I’m making a change to my financial advisors, which sounds awfully posh and first-world, but actually, it’s not. One of the things I need to provide is proof of address (POA), and this is always something of a nightmare. Here’s why, and here are a couple of shots from yesterday morning to lighten the read.

Many places don’t accept a Post Office box number, which we have, and which shows up on our tax and accountancy forms, sometimes. At other times, my tax papers read something like: Collins James Richard Sarah, which clearly, is not my name, and my address is Symi, 85600. That’s it, and that’s not good enough for non-Greece based companies.

The phone bill is in Neil’s name, and in Greek, so that’s no good. Besides, the address on it is something like ‘At the House of Maria Someone, Symi,’ and that’s it.

The Electricity bill is in my name, but again, the address of the house is put down as the name of the owner/Symi, and many places expect you to have a house number, or at the least, a street name.

Bank accounts? Again, name, island, postcode, maybe with Horio added in for Alpha Bank, or ‘PO box 12’ which isn’t accepted, and anyway, it’s number 42 now (must change that). Obviously, the Greek organisations also write your address in Greek script, and the only saving grace there is that ΣΥΜΙ looks similar enough to SYMI.

I have another bank that’s not Greece based, but all statements are now paperless and the companies that want your POA don’t accept screenshots of your statement, so that’s a right royal pain in the assets.

Health and House Insurance? I was able to get Generali to put the house insurance bill in Neil’s name and using the address we have given ourselves, and that might be okay for a company I have been with a while, but if I am switching, the new advice company may want something more than a house insurance bill. Ditto the health insurance, except that says my name, T.Θ. 12, Symi, 85600 – which is not accepted by non-Greek companies.

I usually use my pension statements which come as PDFs, but I can’t in this case, because they are who the new advisory company will be dealing with, so they can’t accept that.

Anyway, that’s today’s struggle. That and trying to find out why to renew a British passport from here comes out at nearly £300 when it should only be around £100. I think someone has pressed the wrong button somewhere. Oh, and if I am to rescue the godson’s latest modelling project, I need to find out how to get dried black acrylic water-based paint off a white plastic car kit without affecting the plastic.

I’ve not much to report this Monday morning, as I spent most of the weekend at home working on a couple of projects and, and in the case of yesterday, doing not very much at all. You might have read we’ve had this Sahara dust hanging over us for the past few days, and it’s still misty out there, except it’s not mist. It’s a very fine collection of particles that gradually land but which are hard to see unless, for example, you sweep the courtyard floor and create a pile of it. It’s making the view look as though we have a humidity haze, but the humidity yesterday was 25% (the temperature was over 30). Here’s the view this morning.

If you want to see it on video, check out the Symi Dream short reels here. This morning’s one will be the first on the list.

As for my other projects, I have been working on ‘Where There’s a Will’ my 4th mystery in the new series, and that’s at 78,000 words. The weekend’s research included discovering the specific names for parts of a lighthouse, and I found this diagram, which isn’t very large but was still very useful. (The widow’s walk is a bit of a worry.)

Then, I was also working on a biography of my godfather. I started this back in the early 2000s, and in 2004, I spent many days interviewing him and recording his stories. Over the years, I have thought about writing it all up, turning it into a play, film, book or musical, and have transcribed the recordings (with the help of Jenine and Neil when I first started it years ago). Then, I left it alone, but now, something tells me the time is right to tidy it up, find a cover, have it proofed and set it up for publication as a short book, which I will at some point this year. His story started in Tooting, London, in 1919, and I found a photo of just the place…

So, that was my Symi weekend, that and inviting some guests for a courtyard evening on Saturday. As for this week, I am going to start it off with a walk, then work, then, later, piano and chill. There’s nothing major planned in my diary except to stay healthy, be happy and bash out words (and buy more mosquito repellent, it’s that time of year again).

It’s looking a little cloudy out there today, but calm and warm. It’s one of those days when I have nothing planned but to write a few words and move the next story along. That’s often how days start, but not always how they go. For example, today, I have already signed documents for my new financial advisors, answered two emails, and completed a necessary questionnaire. Beside me is Harry’s manuscript book containing a song he wrote, and I have to scan that and send it off to have it printed via Sibelius (the software, not the composer). That will no doubt mean I have to update my scanner drivers as I hardly ever use it, which will be another half an hour messing around on the computer, and I’ll do that after I’ve done this, and before I go for a walk. After that, I may be able to sit and write, but it’s a water day so the washing machine needs to go on and I should water the plants. Neil usually does these jobs while he’s waiting for gym time (it opens at 10.30), but he’s sneezing and sniffing, and saying, ‘Urgh’ a fair bit this morning, so he may well be going back to bed. If so, I’ll cook lunch, which is our main meal of the day, so I’ll have to stop writing around 11.00 to get on with that – if I in fact, get a chance to start.

I don’t have any music on today though, no signing or lessons, so I could write this afternoon, but that’s the time I usually do the editing because my brain’s not as creative after midday. Talking of music, on Sunday, my student and I are going up the mountain to play the drums. At least, we’ve arranged a one-off lesson for him, so he can experience a drum kit. So far this year, as well as piano, he’s had a month of singing, a month of clarinet, and a month of songwriting, with a little time spent on the concertina too. That’s on top of the grade three theory and the grade four piano course. ‘Get them while they’re young, Evita, get them while they’re young,’ springs to mind…

So, witter, witter, chat, chat, woe is me, I have no time to write because I spend my time writing this – oh, and my other blog which I need to prepare for tomorrow when I will present a post about… I have no idea what. Something to do with writing. While on Symi…? Here are a few photos taken in recent days/weeks, to browse over your weekend breakfasts.

We were treated to a lovely lunch at Trata yesterday (thank you!), and before meeting up for it, I had some admin to take care of that I should have done years ago. I’d asked our accountant to arrange for me, as Neil’s spouse, to benefit from his national health insurance, as married couples can do. (I have private insurance, but it doesn’t cover the cost of prescriptions, which can be expensive.) So, I popped in to pick up some papers which I then took to KEP who will do the application to send to Rhodes, and call me when they hear back. It all went very smoothly, and everyone was extremely helpful. We are very lucky to have the KEP office and the people who work there.

I had a little time to wait before going to lunch, so I sat at a café and watched the world go by, while I celebrated my morning with a Greek coffee.

Arriving home later, we discovered the Jenny plant had a flower on it. It’s called Jenny because that’s who gave it to us. It didn’t do so well last year, and we think it got too hot, so we’ve put it in a shadier place now, and it’s starting to come back.

As for the evening… it wasn’t a late night, in fact, Neil was in bed by eight, but I stayed up to watch a film. I got half an hour into Barry Lyndon and was thoroughly enjoying it, but the excitement of the day caught up with me, and I had an early night too. Hence the early morning. Today will be a typical Thursday for me, writing, maybe a walk, music lesson and models this afternoon, perhaps popping out to say farewell to some visitors, otherwise, a couple of hours of TV and hopefully, another early night.

I can’t remember if I mentioned Google Maps the other day. I meant to, but then probably forgot, but if I’ve forgotten that I didn’t forget and this is a repeat, then read it anyway and then forget about it, because this, like a lot of what I put here, is pretty unmemorable.

Now I’ve forgotten what I was going to… oh yes. Sat navs and Google’s map service. I’ll say that again, Google’s map “service.” I was coming down the road the other morning when I met a lady looking for the museum and trying to get there via her phone and Google Maps. I took a quick look at the screen, and it bore little similarity to reality. In the end, I took her there as that was easier and quicker than explaining the route. It reminded me that I passed by the other day and took a photo of the opening times.

It’s becoming a ‘thing’ now, to see people reaching the village square with their noses buried in a phone, glancing up, looking around and then following their phone again. ‘Are you lost?’ you ask, to which they reply with a firm, ‘No,’ and carry on being lost. On some occasions, as reported by Neil from his position of helpful barman, someone will be so adamant their phone is right, that they will stare at a building and swear there should be a lane there. ‘Clearly, there isn’t,’ doesn’t stop them from complaining that the village hasn’t been built according to their map, and off they go to get lost elsewhere.

The problem might be that the maps don’t have the steps marked on them. So, the best one is when you see someone on a hired moped, and they weave their way along past Sotiris’ supermarket to arrive at the Kali Strata Restaurant, and then look very confused, left, right, can’t go up or down, then their passenger shows them their phone as if to say, you can go that way, the phone says so.

The moral of the tale is, if in doubt, ask, don’t rely on a map on your phone. Besides, when you’re exploring, what would you rather see? The scenery or the screen?