Rainbows and other news

The dust cloud and other shady weather passed over us on Tuesday, turning the sky a mysterious colour and, where the sun broke through, giving us some interesting lighting. There was a little rain in the afternoon, enough to produce a double rainbow over the harbour entrance.

You can’t really see the second one, but it was there.

In other news, the country continues to struggle with more cases and fatalities. There are stories of this opening, and that not opening, tourism being promoted from this date but only from that country, and maybe restrictions will be lifted then but only when… And it’s all still in a state of flux around here. The mayor has advised people not to travel by boat unless absolutely necessary, and the island remains mainly quiet and cautious. The Ministry of Health has announced that the platform for scheduling vaccination appointments for people aged 70 to 75 will open on Friday. In early April, the platform will open for those in the 56 to 69 age group, and there’s hope that more vaccination centres will open from April 1^st onwards to speed the programme. I turn 58 on Friday, and so must wait a while longer, but some friends in their early 60s have received jab #1 and have an appointment for jab #2 in a couple of weeks; others in various groups have already had both.

So, we’re keeping an eye on all of that. The only trip I must make is later in April, and that’s to start the process of my biometric residency card, which can only be done in Rhodes. So, thanks for putting me in danger, Brexit, and double-thanks as it will involve at least one more trip after that, possibly two, a few weeks later. If I don’t or can’t keep the appointment, then the alternative is to take pot-luck one day after June 1^st, turn up in Rhodes and wait in the hope I will be seen that day. If not, I’d have to stay in Rhodes and try again each day until I can be seen, and then repeat the journey twice more to complete the process. Again, thanks, Brexit. The fine details of what this disastrous move will entail are only now beginning to show. Things like people having to pay twice the value of a package from the UK because of customs rules, people with properties here not able to stay more than three months out of six (roughly), and other personally hurtful scenarios that no-one bothered to think about before. No-one other than those who could see such things coming. But let’s not get me started on all that. Let’s just remember that there’s still a land that I dreamed of somewhere over the rainbow.

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Poseidon Weather

I’m keeping an eye on the weather today (Tuesday). There was a news announcement on Monday saying a great cloud of Saharan dust was coming or way. This comes along at least once per year, and locally, we call it ‘red rain.’ When the cloud is up there, and the rain comes down here, you find the dust over everything; washing, courtyard, rooves… When it’s up there and falling without rain, it can clog you up as much as it clogs the shelves. So, I went to the new-look Poseidon weather site and discovered that since it upgraded its pages, it now offers a ‘dust’ forecast. It might have done this before, and I never noticed, but I saw it yesterday and received this forecast.

That accounts for the strange colour of the sky and the covering of cloud. We did have rain overnight on Monday, but I’ve not been out there yet to see if it has dried to dust. Whatever. We’d brought the washing in, and today, the mains water should be coming in, so we can hose off the few plants we have in our courtyard.

Today’s photos are from a while ago, but still this year, and give you an idea of the weather we get during the winter months. It’s warm at the moment too. I commuted to work yesterday (three steps across the porch), and it was raining, but there was no need to put the heater on. The courtyard temperature read 19 degrees on Monday afternoon, and I’ve not had to sit under a blanket for a while. The weather is unsettled but not intolerable, and the island remains very quiet as lockdown goes on. We now have quick home tests available from the pharmacies, I am told. I must go to the harbour to check the post office sometime this week, and that will be the first time in weeks I have been below 500 feet, or whatever altitude the village is at. I wonder if it tells me that on the Poseidon weather channel? I must go and look, and if you want to see the weather and conditions down here in the south-east Aegean, here’s the link.

https://poseidon.hcmr.gr/

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Pine Processionary

The other day, Neil was on a procession from Yialos to Horio, or vice versa, along the main road that zigzags up/down from the harbour’s eastern end. He came across this…

It’s a line of Pine Processionary caterpillars (Thaumetopoea pityocampa, if you will), and seeing this image, you can understand where they get part of their name from. They get the other part, the ‘Pine’ from the fact that they hang out in pine trees. The adult moths lay their eggs near the tops of pine trees. After hatching, the larva eat pine needles while progressing through five stages of development. In order to maintain beneficial living conditions, silken nests are built over the winter. Around the beginning of April, the caterpillars leave the nests in the procession for which the species is known. They burrow underground and emerge at the end of summer. (Wiki)

I’m not too sure what they are up to in that photo, perhaps discussing who’s going to be in the lead. There’s something you should know about them, though. The urticating hairs of the caterpillar larvae cause harmful reactions in humans and other mammals. So, if you see any, don’t pick them up. This is what the moth looks like, and I think they are harmless.

There, that’s my biology lesson for today. Now for a random photo of some cyclamen.

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Embroidery Machines and Other News

Let’s start the week with a quick message for people living on Symi. I was asked to let you know that a friend has two of these sewing machines available for free, I think. (See photo.) They are standard-sized machines but are designed for stitching embroidery, such as you see on shirts and aprons. They are Brother PE-150 machines and are available for collection from Nimborio. If you are interested, send me an email, and I will send that on to the person giving them away for you. You can email me at mail@symidream.com

There, that’s that parish announcement done; what else has been going on? It’s been windy and a bit wet over the weekend, which has been both good and bad for the plants. The Greek government has lifted (slightly) some of the lockdown rules, but not by much, and the curfew is now relaxed a smidge, and, I read, some church services can go ahead around Independence Day (25^th), and beauty shops can open. There must be a connection. They’re still aiming for mid-May to allow more flights in, but… Well, don’t hold your breath. Some people on the island have now had two jabs, I think the older age group are now being ‘done’ because they couldn’t be before, and the rest of us are still waiting and may be waiting for a long time. There’s lots of speculation around, a lot of hope, some frustration and plenty of ‘Ah well, at least we’re still alive, so let’s do what we can to make the best of it.’

Our house remains in the usual routine of wake, work, walk (more so Neil than me) and write, and I am up to 70,000 words of the first draft of a last in the series book, which, at this rate, is set to be over 130,000 words long before I edit it. I am currently in Brasov (Transylvania) in 1890, London, and Cornwall all at the same time, juggling threads in my head and bashing out between 3,000 and 6,000 words per day. Neil has been out photographing on his walks…

I have set myself a new goal of 20 minutes of exercise per day. Whether it’s a walk around the village, up and down steps, to the monastery and back on good days, or just leaping around the living room to prog-rock like a loon, it doesn’t matter, it must be done, and it all starts today. Hopefully, it will increase over time to, say, 21 minutes. I also have a goal of returning to the desk to write in the afternoons, which I’ve not done for about a year now. Trouble is, I currently have a heavy afternoon schedule in a kitchen, on a desert island and in various places around the world, as we’re well into MasterChef, Survivor and The Amazing Race. It’s easier to return to afternoon working when Neil is back at the bar in the afternoons, and we’re still hopeful this will happen again sometime this year. It will be hard for small bars and businesses, and no-one is too sure which will have survived the winter lockdown, so all fingers are crossed for everyone. We’ll have to wait and see what happens.

Meanwhile, remember, if you are interested in owning an embroidery sewing machine, email me, and I will pass on your message. (I’m just the messenger, so there’s no point asking me anything else about them. They are machines, and they sew; that’s all I know, lol.)

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Friday Photos

To see us into another weekend, here are a few photos Neil took recently. It has been a week of changeable weather and the same old routine for us at home. It was this time last year that we were returning from Canada. Passing back through London, which had closed during our absence, and forgoing a two-day stop in Athens because there was no point. Switching hotels to fit with cancelled flights and sending for tax forms to prove who we were. Isolating in Piraeus and swapping boat tickets. Finally arriving home five minutes before the first national lockdown started. Oops, where did that year go? Ah well, let’s see the photos.

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