A few random photos

That’s all I have for you today, a few random photos as my mind is a more or less a complete blank when it comes to thinking of what I can tell you. Unless you want to know that yesterday I took delivery of a new book, a sociological study of slumming, the 19^th and early 20^th-century practice of the better-off taking tours to the slum areas of London to see how the other half live. Out of interest, to make themselves feel better, to improve knowledge, to inspire charity or to engage in more nefarious activities, there were lots of reason people did it. I now have several research books on my to-be-read pile, though I have already started on this one because it’s background for a current writing project and there’s another book about the East End in 1888 on its way, and I also need to read that one before returning to my current first draft and creating the second. Here’s a random and unrelated photo…

Meanwhile, it’s five in the morning, and the Blue Star has just pulled in. It’s not the most popular time of day for folk to catch a boat on their way to the airport, but it’s the best we have if your flight is Wednesday daytime or early evening, as there are no boats to Rhodes until later in the day, and it is reliable too. And here are a  couple more random photos as I really have run out of things to say today.

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Chugging along

The weather has warmed, cloud is due on Wednesday and Thursday. The boats continue to come in, people have been taking advantage of cheap flights at the last minute, and a couple of the taxi boats are still running to the nearer beaches. I heard the Poseidon is continuing its trips for a couple more weeks, numbers permitting. People are still donating to the appeal to help fund the music school, which will have to close if it can’t raise enough funds. The Oxi Day parades have been cancelled this year.

The cockerels continue to crow from early morning to late at night, the owl sits on the pole outside the sitting room and calls in the early hours, and the mules have been working. There are more cats at our local bins these days, the mosquitoes are back, but so far, no October spider invasion.

Messages are passed – there’s a parcel for you at the book shop, but he couldn’t get you on the phone, visitors welcomed, buildings worked on, diner invitations sent and received, walks planned, swims taken, gossip passed along and embellished. Cars drive down to meet the early morning ferry, fishing boats chug out to sea, the occasional church bell rings, and the same old sun shines in the morning. Life goes on, and the cockerels are still crowing for twenty hours a day.

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Saturday

Had to pop into town on Saturday to pick up a new PC keyboard. I seem to go through one every six months and haven’t yet found the perfect one. The Microsoft one was flat, and I eventually got used to it, but then the keys’ stuck’ and all I was getting on the page was a long line of one letter or spaces. The big old Logitech giant was more heavy-duty with clunky and large keys that got stuck on their mechanism on the way down so not every letter was typed. Now I have a smaller Logitech, and the keys feel smooth and are slightly raised, but it’s a smaller keyboard, so my fingers are fighting over each other, and things aren’t quite in the same place. I play the keyboard like I would play a piano, which doesn’t help (I’ve never learnt to type properly), so my right hand is all over it while my left tends to stay still and only plays the from Tab to R, Ctrl to V. Which all an excuse for any typos you may find.

But hey! At least we were able to have lunch out for the first time in ages and for only about the fifth time this year. Friday lunch ‘down town’ used to be a regular thing, but this year has been different, for various reasons, mainly financial, so we made the most of it at Meraklis before treating ourselves to a taxi back up.

There’s work going on in the harbour, and I mean in the harbour. Concrete slabs are being dropped, planted, placed, sunk, whatever beneath the water for a reason I can only guess at, and this involves floating them out under balloons and then deflating the balloons, so the slabs sink, and a diver goes down with them to… Well, most of that is guesswork. I’ve been told they’re concrete slabs, I only saw the balloons, and I can only assume it’s something to do with making anchoring easier? Whatever the reason, I’m sure it’s for a useful purpose.

Now then, I am one chapter away from finishing a rough first draft, so I’m going to get on with that as I have all day, and one without interruptions apart from godson #1 coming to do the cleaning as that’s his Sunday job and maybe popping out to buy a bottle of milk.

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Friday Photos

Just received this message: “Thanks for the details about the music school in Symi, I’ve just done exactly what you suggested re the cost of a meal for 2 in Symi*, I hope all your other readers do it too. The longed-for calendar has also been ordered, so all is well in my house at the moment.”

Today, the appeal has raised just over £2,000, that’s 10%. Bravo! Here’s the link if you’ve missed it. Help fund the Symi Music School.

* The suggestion was to donate what you’d have spent on a meal in Symi had you been able to come this year, or even if you did.

A few September shots to share for the weekend.

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Yesterday

It’s good to see the Symi music school appeal total has doubled since yesterday. You know, we have between 800 and 1,000 readers visit this blog every day. If everyone donated £10.00, we could raise half the money needed (more or less) between us. Now that would be a wonderful thing. Apparently, there will also be money forthcoming from the authorities, but I’m not sure if that’s on top of the 20k being raised in the appeal.

Perhaps some of the visitors on this ship that came in yesterday might like to help out?

There are other things I could think of doing during a pandemic than holidaying in a confined space, but perhaps the passengers will spend some money on the island while they are here. As you can see from the other photo, there are few other boats at this end of the harbour. On a cheerier note, it was nice to distantly meet a couple the other day who had come to Symi because they found the blog while trying to decide which island to visit. I know the blog is only me chatting about what I do, and sometimes isn’t even that, but it’s good to see it’s still being looked at and has an effect in a small way. I’ll leave you with a kalo mina, wishing you a good month ahead. I can’t believe it’s October already.

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