Other things and books
Other events had been organised over the Christmas period: Double-feature at the Symi cinema (Mandeio’s cafe), an event for children in the town square with Santa and fairground rides, candyfloss and other fun and games, music from the church PA system, services, individual parties and feasts, and live music in various bars and tavernas. A lot goes on on this small island, it’s just a case of knowing where to look for it.

Today’s photos, by the way, were taken on Wednesday as we ventured out for the first time in days, and there’s one of Thursday’s morning view, to show you your weather update. It’s been raining a bit, which is good for the sterna and the farms, and the outlook is for cloud, wind, and some sunny days over the next couple of weeks, and a return to the colder temperatures we saw before Christmas, around six to nine degrees.

As for gifts received, there are too many to mention but there’s one that necessitated me rushing to Amazon, card in hand, to find a new book: Learn to play the concertina. Neil gave me an Anglo, 20-key concertina to add to my collection of musical instruments I can almost get a note out of. (The home orchestra now consists of a piano, two clarinets (Bb), an alto sax, an oboe, two recorders, a Romanian recorder, a flute (which I still can’t get a note out of despite over 40 years of trying) and the new concertina.) Thing is, I have no idea how to play it except to know that when you want one note you press inwards, when you want another you pull outwards and you never press or pull without pressing at least one button.

I downloaded a Kindle version of a book which has the basic fingering but a) it’s too small to see the details and b) my screen doesn’t stay lit for long enough for me to work out which is my left hand little finger key one – pull, and my right hand fourth finger – push; but it’s a start and I can now play the first few notes of a Christmas carol; ‘Once in Royal D-a-a-vid’s…’ I will have to wait for the book to find out Royal David’s what, and from then on I shall be annoying the neighbours for half an hour each day as I learn to push and pull my way through a selection of tunes for six-year-olds on a daily basis until I have the thing mastered. If anyone has any tips…

And so, it’s back to the writing and ideas for a new book of travel tales, ‘Symi, Stuff and Nonsense’. Meanwhile, I have had feedback from one beta reader of ‘The Saddling’ and am awaiting feedback from the second reader. I’ve already had helpful comments like, ‘I didn’t see the point of this character.’ What?! He’s my favourite and he’s there to show… And all that. But there are comments too, such as, ‘wonderful descriptions of the landscape’ set against ‘I thought the descriptions of the landscape here slowed down the pace; it took nearly one page for this character to cross the bridge.’ So, it will be a case of sifting and considering, re-writing and refusing to rewrite as I go through the fifth draft next month.

And so, with the rain now falling about the house (though it does feel warmer) and the last of the chocolates to get through in time for the diet (falls about laughing), the fridge to de-trifle and the cupboards to restock, I shall move on and consider writing another section for the new book so that I can get that first draft done before I start on draft five of the one before while jotting down notes (in one of my new notebooks) for yet another story to be told. Have a nice day!

In more detail…
With a little more time on my hands today (yesterday), I thought I should go into a bit more detail about a few things we did over the Christmas period. Not all the details however as reading about other people’s over-indulgence can be a bit of a bore so I will leave out some of the more extravagant moments and start with the simple joy of people coming together to have a good old sing.

I put some photos up yesterday showing a few people at the kafeneion and I only have a couple more, but you should get the picture, as it were. This carol singing was arranged in order to raise money for the orphanage in Rhodes – I’ve not heard how much as yet but I hope it will make a difference. The function was due to start at 7.30 and we arrived at 7.45 to find the kafeneion nearly full. A keyboard was set up by one door, with space for the singer (Lena) and the flautist (Dawn) and a guitar (George) with Bob on keyboards. Chairs and tables were arranged around the room, families were there with their children, the mayor was there with his family, and the family who have the kafeneion were all there too, though they gave up their table when another couple arrived a little later. Everyone was accommodated and the singing got underway.

I always find that there’s something a bit worrying about attending one of these things. I am not sure where it comes from but singing in public is not something I have ever really enjoyed. When I was in the church choir in my teens I used to stand by my brother and mime along as I wasn’t too confident about my voice. I only went to get paid. Actually no, I went because if I sang on a Sunday (sometimes twice and sometimes at a wedding on a Saturday – more pennies) I would then have a free one-hour organ lesson from the choirmaster. And please don’t read anything untoward into that. I really was learning to play the church organ -something which is the musical version of driving an articulated lorry in a cab that’s full of all the latest satnavs, gadgets and gizmos: two or more manuals (keyboards) arranged just within your reach, a set of pedals that have you splaying your legs out in both directions, playing on the side of your foot while trying to reach the swell pedal (that’s the large accelerator type thing that makes certain parts of the instrument louder, or quieter), setting up the stops on either side like a computer bank and then having to get your thumbs on your combinations while pulling on your principal and wresting with your rankette, dealing with your 8′ diapason, turning pages and all the time trying not to let your fingers off the keys because, once you do, the sound will stop; there’s no sustain pedal on an organ. Well, there wouldn’t be room for one.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. The music started and singing began. After a few glasses of wine the voice becomes so much more flexible, and a little louder. Mind you, I find that carols are always in the wrong key for me. I can start my Ding Dong Merrily quite happily on middle G and get through the first two lines but then it suddenly Glory-Alleluias somewhere in an as yet unexplored register where it’s probably best not to go. So I drop down an octave, which is fine until we come to start on the next verse and I am all over the place. I started singing in a West Country accent just to take the edge off it. I was sitting close to a microphone but apparently no one else noticed; only Neil beside me who was also singing a long ‘Al-dente’, or do I mean ‘Con fuoco’? Whatever, we all sang our way through several carols and Christmas songs, following the handy lyric sheet.

After about 45 minutes of this, during which Jean passed around the collection box for the orphanage, Lefteris and his assistants delivered the drinks and some mezethes, it was the turn of George-the-younger to entertain. I say ‘the younger’ to differentiate him between George the other guitarist who had been playing along with the carols. George-TY took up the singer’s chair, put on his head mic and started on a round of rousing and sometimes angry-sounding songs (in Greek) some of which he had written himself. He added in some witty asides and comedy moments (in English). He’s only about 16 or 17. Amazing talent – from everyone (including the floor show/dancing), much fun was had by all and, as I said, I hope much money was raised. That was the night before the night before Christmas and was a great way to spend a couple of hours and a few quid in the local kafeneion while bringing the community together and raising money for charity. It all happens here on Symi.

And here we are again
…emerging from the Christmas festivities on a cloudy Wednesday morning. At least I think it is cloudy. I haven’t had the shutters open all week and haven’t been outside for a couple of days, but when I glanced out of the front door a few moments ago it looked cloudy. Actually, I’ll just go and have a quick look…

Not too bad, and certainly warmer than of late. Maybe I will open the shutters later and look out onto the world again.

It’s been a great time but I’ve hardly taken any photos. There are a couple here today from the carol singing last week. That was a lovely evening. We went to Lefteris’ Kafeneion where Dawn had arranged music and singing – and lyric sheets for all. There were between 40 and 50 people inside the kafeneion, a mix of nationalities.

There was music and singing supplied by some very talented people and plenty of good cheer and humour. After the selection of traditional carols and a few Christmas songs, young George took the microphone and entertained us all with some Greek numbers and some of his own, plus some cabaret in his own style.

I took a few photos, but an underwater camera in a candlelit café at night doesn’t give the best results, so I’ll put a few here (that you may have seen on Facebook already) and leave you with them. My blogging brain is still not in gear, so maybe tomorrow I’ll find something more interesting to say. This is just to let you now that we’re back and I’m trying to get back into the routine. I won’t stay long, there’s a lot of clearing up to do and shopping to sort out, the house to tidy – again, this seems to be a regular thing at this time of year: sort the sitting room out again after an afternoon and evening of sofa surfing and DVD watching… And on towards the run-up to New Year.

I hope you had a good Christmas and welcome back to the real world.

Merry Christmas from Symi Dream
I looked to see if I had a post from last year, for this date, but didn’t see one. I must have started the Christmas time-off early, or perhaps it was due to an over excess of fun at the Christmas quiz the night before. Who knows? I will be taking a Christmas break after today, and will probably be back to the blog on Tuesday or Wednesday, so don’t panic if we’re not here for a while.

Yesterday, having not been out of the house for a few days, I took a few homely shots to fill the page for you. The cat asleep, the tree, the view from the roof – there’s so much air out there! We’re planning on going out later this morning though, some shopping to do and so on, and then a dinner in the evening and some carols in the square afterwards.

Apart from that, there’s not much news from up here, so I’ll just post this quick blog and the photos and leave you with a Merry Christmas from Symi Dream, and with all our readers a great time if you are celebrating it, and a great time if you are not. Thank you for following the blog this far. Although it becomes increasingly more difficult through the winter to find things to talk about every day, I will attempt to keep the almost daily posts coming for the foreseeable future. Remember you can always keep up to date on Adriana’s twice-per-week blog at http://adrianas-symi.blogspot.gr/ and find out more about Symi plants and wildlife at http://symifloraandfauna.jigsy.com/

If you want to give yourself or anyone (friends, family, total strangers) a New Year’s gift then it’s not too late to find Neil’s Symi and Greek Cats calendars online at Lulu.com at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/neilgosling And, if you want to stock up on some Greek, fun and chilling reading, then you can find my Amazon author’s profile here: Amazon/JamesCollins. Just make sure you then find the books from the Amazon in your country so they arrive more quickly.

That’s it for the Christmas weekend – have a happy time and remember, if you are going out for a party and driving afterwards, don’t forget to take the car.

Merry Christmas from Symi Dream!

Symi Christmas
I had a look back to see what we were doing this day last year in the run up to our Symi Christmas and things didn’t look that much different: Quiet harbour and news about boats and busses, but also, I noticed, I reported that it was warm and we were: “…in the ‘Halcyon’ days, as someone pointed out to me the other day; the period of a week either side of the winter solstice (from today the days start growing longer as we head towards summer).” It’s not that warm here today (Wednesday as I write) but days are still ‘Halcyon’ in the “A very happy and successful period” meaning of the word.

I also noticed that we had attended our first Christmas party, that we were all hoping for rain as there had been a shortage of downpours – the same as this year – and we were planning to attend a Christmas quiz night. I remember that! (Surprisingly.) It was a good evening. Tonight we are planning nothing but films and reading and staying warm inside the house. We are planning to go out for dinner on Friday night though, at Georgio’s, followed by some Christmas carols and fun fund-raising for the Rhodes orphanage afterwards, or before, depending on what time we go to eat. We were also planning for a Boxing Day party at our house. We are not having one this year. It’s always a good idea at the time but when you wake up late on Boxing Day morning with a slight thump to the head and remember that you have 30 guests arriving in two hours, it’s not such a good idea. We will, I expect, invite smaller groups of people for post-Christmas get togethers during next week instead.

This will be our 15^th Christmas on Symi. The first was spent with Jean and Sue at Jean’s house in the afternoon; we spent one with Marj and Brian at their house – that was when we had the notorious incident of the Brussels sprouts and learned not to feed them to Neil; and the others have been spent with Jenine and the godboys, a day we look forward to all year round and start planning usually on December 26^th, if not earlier.

The tree is up, I’d take a photo but it’s the same as last year. When Neil went into hospital on January 3^rd 2008, after breaking his heel on January 1^st early in the morning, I dashed home to arrange a few things before heading back to Rhodes the next day. This was on January 4^th and I was aware that I had to take the decorations down before Epiphany. I rushed around doing things. Lefteris ‘the truck’ had given me a lift up, Miss DJ has made my dinner, but I was still short of time as I came in late afternoon and the boat back was early morning – those were the days of the hydrofoil. The tree was still up and decorated so I just lifted it up and dropped it in the mousandra. Twelve months later I lifted it down again, fully dressed (the tree and me), and that tradition went on for a few years. I got out of the habit a couple of years ago and now we re-dress the tree every year. Still with the same decorations and lights, so I might as well just store it ‘as is’ and leave it at that.

We’re planning to head down to Yialos for the last minute post and presents on Friday and that’s when our Symi Christmas will really start – the last working day for a whole ten days! We will probably have our Symi Dream staff party while there which will be a giros and a beer, possibly at Pacho’s (the giros shop delivers and Yiannis and George don’t mind) but that will depend on the weather and chicken giros availability.

I wonder what I will make of this post if I look back on it in a year’s time?