Our niece and her husband have been on the island for the past few days, and yesterday evening, we all walked up to the top of the Kastro to take in the view. It was a little windy up there, as it was everywhere, and as the wind was from the north and west, the temperature dropped. It’s that time of year when it’s winter up top with hoodies and jumpers on, and summer below where you’re still wearing shorts. Still, the walk was lovely, as was the early evening view, as was dinner at Taverna Zoi afterwards.

In the afternoon, my godson came for his piano lesson, and after, as has become our habit in the summer, we stood on the balcony watching the boats and discussing… well, it’s whatever comes along. Boats, yes, but yesterday, also the strange light I and now he and everyone who works at the Kali Strata Restaurant see over Turkey. It looks like it’s over Nimos, but it’s further away, I’ve noticed it over the past few years, and it’s always the same. Only the time of night changes as this very bright, static light appears well above the mountain ridge, therefore, in the sky, stays there, and gradually fades out. Odd. We discussed in what direction it lay, which then resulted in a lesson in basic navigation and how to use a compass – as much as I could remember at any rate. There was also a discussion about how binoculars work, but sadly, I wasn’t able to answer all the questions. For example, why, when you look through a magnifying glass held at a distance, does everything turn upside down? I suggested asking a physics teacher, but at the technical school right now they’re lucky to have any kind of teacher; they’re short of teachers for maths, language and English. Terrible, if you ask me.

The evening finished off with news about what’s happening with our rented house. It looks like we are safe for another year continuing as we are, and then the new owner will reexamine the contract. Whatever that means. I may discover more when I see the new contract and go over to Rhodes to sign it. Meanwhile, it’s back to work this morning, followed by meeting friends on a day trip for lunch, saying farewell to the family, and, hopefully, returning to something approaching autumnal normality.

I’d forgotten about this annual ceremony, The Procession of the Pitsos. Actually, I don’t know what make of fridge it was that was being carried out of the taverna the other day. Hopefully, it was on its way to a better place. Or maybe I should say a ‘different’ place, in case someone sensitive thinks I mean the taverna isn’t a good place, and gets offended. The last thing I want to do is cause offence or be a trigger. In my day, Trigger was a horse, not an excuse to become terminally insulted by the slightest thing, and being offended was a rare event. Now, it seems, it’s an acceptable way of drawing attention to yourself, and by declaring yourself offended, you garner the sympathy of the world around you, or at least, hope to.

Get over it. It’s a fridge leaving on its last journey having housed wine and water for a hundred years, and it will probably end up in the landfill dump like everything else that gets thrown away around here. The other day, someone asked where on the island they could find a recycling point. As much as we applauded their intentions and naïveté, we had to shake heads and declare there was no such thing. Not since that mayoral election when Harry was still in junior school and the kids enthusiastically got together and geared up for recycling because special bins and collection points had appeared, only to vanish again a couple of weeks after voting. Perhaps if we had recycling activity that the young people could become involved in, there would be less of this.

I don’t mean the shop that’s locally known as ‘Mr Chan’s Chinese Emporium of all things cheap and cheerful.’ (The €8.00 shower head with internal turbo fan is a must have – it’s so powerful and uses a lot less water, but that’s a story for another rambling post.) Actually, I like that wall. It’s somewhere the youff of the village can express itself while waiting for its six-year-old best mate to finish selling cigarettes and come out to ride up and down on noisy motorbikes as a way of celebrating their 14th birthdays. There is some very choice philosophy on that wall if you look closely and translate, some rather anatomically incorrect genitalia, and a few hopeful yet somehow tragic love messages between eleven year olds. I think it’s a village feature and should have Perspex placed over it to preserve it, but then again, I’m still only half awake and it’s Monday morning.

Anyway, we’re expecting high winds today and tomorrow, though it’s still warm, and that’s the news for now.

Here are five shots of the Kali Strata I took on my way down a few days ago. They are appropriate because of something that happened…

Bear with me…

Last night, our niece and her husband arrived to stay for a few days. They are staying in an Airbnb in the village and had someone meet them from the boat and bring them up. ‘Here’s your front door. Have a nice stay.’ The property is near a church in the middle of the village bowl. That’s not to be confused with the Hollywood Bowl, which is something else. I refer to the way the village dips from the Castro, down and back up again to Ag Triada. They are right in the middle of it, about five minutes walk from the village square – if you know the way. They were due to meet us just after seven, and by the time it got to eight, I thought I should go and search for them. They’d sent us a photo of the front door as supplied by the property owner, and because I recognised it, I went there, but all was in darkness. I then came back via the most obvious route by which time news had spread through the square that these people were missing. (Why is Joe Public such a collective drama queen? Calm down, gurl, they’ve got Google maps. Haha.) They eventually turned up having found their way to the road, and followed it to Yialos because that was the way they’d been driven up, and they had searched the harbour square for ‘Rainbow’ because that was where we were waiting, and eventually found the Kali Strata and their way back up where they found us by accident. (It’s a good job they work as personal trainers and physios.) So, that was that, and we had a quick dinner at Georgios where, apparently, if you ask for ‘Mia patatas’ the waiter hears ‘Beef Metaxa’ and you get an extra plate you didn’t want and then get severely scowled at for insisting you didn’t order it, and get it dumped and left on your table. I’m surprised we’re not still there this morning under the instruction that, ‘You’re not leaving this table until you’ve eaten it, young man.’

After that debacle, I walked the couple to the property with the door in the photo only to find out it wasn’t that one at all – bloody Airbnb! It’s no good sending people a shot of a doorway when they’ve not been here before and there are… how many doors in the village? They remembered their driver had told them to follow the signs to the museum but don’t actually go to the museum, and so I took them back down past the museum, back towards the village square, and on the way, they somehow recognised a turning and said it was up there, so we went up there, and then they thought it was across that way, so we explored across that way, and finally, we found the place, and I’ve never seen a door look less like a door in my life, but at least they got home. As did I several thousand steps later, and so, I went to bed. Have a good weekend. Here are some photos. Thank you. Bye.

Looking from the balcony yesterday at some point, the only boats I could see moored up were day-trip boats. Five of them. All the smaller sailing boats and larger yachts had gone. It just looked a bit odd, that’s all. The other boats were back later in the day, and we can only see one half of one side of the harbour from up here, but it was the first time I had noticed only day boats. We’ve still got several day boats coming in, from the speedboat-style ones to the larger King Saron, also known as the Queeny Shaz. (I don’t know. It went something like: King Saron, King Sharon, Queen Sharon, Queen Shaz, Queeny Shaz. Its etymology is clouded in nonsense.)

In other news, I may be nipping back to Rhodes next week or the week after to see the doc about my tennis elbow again. To get an appointment for this one, you have to phone an appointment agency, so Neil is going to do that for me on Friday, as I am more phone phobic than ever these days. (If you want me, send a message, don’t ring, it sets my heart a pumping like no-one’s business.) I’ve been cutting down on the repetitiveness that has caused the strain (typing), but as it’s the way I earn a living, I can’t cut down on it too much. (Still fine on the piano, L. and back on my feet today.) So, that’s the news from home.

News from elsewhere… Weather fine, warmer now the north wind has dropped. If you’re heading this way soon, you can expect warm (25° to 30°) and calm until later on Monday when it’s meant to be a little north-wind breezy again for 24 hours, then back to calm. If you’re already here, then simply look out of the window and you’ll see what the weather is doing.

As you can see, not much to report, so I’m getting on with chapter eight.

Another late start today. I could get used to this not getting up until 6.30 business… Anyway, a glance at my collection of ‘Last Week Through the Years’ images shows me:

Neil showing off his new teeth (having had a couple fixed), a chicken in a tree, an aerial photo of my home town, and this one of the carved shop front in Horio which I’ve always thought had something to do with Aesop’s fables because it shows a fox and a dove.

Scrolling down, we must have walked to Nimborio at some point because there are photos of and from St George’s church…

Three years ago, I was with Harry having a massive plate of noodles in Rhodes, for some reason, Neil was in his rainbow shirt at the Rainbow Bar, and the same old sun was rising in the morning. Then come pictures of Pedi, goats, my parents wedding my brother being a DJ…? Ah! I was preparing a book for my brother’s big birthday, and scanning the images from the old family album. Meanwhile, back in Symi…

The same old sunrise, which I missed this morning because we sat on the balcony and chatted until far too late. Which is what I am now, so, to work.