Abud is an Arabic name derived from the verb ‘To worship.’ We met Abud at the port police station on Saturday morning with 13 other refugees who had spent the night on the rocky shores somewhere on the east coast of Symi. They had waited there 10 hours overnight, after making the crossing from Turkey. We didn’t take photos of the group as we didn’t want to worry anyone. (Today’s photos are a mix of recent pics.)

Abud told us that he was aiming to get moving, he wanted to get cleared through the paperwork as quickly as possible and get to Athens so he could start the overland journey to Germany where his people were. There were a few children in the group waiting patiently for the port police to do their paperwork. We brought them some donated colouring books and pens which lit up their faces and, we hope, relieved their boredom. We were also able to give out some basic medication for people with tooth and stomach ache, some fruit, biscuits, water and advice. Once finished at the port authority, the group would go to the police station and could then come and use Solidarity Symi to find clothes and washing facilities while waiting for their boat.

This brought up something which I thought I would mention. Abud is a big guy, he looked like your classic body builder and he’s not the first big, muscled man we’ve seen come through. His backpack was lost in the crossing, when they had to go into the sea for the last part of the journey ashore. He lost all his clothes. We told him there would be clothes at the aid station but whether there would be anything to fit a bodybuilder is another matter. So, if you have mates at the gym who might have some old, XXL clothes they don’t need, maybe ask to send them over and mark them up ‘for XXL’ or ‘for bodybuilders’ or something. Men like Abud, who only had one pair of wet jeans and a wet vets to wear all the way to Germany, will be very grateful.

While we were doing our very meagre bit on Saturday, we also took in donations from visitors – thank you for that, and you know who you are. Over €200 in one morning, very generous and very useful. We sorted clothes, mother got involved as well, as did other long-term residents and visitors, and the place is now well organised and properly arranged. So, when the 14 visitors we saw at the port police do come over, they will find not only medical aid for the cuts sustained when scrambling ashore on Symi’s razor-rocks, but new clothes, washing facilities, toys for the children, a little food and shelter and a warm welcome.

You can help via: Solidarity Symi, PO Box 32, Symi, 85600, Greece

Now back to Sunday (as it’s Sunday morning as I write this). The soldiers have just done their flag raising ceremony at the war memorial (see above) down in Yialos and I am getting this ready early as I have a day out in a car ahead of me. We’re going bird watching with Lyndon who has this amazing knack of finding unusual birds and wildlife out there in the hills and getting good photos of it. I only seem to catch a dodgy sparrow or a rather ubiquitous raven. Saturday night in the courtyard, a hawk flew over us, very low and close and it was grey/blue underneath. We think it might have been a peregrine or a kestrel. Who knows what we shall see today?

This week is going to be a busy one, the dance card is already filling up. We have friends coming for drinks on Monday evening and then a dinner, on Tuesday I am heading to Rhodes and going shopping on Wednesday, then meeting my nephew at the airport who is coming for his first visit, back here on Thursday, a singing session in the afternoon, Mythos in the evening (must book it) and then on Friday we’re aiming for a small party in Pedi and then hopefully an hour or two at The Secret Garden in Horio – if we can get in; it’s so popular on a Friday night now that you need to get in early. And before we know it, it will be the weekend again and our Saturday volunteer session, which is where we came in, so I’m now heading out. Have a good week.

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To Steno (Το Στένο) means a strait, a pass or narrow, and To Steno, the kafeneion in the side lane in Yialos, fits that bill perfectly, though it could also be called an art gallery. Every table and wall is painted by hand by the owner’s daughter and/or her mother in law, and shows a Symi scene or other Greek view, oranges, a ship etc. You have your drinks off a piece of art, basically.

You also have an interesting, yet simple menu. You can take an ouzo and have some mezethes (small plates of various dishes) or, if there are two or three of you, you can have a meze plate for €20.00 for six dishes. There is also a €50.00 option for six people – if you are a party of four or five you will have to do your own calculations. The food is homemade and some of it comes from the family farm up towards Tolis on the north west of the island, where they have six pigs, sheep, goats and grow potatoes, among other things. So, it’s all fresh and made with love and care. We had, in our €20.00 plate, gigantes, aubergine, beetroot and garlic sauce, yoghurt, bread, fava and chicken drumsticks.

While we were there, early in the evening, we were treated to some bouzouki music and guitar, again provided by the family, and this music can go on well into the night, with impromptu dancing included as well. If you want the traditional Greek ‘thing’ this this is it. It’s taken us a while to getting around to going there but we’ll be back. It’s in the lane between the harbour front at ‘comfy chairs’ and the church square. You have three lanes heading from sea to backstreet in Yialos, one with Symi Tours in it, one with Taxas supermarket at the end, and the one in the middle, this one. You’ll find it.

Here’s a thing about the bouzouki (according to an online dictionary): “The bouzouki (also buzuki) (Greek: μπουζούκι pronounced [buˈzuci]; plural: μπουζούκια) is a Greek musical instrument that was brought to Greece in the 1900s by Greek immigrants from Asia Minor, and quickly became the central instrument to the rebetika genre and its music branches. A mainstay of modern Greek music, the front of the body is flat and is usually heavily inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The instrument is played with a plectrum and has a sharp metallic sound, reminiscent of a mandolin but pitched lower. There are two main types of bouzouki. The trichordo (three-course) has three pairs of strings (known as courses), and the tetrachordo (four-course) has four pairs of strings.”

My Collins Encyclopaedia of Music adds that, ‘The bouzouki enjoyed a great revival in the 1960s when several Greek composers, notably Mikis Theodorakis, exploited the sound of the instrument and made it known internationally.’ So, if you were thinking it was an ancient Greek instrument, think again, it’s a relatively modern one and yet one that is now so typically Greek. There you are, the things you learn when you stop off for a small plate. And if you wanted to hear some Theodorakis and have some authentic Greek music in your home, here’s an idea for a CD. (Click pic to link)

The Very Best of…

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Here’s something that’s going on, on Symi, on Monday evening. If you are here you can get in on the party but be quick as there are only 80 tickets. Leave Yialos by boat at 8pm, head around to Agia Marina beach, enjoy dinner and drinks there, and get your boat back at 23.00, all included in the price and you will be donating towards Solidarity Symi which is raising money for projects that support the community in Symi. Here’s the poster.

And here are some photos of a party and people out and about last Sunday evening. I’ve not much else to tell you today so I’ll leave you with these photos.

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Kalo Mina! Happy Month!

I was having a bit of an ‘at home’ morning yesterday, pottering around, wondering how long the generator would be parked outside our bedroom window, would it ever stop? Where the cat had found to sleep as he wasn’t bothering me for a change, and then I thought, I’d pop up on the roof and get some shots with the long lens. So, here today are some shots from up on the roof, as the Drifters might have said. Some have been cropped-in so are a bit fuzzy.

Actually, Up On The Roof was/is also a musical by Simon Moore and Jane Prowse, I remember walking by it in the 1980s in London and, on further investigation, I discover that it was also made into a film. As the IMDB says about it: “Set in the early eighties; following the lives of a bunch of young university students who sing together in their own ‘On The Roof’ club. It follows their lives throughout the years, occasionally meeting up for a sing along and a good old British natter. All in all, the film is watchable, albeit you will appreciate it more if you are a fan of accapella music.” (sic) I tried to find a DVD copy of the film but could only find VHS and there was no sign of the CD soundtrack either. Anyway…

Talking of ‘accapella’ (a cappella, the Italian, is the correct spelling in musical direction terms), the other night we watched a film called ‘Pitch Perfect’ which stars Anna Kendrick – this is a feel good film about an a cappella singing group, and Anna Kendrick is the actress who also plays Cinderella in ‘Into the Woods’ the latest film version – very ‘Disneyfid’ with all kinds of good stuff missing from it – written by Stephen Sondheim. Anyway…

Sondheim also wrote ‘Company’ and this was one of his first hits. I saw this once at the Duke Of York’s theatre in London where it had transferred from the Donmar Warehouse, and it starred Adrian Lester and its design was the inspiration behind the rug in my office, just to bring us back to Symi. But we’re not stopping here as the trail I’m on has sent me off into a side-line as I try and establish if there is one website that lists what shows have been on at what London theatres over the years. A big job I know, but I’d be interested to know exactly when certain shows were running – so I could pinpoint what theatre Up On The Roof was on at. (Turns out it was Theatre Royal Plymouth, transferring to the Donmar Warehouse (to keep the connections going) and then to the Apollo Theatre, London all in 1987.) I’ve not found such a site yet but maybe one day… Anyway…

Where was I? Oh yes, up on the roof taking photos, and here they are. You see, sometimes my ramblings from Symi have nothing to do with Symi at all. I just get on a train of thought, settle down with a pre-packed sandwich and a coffee in a cardboard cup (a Kander an Ebb song from ‘70 girls 70’) that scolds my lip and just watch the scenery go by as my train rattles on into Lalaland. But it will one day pull into a station, but clearly not today. So I will leave you feeling bemused, probably, and head off to do some household chores to the background noise of a diesel generator not far away, a dog barking, and mother watching EastEnders in the sitting room.

Perhaps it is me who is barking.

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Today’s photos are Tuesday Symi morning skies.

“Rhodes, Myconos, Santorini, Paros, Naxos and Skiathos comprise the first batch of Aegean islands that as of Thursday, October 1 will see the waiving of the 30 percent value-added tax discount and, consequently, a series of hikes in the prices of goods and services.” So reports ekathimerini.com

Apparently Symi will lose its tax discount next June. Basically this means that folk selling things in their shops etc. will have to increase the prices to take into account the amount of VAT that gets sent on to the government. They/we have had lower VAT rates in the past so as to help counteract the extra costs of having things, sometimes everything, shipped in. But under the new laws, that’s gunna go and things will cost more than they already do, and Symi is, I hate to say it, already one of the more expensive islands to live on.

It’s also one of the more expensive ones to leave as a friend found out a few years ago. She bought a ticket from Athens (I think it was) to Symi for one price, but when leaving a week or so later that price was more expensive. When she asked the ticket seller why, he explained, in all seriousness, that because Symi is such a beautiful island one has to pay more to leave it behind. Made no sense to her and makes little sense to me now. Sounds like folk trying something on if you ask me.

The other thing I picked up on the wire yesterday was that the refugee charity in Kos has had such a great response to its call for aid that it now has a full warehouse and can’t take any more donations. As far as I know we here on Symi can still cram some more stuff in. We have a mousandra storage area at home that we can use for a little bit more, and I am sure others have. We were there sorting things out on Saturday and there was lots of donated clothes and supplies, but who knows who will be crossing the sea soon, or when we will see 500 refugees per day as we have done? If that changes and we too become stocked up, I’ll let you know. I guess that if we do, the excess will be sent on to other islands who need it.

I also heard that if you tell the UK post office that you’re posting a charity donation they will give you a discount, even without a charity number. My mum sent some stuff and got £9.00 off the cost of the parcel. Worth asking if you are posting.

And, as for me and what I did at school yesterday… No I didn’t go to school, but you know, ‘what I did on my holiday…’ Well, I’m not on holiday, I was working but I did get out at 6.30 in the morning for a steep uphill walk. The first in two weeks and it was remarkably easy. I thought I wouldn’t run as I’d not put any WD40 on my knees yet, but in fact I felt I could quite easily have run back. Maybe the next time I go out I will go past Pat the dog and up to the monastery and see how I get on. I think I could even leave a little earlier as the sun was up but behind the mountain and 6.30 was light enough.

That’s for another day, this is your lot from Sunny Symi today. Don’t worry about the VAT rises, just go head and start planning your Symi trip for next year if you haven’t already. Early indications are that things are going to be busy next year and so you might want to book your favourite accommodation before it gets snaffled by someone else.

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