Saturday night Symi
I was hoping for a lie in on Sunday as we’d been out quite late on Saturday, but the cat had other ideas. So I thought I would use this unusual time of morning (6.45) on a Sunday to prepare a blog post for today and then take the rest of the day to myself to work on a book or something. Actually, it wasn’t that late a night by some standards, we got home just after midnight; there are some (no names mentioned) who think nothing of heading home in the dawn-light after a good night out on Symi – and when you’re on holiday, why not? Or even when you’re not on holiday, why not?

Anyway, we’d been down to Yialos with the godsons as one of them has just turned 13, so it was our treat for a night out in the big city. This involved a walk around the harbour so we could watch the big super-yachts come in. The Vava I and II were both in; apparently they are owned by Ernesto Bertarelli, an Italian-born, Swiss businessman And philanthropist. Very impressive boats and it was good to see the harbour busy with many other boats, especially at the west end.

After present buying (new Croc flip-flops) Dinner was at the Dolphin Restaurant, otherwise known as Vasilis and Rachael’s pizzeria by the bridge. This is a good place to watch the world go by and also, when there is something on the festival stage in the town square, it’s a good place to sit and listen, or even watch. I’ve seen shows from a table there with a better view than if I had been in the audience. It’s also worth going for the food, of course! Pizzas, pasta, salads and all homemade, you can see Vasilis in the kitchen throwing the dough around. The prices are good: Three pizzas (two of them large, and here large means large!), one large garlic bread (like a pizza), a salmon pasta, one litre of wine, water and two soft drinks for under €58.00 – that’s a dinner for four, by the way, not just me.

After that there was an insistence for ice-cream so we wandered over to the ice-cream and cake shop in post office square. (I did see the name on the street plaque but I can never remember it.) Here you have ice-cream by the scoop and if you ask for a small one they think you are joking and you end up with a large one anyway, for the same price as a small one. Again, the prices are good, three large tubs for €6.00 and it’s nice ice-cream. Someone had a double with cookie-dough and peanut (and it did taste like peanuts), someone else had chocolate with hazelnut and I went for a simple vanilla with chocolate chips in it.

After that, we admired the taxi rank for 25 minutes and then went to catch the bus. There are only a few taxis on the island of course, and things do get busy at the site of year. But here’s a tip. If you are waiting for a taxi, wait in the taxi parking area, where there’s a shelter and where everyone can see you are waiting. Don’t sit on the quayside opposite and then expect everyone to believe you’ve been waiting for a taxi and were first in the queue – everyone will assume you’re making it up and you won’t get yourself a good reputation. Worse, you might get a mouthful of malakarisms – especially at night; how does anyone know you’re waiting for a cab, and not just sitting over there for the fun of it? Anyway, the bus was busy but we were able to watch the new television and the advertising display on the way up; a kind of Symi in-flight movie.

And so to the square for one on the way home, chat with friends, the boys off to their home after another drink and a play in the square and the end of a lovely evening. Knackered to bed at 12.30 and the Alarm Cat setting itself off at 5.45. Lovely.

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On my shopping list today…
I’m heading out to do some shopping in a moment as we have guests coming for dinner tonight (Friday). Included on my list are: candles, cheese and rat poison.

Unwanted guests? Yes, kind of, but not those who are coming to dinner tonight, the rat poison is not for them (nor is it for Jack, who stars in our photos today). Actually, I probably won’t buy poison as it’s not a nice way to kill rats and, although they say otherwise, it’s not very good for cats if they get hold of it, though there are some which apparently are not harmful to cats. I’m not sure what to do about our little visitor(s) though, but I think I might have to invest in a trap of some sort. I actually quite like rats but I don’t want to share the house with them. How do I know we have a rat? Well, I’m not a great expert on droppings but a quick Google of ‘Rat poo’ led to some images which showed the same things as I’ve found in the laundry room and bathroom over these past couple of days. So, thinking about this logically:

I am assuming that they are coming from the ruin and land opposite the house. The vine has grown and stretches over the road to the land/house opposite. This seems to me the easiest access route. The alternatives would be to scale some pretty high walls or abseil down from above; and I wouldn’t put it past them to do this. The drains are all covered, there’s no signs of through-the-wall entry and the biggest clue is that the laundry room door is always left open. This is going to be my first elimination. We leave the door open so that cat has somewhere to shelter in the winter and it just gets left open all year round, though at this time of year, he’s usually outside or on the roof overnight, so we can close that and then be on poo watch for a few days/nights to see if anything shows up. If it does then they are getting into that part of the house some other way. If it stops, then we know what to do. They will get bored and go somewhere else, I hope.

The second stage is to find some way to trap them and the third is to get the dreaded poison and be done with it, maybe putting it down at night and making sure it’s in a place where the cat can’t reach it, not that he did when we had mice in the old house. The Alarm Cat, as you may know, only eats finest quality, highly-expensive processed things in packets with names such as, ‘Dubious-Delicious’, ‘Once was Dog’ and ‘No Idea in Don’t-Ask Jelly.’ He loves them and won’t eat anything else. Unless it’s a giros from George up the road, which he is very partial to.

Okay, a couple of notes on the above. You would have noticed we have a cat and you’ve been wondering why the cat doesn’t do anything about the rat(s). Well, if you’d met the AC you would know how agile and enthusiastic he is; he runs away from spiders and enthusiastically ignores all other creatures, unless they come in vacuum packed sachets with an image of a contented feline on the front and are called ‘Have You Guessed What It Was Yet? Meat Treats For Cats.‘ Jack’s no good as a guard cat.

And the other note, which makes me more inclined to leave the rat(s) alone and hope they go away is that at least they do their business in the bathroom. Not only that, but they do it in the WC bowl – I kid you not. I assume they are on the lookout for water as the part of the house they are using as a hotel contains no food, we don’t live in it (it’s my office) and the only parts they can access is the laundry with a sink and a washing machine, and the bathroom. Now if they would only flush after them and use the little bin provided I’d be a lot more inclined to let them live. Don’t worry, they won’t be around for long – the Symi spider that wandered in off the balcony the other day will soon see to that, while the Alarm Cat watches from a safe distance.

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Early morning for a change

(I’m still half asleep and haven’t checked for typos – enjoy) This is the kind of thing I see when I sit down at the desk first thing in the morning. It’s only 6.15 and I am thinking about putting the fan on already.

And these are the kinds of things I think when I write the blog first thing rather than the day before: We had a bit of a semi-successful day yesterday. We’re still on the trial of getting the bank card reissued and still trying to track down some acceptable proof of address. The bank here were very helpful but the address used there is simply: Name and Symi – which is to the point and accurate but not good enough for the other bank who insist it can’t be ‘Number, Post office’ (which is annoying as that is our address) and it can’t be in Greek, which is also annoying as that’s the address on the phone bill, the only utility bill with our name on it – the name is in Latin characters but the address is not.

Anyway… we did enquire at the bank about how to update the address on their records and were given a leaflet that lists all the things you will need in order to prove who you are, so they can then change the address – so then we can get a statement with that address on it and then send that to the overseas card company who may then accept it as long as it’s not in anything but Latin characters. Not everyone has an address such as: 37 Acacia Avenge, Little-Snoozing, BTW RUmad, Little England etc. etc.

Anyway, I checked back and found that the card company had previously accepted a bank statement from the UK, as proof of address so Neil rang that bank up and they said they would send him a recent statement, even though he hasn’t used that account for years and we thought it had been closed. The address written on that is ‘The Symi Post Office…. Etc.’ but they (the card company) accepted that last time, so hopefully they will do so again.

Oh, but I said that yesterday was semi-successful, what was the successful part? Well, we went to see the accountant to make sure our tax returns had been done, and they have, and Neil’s entitled to some money back from the Greek tax office! At least that was some kind cause for celebration, once we’d picked ourselves up off the floor.

Anyway, it’s now 6.27 (I’m not used to writing these in the morning) so I’m off to get on, as it were.

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Symi spring photos
Sitting here in the heat with my mind drifting back to the spring made me think that I would put up a few more photos taken a few months ago when the flowers were out and the sheep were lambing. I’ve also been working on ‘The Saddling’, my novel for next year which is set in a very rural, closed community, and I’ve still got the characters’ voices in my head. (I still be ‘aving folk a-talking in me ‘ead.) There is a lot of rural speak involved, including words that I vaguely remember from my youth on the marshes, and plenty of others I have discovered from by book of Kent dialect. It’s a far cry from Symi, though also similar.

Symi has its own dialect and one I don’t pretend to be an expert in; why, I can’t even get my tongue around Greek, let alone anything else. It’s also similar in the use of words, in that some are ‘island words’ and then there’s the rural element, the sheep and lambs of spring and the agriculture. I am sure if I returned to the marshes now I would find some things very different, but other things still the same.

Like when people return to Symi after several years and chat, asking how things have changed over time. They can see some changes quite easily: the street lights on the road, the road itself in some cases, the widened harbour, the increase in traffic and the newly restored houses. But essentially it is still the same underneath with the hospitality, the choice of places to eat, the beaches, everything a bit laid back, the friendliness and the heat of summer. The more things change the more they remain the same and all that.

I’ve no idea where this post is going, I just opened up a new sheet of virtual paper and started taping away – a good exercise for anyone aspiring to be called a ‘writer.’ If in doubt, don’t feel blocked, just open a page and start putting down your thoughts. It keeps the fingers and the brain active if nothing else and every now and then you might put something down that you can use later.

And that’s how I got from spring to writing tips in one quick movement. Now I am going to make a slow movement towards the kitchen and get some lunch ready, and then make an even slower one towards the sofa for a cooling sit down before getting on with the rest of the day. Enjoy the Symi spring photos.

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Symi day out idea
A few more recent photos for you today and not much to talk about. Although the photos of Yialos might make it look almost deserted, they were taken in the morning before all three day boats had come in. Things start to fill up after 11:00, depending on the day, when the three ferries come in and unload their passengers.

A lot of day-trippers head off in large groups, following umbrellas and listening to their guides speak through microphones that they now hold; I’m not sure where the sound comes out. Maybe through the umbrellas? I assume what the guides are saying is accurate otherwise it’s possible that they are talking out of their … Well, you can fill that in for yourselves. There are all kinds of nationalities represented and you hear all kinds of languages being spoken when you are out and about down there at certain times.

Another way to take a day trip to Symi is to go it alone and, if you get the right boats on the right days you can have longer here, though you may miss Panormitis. If you come over on, say, the early catamaran on certain days you can be here just after nine, in time for breakfast at one of the cafes, and then have time to wander up to the village before it gets too hot. After that you can take the bus down, or walk down and then have lunch in Yialos – though there are places to have lunch in Horio as well. Then you still have time for a swim at the town beach, a ride on the train around towards Nimborio or on the horse and carriage for that added romance. And there’s plenty of time for an afternoon shop and drink before the catamaran comes back around 5.30, again depending on what day. Meanwhile, the larger ferries come via Panormitis, or return that way, so you have about one hour there, three hours in Yialos, and three or four hours on the boat in a leisurely cruise across and then around the east side of the island.

Obviously the best way to see Symi is to come and stay for at least a week, two is ideal if you can manage it and longer is even better.

See, not a lot of news today but life goes on, which is always a good thing to write. Talking of which, I have books to see to and so will get on with them.

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