Post, cat routine, cold
It is all very calm and peaceful around here, especially on a Tuesday when there are no boats coming and going. The addition of another Blue Star arrival on a Sunday from Athens and Monday back from Rhodes is helping with deliveries and fresh produce. Mind you, I am still waiting for some ordered Christmas items but am hopeful that they will arrive in time. I’ll go and check on Friday, the last day to find the post office open. It’s closed again today as the staff are having a well-earned Christmas party, or so I am told, and, with no boat on a Tuesday, there is no new post for them to sort out. As you can imagine, they are busier at this time of year, though things are never quiet there at any time.

Up at the house the cat has found a new routine which is slightly less food-orientated as before. Now that he is not allowed so much wet food due to his age and heart, he is a little grumpy about the same old same old biscuit routine, but he’s getting used to it. Now, after coming in first thing in the morning when we get up, he has his breakfast and hen heads straight for the bed. If the door is shut he will stand there and shout at it until someone magically and obediently opens it for him and then settle down for a few hours, leaving us in peace to get on with other things. Apart from making the bed.

He only disturbs my morning a few times now and, as I have a heater beside me in the office, he is happy to flop out in front of it when he is bored with using my bed. What he really looks forward to are those times when we hunker down in the sitting room. When the day’s work is done, the chores seen to, the washing away, the meals sorted, the floors swept, we settle down to some TV or a good book. Fire on, shutters closed against the cold, blankets over knees, hat on, and cat on lap, when not sprawled in front of the fire. He’s happy – when he has someone warm to sit on.

Change of subject: if you are on Symi at the moment there is a fund-raising carol singing event at Lefteris’ Kafeneion on Friday evening, around 7.30 or 8pm I think. I’ve not had it confirmed as yet, but it’s down for the 23^rd and last year it started at around eight in the evening. Everyone is welcome to come and join in, or just watch and money raised will be for the orphanage in Rhodes – the same charity as the hotel we stayed at last week was raising money for.

I’m off to do some shopping now, then lunch to see to, a few odd jobs to do and then it’s cat time as we settle down to keep warm in the sitting room. He’s already badgering me to stop what I am doing and pay him more attention…

Symi Dream rankings – odd
I noticed something strange yesterday. A friend of mine had been talking about Google rankings and getting your website noticed and all that kind of stuff that I don’t understand. Apparently, there are so many blogs and sites now that things like Google are getting upset…

You have probably noticed the number of pages out there which seem to be given over to adverts only, with perhaps one line of readable text that’s on topic somewhere in the middle of it all. Well, it’s this kind of thing that have made the big search engines start to look again at how they rank sites on their pages. Apparently, these days it’s best to have over 1,000 words per post, you will rank more highly. And you need to put the title of your post as the Alt text to your photos, or something; use your keywords in the right way, adhere to a set of rules laid down by… I have no idea who, or else you start to fall off the rankings – that is off the first page of Google where no one ever looks.

Well, there’s no way I am going to write over 1,000 words every day on my personal blog, so we’ll just have to fall off page one, which isn’t a problem; most people searching for Symi will find this page and it’s only here to let you, dear reader, know what we’re up to and you’re reading this already so, job done. But I did go and have a look at our stats and see how many visitors we were getting. Was it less than the average 700 per day we have been having over the past however many years? Well, as it turned you there was a surprise. The average is around 700, which is good, but for a week this month, when I was posting about Rhodes and after, we had over 2,000 each day.

I suspect some kind of Google-bot-robot thing, but it doesn’t look like it. A sudden interest was clearly sparked and I have no idea why. What I need to do now is check to see if that spike in visitors to the blog led to any more sales in books, as that’s another reason for this blog. I’ll take a look later. But it’s strange and I have no idea if these sudden new visitors are real or virtual. But, if you’ve fallen here and decided to pop back almost daily to read my ramblings, then welcome… all 1,300 extra of you and I hope you discover Symi through reading us. Oh, and enjoy the pictures; today’s lot were taken yesterday as we headed down town for a walkabout, shopping, post and a beer.

Run up to our Symi Christmas
A weekend of preparation for our Symi Christmas has just taken place at our house. Finding the tree and decorations up in the mousanrda, wrestling with the tree base that’s an imaginative piece of 1950s engineering (we bought the thing only a couple of years ago), getting covered in thin strips of silver plastic, finding half the baubles no longer have thread on them to hang with so substituting with paperclips (a handy tip, that one, just make sure the paperclips are a suitable colour and not too prominent), and then wrapping presents to put under the tree.

Meanwhile, the Symi Christmas Fayre continued, with a ‘German Christmas Market’ theme organised by some of the school teachers and their classes, and others, I am told. The boats came and went, including the new Blue Star run on Sunday morning. (I assume: I am writing this before it arrives but it’s showing on the Live Ships map as just leaving Nisyros and heading to Tilos and is due in here after 10.00.) There are two more sailings to Rhodes before Christmas, the usual Wednesday and Friday, and no talk of strikes that I have heard of yet. The weather has been cool and calm, the sea only slightly ruffled by a breeze and the island seems quiet.

Sotiris supermarket has been stocked up with Christmas items and chocolate, there’s fresh veg in the greengrocers, the ‘American’ supermarket has all you could need, from stuffing to five litre boxes of wine, I’ve been seeing news reports telling everyone when there will be fresh sprouts in what shop, and who is going to be bringing in parsnips. You can keep the parsnips but I’ll try a few sprouts – unlike Neil who is no longer allowed to eat them; not since a Christmas dare half way through lunch that resulted in… well, just don’t feed him any sprouts (messy), it’s all I’ll say and I will leave it at that.

And so, it looks like everything is geared up and ready apart from, in my case, the arrival of a few final gifts that were ordered some time ago and were probably held up in the boat strikes of last week/week before. The post office is closed (I am told) on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, so the last search for deliveries must be made on other days, unless they have come with one of the couriers. Anything else will have to wait to be presented later (or presented if, to give a present, can be pronounced like that – presented, rather than presented… I know what I mean); New Year’s Day is much more of a local celebration day anyway, being the name day of Saint Vasilis.

As for the rest of this week, for me: I keep telling myself I will do some creative writing over this Christmas period, but then I tell myself that having written two books in the last 18 months, taken my scriptwriting course, and mapped out and almost-first-drafted another book, that I can probably afford to take a couple of weeks off and do some reading instead. I call it legitimised laziness; the writing can wait until early next year, meanwhile I’ll try and act like a normal person and do the housework, watch television, read some books, go for a walk, put the clothes away…

For this week, there’s nothing in the diary as yet apart from: Checking for last minute post, buying in the stock of Christmas ‘ale’ (the once-a-year stuff, you know: sherry, port, Baileys, Alka-Seltzer), vegetable peeling on Christmas Eve and a day with the godboys on Christmas day to look forward to – as always. I hope your run up to the festive weekend goes well – if you celebrate it, if not, I still wish you well. I’ll be around this week with my usual odd posts about… ‘whatever!’ and some photos that don’t really go with anything.

Symi Saturday photos
Twas the Saturday before Christmas, when all through the house… There was dusting to do, floors to sweep or swifter, mops to be used, surfaces to be cleaned, a courtyard to sweep, a barbeque to put away, cat litter to be changed, clothes to be washed, beds to be made, decorations to disorganise and a tree to be put up. And so Saturday starts with a list of jobs that have needed doing for a while now. Ah well, there is always Sunday.

I’ll leave you for the week with the news that the Symi post office will be closed on Tuesday and Wednesday, so best get there on other days to collect all my deliveries. I’ll also leave you with a few recent photos from Symi and Rhodes in a collection of Symi Saturday photos. Have a good weekend.

A few photos from yesterday
A lovely, calm, cold day yesterday had me digging out the thermals. I feel warmer already. Mind you, I do have the heater on right next to me, plus three layers of clothing. But, with no wind this morning, it doesn’t feel as cold as yesterday. Not that we should be complaining about the cold, but we do; no central heating, no carpets, the occasional gap at window and door, high roof, stone walls, no insulation… all perfect for summer, but it’s always a shock when the first real cold of the winter kicks in as it has over the last couple of days.

But enough of that! As you can see from today’s few photos, it was a lovely day all the same. There’s a children’s fairground set up in the town square, the children are preparing for Christmas school plays and church events – there was a priest and his group of children and parents rehearsing in Mandeio’s yesterday afternoon when we popped down there for a social hour or two. We were serenaded by a small choir rehearsing their chanting/singing and it was very pleasant.

Remember the Christmas Fayre that’s on at the sports centre this weekend – details in yesterday’s post – I think we are popping down there this afternoon to take a look around with the godboys, so there’s that to look forward to and then a weekend with nothing planned, apart from finding the tree and putting that up and then present wrapping. I think the writing will be on hold for a couple of weeks now and I’m looking forward to the break, not that I’ve done much these past couple of weeks either. It’s a slow wind-down to next weekend and the week off I have promised myself the week after. Hope you enjoy a few photos from yesterday.