Boat central Symi
It has been boat central down in Yialos these past few days; a great sight to see. I reckon there were well over 100 boats in and about on Monday night, Tuesday morning, the bay was busy as the harbour looked full. I wonder how they are coping at the ‘Schengen Hut’ where the paperwork control is managed. Or the ‘Shenanigans Hut’ as Neil calls it. But, like I say, good to see.

It would be nice if some of the crews and owners came up to the village and didn’t just stay on their poops watching the world go by; everyone could do with an injection of business around here at the moment. I guess it’s the same story: a few places do well, others struggle and some may not be there next year. But if these numbers continue, there should be some hope for some business…

We’re having a busy Tuesday with shopping and work, cooking and singing, seeing people off this evening and then chilling for a couple of days ahead of our trip on the boat on Wednesday – looking forward to that very much. As you can see, I am trying to find nice things to write though I have to admit my head is full of nasty thoughts about recent events in Britain. You have to let it out every now and then but honestly, I still can’t get over it: to believe the lies, to vote the way some did and then for everyone who set it up to imshee off and leave others to pick up the pieces. Gives others a perfect opportunity to put things right but oh no, no-one is, so we’re all left in limbo for the next few years while the mess is sorted out one way or the other. At least we don’t have a business to worry about any more. I am thinking of looking at Thailand, seems like a nice place to live.

Anyway, I won’t go on, but please don’t wind me up about it and the stupidity of some people, some press, some political parties and the sheer ignorance of how to negotiate better deals without having to walk away from the table completely. I shall look out of the window at the many boats arriving and departing from Symi and see hundreds of people having a great time on holiday. Something you can still do, by the way. The Foreign Orifice recently let go some reassuring info: for the time being nothing has changed. Well, that’s good to know but hardly news. Now I must go and make another curry and see to lunch.

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Thanks and some photos (from the other day and night)
Busy Sunday evening in the harbour, loads of boats in. Not all of them were tied up properly by the sound of it. When the Dodecanese Pride came in and caused its usual wake there were two boats banging each other around something rotten. Luckily it didn’t last for long. We had a great dinner at To Spitiko courtesy of Steve and Liz – thank you!

People have been very generous of late and have said that it is to say thank you for the blog. This isn’t a hint to anyone else coming this way soon that enjoys the blog and who we may bump into. I enjoy witting the blog and do it for a couple of reasons. It was to help boost publicity for our own shop as well as the island; now it’s to boost publicity for Symi and also my books and Neil’s calendars – which is why some days there is talk about what I am writing and other days there is talk about where we’ve been and what we’ve seen, like the other day when talking about Tholos restaurant. It depends what we’ve been up to – most of the time, for me these days, it’s being at home working on things and trying to save money, so sometimes it’s not very exciting. Other times I think of something funny to say and other-other times I can’t think of anything to say so I tell you stuff like this.

But I can tell you: Thank You! To everyone who comes up and says they enjoy reading the blog. If you’ve also read any of the books and enjoyed them, the best thank you that you can give is leave a review on Amazon as the more reviews a book gets the more they publicise it. I think you need something daft like 50 reviews for a book before they do but I have already had emails from them about my own work. ‘Dear Mister – we thought you might enjoy reading…’ and there are my titles. Actually no, I don’t enjoy rereading them as I always want to change things, which is why I carry on with something new as soon as I feel happy with a final draft. But if you do want to write a review (please do) then you can find my author’s page here.

That is the Amazon.com site (USA) but the titles are all there and you can search for them in the Amazon store for your country and then add any reviews you might like to. Thank you!

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Tholos restaurant (and other things)
That was a very nice weekend, thank you very much. And thank you to everyone who made it so. The credits list includes: Jeanette who took us to Tholos restaurant on Friday night, Colette who came with us, the couple on the bus coming back up who chatted, the customers at the Rainbow bar afterwards, the Welsh football team, Louise and Steve who gave us the Indian spices that lead to the chicken jalfrezi I made on Saturday night, Steve and Liz who took us out on Sunday night, and everyone else who has been around the bar in the afternoon for chat and catch-ups. it’s been a very sociable time of late but, from today, I think we should slow down a little. Oh, but there’s the party on the Poseidon on Thursday night to attend, so maybe after that.

I’ve also been writing and have a couple more chapters of one book typed up and some proofs of the other read and back with the editor/designer; I think ‘Remotely;’ is about two weeks away from being edited, then we have to do some work on the layout (widows and orphans) and then we can see about when we are going to publish it. So work continues.

Meanwhile, back to Tholos which I am featuring today as we have been there recently, Friday in fact. This restaurant/taverna is on the far side of Harani, just before the town beach at Nos, ‘Paradise Beach’ as it is also called. You reach it by walking all the way around the harbour, past the other waterfront cafes and restaurants in Harani, and there are several and all attractive and great places to be. Our table was on the top level by the water’s edge and there are some lower down. I am not sure how that works when the wake from the Blue Star comes in, but I didn’t hear anyone complaining or getting wet so I am sure it’s fine.

The menu is a good size and offers lots of variety, with a blue cheese and lettuce salad as one of the salads on offer. There are Greek mezethes in the usual tradition and, like many places, the taverna has its own recipes and takes on the traditional. There are several mains, a lot of seafood choices too and some unusual dishes. I went for the chicken in wine sauce with almonds which was served with lemon potatoes, rice is also available, or chips. Neil had a spicy pork dish which he also enjoyed. The service is very good, the two waiters and the hostess very pleasant and always attentive, and really there’s nothing bad to say about the place at all. The price was good too, not that we were allowed to contribute to paying. A word of advice: reserve a table in advance as it is very popular.

After this treat we strolled back around the harbour to catch the last bus at 23:00 and headed up to the village while others went on to The Secret Garden for their Friday night jazz, rock and blues music. (They have Greek music there on a Monday night.) The bus will stop there if you ask the driver. Saturday was a slow and almost lazy day for me, getting some of my own writing done and so was Sunday when I finished off a couple of chapters for ‘The Saddling’, the Gothic horror that’s next on the typewriter and coming along nicely – in first draft form.

And that’s my weekend catch-up from up here in Horio. The weather is still warm, in the mid to low 30s, there have been breezes which help keep the humidity down and there’s no sign of any rain or anything like that. The boats have been coming and going according to their schedules, with day-trippers and regular visitors being delivered, new visitors have also come to check out Symi, which is always good to see and everything is ticking along nicely.

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This minute was brought to you by Symi Dream
I was listening to Euronews while having lunch yesterday, something we do every day to get the European perspective on things, and it struck me – as it has before – that some of my life is being sponsored by a firm that makes watches. Very kind of them.

After some sports headlines, this time about Wimbledon, the announcement came, ‘This minute was sponsored by Rolex.’ I just wondered who was sponsoring the other 1,439 minutes of each day. (Actually it’s less than that as Rolex keeps popping up during the day to tell me the last minute was sponsored by them.) It reminded me of that thing I used to hear on British television after the weather forecast. ‘The weather is sponsored by Accurist.’ I wonder who they paid their sponsor money to – the sun? that, after all, is what creates the weather here on Earth. I also wondered who might sponsor other things. More minutes of my life could be sponsored by a chocolate company, that would be handy. Please send me a chocolate bar each day so that I can spend a minute on it and have that precious minute of my life paid for by Cadbury’s; much more practical than a Rolex as I’ve not worn a watch in 14 years. And why is it watchmakers who are left to sponsor minutes of the day and the weather? Has no one else any imagination?

All a bit odd really and it’s not the heat getting to me, hot though it is.

Meanwhile: The AC (Alarm Cat) had some visitors in on Thursday night and enjoyed the attention as he always does. Neil’s brother has left after his flying visit. We are going out to eat tonight (Friday) at Tholos in Harani and hope to get some images to share with you next week. This is possibly our last meal out for a while; cutting back for a few weeks while I scrape together the last of my private health insurance money from somewhere. I was going to use some I had saved in my British account but that’s going to depend on the exchange rate; €1.19 per pound as I write.

This time last year (roughly) one pound was at €1.45, it started declining last December and of course, thanks to ‘The Fifty-Two Year Old Idiot Who Climbed Out Of A Window And Disappeared’ it’s now hideously low. Not as bad as it was at the end of 2008 when it was almost one-for-one, but nowhere near it was when we first moved here, at €1.55 to the pound. That title, by the way, ‘The Fifty-Two Year Old Idiot…’ has a much longer title: ‘The Fifty-Two Year Old Idiot Who Climbed Out Of A Window And Disappeared – Leaving Behind A Country Drowning In Chaos.’ If I were the Queen I’d be shouting, ‘Orf with his head!’ And there would be a few others in line after him. Bring back Henry VIII I say – but that’s another matter, never mind – just enjoy the Symi Dream blog while I am still able to live in the country and write about writing and living on a Greek island.

Better go now before I get started on something mildly political. ‘Today’s parliament hour was sponsored by McDonalds, as good for you as Nigel Farage.’

This last minute, however, was brought to you by Symi Dream, I hope you enjoyed it.

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Symi visitor numbers, boats and refugee thoughts
There were a lot of fun things to watch from up here on Wednesday as the harbour was the busiest I’ve seen it for a long while.

It started with the Panagia Skiadeni going out at 7.00 and the Blue Star Paros coming in at around 7.35. Later in the day a cruise ship called in and took up the far side of the harbour so when the Panagia came back it had to moor up where the Sea Dreams usually goes; that had to wait out at sea while the Panagia got its passengers off and then that went out so the Sea Dreams could come in. Somewhere in all of that the Nikolaos came in and let its passengers off before going back out to wait in the bay. Later, the Sea Dreams went, the Panagia came back, the Nikolaos came back, picked people up and went, and the Panagia went, and all the while the cruise ship, the ‘Salamis Filozenia’ was still there with its passengers enjoying a day on Symi, and that finally went in the evening. Not sure it was all in that order but it was certainly a complicated dance of swapsies. Bravo to the harbour crews!

We went down to Yialos in the evening and had a drink at Mediteranio as the sun set. Then we walked along to Haris taverna by the taxi rank for dinner: beans, garlic bread, beef, seafood risotto, lamb kleftiko, all for a very nice price thank you. The harbour was busy and in these days of fewer visitor numbers that was good to see. There were also the sailing boats in and a few larger yachts.

I heard a story (and this may not be true) that one of the reasons for fewer charter boats and large ships, like the ‘gin palace’ yachts and gullets, is to do with insurance. Apparently the companies are having to pay higher insurance in case their boats get used for people trafficking. I can see what the insurance companies mean; if they lease a boat and then it gets used and impounded and there are insurance implications. But there have been no refugees coming to Symi for months now, not since last year really. There have been no impounded boats since last year and it looks like the people traffickers of Turkey have been put off, certainly in our waters. I’m not sure what’s happening further north, but here, even the local charity is turning its attention to Symi needs, as there has been no need to shelter and help poor refugees for a long time. Now if the insurance companies (if that rumour is true) could get wind of that and lower their caution and rates, then perhaps we will see a return of more gullets – we have had quite a few still – and other pleasure yachts for the rest of the summer.

Up in the village the square continues to be the centre of attention, particularly in the late afternoon and evening, as is usually the case. It’s a great place for a quiet coffee in the morning, at either Rainbow of Lefteris’, there is breakfast to be had at various places including the Olive Tree and Mandeios, and there are the shops to looks around. After lunch, and after the beach, Rainbow has proved popular with visitors from 3pm onwards – I assume Neil’s presence has something to do with that! And then later, both bars become busy for the pre and post dinner socialising session, and football when it’s on, oh, and that tennis thing in the afternoons – not sure what that’s all about but it has something to do with purple and green and rain, usually.

So, good to see Symi busy on Wednesday (and other days when I am not around) and let’s hope that the customers customise the other bars and tavernas and shops while they are here too. I know, customise is not the right word there but it sounds like it should be. I don’t like ‘patronise’, though it’s probably correct, it sounds like people are talking down to the shops and business. But there you go; some photos from Wednesday and some good news about visitor numbers.

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