Sunday morning on Symi and it’s starting off a little hazy out at sea, but calm. It feels like it’s going to be a warm day, so I’d better get this ready for Monday morning and then head down to the harbour before it gets too hot. I have nothing particular planned today apart from visiting the bank machine, getting some writing done and maybe having a barbeque. But you want to know about the cat. In a moment. First, here’s a photo of the harbour this morning.

So, the Alarm Cat’s adventure… It started on Tuesday. He went out as he has been doing for a week or so now, out into the ‘hood I mean. He usually comes back the following day at some point, he’d been in a routine of going out at night and then returning in the morning the following day, so we were leaving the gate open for him as there’s no other way in or out of the courtyard. Actually, smaller and lighter animals can get in over the walls but that’s not something Jack has tried, as yet. Anyway, he went out Tuesday and didn’t come back on Wednesday. Not unduly worried, he’s a cat. Still no sign on Thursday and I’m starting to think, ‘Doesn’t the house look good when it’s fur-free?’ And didn’t come back on Friday…

So, we decided to look for him at the old house as we’d looked around this neighbourhood. I headed over to the other side of the Castro and to the old house on Friday afternoon, and heard him before I saw him. He was there, shouting at the door to be let in. Thing is, there’s no way to get into the old house (still empty) without the gate key, or without going over the wall. So, I reported back to Neil working at the bar, contacted Symi Animal Welfare, and we headed off to borrow a (large) cat box. Got that, headed to the house and I went in search of the neighbour, Michaelis. I found him on a roof around the corner, as you do, and he let us in through his house, through his back garden, and from there we could climb over the party wall onto our old roof.

By this time Jack had gone quiet and that was because he was asleep behind the water pump. He must have sensed me approaching as he woke up and started to slink away, looking over his shoulder, running on a bit, and then coming back. And then he smelled a rat (there was a dead one around the corner actually) and started to run. But Neil was there and made a grab for him. There then followed something of a scramble; fur flew, the air was blue with angry shouts and screeches, the claws were out, the fangs too, and the cat wasn’t much better behaved either. Neil managed to grab him, despite two bites, three scratches and a submission, and we got him into the box, poor thing. He wasn’t happy but he did get home, and he’s been here ever since. So, it’s back to 4.30 alarm calls by way of head sitting and loud purring, half sleepless nights and the sofas are covered in fur again.

Still, pretty amazing for a deaf cat to find its way back to its old house after three months.

Share on Facebook

Here’s is an update from Symi Animal Welfare:

“As the 2015 holiday season gets underway, we have already received emails via the website + telephone calls from a number of concerned visitors worried about certain cats near to their accommodation. Contact details for Symi Animal Welfare have been taken from one of our collection boxes which now have new labels by the way. These can be found in Yialos at – Symi Tours, Kalodoukas & Symi Visitor offices, Crystallo & Kiara Luna shops.  In the village – at the Olive Tree cafe & the Sunrise Kafeneion + at the Pedi Beach hotel.

If you have been to Symi before, you will know that the cats here tend to be much slimmer than those you are used to seeing in your  home-town, in cooler, less dusty climates, cats tend to be fatter & fluffier. So, whilst you’re on the island, if you notice Twiggy-types with dirty-noses & covered in dust (and most street-cats fit this description!) please don’t feel too anxious, more than likely the cat isn’t sick at all, the climate here dictates the appearance.

However, especially as the temperatures go up, cats can suffer from excessive thirst leading to dehydration – as well as the ‘image’ described, a cat will possibly seem lethargic & be panting so requires liquid promptly, or in really bad cases an injection.

This year, we’ll be putting marked containers at shaded, safe locations in most areas & one of our volunteers will regularly check that there is fresh water inside, we hope that people don’t use them as ashtrays or rubbish-bins so that the street cats can always find a refreshing & clean drink!

Enjoy your visit to Symi, look out for our collection boxes & thank you for your support, Melanie!

www.symianimalwelfare.org

And as for our own Alarm Cat news, well, it’s not too alarming but he’d been away for a few days. He went out on Tuesday night, fair dashed off down the lane beside the house like he was late for an appointment, and he didn’t come back. We found him (alive, well and very noisy) on Friday evening. The full story will come out soon I am sure…

Share on Facebook

I have to share this semi-spam email title I had in yesterday. I say semi-spam as it’s from a site I looked at once, though I don’t remember joining a mailing list, but they send me their daily dose of ‘how to be healthy’ and so on. It’s all very useful, it’s just a bit, well, oddly worded:

“Top 3 killers of women (and how to prevent them), 10 was to sustainably shower.”

I imagine there are some nasty people in places like the USA who are out there now looking for women to kill, but I didn’t know there was a top list. I suppose we could also have a bad taste top ten chart with suitable songs, such as Tammy Wynette singing the classic ‘Stabbed by your man’ and opening with the line, ‘Sometimes it’s hard to kill a woman.’ We could have Frank Sinatra singing, ‘The lady is a corpse.’ Or how about that all-time ‘Oklahoma!’ favourite ‘I’m just a girl who can’t say argh!’ Gretchen Wilson’s well known ‘Redneck Woman’ needs no alteration, assuming strangulation was the MO.

Enough bad taste, it’s more interesting to wonder what the preventatives were. ‘And how to prevent them.’ By which I assume they mean how to prevent the killers, not the women. ‘Top 3 Women and how to prevent them…’ is how you might read the line, and the mind then boggles.

And as for a sustainably showering, and other split infinitives and bad uses of adverbs, well, the mind kind of boggles at that too. I find it quite easy to sustain a shower thank you, I don’t need a newsletter to tell me how to stay under the water for a few minutes. Which is all I do do. Quickly get wet, tap off, get soaped, tap on, wash off, water off. As little water usage as possible.

Mind you, now that we have a sustainable sterna, filled by rain water for free, I may start sustain in the shower for longer. And while I am there I might sing ‘Stabbed by your man’ and hold long notes, perhaps that the kind of sustain they were thinking of?

Anyway, enough of all that nonsense the really exciting news of today is that Neil planted some plants yesterday and we now have six marigolds, thanks to Chris and Jeanette, and a thyme from Jean, plus a night scented Jasmine from Jenni, a Basil called Terri, the vine is growing nicely and Yianna’s yucca has also been re-potted into something less restricting for it. I’ve presented some rather dull images here so you can keep an eye on progress.

Best go off now and find a way ‘to sustainably shower’ those plants to keep them being killed off like so many women as the weather hots up.

Share on Facebook

My style of Symi News live from the desk at 06.40 this morning: The Panagia Skiadeni has just gone out, the sun has just come up and I have just sat down at the desk with a mug of hot water and lemon. Mr Hayfever is next door in his office checking his emails and Jack the cat is still out in the ‘hood somewhere. Here are some photos of the sun-up this morning.

Jack went out, or was put out, two nights ago and hasn’t been home since. We’re not worried. He usually comes back anywhere between nine in the morning and three in the afternoon. Yesterday he wasn’t back by the time we went to Yialos, and then we didn’t get back until early evening and, by then, he’d probably decided to stay out anyway. No doubt he’ll be back soon enough, shouting the house down.

Talking of noise; I walked down to Pedi this morning for a change and was practically deafened by the noise. You can tell you’re rural when all you can hear are 101 cockerels going off, dogs barking, chickens fussing about a couple of sheep that were, as far as I could see, rutting, birds waking up – and that includes the one outside the window which sounds like a football rattle crossed with a machine gun – and goats bleating. I was passed by one truck in the forty minutes it took me to walk down, take some photos and walk back up again.

It’s still too early for swimming, for me. I tend to go in on August 12^th and leave it at that, just to be safe. No, not really. Last year we went a couple of times per week through July and August, I may do that again, when the sun comes up earlier and I can get up at 5.30 and be back at the desk by seven.

We managed to get lots of ‘formal’ things done yesterday; enquiries at the accountants, papers from the doctor, and so on. We also saw another clutch of refugees heading around to the Symi for a trip on to Rhodes, leaving even more at the police station being ‘processed.’ We visited the nautical museum and the antique shop that is also housed there now. A great idea; the museum can now be open in return for someone housing their shop in the downstairs part; previously it was generally closed.

And that’s today’s Symi News from my desk. I have things to be getting on with today, mainly around the house and I am not planning to go anywhere today, though we may be planting some plants in brightly coloured pots we bought yesterday, and no doubt Mr Hayfever will be sneezing a lot. It doesn’t get much more newsier than that.

Share on Facebook

When the economic crisis was really starting to kick in and the government had decided it really was high time people started paying for things again, there was a report on the news about water supplies…

A dear old dear from somewhere ‘up north’ in the mountains of mainland Greece was being interviewed about the situation. She was outraged because, after all this time, she was being asked to finally settle her water bill. ‘Why should I pay for water?’ she said, ‘it comes from God.’

Well, I was feeling a bit that way yesterday too as the rains came in. It was like autumn had suddenly struck. The warm weather evaporated, the thunder rolled in, there were a couple of big bangs, and the house was warmer inside than the air was outside. I even went back to long trousers and a fleece. You can see from today’s photos that things can change very quickly around here, weather-wise.

Only the day before, Lyndon had come around to check out a piece of plumbing for us and is, as I write (Tuesday) out there looking for the correct join. This is for the rain water collecting system that Andreas, the landlord, has ingeniously put in place. When it rains, like it is doing right now, the water runs off two flat roofs and drains into a pipe. This leads down and out and around, and joins another pipe, and then drops down and in to the ‘workhouse’ where it travels along until it meets a large tap. When this is off the water just stays there and, I assume, finds another way off the roof. But when the tap is open, the floodgates are opened, and the water pours into the sterna beneath the office, as it is doing now.

And it is doing so now because, while waiting for the correct join in the pipe, I made up my own. We had a T joint lying around but with the down section wide open, so the water poured straight through. A pair of socks and some tin foil soon sorted that out, and in the rain, I went out and stuck the thing back together. So far the socks are holding and the water is being redirected into the tank. Nice and free and exactly what Mrs Up North would approve of. So, ta for that God, if I’d known I wouldn’t have taken four hours of town hall ‘to be paid for’ water yesterday, but it’s never very expensive so I don’t mind.

The weather today (Tuesday) may put paid to our plans to go to Yialos to see accountants and do business things, and it might even prevent us from attending the opening night of Taverna Zoi, unless it clears up enough for the taverna to finish making ready and for us to safely venture outside. But hey, at least we’re filling bottles for future plant watering and the new plant (thank you Jenni!) is getting nicely watered. I’m glad I am not traveling today, it’s not windy, just very, very wet.

Now, I must remember to turn the water input device tap to the off position or else the sterna will overflow somewhere, and I don’t like to think where that somewhere may be. Mind you, I seriously doubt that the sock and tin foil arrangement will hold the pressure of the water with the tap off. We shall bite nails while we wait and see. Well, there’s not a lot else to do around here when it’s raining.

Share on Facebook