All posts by James Collins

Day to day on Symi

The Path Less Trod

The other day I took a walk down to the harbour using the usual route (Kali Strata) and walked back up via the road. This is a pleasant, gradual climb, though you do have to negotiate trees in the middle of the path and cross the road on the big corner which can be a bit of a leap of faith. Another way to come back up is the route I took last week, which is quicker, but hard work. Start off by coming up the Kali Strata, but when you get to the large, dark red house where the specialist paintwork makes it look old and damp, and there, take the steps up on your right. These lead more or less vertically to the start of a short zigzag which takes you past New Villa George and the chicken farm.

Well, it’s not really a chicken farm, but they belong to someone, I assume, and have free-range run of the place. There are cockerels there too and chicks, and several fussy lady chickens who squawk in panic as you approach, and fluster their way into the trees to escape, all of which can be very amusing. Continue to follow the path upwards, and upwards, and you come out near Lemoniotisa church, the one with the dome that you can see from Yialos, and the one tourists try to find and very often give up on finding because it’s not easy, and anyway, when you get there, it usually always closed, and, note, it’s Limeniotissa or Eleimonitissa, or Lemonitissa, depending on which book you read, but not Lemonitsa, as I’ve heard it called, anyway… where was I…

The view from up there is a pleasant one, and you realise you are just about in line with the west end of the harbour. It’s not a climb for the weak hearted, and I’d advise several stops to recover along the way, even in winter. In summer, when it’s over 40°, I’d take a taxi to reach the village.

Day to day on Symi

The Ship and Chopin

Here’s a question many people ask when visiting in the summer: Does everywhere stay open in the winter? The answer is, no, not everywhere, because some businesses are summer enterprises only (beach tavernas, boat hire, water taxis, some souvenir shops, etc.). Essential businesses remain open, of course, banks, pharmacies, health clinic, town hall, etc., and some cafés, bars and tavernas also stay open. Some eateries, such as the Taj Mahal might only operate at weekends, while others, such as Scena, Niki’s Kitchen, and Georgio’s remain open throughout the winter, perhaps with a day off here and there for a holiday, repainting, Christmas… We were at Georgio’s the other night, actually, and the BBQ was on…

The menu may be limited at this time of the year, there were chops, chips, cheese fritters, salads, and what you might call staples, but a lot of the time, what’s available depends on what’s in the shops, or in some cases, what’s in the freezer. We manage, thank you, and there are places to eat out, socialise and sit and watch the world go by in both the village and the harbour.

The famous photo wall – are you on it?

While, at home, there’s plenty to keep us occupied. I finished my model locomotive yesterday, and the Titanic’s funnels are now complete and rigged. The next stage is to add the three deck levels together which should happen on Thursday. The following week, my piano student is away with his class for five days, so the ship and Chopin will have to wait, but I reckon, she’ll be seaworthy by mid-April. In fact, she might be ready to set off on her maiden voyage on April 10th, 113 years to the day after first leaving Southampton.

(‘The Ship and Chopin’ sounds like a great name for a pub. I’ll have to write that into one of my books.)

Day to day on Symi

Carnival

It was carnival weekend in Greece, and Symi held an all-day celebration in the harbour, with, it looked like, Disco as the theme. Lots of youngsters dressed as disco divas and John Travoltas, music from that era, belly dancing, and later, fireworks. There are some videos courtesy of Symi TV over on the Symi Dream Facebook page.

(I still have no idea who that was.)

Up in the village, we had the boys around for dinner to celebrate their mother’s recent birthday, Neil made a trifle in a handbag, of course, Harry played the piano for his mum (brilliantly, though I say so myself), Sam melted into the sofa after several non-stop days working in the café which has been packed, by all accounts, and we all had a jolly good laugh.

There was a trifle inside including jelly, cream, custard and cake. Bonkers.

It wasn’t so much of a fun weekend for this 36.2 kilo fish Manoli and his mates caught on Sunday, nor for the lobster or the eel-like creature that was also on display in the village square. We saw it while on our way to dinner at Georgio’s where the BBQ was alight, the tzatziki was the most garlicy I’ve even known, and the prices were more than reasonable.

Now, with the weather warming, it’s Clean Monday, the start of Lent, and the start of a new week. It’s already turning out to be a sociable one what with three piano sessions booked in and a dinner invite at the weekend, walking to do (starting tomorrow), and only three chapters left to go of my next first draft, I have plenty to be getting on with on this bank holiday.

Day to day on Symi

Ahha! Photos.

Today, I can show you a couple of the photos I was talking about yesterday but couldn’t reach because of the internet thing. It’s fine today (150 Mbs), so I don’t know why it was so slow yesterday. However, the image you see here of the blue sky… well, you can’t actually see that this morning. All that’s outside the window is a wall of grey as the rain sweeps in across the bay from the north.

It’s a day for staying at home, keeping dry and cosy, and not going to the shops, as one of us must do later. Neil is doing things in the kitchen today, while I am writing. Yesterday, the bathroom ceiling was finished to perfection, and I’ll share some pics of that next week if I remember, and the afternoon was spent, again, in the kitchen with Neil cooking and us two working on the beast of a model. I have to say, H is doing this all himself except from when it comes to the rigging which is a two-man job, only because of having to tie tiny knots in short pieces of cotton.

Still, it’s coming on.

There’s nationwide strike action today to protest over the government’s handling of the fatal rail crash of two years ago, so if you are in Greece and were planning to visit particular offices or services, you might need to check if they will be open or running. Mind you, if you are in Greece, you won’t have failed to have noticed the news coverage of that terrible event nor the ensuing outcry which has been screaming on for two years and yet no-one seems satisfied, because nothing much has been done to ensure such a thing doesn’t happen again. Meanwhile, you’ve got seven planets lined up across the dusk sky tonight though you can’t see them all without binoculars, and with all this cloud around, you can’t even see the sky let along things millions of miles up. Whatever, it’s time to set my mind to 1893, the day ahead, and to look forward to sunnier days.

Day to day on Symi

Unconnected Thoughts

Looks like another clear and calm day today, like yesterday when I managed to escape the house and nip down to the harbour. I came back up via a faster but more tortuous route, turning right near the bottom of the Kali Strata and heading more or less vertically upwards to the chicken slope (near New Villa George), and home that way. I managed to get some snaps along the way.

Mind you, you’re not going to see them today. I never understand how our internet connection can be 200 Mb once day, and 120 kbps the next, like it is right now. We pay for 100 Mb, but that’s never what we get. Usually it’s around that, if not a little more, but then, for no reason, it will drop to such a low number, nothing comes down or up. That’s what’s happening now, and I’ve tried moving closer to the router and all that, but it makes no difference. We might have to phone someone in a call centre about this or consider doing what others have done recently and switching to Nova who already have our mobile contracts. Nova do a thing where you don’t need a landline, you connect to your router straight to the phone tower in the way your phone connects, and you can pick it up an take it with you. It’s cheaper, too, but we’ve not changed because it’s only cheaper by a couple of Euros (for us), and our current system is faster, when it works. Which it hopefully will do later, or tomorrow, so I can show you my stunning photos of nothing of great interest. Here’s another blank space. Have a good day.