Hugo Tyler: An Appeal

Good morning. Today, I am simply copying and pasting two posts from Facebook which many readers may have already seen, but I am sure there are also many who have not. I know nothing other than what’s in the posts. The details of how you can help are included. Hopefully, this post will be redundant by the time you read it, but if not, please read and get in touch with Hugo’s daughter if you have any information.

APPEAL – Hello Hugo ‘s friends (I’m his daughter fyi). We have lost contact with Hugo over the last 3 days (he’s is in the Ukrainian alone on holiday). He was in touch every day before this but we now can’t reach him and we are very worried. If you have had any contact with him (email, phone etc.) since Saturday can you please send me a message on here [Facebook – Arwen Tyler] or email me – a.i.i.tyler@leeds.ac.uk. Many thanks for your help.

And:
Our friend Hugo Tyler has been missing since last Saturday while he was traveling in the Ukraine (Odesa was his last contact). He sent his daughter an email on Saturday which is the last time she heard from. His phone had WiFi signal until Monday and he has 2 phones and a laptop with him. If anyone has heard from him since Saturday or if he’s happened to mention the hotel name he was saying at please let his daughter know (a.i.i.tyler@leeds.ac.uk) or the Greek or UK police. Many thanks.

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Yialos

I’ve not shown you any photos of Yialos for a while as I don’t get down there much at this time of year. Some were taken from the balcony, others while pottering around last week. Meanwhile, up in the village, we at our house are looking forward to the arrival of the family on Thursday. It will be the first time I’ve met my grandson, so that’s something special. The temperature has stabilised a little, with cooler early mornings, but it’s still hot in the sun, of course. It’s also been windy in the evenings. I’m not sure if that’s the Meltemi, but it’s welcome in a ‘close your shutters before they are ripped off’ kind of way. I now need to dust everything in the house – again – but that’s hardly a high price to pay for cooler air. Anyway, without much news, here are a few random shots taken recently in or of Yialos.

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More walks and photos

I felt cold on the balcony yesterday morning. Mind you, it was 4.00 a.m., and there was a wind blowing. The temperature was probably in the high 20s, but I had to put on a t-shirt. We were both out on the road before the dawn, which is happening around six o’clock these days. Neil has this routine of going down the Kali Strata and then back up the road, and then reversing the direction and doing the circuit again the other way, sometimes jogging down. That’s not for me. I did the steps the other morning, and my knee was painful for the rest of the day. When I do three miles up the road and down, which is all slope and not steps, it’s fine. So I will give the ‘Kali’ a rest of a while unless I have to use it.

We are preparing the house for the family visit which starts on Thursday. This has involved removing a bed which isn’t ours from the spare bathroom where the ceiling paint has flaked and dusted off, hoovering the ceiling and floors, washing it down and putting the mattress outside to air while the frame goes up in the mousandra in pieces. We also need to buy three more pillows today; hopefully we can find them in town, otherwise, we’ll have to use cushions, and we don’t have many. Then we need to find another mosquito repellent machine, another fan (we just bought one from the Chinese shop, and on setting three, it’s so fast the thing reversed across the counter), and finding suitable sheets. It will all be done in time for when we meet the Sebeco from Rhodes on Thursday morning. If the blog goes ‘dark’ and I miss days, you will know why.

Meanwhile, the festival is well underway with dance shows and plays, music and talks. There are loads of visitors from Athens and elsewhere, our neighbours are back from France for their three or four weeks, and the island has become the holiday home to many from Italy and Greece, which is nice to see.

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Back from Rhodes

I’m back from Rhodes after my two-day visit for various things. I went over on the Sebeco, the ANES boat that now does several crossings a day. This trip takes about one-hour twenty and, from Symi, you land at the commercial harbour, the one between Kolona and Akandia. If you like, it’s the one where the cruise ships go. (See the photos, and yes, the boat does tend to rock a little when you go over the rough patch in the middle of the crossing. It’s like being on a very large speed boat.) From there it was an easy 20-minute walk around to Mandraki where I had booked a room at the Savoy hotel. It’s a simple place, basic, clean enough, could do with new locks on the doors, and I’d put it somewhere around a three-star. The staff were pleasant enough though looked rather bored, and their breakfast is adequate. It was also cheaper than my usual hotels and right in the heart of things if you have business in the new town.

I took care of my appointments and shopping before heading to Napoleon’s for a moussaka for dinner and then spent some time at the Plaza bar because it’s comfortable, cheap and friendly. On Friday, after a couple of appointments, there was time for a little more shopping, each bout of it followed by a return to the room to drop bags and have another cooling-off shower before heading out again. I finally collected my bags and wandered through Mandraki via the Symi Café to say hello to Irini and catch up on the news, and then wandered into the Old town for lunch. I stopped, again, at Nimmos, a taverna right next to Akandia gate and only 10 minutes’ walk to the Blue Star quay where I was to catch the ferry back. Nimmos Taverna is run by Aris who used to work at Aris taverna in Symi. He now works at his own taverna with his son and a few other cheerful staff, and as always, I was made welcome. I like pausing there because it breaks my walk to Akanida and the boat is not far from your table, so you don’t feel you have to rush, and there’s not so far to go after you’ve eaten. In the past, Aris has offered me a lift to the boat on his bike, but I declined as I don’t do motorbikes any more, and the walk helps digestion after a Caesar salad, or a carbonara.

Back on Symi, I was lucky enough to catch a lift up the hill. I wouldn’t have minded the walk up through Pitini (the most direct path to Horio) with my rucksack, by then heavy with purchases, but it was still in the high 30s and I wold have arrived looking like a drowned rat. Symi is currently hosting the summer festival with a large concert and a headline act last Thursday, other concerts both pop and classical, a play and talks and music this week, another concert last Saturday, and church festivals lined up through August too. There are banners posted around Yialos and Horio, and maybe elsewhere, telling you in Greek and English what is on, what time and, for a nice change, where. We used to rely on the Tannoy system to make the announcement during the day, but now you can see the venue in advance.

And so, back to the work routine for a couple of days, but after Wednesday things may be disrupted for a week as we have some family coming to stay, and I will meet my grandson for the first time. Very excited about that, but wishing the water tank hadn’t sprung another leak (don’t get me started). I am sure we can manage on 500 litres between six of us for a few days as long as we don’t shower for longer than two minutes each, and the drips from the leak are being caught in a bucket so I can use the water on the plants and not waste it. Hey ho, off we go!

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Sorry about this, but I feel I must

I was blathering on yesterday about my driving licence and suggested I would mention why I wanted to change it to a Greek one. Apart from the fact the old one was out of date, and I’ve lived in Greece for 17 years and should have done it ones ago, I want to make myself as securely rooted here as possible because of the great tragedy, circus, con, disaster, pointlessness, etc., of the B word. (Brexit, of course.) You know I am as against the thing as much as any other sane person and, as the horror has worsened, and the few have taken over control of the cuntry and basically bashed it around so much it’s unrecognisable to me as my birthplace, I have turned my back on it as much as I can. I know, some of you will scream ‘Traitor!’ and all that malakies, but actually, no. To see your country fall to right-wing, Conservative bigots with a personal and financial agenda who don’t care about their fellow citizens, and perticularly not about those of them who exercised their right (repeat, their right) to live abroad… Well, to me, that’s traitorous. Anyway, I’m wandering. What was I saying?

Ah, yes. As I sit here and read with horror what your PM is trying to do (i.e., con the unthinking classes into believing we’re involved in a total war, as WWII was, and conning the populace daft enough to fall for it, that what he is doing is the only good thing for the yUK, and all that), I’m over here, helpless. Stripped of my democratic right to a vote in the country of my birth because I exercised a legal right (what next? Stripped of my passport?), and soon to be stripped of my democratic right to vote for anything anywhere in the world, I naturally have to do everything I can to protect myself. That’s what this kind of populism does; it turns people in on themselves to the detriment of the wider world, which is why we see it rise, and so around goes the vicious circle. I have now done all I can do to protect myself after the unthinkable happens. Here, after another random photo, is what I have put in place.

Firstly, I am now civilly partnered with a European passport holder. This was done for reasons other than Brexshit, of course, but it seems to be the most solid of my preparations. I am married under a Greek law inspired by European fairness. I no longer rely on the Greek state for insurances, because I have private health insurance and pension. I pay my taxes in Greece (since 2003) as that is where I have my permanent address. It’s odd how many people assume that because I am British, I pay tax in that cuntry. Why should I? I say. I have not lived there for 17 years. Besides, I can’t pay yUK tax; I don’t have a yUK address. ‘Oh, well I use my parents’ address,’ say some. ‘Well that’s fine, you bend or cheat the system and do what’s convenient for you if that’s what you want to do,’ I reply. ‘For me, I believe I should pay tax in the country in which I live, whether that means paying more, or not knowing how to lessen the tax blow, having no allowances or whatever, and having to pay an accountant to do the returns for me. I also now have a private, early-retirement investment plan, the income from which is taxed here. I am contributing, and am happy to do so. There’s more…

I also hold a residency permit which I have had since 2003, although the current one is dated 2008 when the cards/rules changed and became open-ended. I am thus registered with the authorities as living in Greece since 2003, assuming the paperwork still exists in the bottom drawer of that rusty filing cabinet in the police station which is where I last saw my documents back in 2008. On top of that, I now have a European/Greek driving licence, and an affidavit sworn with the Rhodes notary stating my address which, on Symi, is a hard thing to prove, for me at least. The house contract and phone bill are in Neil’s name because it made sense for the business at the time, and the electricity and water bills are in the landlord’s name – or the name of his late sister to be precise. My mobile bills and bank accounts are in my name and with my address, which helps when proving my address. I can’t think of anything else I can organise to protect myself from the fallout of the hideous B word.

Will there be such a fallout? Who knows? The last Greek Government said we would be safe, but that came with the caveat that they would also do whatever the yUK did. So if Bulls**t Boris throws out all Greeks, Greece will probably throw out all British; that’s the bottom line. Many folks say ‘Of course that won’t happen,’ but the truth is, no-one knows, and that uncertainty ain’t doing no-one no good nowhere. And not helping my grammar either (wink), but it’s five in the morning, and I don’t care. A bit like my cuntry doesn’t seem to care about me and the millions like me, many of whom were denied a vote in the most important referendum of their existence. But I am rambling and boring you now. I just wanted to get this off my chest before I head off to Rhodes for a day and a night. I’ll be back on Monday, but I hope the above has given others in my position some idea of things to put in place to assist you should the crunch come and you have to prove your loyalty to Greece where you want to remain, as I do, for the rest of my life.

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