Symi, this day in history
I thought I would try something different today, for no apparent reason. I managed to get back into the old Symi Dream blog site, not having used it for a couple of years, and looked back over posts from the few years, a kind of ‘this day in history.’ So, here is what was going on, on November 18th (the day I am wiriting this) over the last three years. I was going to do it for further back but there’s already two big posts and half a book for you to read!
November 18th 2015
Quick news roundup
Here’s some other news to catch up with. It was all happening in Yialos on the afternoon of November 16th. First of all a chicken went shopping…
It’s one of those things that you see every now and then. You’re just walking along the backstreet towards the post office, passing the Xatzipetros supermarket when from behind the flower shop comes a small chicken. This is being followed at a polite distance by a curious young cat. The chicken crosses your path, you grab a quick photo and then it heads into the super market (sic) to, I assume, pick up a few essentials. The cat loses interest and wanders off somewhere else and you go to the post office.
Later you attend a meeting organised by Solidarity Symi, the refugee and island charity newly set up to help those in need. Attending are a group of interested observers plus the hosts, the island doctors, the head of the port police, people form the Rhodes charity ‘Helping Hands’ and members of the UN. A good two hour discussion with questions and some answers follows.
Later, having a glass at Pacho’s, you see a red flare being set off and wonder if that’s got anything to do with incoming refugees. It doesn’t, on closer inspection, seem so as the person holding it was on the quayside. The Dodecanese catamaran was leaving so maybe someone was saying goodbye in style. It did remind me though of a time in the summer when we were on the balcony and saw a flare, red, over by Nimos which did turn out to be a refugee boat in trouble. Red flares in the sunset.
And that’s my news for today, except to remind you that if you haven’t already put in your order for a Symi calendar or several, then now is the time to do so. You can find the order page here: Neil Gosling at Lulu. Or you could just ‘Google’ “Neil Gosling Lulu” and, surprisingly, you won’t find Neil singing ‘Shout’, but will find links to where you can order a copy, or several, of next year’s calendar. Well worth shouting about.
November 18th 2014
Carry on up the Kali Strata
Carry on up the Kali Strata is what you might call part two of ‘Symi 85600’ as it follows on to cover the next couple of years of living on Symi, so it is actually a carry-on from ‘85600’ and hence the name. Well, it’s not rocket science is it?
Back in the days when we had the Symi Visitor newspaper to look forward to each month, I would write a column for them. These articles sometimes also appeared on the Symi Dream blog, but they were often constrained by the number of words allowed in the paper; column inches I think they call them in the biz. After the success of ‘Symi 85600’, people were asking if there was going to be another book. So, it seemed a simple process to collect the articles together, the newspaper having since finished operating, and put them in a compilation with some other pieces of writing that I wanted to get ‘out there.’ And that’s how ‘Cary On’ came about.
We also decided to add in some of Neil’s photos for illustrations (some pictured here) and we had Gill Bennett, who used to live on Symi, design the cover. The thing was, it was still just a collection of articles and had no real through-line. ‘Symi 85600’ had taken us on a journey, the first five years living here, and so that had a kind of structure, but ‘Carry on’ didn’t.
I started thinking about the questions we often get asked here, ‘What’s it like in the winter?’ for example. (And, as I write this – last Friday – there’s a thunderstorm raging, I can’t see Nimos or even the sea through the rain, much of which is coming in under the doors and through the windows, some of which is coming in through the kitchen ceiling, the roof over Neil’s office (for the first time) and through the still not fixed bedroom window. All towels are down, the electricity keeps flickering and there’s a junction box nearby that keeps sparking. We’re expecting a full on power cut any time now and I have to get to Yialos to buy boat tickets. Yeah, like that’s gunna happen.) That’s what it’s like in the winter madam!
Another oft asked question is, ‘What is it about Symi that made you stay?’ And that’s what I thought should be the structure (loosely speaking) of ‘Carry on up the Kali Strata’, ‘What is it about Symi…?’ So, through articles, anecdotes, a couple of short stories and the photos, the answer is found in this book.
Originally published in landscape format (it can still be found at Lulu.com in this format) it was republished via Amazon a couple of years ago in portrait format, and, like my other books, is also available on Kindle. Same words, same images just a different layout.
You can order a copy of Carry On up the Kali Strata here.
“Thoroughly enjoyed this insight into a small Greek island life. For all of you who’re familiar with Greece in any way and love its warmth and can’t QUITE put your finger on what exactly it IS about Greece, James is here to help you answer that.” Amazon review
“This is a good laugh out loud honest account of life on a small island.” Amazon review
November 18th 2013
[As promised, while I am in Rhodes for three days, here is the opening chapter of the novel of the film, The Judas Curse. It will be presented over the next three days with a few suitable images.]
You are in darkness. Your eyes are closed. You can’t see but you can hear. A strange kind of whispering sound, like voices from another room, frantically chattering, excited, hushing each other, gasping, begging, all mixed up. And behind all that but close to you, some kind of motor is whirring away, a small, tiny motor driving something on, steady, slowly. What is it?
It’s getting louder.
There is something in the room with you. Something or someone. You just need to open your eyes. You just need the courage to open your eyes.
A quick glance. Open. Shut.
You saw a photograph. A man. A priest was it? Something old, a bit faded, the colour draining, the edges tatty. And an album, the photo was going into a photo album, a small one, a red cover, a plastic wallet of old memories. Who was doing it? Whose hands were those?
Eyes still shut, ears still aware: thumping sounds, what is that? Sounds like books being dumped one on top of the other, a pile of heavy books being stacked and… Someone crying? If the whispers would die down you could hear better but that’s definitely someone crying. A man. An older man breathing fast, desperately, trying to control himself. A whimper of fear.
Another quick glance.
The crying man is pushing the red photo album into an envelope, his fingers are trembling. There is a name on the envelope. You can’t see it. You don’t want to know what is going on. You close your eyes again.
And hear the whispers rise in excitement, tumbling over each other madly, a crescendo, incoming chatter down an unseen telegraph wire, and the sounds of whimpering and the old man mumbling. You just wish it would all stop, all go away, leave you alone. Your eyes screw up tighter, your eyelids actually hurt, your face is distorted. And then:
A scream that holds within it all the horror and desperation of a man with no way out.
‘I can’t do it!’
You have to look.
You see Frank, a man in his sixties, in the darkness of a small, closed room at night. A candle on the table lights papers and books, and his face. It lights the lines on his skin as if his face is made up of crumpled shadows wet by the streams of his tears. His hands are over his ears.
The muffled thump-ker-thump of a heartbeat within a body. The rhythm of life or the sound of approaching death.
He takes his hands away. The whispers have changed key. Lower now and more conspiratorial. They have something planned.
