When I say away, I’ll be here, but I won’t be here on this page, because I am taking a week off from blogging about this and that, mainly this, but sometimes that, but in any case, I shan’t be doing that this coming week. There, now you know.
Before I go and put my feet up, read a book, sit in the sun, or do whatever it is people do when on holiday at home, I have news of what’s coming up in the next couple of weeks.
Symi Dream Calendar 2025
This is now ready to order, but you can only buy it from the online store. I’ll repeat that for people who think we still have a shop. You can only buy it from the online store. I’ll put a permanent link up in the righthand column shortly. So, don’t worry if you lose this post and this link:
This year, there are photos of the village, Yialos, Toli, Agia Marina, Pedi, and some cats.
Also coming up soon will be my 5th book in my third Victorian mystery series, and you can find out more about that on my other blog. In fact, you can be the first to see the cover on Saturday if you click over to www.jacksonmarsh.com
Apart from launching that, I have nothing else planned for the next 10 days, and should be back with you on 9th September.
I was hankering for something green, hence today’s photos were taken in the spring, and that’s also why I had a lettuce for my tea last night, or part of one at any rate. I was also hankering for some water, again, as in the photo, and I am sure we will see rain again one day. Maybe.
I have a package to collect from down town, and I am hoping it is, finally, the correct lead which will enable me to transfer from Minidisc to PC. I can’t tell you the hassle I’ve had trying to find one of these things. After taking advice from a man who knows (thanks Glen), and after initially misinterpreting said advice, I ended up with a very nice lead that was no good whatsoever because I’d bought the wrong one. So, I tried again and bought another wrong one. Then, I went back to the guru and retook the advice, interpreted it correctly, and ordered the correct lead. Then, three weeks later, Skroutz told me they were very sorry, but they couldn’t locate one after all and sent my money back. So I went to Amazon Germany and found one there, and that, I hope, is what’s arrived.
If so, I should then be able to transfer interviews with my godfather from the portable Minidisc player to the laptop, and from there, to my website. Assuming I can manage that, people will then be able to listen to him telling me (some of) his story, which they can also read in the book – advert and link at the bottom of the page.
Apart from that great excitement or disappointment depending on a) what the package turns out to be, b) if it’s the correct lead, and c) if I can get it all to work, I’ve got very little planned except reading the newspapers. That’ll be newspapers from February 1893 as I think about what the next story will be while the current one is with the proofreader. And that’s about all I have to tell you this morning, so have a nice day, and if it’s a green and rainy one, lucky you! (Scroll for gratuitous advert.)
Bless the husband. Yesterday afternoon, we were at the Rainbow Bar because he started work again, and we were sitting, chatting with friends, when he got up and, I thought, went inside. About ten minutes later, I’m starting to wonder if some kind of incident has befallen the gents’ washroom when he comes up the steps with a bunch of flowers. The only way of getting from the back of the Rainbow to the Kali Strata is over a wall to a long drop, through the taverna’s backyard and the taverna itself, so he hadn’t gone that way. He’d snuck off when I wasn’t looking, bought me some flowers and snuck back. ‘Happy anniversary,’ he says, to which I make the appropriate ooh and ahh noises. ‘Twenty-seven years ago since we met.’ How lovely. We took them home and put them in the only vase we have which is actually a wine jug, and put that on the hall windowsill. A little later, we’re watching TV when the sneezing starts and he’s off to the bathroom to shout/sneeze as he’s not one who can do it quietly, and the wine jug ends up out in the porch. I’m at my desk now and I can still smell it. Very nice, very pungent, and more appropriate today because it’s our anniversary at around midnight tonight, not yesterday, but who’s counting?
My day is off to a typical start as I sit at my desk with my feet being nibbled by mosquitoes, and as I drink a cup of water. I don’t know if you’ve read the Asterix the Gaul books, but in one, they are at a military camp, sitting around the fire at night and Getafix (or someone) is serving tea. Actually, he’s serving hot water because ‘Tea hasn’t been invented yet. How do you take yours?’ ‘Just a spot of milk, please.’ Well, I am doing the same because we ran out of tea-with-taste bags the other day, and I’ve had to fall back on my nameless-and-tasteless emergency supplies which were all we could find here last winter. (They’re not Liptons, they’re worse.) Not to panic, however, as real tea will be forthcoming later in the day. I suppose I can always try dunking a flower to add flavour.
I see the great sunbed debate has started up again on parts of antisocial media. It makes for fun reading as long as you’re not easily offended, and that, it seems is a rare trait these days. I also saw some outrage about one of the beaches being privately booked for a couple of days because of a celebration by, one assumes, very rich folk. Then it turns out, this was not an isolated incident. It makes for an entertaining first thing in the morning when you stumble across Mr Unhappy deriding a restaurant because it’s not serving Greek food. He gets countered by Mrs Miffed standing up for said restaurant, and she gets joined by Miss Impassioned who has fifty years’ experience of said restaurant and how very dare you. Then, in wades Master Impartial, but he’s enthusiastically ignored, so Old Man Wise has a go, only to be shouted down by Madame Poulette clucking away about how her money is as good as Herr Beschwerdeführer who, she thinks, doth complain too much, and the next thing I know, my tea’s gone cold.
Morning view
I see it on non-Symi pages, one of my favourites being from my old, old, home town. Good Lord! You only need to ask a question on there and a whole tribe of ‘we live heres’ are at your throat. The innocent poster is stood up for by complete strangers, which is nice to see, but the town divide is obvious. This place, being by the sea where channel-crossers come ashore, falls into two very distinct camps. The ‘Rescue them and do what you can’ brigade, and the ‘Send them back to where they came from’ party. In there somewhere as subcommittees are the ‘Arrest the lifeboatmen and coast guards for people trafficking’ society, or anti-society perhaps, and those willing to save lives no matter what.
Another morning view.
Sometimes antisocial media can be useful, for example, when you want to anonymously vent your frustration about the way the world doesn’t listen to you, so you put up a steaming hot bowl of personal anti-everything bile, and no-one takes the blindest bit of notice. Hey, at least you feel better. I also like to read some of the ridiculous short stories people put up as questions to which they could have easily found the answer had they bothered to research. Such things as: ‘We are coming to the island of Kalos for the first time on September 27th (soooo excited!) and the plane lands at 10.30. Will we be able to get the 10.35 boat? So looking forward to seeing this beautiful island. We are coming with the two little ones, Tammy aged 3 months and Timmy aged 10 months (don’t ask!, lol), and we want to visit beaches where the sand is white and fluffy, though my husband’s mother who is coming with us and who is 97 (also don’t ask, lol), is unable to walk, so we will need to hire a mobility scooter to get up the steps. We shall be staying at a place I can’t pronounce the name of and would love to meet others with young children for yoga and fasting parties, and maybe even go paragliding together as my husband’s mother loves watersports of all varieties. Anyway, can’t wait to…’
Yeah, well. I’ve switched off and got on with my life.
There has been a lot of this kind of activity in the past few days:
(That’s not a rescue or anything dramatic so don’t get your loukoumades in a twist, Maureen.) Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve noticed a lot more helicopter activity than usual, and have been speculating on why. (Speculating, Shirl’, this isn’t factual news.)
There have been several types of helicopters coming in, usually across the bay, over Harani and onto the landing pad which we can see from the sitting room. First, there’s what I assume is the Air Sea Rescue chopper because it has SAR on the side, and I’ve seen people getting off carrying stretchers and the like. I’m not sure if this is practice or if they have been rescuing refugees during the day. Possibly both because the people traffickers are now bolder and bring boats of ‘tourists’ over from Turkey during the day, and their desperate fee-payers clamber off dressed as if for a holiday. I guess, in a way, that’s safer than the night crossings.
Then, there are the private choppers belonging to the rich and couldn’t-care-less who think nothing of flying to Rhodes to meet a private helicopter to fly them across to Symi where they get a private car to take them to a private speedboat to take them around the island someone else’s private yacht for lunch, during which they might discuss climate change and how other people should be doing more, before making the return journey in the same fuel-guzzling way in the late afternoon.
Completely random shot of part of the courtyard at night.
Some of the smaller, mosquito-type helicopters may be bringing superstar names over to perform at the Symi Festival, I guess, not that that’s any better than the rich and unconcerned when we have something like ten perfectly good boats a day coming from Rhodes. Then, there is the occasional military chopper, though I’ve not seen any of those of late. They tend to come in bringing bigwigs from various military departments when there’s a commemoration or a parade. Finally, the other one I’ve not seen much of of late is the medical helicopter, which is a good thing, I suppose. They used to practice regularly on a Monday or Tuesday night but haven’t been doing that recently. Maybe it’s more of a winter thing.
Anyway, for what it’s worth, those are my early Monday morning thoughts. Now, it’s upwards and onwards to my final edits as I’ve a deadline to make by Thursday.
