A meal with a view

I was chatting with some friends last night, and they told me they’d been to the ‘top cantina’ and had a thoroughly good time, so I thought I’d give it a mention. This is the eatery on the main road above the village (sorry, don’t know its official name), and I have to say, I’ve only been there early in the morning when everything is closed. Today’s photos are from up there. You can walk to it if you don’t mind the climb, or arrange a taxi, or have one of the tour buses take you if you are a party of people, and it’s open in the evenings.

My friends were there on a Saturday night when they have live music, and where a number of local people came to eat, see the lights of Symi from above, and dance. Everyone had a good and safe time, they told me, it was very atmospheric and in the end, they wished they could have stayed longer, but a car had been booked. Oh, and the food was good too, of course.

There you are. Just another idea of something to do on the island, and whether you go there at night or during the day, you’re guaranteed a superb view. If you don’t fancy the walk up, there is another overlooking Pedi bed. The Panorama cantina is up the hill just before Ag Marina church, just up from the old Lavinia studios.

Share on Facebook

Distantly sociable

It’s Sunday morning, the sun is about to rise, and I’ve had a sociable yet lazy week. The note to self for this coming week is ‘Must try harder’, and I’m talking about taking walks up the hill and back before work. My trouble is, now the sun comes up later, I’m into my work well before dawn and don’t want to interrupt myself. Or maybe that’s just an excuse.  As for the sociable part, we were invited on a short evening trip to Taviri last week, which we accepted because it was a dear friend’s 70^th birthday party, and because it will be the only boat trip we’ll do this year, so we prepared ourselves.

Taviri is the place we held our CP event three years ago nearly to the day, and it was good to see it again. It’s a small bay around the side of Nimos, the uninhabited (apart from churches) island opposite Symi, and about 20 minutes away by boat. It doesn’t look like much, being a concrete landing slab and broken path to one deserted building, but you make it your own. That’s what the party did, putting stools at distances for people to sit, Yiannis Poseidon laying out one of his famous buffet meals, distanced dancing and with only around 30 people in the group, being distantly cautious on the journey too. It’s still possible to enjoy Symi while being careful, and everyone had a good time. Following the instructions given by the police when granting permission for the trip, the boat returned at 10.30, and not wanting to wait for the bus, and finding no taxis, we walked back up the steps — about my only decent exercise of last week.

We also had a lovely distanced dinner with friends on Saturday night, choosing from Georgio’s limited menu. Limited, perhaps, but still with so much choice, it’s hard to decide what to have. Then, of course, there was Neil’s birthday with the godsons, and, at the bar, there is currently a lively atmosphere as we have some regular visitors on the island. It’s not exactly life as normal, but it’s something, and, for someone like me who spends as much time as possible at home, it made a change.

As for the week ahead, I have a new book coming out at the weekend, but I’ve yet to finish the final read-through, set out the pages and make up the book for printing. I also have a piano lesson with godson #2, a singing session, a chat with my financial adviser on Zoom, I’m keen to get back to the current writing projects, stalled while the last one is published, and there was something else… Oh yes. Those one-hour walks in the morning. I’d better leave myself a reminder.

Share on Facebook

Friday Photos – various

Here are some varied photos taken recently. I have a varied weekend ahead during which I will be writing a blog post for my other writer self, reading the recent proof MS of the latest story, then laying out the files for publication, tinkering with what I have written of the next one in the pipeline, sorting out some washing, hopefully taking a stroll, and going to dinner on Saturday night. It’s all go.

Share on Facebook

Reminiscence

My head is a little clearer now, so I can tell you what a lovely time we had on Tuesday evening. Tuesday was Neil’s birthday, the anniversary of our CP and also the anniversary of the day we arrived to live on Symi 18 years ago. A lot has happened since then, what with having a business, making a film, writing books, meeting so many people, seeing some come and go and some come and stay. One of the nicest things about living in a small place like this is seeing children grow up. It might also be a reminder that you’re not getting any younger, but it occurs to me from time to time that the couple getting married were only five when I first met them, or the men repairing a roof down the road used to come into the shop for their school photos. What’s also interesting to observe are the groups of children who play in the square. Over the years, I’ve seen the groups change, the ‘posse’ as my godson calls them. The children once on scooters and bikes are now watching over their own children who are a new generation on scooters and bikes. The fun they’re having is the same, they play the same games, but the faces are different.

Another thing… Visitors who come each year and have done for longer than I’ve been here. It’s good to hear their stories of the past, how it was when the ferry docked at Pedi and day-trippers had to walk over the hill to Yialos, or how a truck trip to Panormitis was over an unmade road. That’s something I’ve done. When I first walked there is 1996, the road had been blasted out but was mainly small rubble. I think, then, it ran out at Ag Konstantinos where the army firing range used to be, or maybe still is. Those were the days when there were truck trips, four around-the-island boats, at least two more eateries in Pedi than there are now, and the bank was where there’s now a giros and noddle bar.

But one thing that hasn’t changed is the bonhomie, the philoxenia, which is uniquely Greek, the warm welcomes and sad farewells. Even in this day and age, such things are as evident as they have always been. Even the bureaucracy involved in, say, receiving a residency permit or changing a driving license seems to have been streamlined from something the size of Titanic to something the size of the Blue Star Chios. We didn’t have a telephone for the first two years, relying on Yiannis at the old Roloi bar for checking our emails when his phone wasn’t cut off, and then running the internet at 56 kbps. Now, we have it at home running at 42 Mbps (which is a lot faster, if you’re not sure what a kb and an mb are), and I only need to go to the bank once a year for my ‘pink slips’ to prove my income. Even they are now white and instantly printed rather than searched for in a filing cabinet. Ah, progress.

Anyway, that ramble was to make up for the lack of chat yesterday, and I have no idea where it came from or what it has to do with the photos, but there you go. And here I go until tomorrow, and as I leave I shall wish you kalo taxithi, or, as we say in English, bon voyage.

Share on Facebook

A few photos

As yesterday was something of a celebration day, today is going to be a few photos and a lot of nothing much else.

Share on Facebook