has started again, as has the Stavros larger ferry; we continue to have Dodecanese Seaways catamarans and the Blue Star ferries. We’re well supplied for on/off island transport right now, but I am still unsure what restrictions of movement are in place. One week on from my first vaccination, and I am gradually starting to feel ‘normal’ again, the weather’s definitely perking up, and… I can’t think of any other news to leave you with, so here are some of Neil’s recent photos with which to wish you a Happy (Orthodox) Easter.

A Little Stroll

I took a little stroll yesterday morning – just part way up the hill in a head-clearing exercise before I settled down to edit and improve the current MS. It was something of a landmark day as it was the first time I went out in shorts (at six in the morning). Today has started cloudy and windy, but it’s still warm. That kind of weather bodes well for next week when cafes and bars can reopen and people will, I hope, be sitting outside watching the limited world go by. That’s the first sign of ‘getting back to normal’, and let’s hope it continues.

Today, for me, is about editing and improving the MS. In fact, the next three weeks will be taken up with that because I have a deadline and a lot of MS to edit. Hopefully, within that time, I shall also be called back to Rhodes for stage two of my biometric card process, have my second vaccination (date booked), and Neil will have started work (next week, all being well). My informal piano student will have started on his grade one pieces, I will have finished a ten-book series, and started on another. Things seem to be looking up, and there are many reasons to be positive.

Just as an aside. I saw this boat in Akandia harbour on Monday, and here it was following me home yesterday. I’ve not seen a Blue Star cargo ship before. I assume that’s what it is. It was followed later by the usual Blue Star ferry.

Biometric Part Two

As I was saying… We ended up walking about 10 miles around Rhodes new and old town on Monday, and when I left you yesterday, we were reaching the end of the day. The dash to the supermarket to buy a bottle of wine was a necessity after such a long day. We had a couple of hours left after all business was done and before the boat departed, so we grown-ups wanted to sit somewhere peaceful with a paper cup of warm white while the boys met friends and did their own thing. So, where do you go for a picnic in Rhodes Town? Well…

If you know this part of Rhodes, you’ll know there is a small beach beside Akandia harbour where the Blue Star ferries come and go. Walking from Akandia towards town, there used to be a bumpy pavement with trees to dodge, but now, they are building a walkway. This is like the one built at Kolona harbour, where the Dodecanese Seaways boats operate, and that now stretches around the bay to the commercial harbour. This new section will make the suitcase-drag from Akandia much easier. Anyway… we didn’t go to that beach because it’s not easy to get to right now, so we went and sat in a moat.

There are a few ways into the old moat that surrounds the Old Town, and one of them is at Akandia gate. By then, I wasn’t up for walking too far into the moat, so I lowered myself beneath the nearest tree with much ‘Ooh’ and ‘I’ll never get up again,’ and watched young, fit people doing their ‘sesh’ with their personal trainer. The moat is a lovely place to be, either just to sit and rest or to take a walk, especially in spring. You can follow the path around just about the whole walled town. There’s grass, an amphitheatre, places to sit and countryside-like views to admire. Also, it can be a very quiet place, and at times, it’s hard to imagine you are in a town.

So, an hour or so recovery time on the grass, and then some more ‘ooh’ and ‘How do I get up again?’ kind of decisions, and we were back on our feet for the last trudge back to the boat. There, before entering the dock and boarding, we were thoroughly interviewed by a policeman. As with other officials during the day, he assumed Jenine and I were married and wondered why I wasn’t on her tax papers. I showed him mine and my passport, and he seemed very underwhelmed. To get back to Symi at the moment, you need to show you are a resident, hence the tax paper. Neil and I had needed the same thing last year on the way back from Athens just before the lockdown started, and the strict rules are still in place. We thanked him for checking because that’s the kind of thing that’s helped keep the island safe and boarded the boat, where you have to hand in the medical form you get when you buy your tickets. From then on, it was plain sailing all the way back to Symi and home.

The first stage of the biometric application is done, and I am now waiting to be called to go back over and have one finger fingerprinted (shame you can’t fax it in, it would save a long day for a five-minute appointment). After that, it’s a question of waiting and hoping my application is approved, or else I will only be able to live in the country I call home for 90 days out of any 180. With nowhere else to go, that could prove tricky.

Biometric Part One

Well, yesterday was a long but pleasant day out. My first time off the island in 13 months made necessary because of having to change my residency permit from a card to a card (from paper-card to plastic, which is rather un-eco-friendly). Here is part one of the adventure in brief:

Up at 3.10, off to the boat at 4.20, onto boat at 5.00 after showing a form along with the ticket. Off boat at 6.15, walk around Akandia harbour at sunrise, through Rhodes Old Town in relative silence, sit with takeout coffee on Mandraki seafront for an hour or so… Hang about, chat to godboys, eat packed breakfast, hang about it a bit more, walk about a bit more… 10.40 arrive for appointment 20 minute early, wait a bit… get called in to do paperwork.

There was mild confusion over who I was because I was with Jenine and the boys, and so it was assumed I was the father, and it took some time to convince the very pleasant (and rather good fun) officials behind the counter that I wasn’t. Only problem there was that, as I wasn’t the father, I shouldn’t have come in at the same time as the person who wasn’t my wife, but we carried on regardless. I presented a folder stuffed with papers, but they only wanted X, Y and Z, so that was handed over, and I had to go and redo my photographs because the ones I’d had done previously were not on precisely the right paper. I could use them, but others on the same paper had been rejected from Athens, so it was best to get a backup set done, just in case. The appointment took all of ten minutes, two forms to fill out and check, and my cardboard residency card was replaced by a piece of paper while I wait to be called back to be fingerprinted at the police station in a few weeks. That will be stage two of the process.

Afterwards… We had an appointment at the further-Ed college at Akandia at 13:00, so walked back there via the giros shop in Mandraki for some chips to eat on the way. I think we’d walked six miles by now. Godson #2 and I went to the supermarket while eldest godson inspected the college course he is considering. You might have seen on Facebook a photo of us in an actual supermarket (as opposed to a super market). I mean one where you had to queue to get in, and then be given a manky old piece of well-handled cardboard to show you were a customer and pick up a basket that had recently been through the hands of 35 others and then get lost in the crowded aisles. We found the wine section easily enough, paid, and got out quick.

I’ll tell you the rest tomorrow, it’s not very exciting. Not for you, but for me, it was a day out. I am now sunburned, and my legs are stiff because we walked over 10 miles, and I’ve not done that since I was in Vancouver early last year.