Village Life

Or a small part of it, and some random photos to go along with a couple of vague thoughts about 2KNO3 + S + 3C → K2S + N2 + 3CO2 = Bang!

Chemists among you will recognise that formula as potassium nitrate + sulphur + carbon in charcoal form → potassium sulphide + nitrogen gas + carbon dioxide, which, when heated in a controlled fashion, results in a lot of ‘Ooh’ and ‘Ah!’ In other words, a firework.* (Colours may vary according to chemicals used, and your investment of €1,000 for two minutes of pleasure can go up as well as down**.)

Things are starting to get explosive around here. Sitting outside the bar the other evening, it was (almost) fun to count the number of times customers rose half an inch from their seats, clutched their pearls and swung their heads angrily towards the square. With schools on holiday and not a great deal for your people to do, the children gather in the square. Usually, this is to kick a football into people’s courtyards, dodge mopeds and let off steam through the ‘Scream-valve’, a technical term. In the lead up to Easter, and for a while afterwards, bangers become the norm, and there was a storm of them that evening. A norm-storm, you might say if you were desperate for a laugh and didn’t mind being disappointed.

I know, some people are very anti-fireworks, some campaign to have the sound taken out of them, though I’ve never seen the point of a silent banger. To me, that’s like watching Kiri Ti Kanawa miming coloratura. Pointless. That would not be her, and it’s just not me. (I don’t own a nervous pet, elderly people or toddlers, so what would I know? And, I would like to make it clear, I was not calling Diva It Kanawa a silent banger, stunning though she is.) The point is, the bangers the youth of Symi prefer come with stone-amplified, Dolby surround sound. A new batch had arrived, enabling some of the more enthusiastic to hone the art of throwing two at once, while others discovered an old sun-shade stand with a concrete base and a handy steel pipe in which to drop the bang, as it were. More were happy to light the things and throw them as they ran for cover with no clue where they might go off. (Clutches pearls. Tuts.)

You get used to it in the end, or at least I did, unless one goes off two feet away as happened the other night. Then I am inclined to cause an outcry. Well, I clutch my pearls and tut, but after sixteen years here, I am beyond shooting out of my seat. The first rumblings of dynamite have also been heard as various important services and celebrations take place during this week. The weekend should, if we’re lucky, bring masses of explosions, more bangers (a lot more), flaming flares and boisterous bells. Can’t wait. The point I think I was trying to make, or rather, the rocket I was trying to launch, is that, if you’re around the island or Greece at this time of year, expect to see a lot of banging much noisy celebration.

*PS, I took that formula info from a website that seemed to know what it was talking about. Don’t blame me if it’s wrong; at least I corrected the American spelling.

**PPS, I can think of other ways of spending €1,000 to make ooh and ah sounds, and it would last a lot longer than two minutes.

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Picking up

I’m talking about the temperature and the number of visitors when I say ‘picking up.’ The chilly north breeze has died down, but the number of boats arriving per day has increased. We now have the Spanos boat from Rhodes, the Sebeco and the Panagia coming in, as well as the inter-island ferries of the Blue Star line. Maybe not every day, and the timetable will alter over this Easter week, but it’s a good start. Remember if you’re heading this way, you might have to arrive at Panormitis, but there is a bus, though not every hour as there is from Yialos, Horio and Pedi, so plan ahead.

I thought I’d drop in a photo of the ravine I was talking about yesterday, though I notice I wasn’t directly over it when I took the snap. That’s because I’d have to stand on the bridge and when I was up there the other day, there were a few cars about, and the bridge is not that wide. I’d also just walked 1.5 miles uphill and fast, and the extra two yards would have done me in. No, not really, but there were cars passing, and I didn’t want to get in the way. Anyhow, you might get a rough idea of where I am talking about from the photos which, if nothing else, show you the blue skies we are now enjoying. They may well soon be filled with Sahara dust as the infamous ‘red rain’ passes over, but for now, I’m enjoying the fresh air and views.

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Great Week Monday

It’s Monday morning, and I’ve not yet opened the shutters, and I can’t hear the wind. I’m heading out for a stroll soon, aiming to be back by 7.30 or eight so I can cut my hair, go shopping and be back in time for a day doing battle with a story I am working on. We have started Great Week here in Greece, and have a long Easter holiday weekend coming up, one week after Western Easter.

At the house, our eldest godson came to do the cleaning on Sunday morning as he has been doing for a couple of years now. It’s all money towards his school trip to Santorini later this year, and if anyone needs a regular cleaner, odd-job chap, painter, whatever, I can heartily recommend him. The class from school have been raising money towards their trip and here on Symi, and elsewhere I dare say, the young people have a positive attitude to fund-raising, encouraged by their teachers. We have been at the taverna in the past when one of the classes has organised an event – others have done this in other cafes and tavernas too. The class arrange the evening, from booking and paying for the singers/musicians, to buying the supplies and then being on duty in the restaurant. Here, they assist in the kitchen or wait at the tables, take the money for the tickets, serve the first free drink and look after you. It’s wonderful to see the tavernas working with the schools and the teenagers working with the tavernas and, most importantly, each other. These events are usually around €10.00 for the ticket which covers the music and your first drink, and then you buy your dinner on top. A kind of fund-raiser dinner and dance like I remember going to back in the old days when my dad was running the local cricket club, only not quite as bawdy and a lot more Greek.

Okay, I’m off for a walk now, so expect more of these rural, green countryside images over the next few days. The island is very green right now, and I must remember to take a bag and fill up on free, organic herbs from the hillside.

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It’s a result

Well, a few results, and all good. I am wittering on about our recent health check-ups here. As you may have read, we went too Euromedica the week before last to have our annual MOT’s done under our AXA policy. The results were ready a couple of days later, and our insurance agent friend called in to pick them up for us. She and her husband came to Symi on Friday for a visit to Panormitis on Saturday, and we met up first on Friday night, where she gave us our large envelopes at the bar.

Yiannis had been away that day, so Neil was there for an 11-hour shift, and we’d stayed behind for a swift one before heading home – but that’s another story. Yiannis had his results from his check-up with him, and the three of us sat and went through them all comparing numbers. He was also able to explain what each one was, although, having been through these things so many times before, we had a good idea. One of the handy things about the blood test results is that they not only show you what your levels are, but what they should be. There’s a lower and a high number to the side of each one, so it kind of reads, ‘This result should show between 78 and 120’ or whatever is appropriate to that test. All of ours were well within limits, my sugar and cholesterol were lower/better than last year, our PSA results are good and low, as are other kinds of fats and acids, the chest X-ray is clear and we’d have the A-okay from the cardiologist at the time when we were wired up to her machine. Of course, if we were unsure about anything, we would take the information to the local GP and seek a professional opinion; we might do that anyway.

I have to admit, I was surprised mine were so good, after the excesses of Christmas which seem to have run on until at least yesterday. I blame the cold weather; it’s not the weather yet for regular walks (I managed three last week), with strong, cold winds, and it’s more like the weather for staying in with ‘one last bar of chocolate before the diet’, a practice which has been running since about last November. Oops. I reckon it’s because we drink so much water – I know, wine is also involved, but even that is counteracted slightly by the three + litres of water we each drink per day even in the winter, and sometimes four or more litres each day in the summer. So, there was good news on the health checks, and that was followed on Saturday but further good news.

I hope I’m not boring you; I know people find these kinds of living-in-Greece details interesting. Our wonderful agent, Tsambika, from AXA, Rhodes, had told me that if I had a second policy with the company, I would receive a discount on my health cover, so we discussed contents insurance. We’ve been thinking about this for the last 16 years, but it’s one of those things that slips your mind, especially when you live in a place with hardly any crime, but it’s still something we ought to have. Long story short: our rented property is 100 square meters (the insurance is worked out according to square meterage whereas in the UK we’re more used to talking about number of bedrooms as the defining factor), and the cover will cost €75.00 for the year. That’s for every kind of cover you would expect apart from loss of cash and jewels, which can be insured too if you have a fixed, secure safe to keep them in. You can also add items over a certain value (which we don’t have, our most expensive thing is the piano, and that doesn’t come up to the limit). The point is, any day now our contents will be properly insured, it’s not going to cost much, and the discount against my main health insurance bill works out around 50% of the cost of the contents insurance. So, finally, peace of mind for my knickknacks and it’s only going to cost €36.00 for the year, in effect.

There you go. That’s the update on that. There will be more news during the week, but a few highlights: the Painting Group are here for their early season stay, the wind has been from the north, and it’s been bloomin’ cold – but it will soon be at least 35 degrees for a few months, there are more day-trippers about now the Panagia Skiadeni has started trips again, and from today we are in Great Week, building up to Orthodox Easter this weekend.

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