Saturday

Saturday is usually the day I post several photos, but today I’ve only got one – the view from the balcony first thing this morning. As you can see, it was a grey and cloudy start, though is meant to be clearing later. The temperature is lower than of late, it’s down at 12 this morning (in our courtyard). This week, it has climbed as high as 20, and we’ve done some standing in the sun to catch the rays and the vitamins. On that subject, we’ve also been having our customary half a lemon in hot water first thing, and some extra vitamin C tablets to keep the immune system boosted.

Yesterday at home was a productive day. Neil has spent two days sorting out our DVD collection. We sent it to the mousandra when it became part-obsolete, what with Netflix and other streaming services, but there are some rare gems up there we wanted to bring down. There was also the thought that if the internet becomes difficult to use we could watch DVDs, so we have now sorted them into various piles and stored some in the sitting room and the others in the spare bathroom. That job done, we sat down to watch something we hadn’t seen for a long time only to find the DVD machine is playing up. Doh!

While he was doing that, I prepared a shopping list for our friendly neighbourhood supermarket, writing it out in Greek (and checking it with an online translator), and then sent it off via Messenger. An ‘Ok’ came back immediately, and later in the morning, the shopping wad dropped off on our doorstep. We have a doorbell, so Xan was able to leave the bags, ring the bell and was gone by the time we opened the door and dragged the bags inside. The rest of the day was spent working on a story, watching television and pottering around the house. As for today, well, more of the same with, perhaps, the option to try and fix the DVD machine.

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Thank You!

Here’s a big thank you to everyone who sent birthday wishes yesterday, both via email and via Neil’s Facebook page. (I’m still a bit too jet-lagged to think straight, so haven’t been using FB much as yet). Despite everything, I had a great day with messages and video calls from all over the place. The godboys and mum, just up the road, did a video call complete with happy birthday played on the piano by GS #1 (very proud), jokes, laughter and more than a little madness.

Now, as promised, let me introduce you to some of the plants in the courtyard. For lack of anything else much to show you, I thought we might follow their progress over the net few weeks now and then, to give me some images to add to the blog. As you can see, they’re not at their best after the winter. The cast list comprises:

Sharry-Louise Rose – a gift from the Godboys and their mum, thus it’s named after them.

Heavy Plant Crossing – so-called because it’s in a heavy pot and when bigger, should reach across the wall.

The bougainvillaea, still rather hail-damaged

The stick – which is actually a chilly plant that we had several chillies from last year. It started as a pod from Yianni-Rainbow’s plants and did well once we put it in the shade. It’s now been cut back to regrow bigger this year, hopefully. Still waiting.

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Independence Day

Yesterday was Independence Day in Greece, a day usually marked by church services, parades, marching bands and speeches. Here on Symi, the Town Hall played stirring music and the National Anthem through the town’s speakers so that everyone at home could hear. There was a fly-past of jets in Athens where the President and Prime minister were to attend the tomb of the unknown soldier.

Meanwhile, with a lack of new photos to show you and very few older ones on my new PC, here’s the best I can do. These are views from February.

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Back to work

Here I am back to work after a break. I’m afraid the blog might become rather mundane and more of a weather watch with limited photos – for obvious reasons. I’m not a news site, and I don’t go in for gossip and conjecture, so for the foreseeable future, the posts you see may only be about what we are doing at home which, for me, is mainly writing and, after my break, getting back to my books. Similarly, the images will probably only be of the same view, but I will try and vary them with updates about how our limited plant collection is going in the courtyard. With much writing to catch up on, I’ve decided not to spend so much time looking at Facebook and other social media. Far too much speculation for my comfort, though I’ll still check into the parts of it that I trust for reliable news updates, both international and local. I get my Greek news from http://www.ekathimerini.com/ as it is published in English and thus I can be more accurate in my reading than if I translated the Greek version and my world news from the Guardian. If anyone wants to stay in touch more personally, you can always use the symidream email which is right down at the bottom of this page. The only other thing to add right now is that we’re both fit and well and doing as we are told. Oh, and it’s good to have you back and reading!

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A break from the blog

Hello everyone. I am going to post a few pictures today and then leave the blog alone until the end of March, or start of April; there is a lot to do.

If you use Facebook, you can follow us on the Symi Dream page where we will no doubt put up a few posts of our travels along the way.

The boat is due on Monday afternoon, the first leg of the journey, but before then, I have at least four chapters of a first draft to finish, so the story is out of my head before I set off. Then there’s the packing and list checking, and all those around-the-house things we thought we’d do before we went that still haven’t been done… So, here are some recent shots and here’s us wishing you a happy month for March. I’ll be back online when we return.

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