The madness and mayhem of New Year’s Eve has come and gone and it really is time to knuckle down to some more self-improvement. Well, maybe after this weekend.

I now have a creative writing course/workbook to investigate and follow. Can’t promise it will improve the spelling and I certainly won’t let it get in the way of my famous typos on the blog (and in the books), but it will help me with technical matters such as making grammar grimmer. I found an ‘ap’ for my tablet that’s supposed to help with grammar but they want money for it so it’ll have to wait.

Any-hoo, on New Year’s Eve we were invited to a birthday party in the afternoon in an old mansion house just of the Kali Strata – thank you for a lovely afternoon to all concerned. The boys were there, playing out in the school playground with their friends from up the road, grey clouds were rolling in over the windmills producing a rainbow, glimpsed through the ubiquitous cables, and the Blue Star came back in, much to the excitement of young Harry.

Later we headed back to the Harry house for a buffet (because you really can’t have enough food at this time of year) and a game of cards, the boys stayed up until midnight, Harry’s first time seeing in the New Year, and there was much merriment had.

But, and here’s one of those, ‘What is it about Symi that makes you want to stay?’ questions answered. On the way from birthday party to buffet, Neil went off to collect a package that had been left for him by the courier at The Sunrise – so there’s answer number one, courier services leaving your things with friends/neighbours/anyone who they know you know or else who speaks the same language, and said friends holding on to it for you until you can get there to collect it and not being inconvenienced; or if they are, then not saying so. And then part two of the answer: on arriving at Sotiris’ super market (sic) and (Jenine) being told that the join of pork she had requested from George had already been taken to her house and put in her downstairs freezer.

Now there’s service for you. But it goes further: as George had recently been in for a cataract operation he’d not been able to ‘process’ his own pig, so had procured this huge shoulder(?) of pork from elsewhere… and there was no charge, a gift for our St Vasilis Day celebrations. I mean, where else would that happen?

So, later today (I am writing this yesterday as Neil hoovers the house and the Alarm Cat), we are heading back to the Harry House for even more feasting and fun. It’s got to stop sometime surely?

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Well, here we are on the other side of New Year’s Eve and here’s wishing you a happy New Year!

I’m not much of a one for those ‘that was the year that was’ kind of posts, I always think, during the year, that I will make a note of particular events to mention in a year’s roundup and never get around to doing it, and by the time I come to try doing it, like today, I’ve forgotten, but actually 2014 was a pretty interesting year that included:

Publication of ‘Village View’ and ‘The Judas Inheritance.’ Work started on ‘Straight Swap’ and is on-going on ‘Stuff and nonsense.’ Despite a relatively good season Neil closed his shop – various reasons but mainly economic; it simply costs too much to run a small business in Greece these days and we were not prepared to go into debt and close down owing money as so often happens, so we wrapped up the shop, got everything paid up and signed off, though we still have things for sale online, which is a bit more of an affordable way to go about things.

We did some self-improvements, with morning walks and daily (almost) jogs and Zumba (Neil) tap dancing, workouts and diets, and I managed to reverse the onset of type two diabetes. Mind you, since our holiday in November, and what with the bad weather and the festive time of year, everything has slipped a little, but is due to start up against from next Monday. And that reminds me: we went on holiday to Kos. Okay, so not very far afield, but all we could afford and very pleasant it was too.

Other things that stand out in the (rather fuddled) memory this morning are: mother’s holiday on Symi; brother receiving an award for his and his team’s lifeboat rescues; the long walks with Lyndon and Justine, through the hills, to places I’ve not been before in my 19 year association with Symi; the parties and times with Harry, Sam and the family; working at the Rainbow Bar and meeting new visitors and seeing regular return visitors; sing-song around the piano on Boxing Day; my great-niece being born, not that I was there but you know… And now, to cap it all off rather wonderfully, Neil has ‘named’ a star after me. As soon as I find out where it is, or what constellation it is near, I will let you know.

Actually (an aside), if you’re clever at these things – and I have tried looking but not been able to find – perhaps you can locate the rough area of ‘my’ star. I know it’s a long way off, and not visible to the naked eye, and way off the naked eye visibility scale (at 13.6 magnitude) but it would be interesting to know what direction to look in, roughly, like: is it behind Orion, or Cassiopeia, or the one that’s all about a cat getting stuck in a tin of Whiskers, what’s it called? Oh yes, Canopus. If it’s possible to do this from the coordinates, please feel free to let me know via email. It’s got an ID of ‘AGASC_ID: 44439736 and then: RA: 15h 10m 1.82 & DEC: +3 (degrees) 16’ 1.5”

So, what will 2015 hold in store? Well, if I knew that I’d be able to make a fortune on the stock markets and at the bookies. But for us? We shall have to wait and see. Assuming all goes as normal, one of us will be working at the Rainbow Bar; having said that, Yiannis has had his operation and is now (finally) out of hospital, and I guess will be heading home before long. His operation was delayed due to him getting flu, but it was due to happen on 27th and we heard he was out by 29th so it looks like it all went well.

I intend to finish at least one of these book projects I have on the go and get a new title ‘out’ by the end of the year. I may also take up a creative writing course once we have bought the new fridge freezer and done a few other essential things to the house. And we may, if we can save enough, head to the UK for a couple of weeks at the end of the year to visit family. This will entail a lot of trains, I am pleased to report, as family are stretched as far apart as Dungeness (which you now know to be the only desert in the UK) to Penzance, and Edinburgh to Aberdeen.

And finally, to finish off this start to the year. One of the most oft asked questions of 2014 was ‘what news on the film?’ Well, you probably know as much as me. I’ve not seen a Kickstarter update for a long time and I too would love to see some return on my ‘investment’, or at least hear more regular news about it. The last I heard was that the editor was working on it, but was away for three weeks over Christmas, and the company were working towards a film festival early this year. But for more detail I can only suggest folk contact the company directly, and you should have their contact details via your last Kickstarter update. If not, then perhaps get in touch with Kickstarter themselves and ask them for advice. Wish I could say more and end more positively, but I only really know what I pick up from the limited updates that they release.

So, long New Year’s Day ramble there. Here’s wishing you a Happy New Year from Neil, Me, Jack the cat, Symi and Symi Dream.

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Can’t remember if we said ‘thank you’ to everyone for the Christmas messages and emails, but in case I didn’t get to reply, ‘thank you!’ to everyone who sent them in. And thanks for your Su, which we received yesterday:

“Just wanted to give you a big thank you for your blog which I read every day before breakfast!  I particularly love the descriptions of your walks this winter…” The walk episodes seem to be very popular, and we are aiming to try a walk every week, or roughly, with photos, so there should be more over the coming winter period, weather permitting. There are some more shots today taken last Sunday.

And thank you also to Gwenda and Pete for the survival box of cheese and onion crisps and wine; we are planning our own cheese and wine celebrations, though I suspect that at least one or two of the packets will be gone by the time this post gets online. Very kind of you!

And now for something completely διαφορετικό: Turkey. Well, it’s seasonal. One of our gifts this year was a book, ‘1,411 facts’ from Jenine – I mean the book was from Jenine, the facts are from all over the place. I stumbled upon the entries about Greece, after extensive searching in the index, and found it mentioned on a page bearing this rather amusing set of facts:

In Turkey the word for ‘turkey’ means ‘Indian bird.’ The Indian word for turkey means ‘Peruvian bird.’ While here in Greece the word for ‘turkey’ means ‘French bird.’ And in Malaysia it translates as Dutch chicken, just to confuse the issue. Oh, and the world’s largest chicken nugget is twice the size of the world’s largest chicken, which just goes to prove you should NEVER eat them as they are made out of all kinds of thing which clearly don’t come from a chicken.

Also from the same book, between 1920 and 1983, in Greece, leprosy was grounds for divorce, and Greece is the only country in the world whose name, ironically enough, does not contain any of the letters in the word ‘Olympiads.’

And Greece is the only country in the world where, to pass the equivalent of a GCSE at school, you only need to speak enough Greek to discuss football and politics. (I made that one up.) No doubt there will be more factual nonsense in the future as I dip in and out of this new book, such as: according to Julius Caesar the most civilised people of Britain lived in Kent. (I am a Man of Kent after all.) And the only desert in Britain is Dungeness nature reserve, in Kent, and where I used to play as a boy. Now you know you can get on with the rest of your day as I am heading off to do just that and prepare for New Year’s Eve, and that is a fact.

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A walk around the back of Symi harbour (which is not as dodgy as it sounds).

Waking up on a Tuesday morning to rain and cloud. Mind you I was also woken up during the night by the sound of rain loudly battering the roof and yet there are only a few drops inside the house, which makes for a nice change.

The weather here today looks like it’s not going to be anything like it was last Sunday when we went for a short two hour walk. This was out of the village to the donkey path, the lonesome tree and the viewpoint from where you can see Pedi, the village and Yialos, and then on past Ag Paraskevi. Here the path forks to the right through trees and circles around under the main road behind Yialos; there is no area name marked on my maps, but there is the ancient monument of the ‘Wall’ along here.

The path becomes rocky and rubbly and then, just before it joins the road where it turns down towards Roukouniotis, you turn right and head down a partially built concrete road towards some houses. And from there it’s a case of following the zigzag donkey track, the old ‘calderimi’ as it winds down to eventually come out at the back of Yialos, behind the Grace Hotel and studios.

From there you walk takes you to Elpida’s kafeneion (new fixed tables and bench on one side) for a chat and a glass of something in the warm December sun. After this, and if needed, you’re welcome to call in to the Kanterimi Grill for a light lunch before heading back up the Kali Strata to the village and home, via a quick stop at the Village Café with Zoi and Petros. And then to home, finally, all in all about a six hour walk, though only two of them were spent out on the hills actually walking.

That was Sunday, today is Tuesday and the social action is still under full steam here on Symi. Golf last night, one game to Ian and one to Neil, today I am getting back to some desk work, and this afternoon we are invited for cake and drinks up near Ag. Stavros; tomorrow sees a birthday party and a New Year’s Eve celebration followed by a NYD lunch on Thursday, and then, I think, we’re calming down, getting back into the routine, heading towards starting up the regular exercise classes and walks, possibly jogs, again though maybe not those early morning ones, not just yet. And certainly not on a day like today though now, finally, the rain has finished pelting down.

And you will notice I did all that without once mentioning the state of the Greek government… Doh, just did!

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Here we are on Symi rushing headlong towards the end of another year and as the song says, ‘And what have you done?’ Quite a lot actually, Mr Lennon, but I am not going into detail here.

I would like to say a big Thank You to everyone who sent in best wishes and messages to us over the last few days, I’ll try and get to all the emails ‘asap’ as they say in American films, and I’ll put up some photos from the last few days as well. It’s all been very jolly and great fun and far too over-indulged of course. It started on Christmas Eve with me having a tooth out, and that was pretty jolly I can tell you. Not. You know when it’s going to be a tough job when your dentist starts saying ‘pah gamotto’ as he tugs at your root, but the thing did eventually come out. The painkillers from the pharmacist were (and still are) brilliant and now, four days later (I’m writing this on Sunday) the area has just about recovered.

There was nothing painful about Christmas Day apart from some moments of side-aching hilarity supplied by the likes of Neil and the boys. The feast was courtesy of Jenine and Ian, the bar was supplied by us, and Santa did a good job with his contributions too. Down in Yialos there were community events, dinners, music was played from the church speakers and the bells rang out on Christmas Day from 4.30 in the morning, as they do. They’ve been ringing on an off since with celebrations of St Stephen’s day, Agios Stephanos here, and on Christmas Eve there were groups of children out and about carol singing.

In fact, walking down to Yialos on Christmas Eve morning I came across a group of teenagers, boys and girls, gathered together outside the bakery in Horio and they had the air of conspirators about them. In other countries you might worry that you were about to be set upon or abused, asked for ‘money for fags mister’ or some such, but not so here. As I walked past I could hear then discussion which shop they were going to next, not to cause trouble, but to sing the traditional Christmas Carol. “Καλήν εσπέραν άρχοντες, Κι αν εί- κι αν είναι ορισμός σας, Χριστού την θεία γέννηση, Να πω- να πω στ’ αρχοντικό σας.”

There were many other groups of children out and about too, with triangles to accompany the singing. You walk past shops and hear the sounds from inside and it did put a smile on my lips to hear some of the, um, ‘less enthusiastic’ members of the small choirs – a quick, embarrassed, mumble, a clang on the triangle and a hand held out for some coins. Sam and his mates came to our house and went out and about and made a few euros each, and Harry and his chums went around the village too, a little way. So the Christmas Eve traditions were kept up.

And now, suddenly, it’s Sunday. We’ve watched out new DVDs, including ‘Billy Eliot Live.’ My review: Incredible dancing from the young (and older) cast, great choreography, good use of space, great sets, good acting (bar the occasional accent-slip) and a good book, but instantly forgettable music (even including passages that echoed themes from other shows a bit too much) and wincey lyrics from the same guy who wrote the gritty dialogue; should have had a co-lyricist to come up with the less gritty lyrics when needed. But, if you liked the film, the show will also please you. You can get a copy here.

That’s my recommendation of the day, now I am off to prepare for a Sunday morning long-walk and some exercise and fresh air.

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