Monday morning ramble
Having decided not to succumb to the fate of many, I did not waste my Sunday morning on Facebook, pottering around looking at photos of other people’s animals doing daft things with each other, or watching videos of people getting hurt as they try and do really stupid things. I did not spend more than five minutes reading other people’s ill-informed views on refugees, Great Britain, and Europe. I didn’t even have a good laugh looking at some of the dreadful things the potential next American president has to say; I did not say ‘Amen’ and save a child’s life, I refused to ‘share and get good luck for the next seven years,’ or even make a comment and see what happened to the picture. All of that kind of rubbish went out of the window in favour of my own kind of rubbish. This Monday morning blog which is, as usual, written on a Sunday.

Instead of doing any of that time-wasting nonsense I got together this post for today, did some work on the Donkeys, if you see what I mean and then set about housework. The day started off sunny enough, but soon clouded over. I say ‘the day’ it’s actually still only 8.30 in the morning as I write this so anything could happen, weather-wise. I also pointed off some information about a short course I have applied to do. Although I’d really like to do an MA in English Literature by distance learning over the next two years, I can’t afford it. The lowest cost course I can find is still over €5,000 per year as, naturally, these things don’t come cheap. So instead, I have signed up for a short course for interest’s sake and it’s on scriptwriting. I should hear this week if everything is okay and if/when I can get started. Once started it much be completed within five months. And I am able to afford to pay for this (much cheaper) course thanks to Mozart. I won’t go into detail here but next time you see me you can ask me, if you’re really that interested.

Studying might make afternoons at The Rainbow Bar more of a luxury than a daily occurrence for the next few months then, depending on how much work is involved. We stopped for our first one of the season there on Saturday evening after shopping. Actually, it wasn’t that we stopped there it was more that we were stopped there – is that the difference between an active and a passive verb in English? Yiannis whistled us back and indicated to sit for a glass, on him, and of course you can’t argue with the boss. He’s back there open every day now after his winter wind-down and it’s expected that Neil will start work again in a month or so. How soon the time flies.

And time is flying as I am rambling on, so I’m now heading off into Hooverland to run the old ‘James’ (the vacuum cleaner, not me) around the floors, put the washing out, put the washing away, ‘take away the sardines while leaving the receiver’* and do all that kind of jazz, while Neil sees to the courtyard and starts repotting things. Here’s wishing you a good Monday and week ahead.

*Noises Off

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Friday morning jobs done, weekend ahead
A fairly successful Friday morning has been completed. It started with an email from my old local authority in the UK saying I am now successfully registered to vote for the up-coming referendum and can apply for a postal or proxy vote. I’ve already sent back the application for a postal vote. Then I was able to get some work done and finished another chapter of ‘Shocking the Donkeys’ (first draft form of course). And while that was going on, the artist designing the image for the next novel, ‘Remotely’, sent in his latest draft which contained all the element’s we’d discussed and looks good. I’m looking forward to seeing the next stage, the colour version.

We had some rain overnight on Thursday but luckily it didn’t start until after the Tsiknopempti celebrations had ended. This was ‘meat eating Thursday’ which goes by many other interpretations. There was a barbeque in the village square with live music and recorded music, children in costumes, and free food. There might have been another similar event taking places in Yialos, but we were at home enjoying the bass line of such Greek classics as ‘Reet Petite’ and ‘La Bamba’ until just after nine.

There was some more rain on Friday morning, rather, there was a hail storm of biblical proportions but short story length. Neil had just gone out to go and buy some plant pots and had to shelter around the ex Kali Strata bar area; shame it’s not still open. Not that it was ever open in the winter months, nor did it have any shelter, but you know what I mean. And now, writing on Friday, another weekend is upon us with all chores taken care of and all writing targets met. I’m waiting to see what the weather holds in store before planning any walks or trips out and the only thing on my list of things to do is some more writing on one of the many ideas that are floating around at the moment.

And so, with that, I will wish you a happy and safe weekend as I head off into the kitchen to prepare lunch, an event which may well be followed by some more Netflix programmes, followed by another Donkey chapter. Only 11 more to go before I reach the end of draft one, and I wanted to have that ready for early June, so it looks like I am getting ahead of my schedule which is never a bad thing. Have fun!

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The sounds of morning
Standing on the balcony on a Thursday morning, looking down over Symi harbour, I paid attention to the sounds that you can hear from this side of the village. Why? Well, I’d been out for an early walk up the hill – from Syllogos Square, to Kampos, up through Leoni to Agia Triada and then down through the village and back to home. The first such early walk since last year due to cold and weather.

The sun was still behind the hills as I left at around 6.40 but there were signs of life in the village. Nikitas had already opened his peripteron and Lefteris was already at work at the kafeneion, despite the fact that the sun was not yet up. The bakers had their wood oven open and there was the aniseed-tinted smell of baking in the air. A couple of soldiers in uniform passed me on their mopeds as they set off for work up at the barracks, and the rubbish collection teams were already out and about on the roads.

The usual sounds of the morning greet you at this time of day: the cockerels sounding off, chickens fussing about something vital to survival behind ruin walls, the early birds out looking for worms, and the distant sounds of a motorbike struggling up a hill, or the quiet rumble of one coming down with no engine yet switched on, a common trick around here to save fuel. The road was pretty deserted, only a few army guys and farmers passed in cars and trucks and, by the time I reached the top road to Periotisa, the sun was only just starting to drag itself up over the hilltop.

Later, on the balcony, I was treated to the sight of a flat calm sea and some activity down below. The sound of the navy ship as it started up and prepared to leave port, signalling its leaving with three solid blasts on its claxon. The coastguard launch starting up, churning the flat harbour water into ripples of lighter blue and white, and then speeding off into the bay and beyond where another navy boat could be seen far out; possibly one of the NATO patrols now in the Aegean. And for other sounds: a neighbour’s water pump whizzing into life, a tell-tale sign that someone was doing the washing, or in the shower. The sound of the school below and away to my right, with a bell ringing, soon followed by the sound of teenagers at play in the playground. A hawk of some sort wheeling about over it all, set against the distant white clouds that are the remains of a rainstorm from the night before, and the cats, somewhere nearby, in heated debate over territory rights or food.

And behind all that, a peaceful calm, the sun starting to warm the green hillside where weeds and herbs are now flourishing after only a little winter rain. The calm sea in shades of blue reflecting the sky, and the glare of the low sun on white-painted buildings across the harbour where only a few people were out and about, coming to and fro from work. All very calming and pleasant. My coffee break on the balcony came to its end and it was time to head back to the desk to try and write. The cat was in the courtyard finding the morning snooze spot, the washing was able to go outside in the sun, having spent a day and a night sheltering from the rain, and one hundred and one small jobs needed attending to around the house; tidying up, putting things away, airing the rooms with open windows and doors… and so back to work.

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From boats to book reviews
You will be pleased to hear that the wind did die down and the boats were able to come and go. In fact we had two on Wednesday, the Blue Star and the Dodekanisos. I noticed that the Symi Visitor Travel Blog has details about the now published timetables for the ferries; Blue Star up until the end of August and Dodekanisos Seaways for the summer. This is going to be of great use to everyone planning a holiday in Symi this year.

By the way, if you are thinking of a holiday in Greece this year, don’t be put off booking now. We’ve been hearing of some islands expecting a massive drop in tourism this year, those who are at the frontline of the refugee situation. I’ve not heard that about Symi or Rhodes, however. Mind you, I am sure that most, if not all, of my blog readers would not be put off their plans by what they might see on television, or read in the papers. Those islands, more than some, need support.

Anyway, back to Symi and your possible holiday. Here are a couple of books you might like to get hold of before you come. Actually one is a map and it’s good for walkers, being the most like an OS map that you might find. It’s Symi Terrain Maps, one of the Terrain Editions and is well worth ordering in advance so you can look at the terrain and plan your walks. (I love looking at maps. I could sit and read an atlas for hours; which reminds me, I must get an Atlas.)

Another idea for a pre-holiday book would be a guide book, and if you are planning time on Rhodes as well as Symi, then you might find The Rough Guide to the Greek Islands, by Nick Edwards, useful. There are loads of other guide books out there as well of course and you can pick up maps and guide books locally when you arrive. And now we do a quick segue into Amazon reviews via a lilac, plastic loofah found on the shore en route to St Nicks.

These are vital if an author is to sell more books on Amazon. (Reviews, I mean, not plastic loofahs.) The more positive reviews a book gets, the more chance there is of Amazon promoting it. As I understand it, you don’t have to have bought the book from Amazon in order to put up a review (you may need to register), and it’s a quick and easy process and so helpful to the author. (That ‘so’ was meant to be read as ‘sooooooo.’) What’s also good about the set-up is that books that receive more than average bad reviews get reviewed (there’s a revue to be made out of this one day); someone at Amazon looks at them and, if they really are not up to scratch (and the bad reviews were not a vendetta), then they withdraw the book until the publisher can put things right. So, your reviews help us authors sell more books and help protect us readers from badly produced books. And behind this paragraph is the broad hint that if you have one of mine on your shelf – more, if you have one and I’ve signed it – see if you can head to Amazon, search for it and put up a review (if you haven’t already). Thank you!

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Symi Spring
I don’t know very much about them, but today we’ve got some photos of Symi flowers, and Symi spring, as that’s what season we are being blown into at the moment. It’s still very windy out there, five to six on the Beaufort Scale, the sites tell me. It feels a bit stronger than that at times, but it’s coming from the south so it’s not cold. Anyway…

Back to the flowers that bloom in the spring (tra-la!). Did you know that the season Spring comes from the verb, to spring? Pretty obvious really (plants leaping joyously from the earth, rabbits leaping joyously onto each other, that kind of thing). But did you know where we get the word, the verb, to spring from? There are a few explanations knocking around and it’s interesting to see from these how some words appear in different cultures, written in different alphabets, and spoken in different languages, and yet are remarkably similar. No doubt due to migration and trade routes or something. For example, Spring comes from the Old English Springan, which comes from the Photo-Germanic word Sprengan. Meanwhile, we’ve got the Old Frisian Springa, the Middle Dutch Springhen, Old Saxon and Old High German Springan, Sanskrit gets a look in with Sprhayati and let’s not forget Greece (unlike the rest of Europe) and add in Sperkhasthai.

Sorry to have sprungen that little word investigation on you; I find this kind of thing interesting. It’s also fun. I mean, I’d never heard of Photo-Germanic before. I first thought it had something to do with Helmut Newton or a group of Berliners taking a selfie. And as for Old Frisian, I immediately thought of a wrinkled old cow. (You can picture your own; I take no responsibility for who you consider a wrinkly old cow.) The image of an Old High German hardly bears thinking bout. No offence; the Old Saxon was pretty rough too. It’s also interesting to note how the Dutch add at least one unnecessary h to things so as to get a good hoik-up going, how those writing in Sanskrit used Latin letters (they didn’t), and how the Greeks manage to slip in a tongue-twisting three or four extra syllables, presumably to make sure everyone else runs out of things to say before they get to the end of the word.

But back to the flowers… Like I said, I have no idea what these are called, though I can guess at some. Poppy, is pretty obvious. But if you want to know more about the Symi flora and fauna you should head over to Lyndon’s informative and colourful blog/site which is dedicated to the subject. I’m away to batten down hatches, sweep up leaves, feed cats and do other day-to-day things, and will aim to see you tomorrow when we’ll discover if the wind ever died down.

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