Today’s blog post is in the form of a poem from Pat, who lives on Symi.

Neil and Toby are going away
Not for ever but for a few days
I suppose they deserve a holiday
All that eating and drinking and friends to play

Has tired them out they both need a rest
Their busy summer has left them quite stressed
But the blog we will miss it oh what shall we do
What will I read in the mornings in lieu

The alarm cat as well will be very confused
His antics as always leave Toby bemused
He’ll guard the house faithfully when they’re away
But he’ll be glad when they’re back for his ten meals a day

They will miss all their walks in the morn in the dark
Up the hill bright and early with the veritable lark
Jog up to the kantina and down by the church
Pass the dogs and the goats in the gate they do lurch

Have a ball guys we’ll miss you but when you come back
We will all be pleased to see you but none as gladly as Jack
And then twill be Xmas another year draws to a close
More eating with friends where the wine freely flows

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Panormitis (3) – the trip home
From Julia

I had thought that the boat I was catching for my trip back to town on Symi would be just a taxi-boat, that it was going to be a short boat ride, and back to base. Of course I hadn’t really thought about it at all until I found myself in the middle of a great crowd of multinational holidaymakers, Danes, French, Australians and various others, all out for the day, a bunfight, and lots of adventures. They had already made one stop before Panormitis, but the little separate groups of people were still separate groups, and were carefully not talking to each other yet. But Yiannis, when I asked him, said we were going next to Sesklia Island where there would be a barbecue and swimming, and on after that for coffee and more swimming in St George’s Bay.

I changed into my swimsuit in the head (no lights, wet swimsuit, very funny) and when we got to Sesklia I was all ready to swim in the beautiful pebbled bay. The crew of the Poseidon clearly know their stuff, and in the hour that we were all swimming and basking, they put together a terrific and delicious collection of food. I’m not a foodie, but everything I had was scrumptious. The small groups of goats that had been hanging around moved ever-closer to us as the eating finished, and at the end they got all the leftovers. (They clearly recognise the arrival of the Poseidon as a Good Thing.)

We’d left Panormitis at about one p.m., and by the time we’d swum and eaten and all got back onto the boat, the day was declining, and when the boat arrived in St George’s Bay the sun was slanting across the skyscraper-tall cliffs onto the water at a sharp and dramatic angle. Yiannis called out as he cut the engines, “Swim first, then coffee! No swim, no coffee!”

Of course we all went in, off the boat, since the only beach was tiny and a long way off. Some dived in gracefully (others not so gracefully), some crept down the ladder and slipped into the water gingerly; I just climbed down three rungs, held my nose and jumped. When all the passengers were in the water, the crew did the cannonball trick, one by one, from the railings, a great leap, bunch into a ball, and hit the water with a huge explosion and waterspout. And all of a sudden we were all just heads, bobbing about in that delicious buoyant, cool water, everyone just the same as everyone else. And when we got back onto the boat, all the distance and awkwardness was gone, and people were all talking to each other, exchanging jokes and addresses and smiling. The coffee was handed out, and the boat was on her way home in the golden afternoon light. Everyone was relaxed with the food and the swimming and the sun, and when we got back and moored-up, I couldn’t help thinking “Yiannis must love doing this, taking out a lot of strangers and bringing them back friends.” I gave him my fare (he almost forgot to ask me, I had to remind him) and shouldered my little rucksack and set off for the climb up the 156 steps to my studio, feeling as if I’d been away for a month and not just two days.

More guest blog posts next week.

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Panormitis Visit Continued (part 2)

From Julia

Once I’d got over the sense of triumph at having arrived under my own steam, and seen the sights, I needed to re-stock my water supplies and buy a bit of food. I don’t eat a lot when I’m travelling, and the little shop at the Monastery had all I needed. On top of that, it seemed that all the people staying in the other ‘cells’ were older Greek couples with the usual Greek generosity, and the sweet lady next door to me, whose husband spent all his time fishing in the bay, kept giving me cups of wonderful Greek coffee, great delicious chunks of the slightly cinnamon-flavoured bread the monks make (I never did find out where to buy it, I didn’t see it in the little shop or in the souvenir place attached to the museum), and paximadia, which to me are the taste of Greek holidays. In return I gave her some little religious souvenirs I’d got in Florence – the fact that they were Roman Catholic and not Orthodox didn’t bother her a bit – as someone said to me in a church in Rhodes “We are divided by walls that do not reach up to Heaven”. None of the Greek people on either side of my cell spoke any English, and my Greek is pretty sparse, but when their radio started to play a tune I’d learned the dance for many years ago, and I jumped up and started to dance, they all got very excited and started to shour “Opa!” and “Syrtaki!” and clap their hands. Crazy English lady…

The sun moved around so that the verandah outside our little cells became less and less shady, and after a while I noticed that some of the ladies were having a swim in the bay, so I put on my swimsuit and joined them. They hung in the water, talking just the same as they did when they were sitting on the verandah, but there was one lady who had lived in Australia for years and spoke English, and she and I exchanged comments on the things women talk about: our children, our lives, where we came from and where we were going next. The sun went slowly down and little lights began to sparkle on the headland across the bay. It was all wonderfully serene.

And then came the kounoupi – the mosquitos.

Well, this was a monastery, not a five-star hotel, and the arrangements to balance ventilation with mosquito control were not all that sophisticated. Briefly, you either suffocated with the door and window shut or you got bitten. My solution was not perfect, but worth a drawing in my journal:

…and I only got three bites on my eyelid and nose. Next morning the lady next door showed me LOTS of bites on her ankles, and I felt ashamed to have been such a wimp.

A little later that morning I walked out along the left headland of the bay, past the moored boats (all sorts from little rowing boats to great beautiful Turkish gulets) and noticed a monk coming along with lots of plastic bags full of food scraps. I stopped and waited for him, to offer to help carry them, and asked him if I could take his photograph. He made a gesture: wait a moment, then put down the umbrella he was carrying and all the bags, took out his hat and put it on, straightened his clothes, and posed in various sober ways for my camera:

Then he took up his bags again and went on to the fence that keeps the goats off monastery property, and through the gate and around the headland, casting food for the goats as he went.

By and by the Poseidon arrived, I went and paid my bill, gathered my stuff, and joined the party on the boat for the trip home.

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Pilgrimage to Panormitis – September 2015 (part 1)
From Julia

Symi was a lot hotter than I had anticipated when I planned my walk, back in the UK – I’d travelled overland from England and it had been really roasting hot since Milan. I actually chose to visit Symi because it had the monastery, and the fact that it was on the other side of the island from the town was guaranteed to make me want to walk there. (James, when I emailed him, very kindly told me that it wouldn’t be that difficult)

I had the idea of staying a night – everyone I asked said it would be easy to get a room once I arrived – and I’d talked with Yiannis, captain of the Poseidon, before I left, and he said I could join them on their Tuesday visit and come back by sea rather than re-walk the 12 miles back. So I set off on Monday morning feeling cheerful.

Getting out of Chorio was the hard part. If you don’t know the warren of little paths and alleys, it’s easy to lose one’s sense of direction. I must have climbed up and down twice as many steps as I needed to, and was getting pretty desperate, when I said a prayer and an angel on a motorbike popped up and said “Hop on, I’ll take you to the main road.” I hopped on, and in two minutes I was being told “All road from here. All, all, all road”.

I’d left before dawn, and had forgotten my hat, my sunglasses, and my earrings. (The earrings were not necessary, but I missed the other two once the sun got up) But how hard is it just to follow the road? And I like to walk. The views were spectacular on the first stretch, the road wasn’t busy at all and the walking was good.

It was still cool because I’d started so early, and while the sun was low there was still a lot of shade. Here and there I saw little groups of goats, saw some kind of buzzard at one point, heard a few birds but not a lot of wildlife.

I took one detour that cut off a loop of the road and came out at a little church (St Catherine’s, I think. It seemed to be frequented only by goats) but it was so rough and rocky that I was glad of my sturdy walking shoes and thought to myself that it would have been just as quick to walk the loop of road as struggle over the rocks of the shortcut.

The last few miles are always the hardest. The sun was up, and there are seven switchbacks that take you down the last big slope of the mountain, all in the open in blazing sunshine. I had got through most of my one and a half litres of water by this time, but once I’d come out on a curve of the road, still high-up, and seen the monastery nestling in her cool almost-landlocked bay below, nothing was going to stop me. I admit that I did feel a certain smugness going up to the gate past people getting out of cars that had taken just minutes to drive from Symi town, knowing that I’d been walking pretty much non-stop for four hours.

I found the place to ask about a room, and it was no trouble at all, one night – €16. I dumped my little rucksack and went to explore the Monastery and the church (such a shame there are no photographs allowed inside the church – the iconostasis is the most amazing piece of carving. You could stare and stare at it for hours. I saw the great silver icon of St Michael (and said a few quiet prayers for absent friends) and lit a couple of candles. I went into both the museums, and saw all the famous boats that have arrived miraculously in the bay with appeals from seamen all over the world for help from St Michael. I even found Captain Yiannis having a drink in the cafe and told him I would definitely be coming home on his boat the next day. He was delighted to see that I’d made it: “Four hours! No stops!”

It was worth all the sweat and sore feet.

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In case you missed it: For the next two weeks you are going to find guest blog posts (and some pre-written posts about my books in order to try and tempt you to buy them for people’s Christmas gifts, wink) which I am setting up before I go away. It’s actually still early November as I write this so things may have changed by now but I am going to put up the first guest post today and schedule it for two weeks’ time and cross my fingers. Here we go.

Today’s guest post is from Andy Hornby, who also supplied the photos, and he lists his favourite Symi things:

Hi James.

Thanks very much for doing Symi Dream. It’s a place very close to our hearts and one of the most beautiful places in the world and you keep it alive for us…Favourite bits?

A trip round the island, superb swimming and a hearty lunch on the Poseidon!

The walk from Yialos over the top to Nimborio. I ever I feel heavy hearted, the memory of that walk is a sure remedy!

The bus journey to Panormitis. Stunning views and excellent spanacopita from the bakery there.

A day on St Nicolas beach. The best moussaka for lunch, snorkelling (look out for the rainbow wrasses) and walking back to Pedi along the coast path.

Music at Giorgio’s on a Friday night.

Watching the world go by from café Mediterraneo.

Reflections in the water. The light in Symi is really special

Pics.

1. Swallowtail on Lantana up the Kali Strata. Two of my favourite things in a favourite place!
2. No health and safety on the taxi boat back to Pedi.
3. Very useful goat rack on the walk to Nimborio.
4. Watery reflections at Nimborio.

We hope to come back asap.

Bye for now

Regards

Andy

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