Symi weekend
It was, as expected, a wet and slightly wild weekend as a bad weather front swept across the country. The edge of it caught Symi, and it wasn’t so bad, but it did mean a long Sunday walk in the mountains would have been pretty unpleasant, so we decided against that and just had the ‘after walk Sunday dinner’ instead.

But on Saturday we were out and about, down in Yialos doing a few minutes at the refugee station at The Old Post Office. There have been around 20 refugees on Symi this weekend, I expect they are still here waiting for the Wednesday boat to Athens. A bit of a shame actually as, I believe, they arrived on Friday but missed the Friday boat, so they have to stay until Wednesday. But Solidarity Symi and the authorities have looked after them, they have accommodation during this cold, wet weather, and they should be on their way on Wednesday Unless they decide to head to Rhodes for another connection. We just called into the centre to make up some more wash bags so that it’s easier to administer them for whoever takes the guests into the centre to hand over clothes and supplies.

After that we did a bit of shopping and wandering around, didn’t stop for a coffee or anything as we wanted to get back in case the heavens opened, which they didn’t as it turned out, but better safe than soggy. And so I spent the rest of the weekend entertaining myself with things online (shopping) and things in books (plotting a story, reading about the ‘Jack the Ripper diaries’), housework (tidying the sitting room for five minutes), writing (another chapter of ‘Shocking the Donkeys), and thinking about playing the piano. That’s on top of the usual chores of cooking, washing up, shopping, sifting the cat’s litter tray, feeding the strays up the road, sweeping the floors and trying to get the washing done.

Talking of Himself, the great He who must be obeyed, He went out for the night on Friday, dirty stop-out. We were heading out, around seven in the evening and Neil nipped down to Sotiris’ for some wine to take with us, leaving the front gate open. I was pottering around doing something highly important and noticed that Jack was looking at the open gate. As I came back past the same place a few seconds later, I noticed he’d gone. Either out, or up on the roof which is one of his favourite hanging out places. But no, for the first time in months, he took the opportunity to do a little exploring and, when we came home later, he was still not around so he stayed out all night.; We opened the gate again in the morning and he came back after about half an hour. No idea where he was or what he got up to, but at least there was no alarm call for us at 6.30 that morning.

And I must tell you that, apparently, Sunvil do come to Symi for holidays (see post last week). Lynne and Ian (who live on Tilos and who look after the cats there, and who kindly gave me a Tilos Cat Calendar when I was there last year) inform me that Sunvil operate on Tilos and Symi (Nireus and Iapetos Village). Lynne, the rep, tells me, “The 2016 brochure, which you can access online at http://www.sunvil.co.uk,/ features Symi on pages 206, 207. I often have clients on Tilos who do a twin centre with Symi.” So that’s good news and thanks for pointing it out.

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Symi connectivity
Here we are heading off into the weekend again and this time it promises… What? Cooler weather, perhaps a storm, maybe a long walk – weather permitting – and possibly a visit from the Cosmote technician.

We have, of late and as I may have grumbled about previously, been experiencing internet connection problems, ‘connectivity issues’ American might call them. It’s on, it’s off, it’s meant to be 4 Mbs we get 0.03 at times, and you don’t know from one day to the next if it’s going to bother turning up for work at all. All this is very frustrating when you are trying to research online. The problem has been growing steadily worse over the last week. So, what have we done about it?

First of all I tried rebooting the box, the router thing. Then, as that didn’t make any difference, I tried plugging the internet directly into the wall socket, and did away with the net/phone splitter; then, as that didn’t seem to help, I changed all the cables and bought a new phone as we needed one anyway. I checked with our local phone shop who told me there was a similar problem all over the island, an issue with the ADSL line or something. But I plugged in the new equipment anyway… and no change.

Yesterday morning the internet connection was simply taking the ISP. It started up and then stopped. It connected again and then slowed down to slower than a one legged pot-addicted sloth, before acting like a dysfunctional college student and dropping out completely. At this point my PC even failed to find the router, which is but five feet away. And then it asked me to re-enter my username and password as if to say, ‘I’ve found something here but you gotta convince me you really want to connect with this guy, he has connectivity issues. (My PC is clearly American.) But, connect we did and all was fine for two minutes and off we went again. So, unlike me, but driven by frustration, I called the Costmote helpline. And I was very nice.

And so was she and I told her all about my issue. She asked me to pause while she checked our line. I said that I had been told it was a common problem on the island, but she refuted that and told me it wasn’t, it was just us. I wasn’t sure if that made me feel special or naughty, but she went away for a moment and did her checks. Ah yes, she agreed, I can see you have had disconnections and slow speeds, you should be at four megabytes… She went on to tell me what I knew I was paying for; I explained again that I was clearly not getting it. She told me an engineer would call my mobile number to arrange to come and check things at the house if needed and thank you have a nice day. (It’s good that she didn’t ask me if there was ‘anything else I can do for you today please sir thank you how about a product you don’t want but which I am obliged to try and sell you anyway thank you for calling the call centre today, my name was…’ Dial tone.

A few minutes later I received a text message from Cosmote (who is not my mobile provider, in case you were wondering) to tell me that they were thankful for my call and the issue reported had now been dealt with. I gleefully tried my connection speed again and found it to be down to 0.36 and 0.22 (instead of 4 and 1), so perhaps the message meant that my call had been received and looked into. At this point in time – Friday midday, I am still waiting for the engineer to call and check. As we only have one on Symi, that I know of, I shall know who to look out for but if, in the meantime, all goes dark on these pages and the blog is not updated, you shall perhaps know why. Have a good weekend.

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Symi Holidays – Alternative Holiday Searches
A look at some holiday search ideas with a few choice typos left in for you. Yesterday morning I was a bit ruched (rushed), but today I have a little more time to think about summer holidays, which is something of a developing theme this week, it seems. I did a simple internet search for ‘Symi Holiday’ to see what might come up and see if I could give folk some ideas for a break in Greece, namely on Symi.

Obviously, advertised sites come up first, including the big names like Booking.com, and the result you might get from doing the same search will be different; apparently it depends on where you are, what server your engine is on and all things wonderfully technical like that. But, for me, the top results were: Monarch, Olympic (which we looked at the other day), and then some search and compare sites (as opposed to being company sites). I then wandered in more familiar territory with Travel A La Carte and Kalodoukas, Symi Visitor and, oh, and then Symi Dream, which isn’t actually a travel site. I don’t want to start talking too much about local companies as I may give too much info on one and not enough on another and cause ructions, so for that kind of info and links, head to www.symibest.gr and the Accommodation area. But, to give you an idea of prices (from the UK), here’s what I found on other sites.

I had a look at Monarch.co.uk first as I’d not checked them out before. Their page was a bit slow to change its calendar, but it got there in the end and I looked for seven days in the first two weeks of July. The thinking here is that that time is coming into high season, so the more popular months for British visitors (May, June, September, October) should be cheaper, in theory. I was also looking at Gatwick flights and one person traveling. Monarch could get me into the Nireus in Yialos for £436 for the week, and Pedi Beach Hotel for £459, both bed and breakfast. You can up-grade to half board at the Pedi Beach. That was all Monarch had.

I had ‘Sunvil’ on my list of Symi holidays but when I checked their site it turns out they don’t actually travel to Symi, so don’t bother using that site. It must have got its key wording or meta data wrong or something.

Thompson came next though their destination box for their search was not very detailed and I had to search for Greece rather than more specifically Symi. Needless to say they found 1,000 destinations and I wasn’t going to hang around searching through them for Symi; I saw no filters either. I checked their Destinations page and, glossy and swish though it looked, could not be buttered (bothered) to search through the type of holiday, I just wanted ‘Destination Symi.’ Quite frankly, I got bored. I’d go to a travel agent if you are considering a Thompson holiday, I didn’t find their site search functions very user-friendly. You can though, after a search, whittle down the 1,000 Greek offers to 147 South Aegean ones, but no further. [See: Job 38:11 “Hittherto shall thou come and no further.” Impressed, eh?]

And finally, another one I’d not head (heard) of, Home Away, which was offering apartments and villas on Symi, with a much more manageable 11 to search through, found after a simple and effective search. There were several villas here that I recognised, a few that I’d never heard of and one whose view appeared to be that from my living room window, which was a bit disconcerting. These (very nice and sometimes plush but hopefully not mine) properties were showing prices per night and were not your package deals, or your basic accommodation. £72.00 per night was the starting price for an apartment in Horio looking towards Pedi; the same price for a very nice property I know down at Petalo where the new jetty is being built. At the top of the scale came £225 per night (this is still in high season and you could probably cram eight people in and share the cost (and outside loo)) plus a few properties which rather worryingly showed no price, like the very poshest of posh jewellery shops in Bond Street. If you have to ask you can’t afford it.

That might give you an alternative idea of places to look and places to stay if you’re planning a Symi holiday. One thing I would advise though, especially for those posher sites, is that you shouldn’t be taken in by the photos of detail. I was just checking out something at over £200 per night and all the images showed me were architectural features, napkins on tables with out of focus somethings behind, and the occasional Indian bedspread. Very nice, but what’s the view? Remember, these were also non-Symi based sites and companies. If you want to get the real deal then check out the local tour operators and accommodation offices. Again, see www.symibest.gr for a listing.

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Symi summer season has started! (Or maybe not)
We have a couple of yachts in the bay this morning marking the start of the Symi summer season. They are not the kind of vessel you usually see around here in the winter. They came in last night, after dark and are still there today. I can’t see their names and they don’t show up on ‘Live Ships’ so I can’t be nosey and see who they might belong to. Perhaps they are very early season holiday-makers acting on yesterday’s blog and getting their Symi holiday in early. (Unlikely.)

Perhaps they are something to do with the military activity I saw the other day; the helicopter coming in and setting down some importantly looking men in uniform who were met by solders from the training camp and driven away. Perhaps it’s a rich someone trying to find out how much it would cost to buy Symi and soon we will find ourselves a subsidiary of the king of Al Kaleffa and his lands. (How exciting.) Or maybe it’s old Stephen Spielberg back again for another recce of the island as he’s thinking about filming another war film here like he was a hundred years ago, or whenever it was.

Or maybe it’s just too early in the morning to think about it. I am, once again, rattling off a post before settling down to work as I didn’t get it together to get one together yesterday. And yesterday was another day for staying at home and enjoying the full day to myself. Today I keep threatening myself with a walk to Yialos and back to see if the new thermals have arrived as cold weather is due to set in again next week. We’ll see how the morning goes; but if I do go down I may find out who the boats belong to, I expect the whole harbour is talking about them. (Not.)

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Symi Holidays 2016
We received the good news yesterday that Mother has found a good deal on a Symi holiday and this made me wonder what other deals might be out there. Not that I need a Symi holiday you understand, as most days are holidays around here in the winter. But you might be wondering where to head to this summer and might be put off by gloomy ‘Grexit’ news, worrying ‘Brexit’ news, or ridiculous ‘Bung an exit on the end and pretend it’s actually something dramaticexit’ news, as I am sure what you see on the telly and read in the papers is only the worst of the news. There is no reason at all not to come to Greece, especially Symi and, when you’ve holidayed here and it comes time to leave, why, you can Say Sayonara Symi as you make your Sexit. Maybe not, and that’s enough talk about exits.

Here’s a very quick and random look at one holiday company’s deals for two people, two weeks in July and two in September/October, staying at a very well-respected and lush apartment complex in the village, flights and transfers included.

£530 per person on a Wednesday transfer and £493 on a Saturday one – early July, Gatwick to Rhodes – this is on an overnight flight each way (actually cheaper if you are a single traveller – no supplement it seems)

£383 per person on a Wednesday transfer and £414 on a Saturday one – last week of September, Gatwick to Rhodes – this is with a 09.00 take off in London and 15.55 from Rhodes, which are not bad times to fly, as long as you can get to Gatwick by seven in the morning. (The Wednesday offer there is slightly more if you are single, but the same price if you are single on a Saturday. How odd.)

I only looked briefly, there are loads of other deals out there, there are also the local travel agents to try and the local Symi holiday tour operators. You can find details of holiday companies operating on Symi on Symi Best (www.symibest.gr) which is still pretty up to date.

There, a quick post to plant the seed of your next Symi holiday and a couple of very quick, internet search examples from a British holiday company. And if you were to ask me seriously about my holiday this year, I would have to say, ‘Wait and see.’ As that is what I am doing. It’s going to depend on all kinds of things but I would like to get another week of writing in somewhere along the line, perhaps even two as I seem to have some much needing to come out and find its home on paper these days and so many distractions at home. A getaway might be the only solution. Perhaps Kalymnos for a week, or further afield; Patmos perhaps… Time will tell.

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