There has been a massive yacht in the harbour for a couple of days. A three-masted, modern thing that, apparently, costs €44,000 per week to hire, or something similar. I guess you have to pay for fuel and food on top of that, plus staff tips, so it’s not something we’re likely to be using in the near future. Neil took a snap of it from the balcony the other day, and others were doing the rounds on Fakebook.
I managed a shot of it leaving on Sunday night, from a distance.
I saw a couple of other usual sights on a walk on Monday morning. There must have been a party or wedding, baptism or other celebration up towards the top of the village as the road was paved with gold. Well, gold confetti and balloons.
There were also several goats rummaging around in ruins climbing trees and on roofs and causing a bit of a racket. There are always goats around somewhere. Our lane is becoming quite the petting zoo these days. There are goats up the lane wandering free, the bin cats of course and their scraggy kittens, and also the chickens with their chicks. They were hiding behind a bin when I went past, so I couldn’t get a photo, but I could hear them, and I saw them the other day when I didn’t have the camera with me. Obviously, the cats aren’t interested in eating them, and the chickens and their chicks are not bothered by the cats, so everyone seems to be getting along quite nicely. Spot the goat (that’s not his name, as far as I know).
As you know, I’m not going out and about much apart from the occasional walk up to the hill in the morning, the not so occasional visits to the bar in the late afternoon after work, and the necessary trips to Yialos, which tend to be early in the day before the day boats arrive. I was down there on Saturday, early, to collect a package from the bookshop. It turned out to be some music I had ordered less than a week ago. Not bad as it came from England. I’d ordered a copy of Für Elise and Your favourite 50 best classical easy things or similar, for ‘Pianino’, my little piano who I am helping learn to play. (Aka Mozart because, let’s face it, he is rather good.) In the afternoon, I spent about an hour working through the book and going over some of the pieces I used to be able to play about 30 years ago. It’s amazing what your fingers remember, though my technique is somewhat out of the window these days, and needs a complete overhaul. I found I was able to play pieces like Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata reasonable well (up to a point) because I’d learnt to play them when I was in my early 20s, but when I then had a go at something easier from the new book, I was all over the place. I should spend more of my home time at the keyboard doing my scales and Hannon exercises, but then I have so many books to read, let alone the ones I want to write, and then there’s always the distraction of Glee and other Netflix attractions, plus a couple of series of How the Victorians Built Britain and others I’m watching for research.
It’s always exciting when the Blue Star is spotted out at sea.
Anyway… Observations from being out and about on Symi of late. There has been some fun at the bar, where social distancing and safety are the names of the games. Note the rubber glove in the photo below. Before this Yiannis had been serving wine on a shovel – a good-humoured prank, you understand, he and his co-worker, Neil, wear their masks as required, and he’s forever spraying down the chair arms and tables before and after punters, and there is hand-san available on your way to and from the restrooms. The police have been doing their rounds, checking that the bars and tavernas are adhering to the rules.
We had lunch at the Trawler on Saturday, and as it was early, we were the first people to arrive. There was lots of distance between the tables, and yet… The next couple in took the table two away from us, the next party took the one beside us across the wide gap, and the third lot took the table between us and the first, so although there were about 15 other tables available, we ended up in a line of four. Strange how humans do this. It’s like when you’re in the cinema for a wet Wednesday matinee, and there are only ten people in, but they all come and sit in front of you, or just behind as if people can’t exist unless in a group.
But work goes on everywhere, businesses are doing their best to survive, and there are some intrepid tourists about, some behaving better than others, and life ticks along. I think a lot of people are waiting to see what happens in September when the island is popular with northern Europeans. I get the impression businesses are hoping they will have a typical September, though, sadly, I doubt it will be anything like normal nor enough to secure people’s livelihoods and see them through the winter.
On which note, I should stop rambling and get on with one of my projects. There is a Beethoven beast on the piano that needs taming, and it’s not as if I don’t have time to work on it.
It was a pleasant morning for a walk yesterday, the temperature being 28 degrees at 7.30 as opposed to the 34 + it has been of late. I wandered up the side of the mountain while Neil took off to Nimborio and back.
There was something of a surprise the other day as many people with Greek mobile phones received an alert from the government. The message comes with an unmissable sound, and we don’t hear it very often, so at first, it was a shock. All it was telling us to do was stay safe on the way home from holidays, which was a bit late in my case as I did that months ago, but I reckon it meant the Panagia weekend. I also wondered if it was to prove that Greece is taking the pandemic more seriously than, say, the yUK where things got out of control, and where, rather superciliously, they are now threatening to put Greece on their list. That’s the list of countries you have to quarantine after you’ve come back from. (There has to be a better way to write that, but I can’t think of it right now.) Who knows? Anyway, apart from a rise in cases caused by too many people gathering where they shouldn’t be, an influx of people from abroad and others generally flouting the rules, Greece is still managing things well.
We’ve had day boats and ferries, taxi boats are going out, round the island trips are taking place, I’m sure I saw the Diagoras the other day. The busses are also running their trips to Panormitis, so apart from very few visitors, things are running normally. Masks and distance are the rules. Masks when inside any shop or business (well, any building, really apart from your own home), and distance at all times. It’s not so bad now as people can sit outside cafes in the summer, right up until December sometimes, but when the dark and cold months come, wearing a mask inside while taking your coffee is going to be interesting. Let’s see how many local businesses and people stick to that one, as there are several who are currently not following the rules.
Neil has been receiving lots of praise for the photos he puts up on Facebook after his morning walk and swim. So, I thought I’d put up five images today that show beaches, or where land meets sea. No reason, I just like them, and I’ve got no earth-shattering news for you, so I hoped these would do instead. Have a good day.
