Saturday

Had to pop into town on Saturday to pick up a new PC keyboard. I seem to go through one every six months and haven’t yet found the perfect one. The Microsoft one was flat, and I eventually got used to it, but then the keys’ stuck’ and all I was getting on the page was a long line of one letter or spaces. The big old Logitech giant was more heavy-duty with clunky and large keys that got stuck on their mechanism on the way down so not every letter was typed. Now I have a smaller Logitech, and the keys feel smooth and are slightly raised, but it’s a smaller keyboard, so my fingers are fighting over each other, and things aren’t quite in the same place. I play the keyboard like I would play a piano, which doesn’t help (I’ve never learnt to type properly), so my right hand is all over it while my left tends to stay still and only plays the from Tab to R, Ctrl to V. Which all an excuse for any typos you may find.

But hey! At least we were able to have lunch out for the first time in ages and for only about the fifth time this year. Friday lunch ‘down town’ used to be a regular thing, but this year has been different, for various reasons, mainly financial, so we made the most of it at Meraklis before treating ourselves to a taxi back up.

There’s work going on in the harbour, and I mean in the harbour. Concrete slabs are being dropped, planted, placed, sunk, whatever beneath the water for a reason I can only guess at, and this involves floating them out under balloons and then deflating the balloons, so the slabs sink, and a diver goes down with them to… Well, most of that is guesswork. I’ve been told they’re concrete slabs, I only saw the balloons, and I can only assume it’s something to do with making anchoring easier? Whatever the reason, I’m sure it’s for a useful purpose.

Now then, I am one chapter away from finishing a rough first draft, so I’m going to get on with that as I have all day, and one without interruptions apart from godson #1 coming to do the cleaning as that’s his Sunday job and maybe popping out to buy a bottle of milk.

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Friday Photos

Just received this message: “Thanks for the details about the music school in Symi, I’ve just done exactly what you suggested re the cost of a meal for 2 in Symi*, I hope all your other readers do it too. The longed-for calendar has also been ordered, so all is well in my house at the moment.”

Today, the appeal has raised just over £2,000, that’s 10%. Bravo! Here’s the link if you’ve missed it. Help fund the Symi Music School.

* The suggestion was to donate what you’d have spent on a meal in Symi had you been able to come this year, or even if you did.

A few September shots to share for the weekend.

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Yesterday

It’s good to see the Symi music school appeal total has doubled since yesterday. You know, we have between 800 and 1,000 readers visit this blog every day. If everyone donated £10.00, we could raise half the money needed (more or less) between us. Now that would be a wonderful thing. Apparently, there will also be money forthcoming from the authorities, but I’m not sure if that’s on top of the 20k being raised in the appeal.

Perhaps some of the visitors on this ship that came in yesterday might like to help out?

There are other things I could think of doing during a pandemic than holidaying in a confined space, but perhaps the passengers will spend some money on the island while they are here. As you can see from the other photo, there are few other boats at this end of the harbour. On a cheerier note, it was nice to distantly meet a couple the other day who had come to Symi because they found the blog while trying to decide which island to visit. I know the blog is only me chatting about what I do, and sometimes isn’t even that, but it’s good to see it’s still being looked at and has an effect in a small way. I’ll leave you with a kalo mina, wishing you a good month ahead. I can’t believe it’s October already.

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Save the Symi Music School

Regular visitors to Symi spend time sitting in the square watching the world go by. It’s a popular thing to do, and a lovely way to relax and pass the time. As you’ve been sitting there, you may have noticed young people passing by with strangely shaped cases on their backs, or a rucksack, and you might have wondered what was inside. Well, in some cases, the children are carrying guitars or a bouzouki, perhaps a violin, and in their other bags, they have their music and theory books. Obviously, the pianists don’t carry their instruments around, as a piano layer myself, I’ve tried it, and it never ends well. Anyway…

You may remember, the other day, I mentioned the Symi Music School and its current financial appeal. Well, today, I have the link to the site where you can donate. Simply put, we need to raise £20,000 to save the school. Also simply put, without it, the children of Symi won’t learn music as, I believe, it is not much taught in the schools.

I remember, when the current pandemic broke out, many people went on Facebook saying they wouldn’t be coming to Symi this year, and they were supporting the island by lessening the risk of bringing C19 to what is still a bug-free island. Obviously, the businesses have missed out on masses of custom this season, so if you still want to help the island, donating to its music school is one way of doing so from afar. Think about what you saved by not coming, and think about how much you usually spend on just one evening out on Symi. Why not send over that amount? You can do it via the page linked in this post. The money will replace that usually provided by the parents of the children who can’t pay this year because they have businesses that haven’t made money because of the lack of tourism. Where a couple of tourists might have spent €50.00 on one night out (some on an afternoon watching the world go by at a bar), the same couple can now send the same amount directly to the education of the children they might have seen passing on their way to a music lesson. It makes sense to me, and I’ll be sending a personal donation plus a percentage of my Symi book sales.

The donation site tells you all you need to now in Greek and English, and some of the pupils have made a short video which you will also find there.

Imagine, when the Symi Festival can restart, you may even find yourself here, listening to one of these upcoming musicians on stage and know you helped put them there.

You can find the page by clicking here. The young musicians of Symi will thank you.

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Monday morning

Monday morning, 28 degrees in the courtyard, just right for sitting outside reading a book, so I spent the morning inside writing one instead. For some reason, I was awake at three, and after reading the news and gasping in horror, as usual, I decided to get to work early. This enabled me to take a short walk up a long hill and back, hence the photos today. The view is just before sunrise, around seven in the morning.

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