You know how it all comes at once… Yesterday was one of those days, what with the electricity bill coming in, our new house contract arriving, the rent going up to 63.5% of my pension income (but at least it will be the same for the next two years), and the website registration up for renewal. It is a good job I am what my uncle would have called a wise virgin (because he was always quoting from the Bible as a way of raising a laugh). In other words, I was prepared for all these things.

In other non-news, the physio continues, and here has been some slight improvement, but I might see if I can get an appointment with the chiropractor when I am next in Rhodes, which will be next Monday/Tuesday, as I help the H monster settle into his new room/life as a college student.

I was looking around for a hotel nearby to his new place, and my Booking.com searches kept coming up with silly prices, such as €150 for a night, breakfast not included. When I mentioned this to others, no-one seemed at all surprised, which is a sign of how we all just accept that ‘everything has gone up’, even, it seemed, hotels that are way off the beaten track, and not near the sea, nor in the Old Town, but over at Ag Nikolas. I returned for another search later, only to notice I was trying to find a room for five people and not one. Changed that… €40.00 a night. Much better. This is off Kanadas St, though, and not the New Town where I usually stay, but Kanada’s where I need to be, so that’s something else to do; book a room for Monday night. (And no, I can’t stay with the H monster, because he only has one room and a bathroom (no kitchen), so it’s not big enough.)

Anyway… The sun is up, the hills over the water are briefly pink, the sea is calm, there is some cloud about to make the sky more interesting, and I have things to be doing.

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Here’s a thing. We were invited to a very special birthday party on Friday night, as were about 70 others, by the looks of things. After meeting up at the bar, we went to George & Maria for a meal. Had a lovely time, but I didn’t stay around for long afterwards. Apparently, the party went on until the early hours and was a great success. I heard the fireworks as I was dozing off later, but I missed the cake. My loss.

That was Friday. Saturday was a quitter day, and Sunday was a windy one, but we met up with godson H for lunch at the Trata in Yialos, caught up with news, and made plans for moving to Rhodes next week. (Him, not us.) That, and some mild editing, were the highlights of my weekend, although here was some excitement on Saturday when the mains water was turned on and we could fill up the tank, so we didn’t run out on Sunday. Yay!

As for the rest of the week… Very little planned. Some writing, of course, some piano, and hopefully, some walking in the morning. With the season easing off, things should become quieter up here. Although the day boats continue to come and the visitors are still here in droves, I expect long-stay visitors will become fewer, and evenings quieter, but you never know.

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I have scoured my backup files of photos to produce a gallery of ten, which should see us through the weekend. These were taken at different times over the past few years, as you’ll see. I hope you enjoy them.

We have a couple of special events to attend this weekend. A birthday party at the taverna tonight, which promises to be a fun event, and lunch with the godson on Sunday.

Other than that, I intend to get on with the usual editing and take care of my ache. I can’t remember if I mentioned a hip thing going on, but there’s a hip thing going on, and we’re working it out through physio, rest, and some tablets, and it feels like it is starting to improve. Still very painful to stand or walk for any length of time, but fine when sitting. As that’s what I do most of these days, work isn’t a problem, but anything else is. Still, I managed to fix the leaking water tank, and I can do the washing up standing on one leg. Yay! What fun, but you don’t want to hear about all that.

The ‘hip thing’ reminds me of a scene in ‘Jason and the Sargonauts,’ where the two old theatre ladies are waiting to go to Symi and are on the tour bus, and say something like, ‘Oh, yes, your poor knee.’ The other old bag replies, ‘I also have a hip.’ It’s better to read it in context.

You can read all about it here.

But now, the gallery and the weekend. Have fun!

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Last night, had a brilliant idea of what to write about this morning, and now I’ve forgotten what that was. So, instead, let me tell you this…

Recently, there has been a lot of interest in ‘Symi 85600’. I’ve had emails from people asking where they can find it, or is there a follow-up, and such like, so I thought I’d have a quick chat about it here.

First of all, the blurb reads thus:

Taking that apart, the collection of writings refers to various emails, letters, diaries and other notes I made during the first five years of living here, so the thing starts with us arriving on Symi. There are some extracts from this website, but from its very early days, and those pieces have otherwise gone into the great nowhere where old website pages go. The ‘how to move to a Greek island’ part is still relevant in places, but as it was written over 20 years ago, things have changed and moved on a little.

You can read a sample of Symi 85600 on the Amazon page, and here is the universal link that should take you to your local Amazon store. https://mybook.to/symi85600

Symi 85600 covers our first five naïve years of living here, but there are then three more books which cover the years from 2007 to 2017. These are also articles written for the Symi Visitor, the website, and other places, and the order runs thus: Carry on up the Kali Strata, Village View, Symi Stuff & Nonsense. You can find them all on my Amazon page. https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/James-Collins/author/B005C7HWJI

All are available in Kindle, Paperback and Kindle Unlimited.

And finally, to answer the most popular question on this subject, “What does the 85600 mean?”

It’s the postcode.

Symi 85600

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I woke up slightly late this morning, and the first thing I had to do? Waterworks, obviously. Not mine, the ones on the bathroom roof. Long story, but I had to reattach the mains feed pipe because, late last night, we heard a strange sound coming from the bathroom, and traced it to the water tank, which was, at nine at night, taking in water. However, the join had sprung a small leak, but I wasn’t fiddling around with spanners at that time of night, so we turned it off (the tank was miraculously full), and I have just seen to it. I now know enough about plumbing to confidently wield two adjustable spanners at the same time, and I understand the use of the mysterious white tape, which seems to fix everything. I hope. The mains is due to come back on soon, so I will see if I have fixed the drip. If not, Laki is coming on Saturday to give me a price for some odd jobs, and I’ll ask him to do it properly. Anyway…

The second job of the day is to tell you where you can find my books. This is in response to an email I just had in, which I will reply to in a moment. Basically, the books are over there on the left where it says ‘order online now’, but you can find all of them on Amazon (Kindle, paperback and KU) if you follow this link: James Collins Symi Books.

That’s the Amazon UK author page; you can substitute the .co.uk for .com and find the USA one, and they are also available from other countries’ Amazon stores.

The third job of the day is to remind you about the unique Symi calendar that you can only order from Lulu.com. This link, Symi Dream Calendar will take you there. As the blurb says, The Symi Dream Calendar 2026 This exclusive Symi calendar gives you 12 photos of Symi, an island in the Dodecanese, Greece. Includes views of Yialos, Pedi, Nimborio, Ag. Vasilis, Horio and Panormitis.

We’ve had a fabulously wet couple of days, the plants are thriving, the courtyard is a mess of fallen leaves and some flowers, and will be swept when dry, and Neil is traipsing down to Yialos this morning to get me some tablets and collect something from ACS while I battle on with the next story. The square and village were fairly busy yesterday afternoon and early evening, which is good to see, and there are still several day trip boats coming in every day, so the season’s not done yet.

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