Let’s start today of with an unexpected photo of Yiannis doing some wiring work in the bar on a January evening. I think he was tidying up the internet line to the modem. This, a few years ago, would have been an unheard-of sight – a modem in the Rainbow Bar I mean. Not so long ago, all there was in there was a public telephone, which was more private than the one in the square, or the one on the corner of the Kali Strata where the bar used to be. There were others, but I only ever used those three. This was a long time ago – when we first moved here in 2002, we had no internet at home, and had to walk down to the Roloi bar in the back street to see another Yiannis and use his internet café at 56kbps dial-up, but we could only do that at times when he’d paid his phone bill. Now…? Well, now, we have 150 Mbs at home, and landlords wiring modems while owning two mobile phones – mind you, one of them is about 20 years old. Anyway, here’s the photo.

And here’s another one taken in the same place. You might order a glass of wine, but you often end up with three free lemons as a garnish. And very useful they are too.

Another magic moment was caught on Sunday evening when Jenine was allowed to attend ‘Boys’ Night’, I cooked steaks, and, while flambéing, brought down the cooker light ’cos it’s only stuck on with magnets and it came from Temu, so what do you expect? It’s the white thing dropping into the frying pan, caught on camera by Sam, I believe.

And just to keep in with the Symi theme, here’s a shot from a walk the other morning. Sunny, as you can see, very green after the high tide, and a pleasant little ramble along a simple lane which always reminds me of walks in the Kentish countryside. It looks like it will be another sunny day today, so later, I may well venture outside for more than five minutes. We’ll see.

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Continuing the brief chat about the weekend… The Rhodes boat on a Friday may as well be called the Symi boat as half the island seems to pop across that day. Mind you, it’s a decent sailing time (08.45) whereas the others are much earlier. It also means you see a fair few familiar faces as you go about your business, and there’s a lively atmosphere on the boat on the way back.

We managed to miss the rain in the afternoon, but only just. Otherwise, it was a fun day with lots of walking as it’s easy to spend an hour walking from A (beyond St Nikolas) to B (Mandraki) without noticing because the ground is mainly flat, and you have a UNESCO World Heritage Site to admire on the way.

So, on returning home… On Saturday, I thought I’d forgo my writing morning and set up the new laptop instead. This is always a journey, and this time was no exception. It took me until Monday to get the email accounts set up in Outlook, despite the details/servers being exactly the same. In the end, I needed the help of my server technicians who were very helpful. Next is to transfer the old email data and files. Other programmes I’ll need to transfer or reload will come to lit in time because I don’t really use anything other than the basics.

Which leaves Sunday, when we spent the day preparing for a logical family dinner. The preparations had begun on Friday with buying some supplies and continued on Saturday with himself making chocolate domes and ice cream, and continued on Sunday with me preparing to do the two other courses. The first was bouyiourdi, which even Sam had trouble pronouncing, but I had no trouble making, and the second was steak and pepper sauce. In between was much laughter, and afterwards, even more as we all watched the homemade DVD of Neil and I in South America from 2007.

And that was the weekend. Yesterday, I stayed in, finished setting up this new machine, did a piano lesson and spent some time at Harland & Wolff. There will be another progress update in due course. While the Titanic is being fitted out, I am awaiting the arrival of ‘Big Boy’, which I will also introduce you to in due course…

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Well, that was an interesting three days. I’ll drop in the details during the week, but the weekend included boats, lots of walking, cracking joints, a cracking lunch, good fun, a certain amount of money, frustration, laughter, good food, good company, and now, is being rounded off by a bad back and a nice cup of tea. Strangely, I don’t have many photos to show you, but I have a couple, so we’ll start with this one.

Early morning leaving Symi on a day that started sunny and ended up wet, but luckily, the only rain we encountered happened while we were in a café in the afternoon. Before that, we had a pleasant crossing to Rhodes where our first stop was the mattress shop.

I’m sure there’s more than one, but the one in Kanadas Street showed us plenty of choice and gave us a fun time as the knowledgeable showroom lady let us have a good lie down on every suitable offering. We ended up with a 50% off sale of a mattress that will be handmade and delivered by the end of March, by which time I would have forgotten we ordered one. That done, I then went off to find a new laptop and am already wishing I hadn’t. (More about that later, but let’s just say, transferring from old to new, Outlook files and email addresses…? Forget it. Easier to start again from scratch. I have an hour set aside later for communication with my email hosting company…)

(That white box beside the grey boxes is the new ticket office for Blue Star Ferries – it’s moved from the cafe to there.)

After that, we had a little time to kill so had a coffee/tea in a café near the marina, which was very swank, and then walked over to the other side of St Nikolas to find the chiropractor. That visit included a discussion about films and books, back and elbow issues, and such choice snippets as, ‘I suppose it’s meant to hurt as much as this is it?’ ‘Yes.’ All for the good though, and that done, I toddled off to walk back to town, where we found a lovely and new, to us, Italian eatery in Mandraki. It’s called Sergio’s, and you can click that to find the website. Fabulous lunch, not too costly, and we ate outside beneath darkening skies. After that, it was a trip to the Hondas Centre to find an aftershave for the yung’un, following on form the shaving lesson of last week, and then my feet had had enough, so we began the walk back to the boat which involved 90 minutes in the Yacht Club waiting for the rain to pass and then a taxi, but we made it back to the boat with plenty of time, and arrived home several hundred euros laughter, the body pulled and pummelled, and without the thing I’d gone to Rhodes to buy, but never mind, I obviously didn’t want it anyway.

Now, it’s back to the daily routine for the rest of the week, a week which has again started with clear skies and a calm sea.

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As previously announced in Parish News, I will be in Rhodes tomorrow with a list of things to do and find. These include all sorts of things from aftershave to osteopath, and from Perio Guard to a new laptop, so it should be an interesting day. Here’s hoping the rain holds off because yesterday was slightly on the damp side. In fact, to end my four-day week, how about some photos of yesterday showing you how changeable the winter weather can be? (And how green we are already.) Here you go:

There, I will leave you to your weekend and prepare for mine. Apparently, we are travelling with a class from the technical school who are off to try work experience at a hotel (for a day). Things to look forward to next week include having our bathroom ceiling looked at because it looks like it’s about to fall down. Can’t wait.

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As you can see, it’s not all sunshine in the Southern Aegean. In fact, it’s raining this morning, and it looks like it will be here all day. It was cloudy yesterday and a little drizzly at times, and there was an earthquake near Lesvos, not that that has anything to do with the weather.

That was when I was out on a walk yesterday, just a short wander around the village to keep the joints moving. There will be more walking on Friday when in Rhodes. It’s so much easier to go everywhere on foot there, compared to here where there are so many ups and downs. I can quite easily walk six or seven miles during the day when in Rhodes. If I did that here, I’d be over halfway to Panormitis, or in the sea, depending on which way I went, and it would take twice as long because of the steps. Talking of steps, Neil carried the other Christmas present chair home the other night…

Also, when it’s wet, we tend not to go out onto the balcony, so the balcony photos like this one below are taken through the window. More cloud from yesterday, and beneath it, the Blue Star coming in early one Friday morning. I know it was Friday because, at the moment, it comes in before dawn on a Monday and Wednesday. Apart from the Stavros coming in, the patrol and fishing boats, that’s about as exciting as the view gets at this time of year, and what a lovely view it is.

I can’t think what else to tell you… (thinks). Yes I can: Visited the Chinese shop yesterday for a jumper that didn’t fit, said hello to Mr Chan who’s probably not called Mr Chan at all, but that’s what the locals call him so… Taverna Zoi is after a waiter for the summer, other businesses are hiring too – both godsons have already secured summer employment, which is good news for them as they can save for a trip we’re planning for later in the year, and I did some touch-up work on the tinier pieces of the Titanic model ahead of the next build session tomorrow. That, dear reader, is my news for the day.

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