This morning’s earworm is ‘Favourite Things’ from the Sound of Music. Don’t ask me why. I woke up at 4.30, looked at the clock and thought I’d have another half an hour, then spent some time in a complicated dream, and woke again to find it was only 4.00, so not sure what happened there, but sometimes during, Julie Andrews was favouritizing* in my head, and I couldn’t work out why. Until I remembered that I said I’d try and get some photos from Neil’s phone to put on the blog, and as he was still asleep, snaffled his phone away and have copied over 50 photos to my Symi Dream folder. It wasn’t until making them ready for posting that I worked out why the song was in my head; these photos, taken in January, show some of my favourite things! Enjoy.
Everything is back to normal today after our internet issue yesterday. We’ve even found the reason for it, we think. It seems Ote, or Cosmote as it is now, have started sending bills via text to cut out the paper, and that’s fine by me. Except, we didn’t know that’s what they were doing and hadn’t seen any warning. Thus, we hadn’t told them of Neil’s new phone number and, I am guessing, they sent the bills to the old mobile which is redundant. Still, after a quick phone call to 13888… (press nine for English, ask, fluently in Greek if we might have this conversation in English as it could become technical, and then wait while the assistant arranges, in Greek, for someone who can speak English to call you back. Alternatively, learn to speak Greek)… the internet was restored within a few minutes and thanks to Alpha online banking, the bills were paid while the conversation was going on.
And that’s the next thing. The bank app on the phone requires your fingerprint to open, so you have to set your phone to recognise fingerprints; no problem there. But then, when next turning the phone on, I find it now requires my pin number. Okay, so we’ll do that, and all is well… Until the next time when it wants your pin number again, and so on. It’s not hard, just boring to tap in every time you pick up your phone, so I set about taking off the ‘screen lock via pin’ thing and did that, and there it is back again the next time I switch on. So, I go to some advice website and follow the instructions: For a Samsung Whatever 9, go to Settings (done that), scroll down to Security (yup), click the remove pin number command (there isn’t one), on the next screen, tap on ‘Edit’ (there isn’t one), uncheck ‘Use pin number’ (there still isn’t one). Try another website and follow the same frustrating procedure while checking I really am using a Samsung Whatever 9, which I am, and start again. Throw phone at the wall to teach it a lesson and, when recovered, use your own logic. Finally found the way to remove fingerprints, which the website had told me will also require your pin, so took off the fingerprint because if I need to use the bank app again, I can put it back on easily and yesterday was the first time I’d used said app, and that’s that. Until I open the phone again and it asks for a pin number.
I finally managed to get through that technical hurdle by finding the glaringly obvious button marked ‘remove your pin’ or something, and everything is back to normal there too. I also had success booking us Blue Star ferry tickets to Athens and back at the start and end of our holiday in March, and splashed out for an outside cabin, not that we will see anything through the porthole, assuming there is one, but I wanted to see what they were like. And so, we can finally get on with today which has started wet with some distant thunder wandering around. If you were wondering, the light and dark of today’s title refers to the sights I see daily. One, the light over the harbour and bay, and the dark of my study when the curtains and shutters are closed against the cold. I mainly see dark during the winter months.
No blog today other than this late message. Woke up to find we’d been cut off. Our phone bill hadn’t arrived although we have been searching the post office and ACS for it these past few weeks. No idea what happened there, but back online now and must investigate where the bills ended up. Recently, they have gone to the courier, previously to the post office, but this is the first time in 17 years we’ve missed a bill (or two, as it turns out). Will call into ACS and provide them with a photo of the house and directions – they deliver to the house opposite, so maybe our bill just didn’t make it to the island. Who knows? Anyway, enough of that. A couple of photos and I can get back to my usual routine.
Hello. Here are a few photos from my limited time away from the desk this past couple of weeks. I am editing down a new story which must be ready to send to my proofreader on Wednesday, so I’ll say good morning, and get back to work. Have a good weekend.
Sadly, I see there is only one week to go until the Bidet arrives, and I couldn’t feel sorrier for everyone living in the UK. The Bidet, or B-Day, is the day when the hideous Brexit arrives, although it will take a long time before it is finally ‘achieved’ as if such a thing can achieve anything apart from… Well, most of you know my feelings on this subject, so I won’t go on, but next week I will raise a glass to my old country and wish it well in its decline into… No! I said I won’t go on, and so, instead, after this random photo, there is some good news…
Just sheep living in a ruin. Oh! An accidental analogy, but rather a good one, I think.
And the good news, which is actually a bit old now, is to remind those who may be worried, that the Greek Government has ratified a law that protects the rights of British citizens living in Greece. In a nutshell, whether Johnson Minor of the yUK gets a Brexit deal or not after the Bidet, anyone who has a Greek residency card is entitled to stay on the same footing as they are now, regards residency rights. If you have just moved to Greece or still want to do so, you can still apply for such a permit up until the end of December this year – so there’s nothing to stop you moving to say, Symi, this summer and being given the same rights as those of us who have been here for years. After December 31st, things will change (not sure to what), but all of us here and registered, with a blue, cream or whatever colour card it is, will be fine and will enjoy the same right to live here as we do now. We won’t be able to cross borders and live permanently in other EU countries perhaps, so that right has been taken away (by Brexit, not Greece or the EU), and I am not sure what’s going to happen with the finer details of yUK pensions and so on. Random photo follows to give breathing space…
But still, although the Bidet is only one week away, I am, frankly, no longer bothered. I am for my friends and family who are suffering this gradual stripping away of their rights and their voice, the benefits of a continent-wide engagement and so on, but the yUK can go to hell in a handbag without me. I don’t even bother with the yUK news much now, I tend to read the Greek news as this is now my country in all apart from citizenship, which may come one day – well, after about five years or however long it takes.
Another analogy, perhaps?
So, get your residency in now – there are websites which tell you how, though a visit to the local authorities for advice (KEP) or direct to the police station is probably the best way to find out exactly what you need, and it will involve proof of address, utility bills, tax numbers, bank accounts, IKA numbers and so on. It can be a trial, but it’s worth it in the end.
