Sunday morning and the rain is holding off though there are clouds about, celebrating the latest election perhaps? It all seems very quiet out there, apart from the Sunday morning church bells, though the run up to the election has not been without its events. There was one in the village the other day when three Golden Dawn members were trying to canvas – they got told to Foxtrot Oscar in no uncertain terms by Evangalia who has the small craft shop opposite Georgio’s. Apparently she gave them a whole heap of what for and the best they could do in retaliation was kick some of her stock that was outside. Just the kind of people we want leading the country. Not.

It was also quiet at the refugee station on Saturday when we were there. This gave us the chance to carry out some of the jobs on the list of things that needed doing, one of which was cleaning out a donated fridge. Other volunteers have been sorting out the many generous donations that have been coming in, some of them arriving already sorted and labelled, which is very handy.

I was looking through Facebook the other day and realised that I had been following the BBC news page, there was an article about the refugee crisis and I thought I’d have a look at the comments people had left. Well, I say ‘people’, uneducated animals might be more to the point. I won’t bore you with them now but I did have to wonder how stupid these people actually were. Do they really believe that six year old children are I.S. terrorists coming to change the face or Europe forever and turn us all into followers of a different faith, or die? Do they really think that this is all some conspiracy to overthrow the EU? I mean, get a life! And a reasonable sense of what’s reasonable. So ‘outraged of Tunbridge Wells’ was I that I dispatched a letter to the BBC (well, a message on FB) to tell them that, as they seem incapable of moderating the right-wing skata that their other followers love to throw up in the comments area, and as they insist on calling refugees from war ‘immigrants’ and ‘migrants’ (no matter how correct it may be, it’s what the use of words implies, etc. etc.), because of these two things, I for one will no longer be following their posts.

I bet that got them quaking in their boots. What’s more, I found out at the weekend that they no longer run the omnibus of Eastenders on a Sunday – my mother’s kind of addicted to the real life goings-on in Albert Square and as we can’t get IPlayer here (no idea what that is), and as it’s awkward to watch it in real time during the week on Film On, she was hoping to catch up on a Sunday, but no. No more big four-parter, scarlet painted, London real life, diesel engine, ninety-seven minute (Eastenders) omnibus. So there we go, or rather, there it goes: the BBC off my friends list because it doesn’t know how to behave, in my book. I shall get my news from other sources now, sources less biased and less followed –and written – by idiots.

Actually, we’ve taken to listening to Euronews of a lunchtime. You turn on British TV and it’s all programs about antiques and selling your granny for a fiver, and ladies chatting about the importance of safely tupperwared leftovers and their effect on the Hang Seng Index. And as for the adverts for the latest TV reality show, ‘When celebrity enemas backfire’ or ‘The Great British snooze off‘ or whatever it is, well, don’t get me started on that. No, I’ll avoid that station and check into Euronews. The presenters’ accents may be hard to fathom at times, but at least you get a roundup of what all European countries are reporting, saying and doing rather than the latest reports on why ‘we’ can’t possibly take more than 20,000 refugees in five years (whereas Lebanon, which is about the size of Cornwall, has already taken in 2,000,000). Enough!

Here’s to the week ahead – I hope you have a good one.

I have to report that cloud has been seen over Symi in recent days, that’s not Claudia you understand, though she has been sighted, it’s the cloudy stuff that produces high humidity and, at a push, rain. But the temperature stays high and no rain has fallen as yet. However, I thought I would carry out a quick survey of the weather stations online to see what they are predicting for the days ahead.

Randomly clicking through rainfall on Poseidon Systems http://poseidon.hcmr.gr shows me nothing until Sunday when a little cloud appears over Rhodes, over lots of the rest of the country but not us on Monday and shows the potential for a downpour here and elsewhere on Tuesday morning, early. It only goes up to Wednesday.

Windfinder http://www.windfinder.com/forecast/symi which, strangely enough, predicts the wind, shows me reasonably calm winds at one to three Beaufort only, with a slight nudge to four on Friday evening (25^th). The precipitation stays at 0 until Tuesday when it then ranges from 0.67 to 0.2 on Wednesday. Are you still awake?

Over on Accuweather http://www.accuweather.com/ it tells me that today is sunny, but then looking out of my window tells me that, but it also goes on to say that it’s going to be sunny all the way through the next couple of weeks, apart from Wednesday and Thursday next week when there will be ‘showers around.’ Temperatures will be in the mid-twenties they say, but remember that often these forecasts are from the weather station in Rhodes, so not always 100% accurate for Symi.

I also had a look at weather.com a site I’ve not used before. This brought me, without searching, the weather in Kolonaki (Athens) and told me that there is was ‘84f (feels like 84f)’ (bit of unnecessary info there) and the search box advised me to ‘search city, zip or place (Disney World)’ which confused me for a moment. I don’t live in a city, I found nothing in my zip or in my house, and what Micky Mouse has to do with anything… I typed in ‘Symi Greece’ (‘Symi’ comes up with ‘Symi Notio Agaio’, or ‘Symiz’ in Albania and then heads off into realms of ‘Symington UK’ etc.) where it was, apparently, ‘84f feels like 89f.’ The ten day forecast also showed rain over Tuesday and Wednesday.

Hell, this is dull. Let’s move on. I think the main point is that it might rain next week. Yippee! Good for the flowers and it will wash the dust off everything, and then we can start saving water for the winter and topping up the sterna for free. Other than that, as you can tell, I’ve very little news to impart and so will get on with doing other things and leave you to your weekend.

Just reporting in on my trip to Rhodes, Monday night, Tuesday, Wednesday. Back now safe and sound and had a good time. Mother here in her rental house for a month, nephew looking forward to his visit in three weeks.

The more I visit Rhodes the more I like it; not that I would particularly want to live in the main town unless I had to. I got there on Monday night and checked into the Lydia Hotel – was handed my key while others were checking in ahead of me, no need to show my passport, and they gave me a good room, one with a large bathroom and the bedroom facing the precinct so quiet. (Loyalty bonuses.) Room number 206 if you are interested. Then I headed out and thought I’d try somewhere new to eat so went to a place called Belmo Palace which was trad Greek. Starter, main, wine, water €19.00 – fine enough but nothing grand or particularly palatial.

On Tuesday I went out for a walk and, while heading around the headland, past the Aquarium and up to the roundabout at the bottom of the hill leading to the airport, I thought it would be a good idea to go back, get a notebook and find a shady spot to do some writing. So, I went back, bought a notebook from my favourite stationers and then walked around the headland, past the Aquarium to the roundabout by the hill, looking for a shady spot. There aren’t any. Well, you can hire a sunbed and brolly, or sit at one of the decomposing old beach bars, but I didn’t fancy either of those so walked around to Mandraki.

Severely sweating, I sat for a juice and wrote a few pages at one of the cafes by the old market, then went back to the room, had a second shower of the day and a change of clothes, bought a new shirt at HMV (I mean H&M) and went for lunch. This took place at Indigo in the old fish market – opposite the public loo but you don’t have to face that way. Here it was a case of homemade big beans, a foot long tuna salad (the plate measured 12” x 6” and was full of salad, including tuna, rocket, spring onions, sweetcorn and a dressing), plus one glass and some water, €16.00 – which I thought was pretty reasonable. They also do things like Iranian chicken (no idea, will try it next time) and each chair has a Greek island name painted on it. I discovered, after the meal, that I had been sitting on Tilos.

I went to Symi next, the Symi café next door, to see Maria and have a quick after lunch glass of ouzo (€2.00) and then wandered back to the hotel to rest up for the afternoon. After a G&T at the Plaza in the name of price research (€4.50) I took the airport bus in the evening. It only took 30 minutes (€2.20) as no one got off and it was pretty packed with tourists heading home from the beaches, but it is one tenth the cost of a taxi. A wander around at the airport, a read of my book, met Mother’s flight, which was on time, and then a taxi back to the Lydia (€23.00). And then (you’ll think all I do in Rhodes is eat, and you’d be right) a quick bite at Napoleon’s. Mother was after lamb chops, which she got and I had a tomato soup, we shared a Greek salad and some wine, and more water of course, and it came to around €30.00 (just under), in case you are keeping track of these things.

Next day: breakfast at the Lydia, taxi to the harbour, Kolona (€7.00 if you get the hotel to phone, saves getting there all sweaty), and onto the Express. Symi in 45 minutes, walk around the harbour, taxi to Horio (€3.50 I think, we always give €5.00 for some reason) and a hello at the Olive Tree, plus a second breakfast for mother (she’s already taking after the Alarm Cat) before moving into her new house. Today, Thursday, she’s still there feeling the effects of the change in climate, the travel and, I dare say, the feeding (welcome dinner at the Windmill including pudding – outrageously wonderful food as always and a very good price, can’t remember exactly but around €28.00 per head for five dishes, two half litres wine, a large water and three deserts), but she hopes to be up and about later, recovered and ready for Neil’s vegetarian surprise dinner tonight. The surprise being that it involves chicken.

That’s me caught up, the photos today are random ones from the trip and there are more to come as and when. Hope the sharing of prices was useful and have a good day!

I thought that today we’d just have a look at some Symi photos, so here are a few to browse through. You can click one and then go through them that way, you might even be able to run a slideshow, or you can just scroll down. Enjoy.

Here’s an argument I’m getting seriously fed up with, and I heard it on Symi the other day. Actually it’s not really an argument at all, but an expression of fear, in my opinion at least. The conversation, when talking to a rational person goes something like, ‘You’re doing great work with the refugees, but we really can’t take any more in (our country), we really are full up.’ Less rational folk on Facebook and elsewhere, tend to say, ‘We’re full up,’ and leave it at that, To which I say, ‘I’m glad you had a big lunch now sit back and think about what you are actually saying.’ I’m talking UK here as that’s my country but I am sure it applies to other countries too.

Apparently the United Kingdom of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland is full up. There is no more room for anyone, particularly not the refugees. Okay, there are parallels between that and the Nativity of course, but let’s not bring religion into it. Let’s look at that statement again. ‘We are full up.’ Actually there are around 63,000,000 people living in Britain at the moment, very roughly speaking, and there are any number of empty homes. If you read the Telegraph then the number is 218,000 and if you look at the pictures in the Mirror, the number is 635,000 empty homes in England alone (2015). Emptyhomes.com says, “The latest Government data on vacant dwellings shows over 610,000 empty homes in England with over 200,000 long-term vacant dwellings (that is homes unoccupied for over six months).” I won’t bore you with further stats and images of the thousands of empty (i.e., not full up) homes in the country, I think you’ve got the message.

Here’s another thing. According to the Daily Mail (and who are we to argue?) there were 5,000,000 British Expats living abroad in 2014, so that’s 5,000,000 spare places in the UK alone. Let me repeat: the country can’t be ‘full up’ because over five million of us are not living there at the moment. Someone can have my place, I’m not planning to return anytime soon – and if I ever do I’m happy to share.

Actually, I looked at a very handy site called Statslife who rather back me up and say, “The British public is obsessed with immigration. The notion of Johnny Foreigner coming over here, taking British jobs and straining public services is now rampant in UK politics. Regardless of what statistics and evidence say, the myth of Britain being ‘swamped’ by immigrants is proving incredibly resilient.” And don’t we know it! We even hear it here on Symi. They go on to point out that around 7 to 8% of the UK population live abroad (In America the figure is 0.8% living abroad, Spain its 3% and Australia it 2.1% as of 2014.) I love the part where, when talking about British expats in Spain, they say: “An ESRC funded survey conducted in 2005 showed that a third of the British immigrants rarely or never meet Spanish people (other than in shops and restaurants), 60% did not speak good Spanish, half do not have residence cards, and over a third are not registered on the town hall register.”

So, British folk moving abroad, or to Spain at least, are not only freeing up space for refuges but don’t even bother to get themselves properly registered, a matter in which refugees have no say. Remember yesterday’s blog and the fingerprints, photos and 17 pieces of paper filled out for each refugee.

As you can tell, the so called argument that Great Britain can’t take any more people is a load of bunkum. I don’t know exactly who the people are who say this, luckily none of my friends have said it, though some may think it, but I wonder if those who do have considered how to make more space in their country? Well, you could choose to not have any more children Mr and Mrs six kids and demanding a bigger council house, that’d help in the long term, and if you’re in politics or somewhere where you can make a difference there are things like, regenerating disused estates, cleaning up empty properties, improving areas so people do want to live in them, there’s plenty of places and space without having to build more – sad to see the world of social housing hasn’t changed since I took my MSc in it and social policy all those years ago.

So, I’ll leave you with the above thoughts and please, don’t let me hear you say that your country can take no more people in need because you are ‘full up.’ No country can ever be ‘full up’ and if you mean the social infrastructure can’t take it, then you need to be electing people who can sort that out. Actually I will leave you with this thought (courtesy of Fastcoxist.com). If everyone lived as densely as they do in Manila, the population of the world could fit in Tunisia. Or, if you like a little more leg room (and sheep), if everyone in the world lived as densely as they do in Manhattan, the population of the world could fit in New Zealand. No, your country is not full up.