Changing weather and websites
I was standing on the balcony yesterday, watching the Blue Star come in and go, closely followed by the Dodcanisos coming in and going out, and there was a definite smell of spring in the air. Usually in February we are bemoaning the cold and damp, the dark days and darker nights, but this year things feel different. Perhaps winter will return but, at the moment, people are out and about enjoying an early spring. Some businesses were already preparing for the summer when we down in Yialos on Tuesday, and we even took advantage of the sun for a quick drink on the way home at lunchtime, sitting outside the kafeneion for an hour. The first time we’ve done that this year so far.

Perhaps the climate is changing, as predicted. Something else that seems to be changing this year are financial websites. I went to my PayPal account the other day to covert some money that was in there from one currency to another and could I find the facility? Could I buffalo. (As Julie Walters once said in a Victoria Wood Sketch.) They’ve changed their site look and it’s now all clean and fancy and much more up to date. But a right old pain to use. I also had to look for an invoice that someone had sent me for some extra postage needed on my orthopaedic office chair that I ordered a few weeks ago. I went to see where this invoice was and couldn’t find that either. I wrote to PayPal about their new look and asked for assistance… And never heard back. Their help department online was not much good either, as all their instructions seemed to relate to the old look site, which I had mastered and which was much easier to use. I found what I wanted in the end by trial and error.

Then I went to check something in my Alpha Bank account online only to find that they have also changed the way they look. Not only that but the site now no longer seems to remember your access details so I have to punch them in every time. Once inside, things were in a different place and also hard to track down. What is it with sites this year? It’s very annoying not to have instructions with these new looks, though there are probably forums and other places where answers can be found, if I have time to look around.

But, as you can see, Symi Dream, is still the same as it has been for a while and I have no intentions of changing things here.

In other news, and relating to the film, The Thirteenth, The Judas Curse as was, based on The Judas Inheritance novel of mine (click link for your copy) which is based on Symi, even though Symi is not mentioned by name: The film is still in the post-production stage but now the music is nearly finalised. I have heard it and seen some of it set against the basic visuals, and it looks good and sounds great. While that is being tweaked, the guys are also working on the other sound, the ‘Foley’ and soundtrack generally, improving the voice recordings and making them suitable for all kinds of sound set-ups. And while that is going on, the colour grader is also adding the colour and cinematic overlays of grain and filters. I’ve seen a couple of images, stills, from this process and though the film looked good before it is starting to look even belter now. And the colour grading also includes making the file suitable for letterbox format and others; so a bit of work for that person to do still lies ahead.

I have suggested another Kickstarter update be released and I hope it will be, maybe even with a couple of shots so the original investors can see what’s happening. If you are a backer you will know when you have an update as it should come in in your email. (If you have changed email addresses, please let 1066 know – you can always let me know and I will pass your message on.) Along with that, other members of the post-production team are working on the end credits, another stage to complete before the film is finalised. After that comes the legal stuff and the hunt for a distributer, so there’s a long way to go still before we see Symi in film anywhere online or elsewhere. It’s a case of sticking with it.

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Quick Tuesday note
Yesterday’s post containing a little grammar lesson seems to have gone down quite well with readers, so I shall post more of those in the future, when I can’t think of anything else to write. The nest ‘lesson’ will be about the appropriate use of the comma. Can’t wait.

Went down to Yialos yesterday and had one of those days that doesn’t go according to plan. It was like summer down there, and up here to a certain extent. It was more than possible to walk around in just a T-shirt (and trousers) and everyone was saying ‘kalokairi einai!’ (It’s summer) and it sure felt like it. There were only mundane things to take care of yesterday, like the banks and post office, before heading home to finish decorating Neil’s office room, something which ended up being postponed until today or tomorrow due to the TV scheduling on Netflix and sheer laziness on my part.

Today is a day for catching up on work amid the smell of paint and the mess of a displaced room, followed by an evening out at Georgio’s, if all goes according to plan. And that’s about all I have to tell you on this Wednesday morning with clear skies and calm seas. The photos today were taken yesterday while out an about in Yialos; you can see how summerlike it was.

If you’ve ever been to Symi (or elsewhere in Greece) and seen these yellow stickers on doors (see below) and wondered what they are… They are left behind by the electricity meter reader on his rounds. If he doesn’t find anyone at home when he calls to read the meter, he leaves one of these on your door; they can be very hard to remove. I’m pleased to say we’ve never had to try and get one off, I make a note in my diary of when then visit is due (it tells you on your bill) and then just leave the courtyard gate open for him on that morning as our meter is in the courtyard. Just thought you’d be interested. Have a good day.

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The basics of English grammar
Yes, a quick grammar lesson today, the start of a new series of occasional posts about the usage and abusage of the English language. Well, this is a writer’s blog as much as a blog about living on Symi, and you may find it interesting and useful. (And there are some nice photos of Symi.)

I recently bought myself a copy of ‘The Elements of Style’ by Strunk and White. You may know if it, it’s an English grammar and usage book that every writer should have a copy of. Even if you are not a writer, it is interesting and goes a long way to helping folk like me know where to put a comma or a semicolon, and all that stuff. Here are a few examples, ‘translated’ by me and interspersed with some local photos apropos nothing other than keeping you in the image-loop with Symi. By the way, I don’t say that just because I have this book means I have yet stashed all the rules under my belt. I am still working on it. (Maybe that should have been a semicolon there not a full stop…?) And of course, most of the folk reading this will know these things, but you might like to pass this post on to others who you feel could do with a bit of a brush-up.

Lesson one – and a lot of Facebook and forum readers could do with paying attention here.
Possessive: adding the apostrophe to make something belong to someone. Here’s a simple example:

The book belongs to Ben; therefore, it is Ben’s book. (See what I did there? Ben’s = belongs to.) Not, The book belongs to Bens as that would be plural, many Bens, and you would need to add ‘the’ before Bens to make any sense of it at all.

So what if the name or noun (thing) ends in an s, as in Collins? Well, according to my new book we should all write Collins’s, though there are exceptions with names ending in -is and -es. So I could write, James’ book but should write Collins’s book. I must admit it, I usually don’t bother with that and would write. Collins’ without the extras s, that’s either laziness or a more modern exception than when the book was first written (1950s I think, though mine is the 4^th Edition, 2000).

However, if the word simply doesn’t sound right, the book examples “Moses’ laws”, the book suggests that you restructure the sentence and write, the laws of Moses, which does sound a lot better on the ear. And there are other exceptions, such as, For conscience’ sake – again it would not sound correct to write or say, ‘For conscience’s sake.’ But as many people on Facebook at al don’t seem to have a grammar conscience it’s unlikely they will bother with that one.

A quick look at pronoun rules. (Pronouns replace nouns (things/names etc.) such as I, you, she, it, his. Pronominal possessives have no apostrophe even though they are possessive. Say what? Well, that simply means that Hers, Its, Theirs, Yours, are not written Her’s, It‘s, Their’s and Your’s; how silly would that be? Not very silly according to millions of people who should know the difference between its and it’s, another very common error when digging around your contractions and pronominals.

And what that means, basically, is that when you write Its, the thing you are talking about, though possessive, has no apostrophe: “Symi is warm in the summer, its summer months are hot.”

As opposed to it’s which is a contraction (shortened version) of the verb it is.
This is clearly wrong: “Symi is warm in the summer, it is summer months are hot.” Which makes no sense when you read it like that. So, if you are unsure if it’s its or it’s, simply say the sentence out loud in full (uncontracted) and you should hear which is correct. “It is summer in July.” Yup, can’t fault that. “Its summer in July.” Suggests that there is more to come as we are talking about something’s summer: “Symi is warm, its summer in July is hot.” Correct, ten out of ten!

“When visiting Symi, it’s a clever man who takes advantage of its summer.”

That’s page one of the book, and now you know all about possessives. In days to come I’ll knock out some other simple grammar rules so you no longer have to suffer the indignity of being pulled over by the grammar police on social media and other places. (I just hope I’ve not made any typos here. I am sure if I have, someone will let me know.)

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Monday morning and it’s a bit rough and windy out there, but not that cold. The news of the weekend is that Jack came home so we have had our 6.00 a.m. alarm calls reinstated. No idea where he’s been or what he was doing but he looked fine and was in fine voice when we saw him in front of the house on Saturday. I now have to go back to sleeping with earplugs in.

Here are some shots from Friday/Saturday. Firstly, continuing our theme of things in trees, here’s a kitten in a vine.

As you can see, down in Yialos the Fish market is being painted up in its usual green. You do see some fishermen here selling their catches on the stone slabs. You also see them around the edge of the harbour with their polystyrene boxes of ice and fish, swiping away the wasps, as they sit with their weighing scales

waiting for customers.

There’s a flock of pigeons down in the harbour as well. From up here in the village you can often see them sweep across the sea, low down, as if they were someone’s flock of racing birds set free for daily exercise. They were feeding on some grains thrown down for them by the supermarket guys when we passed.

And here’s a shot of Harani, the island’s boat yard (one of them). As you can see, we had those kinds of clouds that look like they belong behind a galleon sailing through high seas in a painting-by-numbers kit; shades of grey and blue, heavy but not dark. It pretty much looks like this on Monday morning as well. Looking down below I can see the surface of the sea being blown along, not only in ripples but also in spray.

And then, finally before I get on with Monday, a cat with all the mod cons. It’s easy to take a snooze when you can rest assured that everything is in its place: the air-con, the sunshine and, most importantly, the Catellite TV. Have a good week.

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Saturday Symi Photos
We’ve not had a set of photos for a while so here are some that Neil took on a walk around the village the other day. Now then, there’s a problem with our photo presentation plug-in, inside the WordPress set-up, that means you can’t, at the moment, open these and run a slideshow. I’m not sure why this has happened by we’re looking into it. The images you see here are resized anyway so they don’t get any bigger, but you’ll have to bear with us while we try and arrange for normal service to be resumed. Meanwhile, enjoy the browse down.

News of the various writing projects I’m tinkering with: I am now half way through a rough draft of ‘Shocking the Donkeys’, the comedy/drama about Greece’s first gay civil partnership (made up) that is actually a screenplay. I am turning that script into a book, and it’s an interesting exercise. It’s not going to be a standard novel, in fact, there should be nothing standard about a novel, else it would not be novel, the adjective that gives its name to the noun. For a novel to be a novel it needs to be novel. This one is. Not in story construction – it’s a classic four act film progression, but in the way the story is told as a book. So far it’s all rather fast, with brief scenes cutting from one place to another. That would look fine on screen, but how it will read when I have re-drafted it later remains to be seen.

I intend to do the final draft of this in early June when I should be on Tilos again for a week, the same as last year. There, away from the distractions of home, I was able to bash out quite a few thousand words of ‘Straight Swap’ so this year I hope to have the second draft of ‘Donkeys’ ready to take with me so I can fine tune it and have it ready for proof readers and editor by, at the latest, the end of June.

‘Straight Swap’ may now be titled ‘Remotely’ for reasons that will become obvious if you ever read it. I am working through the edits on the final draft and hope to have that ready for the editor by the end of this month. He, the editor, meanwhile is dealing with a crisis at the Berlin Film Festival, so that may delay things slightly. The cover designer is also working in the background and I aim to have this book ready for publication in a couple of months’ time. And, while doing all of that, I have two other ideas on the go and that short story to finish, the one I started last week about ‘Throwing the Stocking.’ But that’s really an exercise and just a bit of fun.

So, there’s plenty going on up at our hose at the moment what with writing, going for photo walks, plotting and thinking up ideas for projects I’d like to write. Which all means I had better get on. Have a good weekend.

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