We’re still enjoying warm weather down here. I just went outside at 3.30 this morning, and it was rather pleasant. Mind you, there’s no wind to speak of, the plants don’t know what to make of it all, and I’m sure we’ll get some kind of winter weather before long. Meanwhile, the Nicholaos X made its last day trip yesterday. At least, I assume that’s why it sounded its horn for ages as it left; saying thank you and goodbye in the traditional fashion.

Today sees the start of the three-day Panormitis festival, and many of the boats will be routed to visit that end of the island during this week. It’s doubtful I’ll get down there this year, but I imagine it’s already busy with pilgrims and visitors, market stalls and other things set up and making ready. Wednesday will be the big holiday and main day, but events and celebrations will be going on for the next three days.

Today, I’ve a couple of photos Neil took on a recent walk over to St Nicholas Beach, or ‘Saint Nick’s’ as it’s often called. They were taken on a morning when there was some early but not threatening cloud, but like many days at this time of year, the cloud dispersed during the rest of the morning, leaving a clear sky and a sunny day.

Things have quietened down no there are very few visitors here. We can still see some pleasure boats coming in and out, but the harbour isn’t lined with them. Instead, it’s returning to the customary winter sight of local fishing boats and speedboats only, with the ferries turning up according to their schedules, but not the day trip boats. I’ve noticed that visitors eager for next season to be upon them have already begun asking about boats from Rhodes next summer. The bottom line there is, you will have to wait, as the schedules don’t get published until much nearer the time. I want to book Blue Star tickets for the first week in January, but they’re not online yet. (The Sunday/Monday sailings are, but not the other two per week; assuming the schedule stays the same as it is now.) Blue Star is the major line from Athens to here, and if that’s not putting up its dates for two months hence, there’s little or no chance the smaller lines will be putting up theirs for June and July. Calm down folks, there will be boats. There may also be the need for you to stay the night in Rhodes depending on what time your plane lands, but that’s par for the course.

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I expect there are a few sore heads around this morning following yesterday’s village wedding. This was the wedding of Lefteris and Glykeria to which, I’m told, over 600 people were invited. If you were wondering, that’s ‘young’ Lefteris from the Lefteris’ Kafeneion in the village. As is the Greek tradition, he was given his grandfather’s name, which means in the four generations of the family there is great-grandfather Lefteris, his son, Yiannis, his son, Lefteris, and his son, Yiannis. It was a lovely afternoon/evening, though we couldn’t make it to the reception at the Opera House.

I’ll kick your week off with a couple of photos, including one taken later from a very busy Scena where we stopped off on the way home.

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We’ve started early this year. Preparing for that joyous celebration on December 25th, I mean. I know it’s a long way off, but for one reason or another, we tend to start gathering things well in advance. This avoids the annual crush at Jumbo and other shops in Rhodes, a trip to which, although often entertaining, usually turns out to cost more than you save. Once you add in boat tickets, a decent lunch, possibly a hotel if an overnight is needed, a taxi or a bus and all that jazz, a shopping trip to Rhodes can be costly. So, I do some of my you-know-what shopping online.

I’m currently waiting for something special from another European country, and as it’s coming by DHL, it is not going to arrive, or so they tell me. Now, I don’t want the good folk at DHL to sit up in a cold sweat and say, ‘Say what?’ because their message, ‘Package cannot be delivered’ is actually so common as to be expected. Other courier services have the same problem in that a delivery reaches Athens, and then no-one at the delivery hub knows where to send it next. I often receive an automated message telling me my thing can’t be delivered because of there being no address, and yet, a few days later, it’s here and all’s well. Maybe it’s because there are few officially registered addresses for the island? Maybe there I none, I don’t know. What I do know is, I usually get the thing a few days after being told it can’t be delivered. (Never have this problem with ACS or Elta, btw. It’s only the other services; perhaps we are between DHL agents on the island?)

Anyway, that’s beside the point. This year, I’ve also used an online store which appears to bring with it something of a controversy. You may have heard of how Temu is taking over the world. According to Karen on Facebook, it’s owned by the Chinese government, and as soon as you browse it online, all your personal data is sucked from the computer and delivered directly into the hands of an evil villain sitting behind a bank of monitors in a plush office at the top of a Beijing office block. He rubs his hands together in glee as he gloats over all your lovely details, and plots the best way to control your life. That’s you and several million other online customers, most of whom are in a far more interesting place of power or finance, or who work for secret organisations and spy rings, so even if a country is data-mining your info, I doubt they are specifically interested in your info or you. Besides, my other online stores, banks even, already have all my details and I have no idea what they do with it or who they are. Lizard people working with Pukin to overthrow the West, probably, but as long as my order arrives in time for you-know-what, I don’t really care.

Maybe this online shop is a cover for a Bond villain, as these Karens* make out, but all I know is their stuff is cheap, it arrives within a couple of weeks, and there are loads of affordable gadgets and fun things to make a party go with a laugh. There are also lots of neat things for the home that you didn’t know you couldn’t live without until you saw them. I am more than happy with my illuminated WC pan. (I giggled at it for ages, and it’s even better in the middle of the night when you don’t need to turn on the main light because the loo senses you’re near and bursts into light.) There’s also a warm glow emanating from behind the TV now I’ve stuck on a strip of tiny LED lights. My you-know-what box is already bulging with unsuitable gifts for the godchildren at at a cost of €3.50. The best thing for me is that this junk comes from inside Europe, inside the country rather, so I miss out on having to pay extra for import duty as we sometimes do when things arrive from the post-Brexit yUK.

So, I will leave the evil villain deciding what he (or she) is going to do with my €57.34 worth of savings in my bank account, and go and order that must-have ‘Multifunction silicone sink sponge rack with adjustable shoulder strap.’ (Yes, that’s a real thing.)

* Apologies if your name is Karen. I didn’t invent this misappropriation of your name. I’ll refer to you as Kevin** from now on.

** Apologies if your name is Kevin…

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Apparently, today is National Authors’ Day. This day was first recognised by the US Department of Commerce in 1949, following a campaign by a book lover that began in the 1920s. I think it’s mainly an American thing, although now it’s probably spreading globally through the internet, and gives us indie authors an opportunity for some gratuitous publicity. Indeed, this page would have been filled with adverts for my books, had I known today was National Authors’ Day and had time to prepare something. I haven’t. Nor do I have any suitable images to illustrate what the National Today website refers to as a ‘holiday.’

I’m not sure it is a holiday, not in the sense of everyone getting a free day off work, but it would be nice to think so. I wonder if there’s a parade somewhere, with everyone dressed as their favourite author, or riding on floats depicting famous scenes from books. I imagine a truck aflame with burning crinolines as Gone with the Wind drives past. Whether you’re having a local parade, street party or other event to celebrate this day, I hope it goes off well for you and you have plenty of time to discuss your favourite author, once you’ve decorated your house to match those from a Barbara Cartland, laid out your lawn with scenes from War and Peace, and opened your back garden to the neighbourhood’s children so you can reenact The Lord of the Flies.

Whatever you are doing, enjoy National Authors’ Day even if there isn’t such a thing in your country. And if you don’t feel like celebrating any authors, there are, apparently, other ‘holidays’ to enjoy today because today is also the Day of the Dead in Mexico, Broadcast Traffic Professionals Day in the USA, and something called ‘Dynamic Harmlessness Day,’ which sounds very tame and not at all dynamic.

I don’t know who invents these ‘holidays’, to me, many of them sound like attention-seeking behaviour. What, for example, is ‘Look for Circles Day’? because that’s today, as is National Devilled Eggs Day.’ It is also ‘National Men Make Dinner’ Day.

There are some more rational sounding days occurring today and not all of them in America which seems to have at least ten days per day celebrating something. Should you be in Liberia today, you’ll thank me for pointing out it’s Thanksgiving Day over there. If you are in Ohio, you probably already know today is ‘National Ohio Day’, and, in Italy, it’s the feast day of Saint Giusto. Meanwhile, it’s also International Stout Day, and I think that means the drink, not people built like me, but then it’s also Plan Your Epitaph Day, presumably because traffic directors will be going wild as they celebrate their appreciation day with too much stout, and cause mayhem.

I don’t know who makes these things up, but I can’t wait for tomorrow when it’s going to be Cliché Day. That’s a day I can handle, but I’m not sure I will have time to celebrate all the other feasts and festivals planned for tomorrow because among the things being celebrated around the world but mainly in America are:

Fountain Pens, Jellyfish (yes, they have their own day), it’s also National Accessory Day (wtf?), and the official Sandwich Day. You may or may not want to celebrate ‘Love your Lawyer Day,’ particularly as it’s also ‘Give someone a Dollar Day.’

I could go on, but some authors have work to do. If you’re up for it, you can find more of these fascinating excuses for a day off over on National Today.com, though bear in mind it’s predominantly an American thing and most days don’t come with a day off.

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Yesterday, I was sitting on the sofa happily reading about the Gaiety Theatre in the late 19th century, when I became aware I was being serenaded. The strains of ‘Amazing Grace’ were floating across the harbour and up to the house on a breezeless day. Unusual, but not unpleasant. It was being played on a solo trumpet (or it may have been a recording), and we got two verses and a modulation, plus an unusually diminished second chord on one of the higher notes. On further examination, I saw the music was coming from a departing yacht which was very slowly pulling away from the quayside and putting its bow to open water.

The ship was called ‘Elida’ and along its side was written ‘Sailing for Jesus.’ Now, it would be very easy for me to be flippant, but I don’t want to upset anyone (I don’t particularly mind if I do, actually, because if anyone ever doesn’t like what I write, they are welcome to read elsewhere), but I think I might pop the ship a note. Only to say that Amazing Grace was written by a man called John Newton in 1772, or thereabouts, and Mr Newton spent some time making slaves of people along the African coast and trading them. He’d found God behind the bureau, and was already pretty active in the ‘prattle box’, as the street slang of the time called a pulpit, and he spent time preaching, and when he could, learning Hebrew and Greek. Mr Newton found God again later, on March 21st, and ended up having his own church as well as writing one of the most popular hymns of all time. It became all the rage in the American South (presumably where his slaves ended up, singing along cheerily in their new and improved homes), and is still played today, as yesterday proved.

There are plenty of others they could have played on their departure, ‘For those in peril on the sea’ springs instantly to mind. ‘Jerusalem’, if they were heading that way, ‘Morning has Broken and now we’re off sailing for the afternoon’, would have been timely, or that lesser-known spiritual from Mr Newton’s heyday on the African coast, ‘Dropkick me Jesus over the goalposts of life.’

The Elida and Sailing for Jesus is a Swedish all-Christian organisation with the goal of spreading the Word along the Swedish west coast in winter and the warmer waters of the Med in summer via their 131-foot mega yacht. The organisation is also known as the ‘sailing singing church’, and its work is directed primarily towards the younger generation.

The message behind these notes is subliminal. I was at home up in the village, overlooking the harbour, I had my balcony doors open because it was warm enough to do so, I was able to hear the music because the weather was calm, and it was Halloween – October 31st, and the windows were still open. I can’t remember the last time I was able to do that. No heaters needed as yet, but dodgy weather coming in soon, they say, and yet no need for fans or aircon either. I’ve just been outside and it’s warm enough to be in a tee shirt, and it’s the first of November (kalo mina, btw).

One of the downsides to this warm weather (apart from being able to hear the occasional bum note from the boatswain) is, or are, mosquitoes, and I’ve a word or two of my own to spread about those little blighters which I’ll do in a post another day.

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