Long weekend
In a bit of a rush this morning; things to do, boat tickets to buy, packing to do, and off this afternoon (as long as we can get tickets) to Rhodes for the weekend; also cat things to arrange including babysitter, and as usual have left everything to the last minute.
South side
I am sure we’ll be fine with the boat tickets though it could be a popular catamaran as there has been no Blue Star since last Friday and there’s not one today. This is because of a strike that has been extended. I did read somewhere that it might be coming on Monday night/Tuesday morning instead, but remember what I said about gossip the other day? I haven’t yet seen that on anything official but, even so, next Monday in the middle of the night isn’t helpful to us, but it will bring in supplies and fresh food, hopefully. And maybe some post – and it should also take the post off the island (passport application included).
By the town square
I should be back on Monday and there may be a blog by Tuesday but, apart from that: I’ll leave you now for the long weekend with a few shots of Yialos looking sunny and warm in yesterday’s afternoon. It wasn’t. I mean, it was sunny, but it’s not warm. It was cosy inside Elpida’s kafeneion where I took a couple of shots through the winter plastic, I rather like that look, but otherwise… Well, at our house certainly, having a shower first thing is a bit like one of those saunas: warm bedroom, freezing cold bathroom, hot shower, cold bathroom and dashing around to keep warm – and it’s still up around ten degrees at the moment.
Through the plastic
Anyway, have a good long weekend and I’ll be back online sometime next week.
On nothing in particular
Odd the things you find. I just found one of my earplugs in the toilet. No idea how it got there. I also discovered recently that, whereas clothing sizes in China are very often two or three sizes smaller that they are here, in Thailand they seem to be three or four times larger than expected. I once ordered something from China, a shirt, via eBay and ordered an L size. (I know, rather ambitious, but it was a while ago.) It turned out to be Large for a six-year-old, but X-small for an adult. So, when I recently thought I’d see what shopping in Thailand was like, I ordered and XXL size, assuming that the size differences would be similar. Not. The shirt would well house a family of six and have enough left over to cover a few sofa cushions. I’ll try ordering again at a more realistic size and see if that works. Nice shirt though, but where did they get all that material?
Not sure who he is
No idea why I am talking about this today, maybe because I have no other news of consequence (or photos), except to remind you that, if you are going to offer someone the stunning gift of a James Collins book this Christmas, now is the time to order it. You can find the links over on the right, where the Symi books are, and some of the others, and I will include a link to top-selling ‘Remotely’ at the bottom of this post.
Distant mountains, but how distant?
You might also like to order your Symi calendar 2017 or the Greek Cats Calendar 2017 (some proceeds of which go to help us feed the bin cats up the road through the winter). Again, the links are on the left but I’ll also put them down at the bottom.
This mountains of Turkey zoomed in
Advanced warning that there may not be a blog for the early part of next week and I am planning to go to Rhodes at the weekend for some shopping. Jumbo calls. I don’t know if they have Jumbo in other parts of the world but it’s like a glorified pound-shop where you can pick up almost anything. Last time I was there I picked up some must-have plastic items, things for the kitchen and a bit of a hangover thanks to the over generous lady in the snack truck outside who, apparently, had not had the pleasure of dispensing ouzo to anyone all season and made up for it with a couple of generous measures for me. What it will be like on a Saturday close to Christmas I dread to think; perhaps I will have the ouzo on the way in, to soften the blow. Maybe they have something that keeps earplugs out of toilet bowls, I’ll let you know.
And now, links:
Remotely: “There is more than one laugh on every page, so be prepared for helpless giggles.” (Amazon review.)
Cat’s ears and passport
After a fairly lengthy couple of posts, a shorter one as I am on a tight schedule today. There’s some kind of lunch to be cooked, a meeting planned at 3pm, even though it is at Mandeio’s café, and then an evening of nothing to get organised.
View from a Symi ATM machine, can’t beat it
The day (Tuesday) is calm and cool, the sea flat, the harbour quiet, the road quieter still. We can hear work going on somewhere, down at the new jetty I think, the cat is asleep on the bed… now that’s a thing. His ears are starting to ‘go’ although the vet the other week was not unduly worried about them. The blackness is creeping slowly over them and, because of his heart, he may not be able to have an operation, not without fear of fatality during it. They are not troubling him and he doesn’t scratch them but he does occasionally catch them by accident and then we get treated to the Jackson Pollock effect blood splatter across the walls, over the floor, over the sheets if he was on the bed at the time. It looks worse than it is and is soon cleared away. We keep an eye out for infection, but so far there has been none. Trying to put any kind of cream on the ears is a bit of a challenge for him and us, so we only do that if and when necessary. Otherwise he is fine.
Harbour Santa
Neil is down in Yialos posting off his Irish passport application that was witnessed and stamped at the KEP office yesterday. He’s also paying the pre-Christmas phone bill, so much cheaper now that we don’t really use it, and I am about to start my housework chores ahead of our social this afternoon. Today’s photos were from yesterday which is actually the day before yesterday as you read this.
Gossip So, the message is, don’t take bar gossip as face value. Apparently, the owner of the house that burned down was at home when the fire took hold, though neither he nor his dog was badly damaged and the fire started at the fireplace. Manos (Garden Studios/Fist Taverna) has offered both of them temporary accommodation and the house is being shored up until… Whatever happens next.
Children getting to know the town square nativity scene
It reminded me, in an odd way, of when I was a rather reluctant boy scout back in the dark ages of 1973 or 1974 and we all sat around in a circle and played ‘Chinese Whispers.’ The classic that I remember our headmaster/Akela telling us to pass around was, “Send reinforcements we are going to advance.” I wondered where we were going to and what reinforcements might be needed for a group of 10/11 year olds, but passed on the message accordingly. It started its way around the circle.
While that’s going around, I can also tell you that we had a rather successful morning in Yialos yesterday when we popped down for a few things: get passport application signed, check post office, buy an envelope, find some fresh lemons, gamble on the ATM machine, have a look for Christmas gifts, walk back up. It kind of worked out.
A calm Monday in Yialos
Passport application: a quick tussle with the accountant who suggested the KEP office, a visit to the very helpful ladies there (who speak better English than I do) and the form signed, filled out and stamped (no charge) and off to the bank. Won a few Euros there, luckily, as there were lemons to buy, and off to the post office where there was a queue. Checked the PO box, found a slip announcing that I had a delivery, thought I’d call back for it later, was called to the front by Ilias to be handed it, rather embarrassed at my preferential treatment, accepted it gladly and darted out, red in the face. Went to the bookshop to buy an envelope for the passport application, was handed another delivery, headed to the lemons department but had two beers at Taxas – meanwhile, phone rings and there’s another delivery waiting at Rainbow later, forgot about the Christmas gifts (but got the lemons) and took a taxi back up the hill.
A calm Monday in Yialos
Where Sotiris was still open so we were able to do the shopping on the way home, rather than having to go out again later; ordered lots of water and found it delivered and on the doorstep by the time we got home ten minutes later. Neil now making a late lunch, me doing this, Jack wondering when we are going to settle down so he can sit on a lap, and an afternoon of reading and watching television lies ahead. Couldn’t be better.
So, off to do that now… Oh, the Chinese Whisper has done the rounds and the message, passed from Aleka to his troupe(s) is: “Send three and fourpence, we’re going to a dance.” I am still confused as to what that exercise had to do with woggles, badges and dib-dibs, but there you are. Don’t accept gossip at face value.
Of flames and phones
One of the things about living in a small community such as this is that you get to see and hear things at both ends of the joy spectrum. Over the weekend, I saw several very different sights, two of which were at opposing ends of that scale of pleasantness. (There must be a better way to say that, but it is early on Sunday morning and we did have a couple of glasses at the Rainbow last night and, despite the two duvets and the quilt, I did wake a few times during the night trying to get warm, so there are my excuses.)
There was a house fire over the weekend, Saturday morning actually, and it was fully visible from all over the village and harbour, as you can see from my couple of photos. No one was hurt; the owner, I have been told, was away, and the house was not occupied at the time. I haven’t heard how it started but, as it was empty, I can only assume an electrical problem of some sort, perhaps rodents chewing through a cable. The building went up very quickly once the flames took hold, there was a certain amount of grey and then black smoke and even from where we are we could hear the glass breaking, the roof tiles cracking and eventually the roof falling in. A horrible thing for the owner to come back to and it does make you wonder, what if? The words house insurance comes to mind. I expect there are plenty of properties around here that are not insured, and it’s not just your possessions and un-replaceables that you would have to replace, there’s the building too. We’re just glad that no one was hurt and there was no wind so it didn’t spread to neighbouring houses.
An alarming sight
But, on a happier note, also over the weekend (Friday actually). We were at Mandeio’s café for a couple of drinks, keeping an eye on godson number one who was playing with his friends after his English lesson and after spending the day with us. We had pizza and he invited his friends to come and share his with him. A little later a group of six thirteen-year-olds came and set up camp at the table next to us. I know their ages as they were with godson number two. I watched as they arrived, one by one, some greeting the others with hugs, and took up their places, and took out their mobile phones. ‘Uh hu,’ I thought, ‘it’s going to be a case of spending an hour reading Facebook and ignoring each other, just like we were doing at home earlier on.’ (Though I was actually reading on my Kindle ap.)
So you can see where the house was
But no. I mean yes, they were checking things out on their phones and then comparing notes, showing each other photos, laughing about selfies and catching up with news from friends who weren’t there. The conversation was fast and fun-filled, there was a mix of English, Greek and Russian going on and they all switched between Greek and English with amazing alacrity.
I imagined… Myself at that age with my friends meeting up with our phones at our favourite meeting pace. The phones would, of course, have to have had very long leads to reach from the house to wherever we were, but we’d meet, wires trailing and sit around comparing phones. We’d have to sit staring at dials and handsets, the more up to date among us would have had push-buttons to show off, someone may have had a novelty number, a Snoopy perhaps, or a racing car, some would have a straight lead, some a curly one, the traditionalists might have had a black number, others a grey-green or ivory, we’d coo and ah over the latest ring tone (bell or trim) and possibly take a photo of it, rather than on it, using our Polaroid Instamatics for instant results.
Stone delivery on a windy day
But I am sure we would not have been so well behaved and certainly not so multi lingual as the group we saw on Friday. They eventually shared a couple of pizzas between them and we left them in their merry circle enjoining their evening. No great shakes maybe, but I just thought it was so good to see: a group of well-behaved teenagers having fun and, most of all, interacting about their phones, rather than wasting an evening being on them.
Ah well, a bit of a ramble there but it is Sunday morning and I am trying to put myself in the writing mood, so I shall cut along now and start putting other random thoughts to virtual paper in advance of a new book of stories and random thoughts. Hope you have a good week!
