I was just having a cup of tea on the balcony—listening to the new neighbours’ new air conditioning unit and watching nothing happening because it was too early in the morning for anything to be happening—and realised it was July. I’d suspected this for a few days, but you know how it is when one day is pretty much the same as the next. It occurred to me that it was also 2023, and ten years ago, I was preparing to release ‘Village View, a Year on Symi.’ This is a collection of blog posts from this very blog, all written during the year ten years ago, and it comes with pictures.
A view of the village
Rushing to my study at the pace of someone holding a mug of tea, I took the book down from the shelf and had a flick through, only to realise I have one of the few copies where the photos are in colour. I remembered speaking to Amazon about this a while back, and asking why the book was on sale for around $200.00, thinking it was one of those scams organised by the unscrupulous who occasionally manage to get through Amazon’s defences. Turns out it’s what the book costs if printed with colour images. I’m sure I never paid that for it. Luckily, the black and white version (which looks just as good) is only $19.63 in paperback and $4.99 on Kindle.
Click to view the view
According to the book, ten years ago this month, I was talking about the new Nautical Museum opening (now closed and turned into the house for the top clergy, I believe) and the Symi Shrimp Festival which was around this time. There are other snippets of info and island news/stories too. The book takes you through an entire year with several posts per month and runs to nearly 300 pages. It’s the third in my four Symi books, the first being ‘Symi 85600’ which also continues to sell and doesn’t cost $200.00, I’m pleased to say.
Another view in the village
That was one thing. Another was news from my yUK ex-journalist mate who told me that the fires on Rhodes have now dropped out of the UK news (or at last, the news he sees). In the tradition of the great British press, when a story has made its sales, it’s shoved out of the way in favour of what dress a certain ‘celeb’ was popping her boobs out of on a red carpet last night, and who fell over on ‘Strictly’, whatever that is. But Rhodes hasn’t dropped off the agenda at all; it’s still happening, though some good news yesterday from an online Greek reporter told us at least one of the fire fronts had been brought under control. (There are more, and that info might have changed by now.)
As I posted the other day, if you want real, local and reliable news, then check the Greek press and not the distant scabloids of other countries who put up headlines such as, ‘Tourists sent into the jaws of death’, when they mean a plane landed at an airport 30 km away from a fire, and on it were people who had chosen to keep their holidays because they were staying in an entirely different part of a very large island. Is it any wonder readers are ill-informed when those who have taken on the role of informant batter readers’ brains to a pulp with sensationalist nonsense because they need to sell copy at any cost?
Anyway… That’s my early morning view on thoughts that sparked when I was on the balcony. If you want to know what they were ten years ago this year, then pick up a copy of Village View: A Year on Symi.
I was going through my folder of ‘photos to be used on the blog one day’ and chose six at random. Some of these date back a couple of years, and they weren’t all taken at this time of year. They are here to liven up the page, if tortoises and petals can liven things up; I think they can.
From the road
While you’re viewing, I will be starting my day which, today, will consist of writing until about eleven in the morning when I may have a siesta (that’s my equivalent of 3 pm to normal people who wake up at seven), followed by a couple of hours for a long lunch break, an hour or so more of writing, an hour at the piano, and then an evening in with a film. Which reminds me, there’s a very interesting film on Netflix called ‘Beckett’…
From my birthday bouquet (a classic Neil photo)
‘Beckett’ is not about a murdered priest, Irish playwright or Labour politician, but a tourist who gets involved in a kidnapping plot. What you might like about it is that it was filmed entirely in Greece. On the mainland, I believe. Much of the second half of the film was shot in Athens, and what’s nice about that is that you never see the standard sights. Not that there’s anything wrong with them. It’s a thriller/drama, and a bit gritty in places, and there are lots of shots of the ‘real’ Athens; the graffiti, the side streets, the rundown and ordinary neighbourhoods, so it’s not glossy—it’s not horrid either, just truthful.
Wild? He was livid!
There are some classic Greek details in this film too. Not only are (most) Greek people the main character meets willing to help a stranger and show classic Greek Filoxenia, but there are some background touches. For example; high in the mountains when the MC is helped by a farmer with a pretty basic way of life and clearly no great income, he’s leaving the house when he passes a brand-new sailing dingy parked up in the yard. It’s as if the farmer thought, ‘I want a boat, I’ll have a boat’ even though he’s nowhere near water. Reminded me of the boats you see up at the cemetery, or near the rubbish tip, or anywhere else in the hinterland, miles from the sea.
Yialos in winter
Today is predicted to be the hottest so far, but we’ll see. It feels cooler this morning than of late and at 3 am it was only 26 in the courtyard and not the 31 of recent mornings. Afternoons, we’ve reached 42 in the shadiest part of our yard, which gets no sun, but strong winds made it feel a bit cooler. Obviously, those winds haven’t been helping over in Rhodes and elsewhere, where fires continue to burn, and we, like everyone, are hoping for a resolution to all that before more people lose their homes and farms. Look back a couple of posts and you will find links to Greek news in English, which I’d prefer to see for accuracy rather than the over-sensationalised tabloid (and broadsheet) media coming out of the yUK right now.
Woke up this morning at three to find it 26° in the courtyard as opposed to 31° as it has been (42° in the afternoons), and to hardly any wind, after the force fives of yesterday. That info, like today’s photos and text, is apropos nothing apart from trying to raise a smile.
Kind of how I’m feeling today
We’ve probably all heard of ‘misheard lyrics’, when you mishear the words to a song, and from then on, can only hear the wrong words. Sometimes it’s years before you realise what you thought was being sung was actually something entirely different. What I hear around the house is something slightly different to that, as my husband has this knack for producing song mashups. This is where you take parts of one song and put them with another, and I have to admit, on occasion, it works rather well.
Here’s an example. Imagine the song by George Michael, ‘Faith’ with the chorus line, ‘Cause I gotta have faith’ and the syncopated repetition that comes after it.
Got that in your head? Good. Now cast your mind back to Paul Young when he was in Streetband, and their 1978 hit, ‘Toast’ with its groundbreaking lyric, ‘Put the grill on, Slip a slice under, And have toast, A little piece of toast…’
Put them together while you are pottering around the kitchen, and, if you’re Neil, you get, ‘Cause you gotta have toast, toast, toast.’
Toast with bacon
That’s one. Here’s another.
‘I saw the sign,’ a song used in Pitch Perfect, the comedy about a cappella singers in the USA. Mix that with a bit of Bob Marley, and you have the mashup:
‘I saw the sign, but I didn’t shoot the deputy.’
I know, makes no sense, but it keeps me smiling.
I did a similar thing in a romantic mystery I wrote called ‘The Blake Inheritance.’ In it, one of the characters mixes his poetry, so his says things like:
‘Let us go then you and I, to a place where the wild thyme grows,’ which I rather like, though Eliott and Shakespeare might not.
Another one I rather liked from the same book:
‘One upon a midnight dreary, the owl and the pussycat went to sea.’
And, ‘Curiouser and curiouser, said the spider to the fly,’ which isn’t poetry, but by now, we’re so far down the rabbit hole, it doesn’t matter.
Chilliwatch update
Let’s take it a stage further and I’ll give you a challenge based on a parlour game I’ve seen on TV where you have to sing one set of lyrics to a completely different tune. (This one’s for you, Louise.)
Imagine, remember or listen to, ‘Do you hear the people sing,’ from Les Miserables:
Do you hear the people sing?
Singing the song of angry men?
It is the music of the people
Who will not be slaves again!
Got that tune in your head? Right, now think back to the stage show/movie Grease, and Stockard Channing singing:
There are worse things I could do
Than go with a boy or two
Even though the neighborhood
Thinks I’m trashy and no good…
Excellent. Now put the two together and sing ‘Worst things’ to the music of ‘Do you hear.’ It fits rather well – to start with at least.
Anyway, there are worst things I could be doing than putting up this nonsense at 3.30 in the morning, and I should go and get on with them. I have the first in a new series due for publication early next month and the MS is going off to the proofreader in a day or so, so I need to get back to my final read-through before it goes to the abattoir of editing.
To complete my week of one-word title blog posts, I came up with the original title, ‘Friday’ because that’s today, and I couldn’t think of anything else. I thought I’d have a quick glance through any photos I’d taken this week, have a ramble about whatever comes into my head while trying to remember what I’ve done in the last seven days, and see what comes out…
Day to Day
First, the mundane: Gone to bed early (9 pm), got up early (currently 3.00 is the get-up time), written a few chapters, edited a few more ahead of having a new book proofread next week, done some freelance writing work, and dealt with blogs and admin. Thank you for the kind messages in the comments on Facebook and via email. Sorry I can’t always reply to comments, but I usually manage to reply to emails, even if only briefly. I particularly liked the one that came in this morning. “I have missed your rants more than words can say.” Thank you, Marilyn – I’ll reply to the email shortly.
On Monday, our godson came around with his work shirt because it needed two buttons sewing back on. Half an hour later, he’d learnt how to do it himself. (Last week, it was ironing, and next week, we’ll be addressing how to starch a wing collar. Only joking.) You may know if you’ve seen my FB page that H and I had an adventure in Prague earlier this year, and the family had one in Athens at New Year, and these trips will, I am sure, be topics of future rambles. Meanwhile…
View from Scena.
Also this week… Met friends at Scena for a chat and catch up, heard about the terrible fires in Rhodes and elsewhere, did some more research on hansom cabs and other matters, and went ‘Ooh’ at Neil’s photo of a fan tube, or a tube fan, or something I can’t remember the name of. He took it while snorkelling in Nimborio.
Also – huge excitement – we bought another scooper after eight years because the old one broke. Handy for sweeping up dead cockroaches after you’ve sprayed them or whacked them with a shoe, but here’s another tip: If you shoe-whack a roach that crawls out from under your bed late at night, and you can’t be arsed to get up to clean it up, leave it there beneath said shoe, and you may discover, as I did, that come the morning, the ants have removed half of it. Leave it another few hours, and all trace of it has gone, and so have the ants. How, why and where to, I care not, but they make very tidy housekeepers.
Not a roach, clearly. A 2.8-kilo chicken (14.00 euros) which will last us all week.
And to finish this incredibly exciting and very random post, how about a Monty Python favourite:
Spam
It continues to come in. Pointless, desperate but often amusing, because of what bots and real people think I will be hooked with or tricked by. Here’s a run-through of some of today’s attention-grabbing titles, requests, questions and adverts.
Do you miss New York bagels? Never had one, so, probably not. I used to like the ones from Dalston’s Ridley Road Market and the 24-hour bagel shop, but I’ve only been to Old York twice, never New York. Steel and Wire Rope from JFY? Why? Lisa sent me a new message from the YouPic team because I once visited a website to look at images for book covers, and since then, Lisa hasn’t been able to live without sending me a daily email from Gothenburg, Sweeden.
My opinion is important to Facebook, apparently, and it can stay that way and undiscussed. Apparently, I have a new girl waiting for me at ‘Cheaters’ and she’s a hottie – a rather subjective statement, I think. ShoutBooksy will advertise my novel to 20,000 readers for a fee, but anyone who *puts stars* around every *sentence* in an *email* deserves my non-attention, as does anyone who *starts* an email with *Hello Dear.*
A visit to the supermarket.
One person noticed me on LinkedIn, so I am clearly not that linked (what is it, anyway?) Oh, a second new message from Lisa, the same as the first. I can get a *FREE* Costco gift, because, they say, I am a lucky user, except I am a LUCKY USER in bold all caps, and it sounds like they are shouting at me, someone who has never used Costco in their life. My opinion is again important to Facebook. My opinion? Stop sending me spam.
I have a chance to receive a free portable power station, but, sadly, I have nowhere to keep another Seabank 2 since I installed a free Dungeness B, so I’ll pass. Walmart has knives. Well, who’d a thought it?
Then, I have things to drink before breakfast, a new fat-burning diet (quite happy with my fat, thanks), Aegean have extended a holiday I didn’t know I was having, Netflix has an offer, except I suspect it’s not really Netflix, a super sexy Milf has her sights set on me, there’s something totally vital to see concerning CI valves, and several messages written in code.
Here’s a tip: I use a program called Mailwasher. I can see all this spam in the programme, delete the ones I don’t want before they get downloaded to my PC, and then wipe them off my servers, so no harm done. I can also report them as spam and/or bounce them back. Saves a lot of time, and makes for safer email checking.
That was my week that was, and from Monday, I’ll repeat the process. To finish:
The other morning while standing on the balcony listening to the world at 3.00 am, through the sound of a superyacht’s chugging generator came the screech of an owl. This made me wonder if I could mention on the blog the wildlife I’ve seen from the house. I don’t mean the ‘Another hundred people just got off of the boat’ kind of mini wildlife we see from up here when the day boats come in, or the train which weaves around the harbour like a caterpillar, or even the speedboats that skim across the sea like water boatmen, but the various real-life, wildlife animals. So, even though I don’t have any suitable photos to use for illustrations (I’ll have to search for and use some from elsewhere), here’s a rundown of the diverse Symi wildlife as seen from a village balcony over the past eight years.
Four-legged
It’s not uncommon, particularly in the spring, to find a random mule tethered in the wasteland right below the house. We have all kinds of plants growing down there at that time of year; grasses, poppies, tall green weeds, Michaelmas daisy things, the ‘Judas plant,’ and other plant things I don’t know the names of. The random mule chomps away, leaving behind deposits of fertiliser in what seems a fair and natural exchange. Around springtime we also find the occasional sheep wandering past. There are usually at least a few of these invasions as a ewe and lamb become separated from the flock, or, having been brought down to graze on the edge of the village, make a run for freedom and explore the lanes and views in the manner of bewildered tourists. At least the sheep don’t ask the age-old and vague question, ‘Which way to the church?’
Now and then a stray goat may make an appearance down our side alley, and climb over the opposite wall to take up a pose of the neighbour’s outside bathroom, but we’re more likely to see sheep, for some reason.
Also in the four-legged category, I could list the rats that play in the pomegranate tree next door and occasionally wander closer to our home. One day, I must tell you about last year’s house rat, the upturned piano, and the heroic capture of the dear little thing Neil engineered with a crutch and the front wheel of Harry’s bicycle. Oven gloves and Tupperware were also included, but that’s for another day.
Cats, obviously, are the most common visitor to the neighbourhood. In full throat in mating season, stalking the rats in the tree, digging holes to leave deposits, and hunting the birds with all the success of a Tory government trying to find a benefit of Brexit. We have lots of cats on the island.
Not outside the house, but one of Neil’s photos from a while back.
Two-Legged, Land-Based
I mentioned tourists, and we’ll often see day trippers who have broken from the herd and struck out for freedom. Usually, this specimen is caught standing in the lane below with a mobile phone in one hand, head in the other, and pointing their Google map to where, apparently, there should be a road. They move on after a while, but if they return, we sometimes ask if they are lost, to which they reply, ‘Which way to the church?’ (Which one? There are, allegedly, over 360 on the island.)
Also seen passing on two legs are the boy next door, always very quietly if at night, and with a friendly wave if in daylight hours; other local folks on their way to work through the shortcut from the ‘main’ road to Kali Strata; the neighbour taking his daily exercise, and other such reassuring local sightings.
Chickens and cockerels. Kind of two-legged, semi-land-based aviators who live around the dustbins up the road. Last year, a hen led her very young chicks down to the wasteland and over the broken wall into the abandoned garden next door, and then, couldn’t get the things out because they were too small. We took it upon ourselves to feed them from on high with seeds and cucumbers and watched the chicks grow up until, without so much as a thank you, they left home.
Two-legged Aviators
Far more interesting, for me as a once-member of the Young Ornithologists Club, are the birds. Sadly, my membership expired in 1973, and I don’t remember the names of half the things we see, so excuse me if I get them wrong. When I was a YOC member, something I always wanted to see were ravens. (I must have been into Poe from an early age, because they fascinated me. Perhaps I’d seen the Roger Korman film with Vincent Price and Jack Nicholson when I was eight, I don’t know…) These days, we see ravens all the time; croaking like frogs, which is what I thought the sound was when I first heard it not long after moving here, flying upside down when showing off, and, not so long ago, swooping so close to my head as I stood on the roof, what’s left of my hair moved in the draft.
Not sure…
Also in the big bird department, we often see buzzards or eagles over the windmill hills and Pedi Valley. We have a pair of kestrels nesting just up the lane, there are seagulls over the harbour, but not as many as you might think, and the little and scops owls that sometimes sit a few feet away on the telegraph pole. In the middle-class-neighbourhood range, we have the collared doves and the pigeons, the blackbirds who nest in the pomegranate tree despite the rats, and a blue rock thrush or two. In the more mundane department, we have sparrows. In fact, sparrows are two a penny around here. You could say they are going cheap. (Like the gags.) Then, there are the European serins, all yellow and grey, and other small, noisy birds like wheateaters, swallows and martens. Recently, we’ve had a hooded crow or two, which I thought was unusual. These are the birds that wake you up early in Rhodes where they are everywhere, but I don’t remember seeing or hearing so many here until recently.
The top view of the last eight years, though, was a hoopoe (above). This was in 2020 when we were in lockdown and the wildlife had started to reclaim the village because those pesky humans weren’t out and about. There were more birds near the house, and more sheep, actually, and one day, while standing outside watching nothing taking place below, a hoopoe flew right past not five feet away. Had I been a train enthusiast and the bird a Mallard, I’d have blown a gasket with excitement, but I’ve never seen a duck in the village, nor a 1938 A4 class locomotive, come to that. I did hear a duck when we first moved in and thought it quaint that someone should keep such birds up here, but it turned out to be the man next door clearing his sinuses by sniffing up and expelling water through his nose.
The little owl next door
Insects, Lizards and Others
I shan’t go into the insect class in detail, because I can’t. There are too many, but among the creepy-crawly, highly-industrious insects and others you can expect to find not far away are cicadas, locusts, moths, butterflies, spiders (yes, I know, not insects but…), ants, snakes, salamanders, lizards, mosquitoes, beetles, and some other things I’ve forgotten about because, frankly, it’s far too early in the morning and I wish I’d never started this exercise. So…
Yes, there is plenty of wildlife to see on Symi, and you can often see it with very little effort. Apologies to those wonderful critters I’ve missed off the list, and thanks to whoever I took the photos from.
