All at sea
A few more at sea photos for you while I take a break from writing words.
All at sea
Category Archives: Day to day on Symi
A few photos
A few photos
A few more photos from the boat trip last weekend. Off out again this morning (more cat food, collect a duvet, find the rent money… usual things) and so only a quick post with a few pics to look at over your morning coffee or tea.
Things to do on Symi: Relax
Things to do on Symi: Relax
Everyone’s pretty relaxed around here at the moment. Including the Alarm Cat, as you will see in a moment. It’s been a long weekend of fun and feasting with an around the island boat trip on Friday – a fantastic time as usual – a walk to Pedi on Saturday for lunch, watching the clouds roll past and carry on rolling, a birthday dinner with friends on Saturday at Georgio’s, including live music and much frivolity, and a quiet day on Sunday, with no sign of clouds. This week, so far, looks like it’s going to be quieter with hardly anything in the diary at all.
Before I present you with some photos for today I just wanted to thank everyone who has so far put up a review of ‘Remotely’. Seven five-star reviews so far, and some wonderful comments. It looks like there’s quite a lot of interest in this body-swap, coming of age, gay/straight comedy; a newspaper local to where the story is set, are running a piece on it this month and, so far, sales have been good, for me. It’s out there in Kindle and in paperback and you can find the links from this page: ‘Remotely’ on Amazon. I’m just putting this thought out there but it would make a great gift for someone for Christmas.
And now a few photos from Friday.
One of those days
One of those days when there’s not enough time to get anything done before heading out to the dentist for 11, then a walk around Yialos and then lunch, then a dash home and a piano playing session and then… well, then we’re collapsing in front of the TV with a good series and having a quiet night in. So, the next few days will probably be photo-only blog posts as we’ve got a day on the boat today and I have to catch up on some work over the weekend.
Here are a few recent shots to keep you going and I’ll aim to have many more for you over the next couple of weeks. Things should return to normal around 26th October, until then, expect short posts and maybe not every day. There’s simply too much fun to be had – it’s like being on holiday, from what I can remember.
Mildly alarming
Mildly alarming
I’m trying to find out exactly what it’s all about, and maybe someone will let me know, but it seems the police, or coastguard, or someone has set up an early warning system on Symi. I’m not sure what it’s meant to signify as I’ve not heard an announcement (maybe I missed one?) but we’ve now got this air raid siren thing which goes off every now and then. I heard it last week and assumed it was something to do with the coastguard boat that was out in the bay, but yesterday it went off around 11.00 and stayed ‘going off’ (i.e. on) for quite a while, and no sign of the boat. Then it went off again, and again.
There was no sign of imminent invasion, or anyone in trouble, in fact the bells carried on ringing, the guys unloading the van next door carried on chatting and the world seemed to go on as normal. I assume it was a test – but of what? Does this thing go off when someone has been spotted wearing socks with their sandals? Is it to warn the island that the tax inspectors are on their way? Maybe it’s to let everyone know that their coffee is ready. It could be anything, but I suspect it’s more important than any of those. As soon as I find out I’ll let you know, in the meantime, I don’t think there is any reason to be alarmed.
Actually, I’ve now been informed that it’s to do with the military, a drill of some sort – so all is well.
It reminded me of working on summer holiday camps back in the 1980s in Crowthorne, in Berkshire, a few miles distant from Broadmoor, the high security psychiatric hospital. We were working with children with epilepsy in a rather remote old house and grounds not far from the hospital through the woods. They would test the alarm every Monday morning at a certain time and we’d all know that’s what it was, so no panic. Not until the times when it went off at unexpected hours of the day and night. Then we had a Jack Bauer, 24, style protocol in place which basically meant locking everyone inside until the all clear went off. It happened with alarming regularity – but never actually amounted to anything more than a false alarm. Oh, apart from once, but even then we were all safe.
Anyhow. Today is a visit to the dentist day, some piano playing this afternoon and then all clear for the evening. Friday is a day around the island on the boat, the first (and probably last) of the year for us as we don’t often get the time off work. And then a weekend of not much at all is planned, so no news there then. I must away now and create a chicken pie for lunch, after clearing the courtyard of tamarisk shedding and dead leaves from the vine and, of course, seeing to the cat who is very grumpy today and already on his third, semi-ignored, breakfast. Ah, perhaps that’s what the new alarm system is! It signals Jack’s next feeding time and he is in cahoots with the authorities. Wouldn’t surprise me.
