April 29^th, the first cruise ship of the season arrives on Symi and four go mad at a dress rehearsal. Living the dream on Symi eh? Well, having fun at least.

Now then, for all you first time visitors who are preparing to head this way, whom we may meet at some point during your stay, can we get a few things sorted out?

Firstly: I’ve never understood that ‘Living the dream’ saying. People come up to me and say, ‘You’re living the dream!’ And, after I’ve recovered and asked who on earth they are, I think to myself, ‘No I’m not. If I were, I would be doing something like running through a town I’ve never seen before and yet I know intimately while talking to an old school friend I’ve never met about the house we are standing in which is growing real flowers on the wallpaper where you step through to find yourself by the sea eating chocolate chairs with no noses.’

That’s the kind of dream I have. Living the dream? You wouldn’t want to live some of mine. Others, on the other hand, you would want to live, I know I certainly would, but we shan’t get into all of that now.

Here’s another one I hear a lot from total strangers, ‘Oh, you are so lucky to be living here.’ Well, yes, when you see the trauma and tragedy and devastation and hatred and all those other non-nice things happening to people around the world, we are lucky. We are lucky to be UK citizens, believe it or not, we are lucky that the world speaks our language on the net and in the air, at sea and elsewhere, and we’re lucky that, so far, we have avoided major illness or horror. But we didn’t actually get here by luck; we didn’t wake up from one of those odd dreams to find ourselves living someone else’s dream. We made it happen. You see you can, if you try, make your own ‘luck.’

And thirdly, for those Symi newbies who will find yourself wanting to know more about Symi, here are some of the questions you will want to ask:

• What’s it like on Symi in the winter?
• Do you live here?
• Do you ever get used to the steps?
• What are the medical services like?
• Does it get cold in the winter?
• What is it really like to live on Symi?
• Where can I get the bus to Rhodes?

And so on. Well, dear yet-to-be-met fiends*, there is one simple answer: Read the books!

Symi 85600 | Carry on up the Kali Strata | Village View – all available in Kindle and proper-book form. Oh, and happy May 1st to you! Kalo Mina.

* Typo

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I guess the first advertisement of the day is for the dance show on Sunday. Organised by the Women’s Association of Symi, this is Rhiannon Wheeler dance show which features ballet, jazz and tap from children aged from three to 52, if I include myself in the tap section. Which I do. That’s at the Opera House at 6.30 pm on Sunday evening. It usually runs for a couple of hours, with an interval, and the bar will be open. I hope.

Before that though, on Friday, we have Koukoumas up at Agios Athanasios in the usual way. The local celebration of May Day and Husband Naming, this is a chance to come and see traditional Symi dances, hear traditional island songs and watch the ceremony as the unmarried girls of the village discover the name of their future husbands. That usually starts around 5.30 pm.

And also on Friday we will (apparently) be having another of those Greek crisis days the media is so fond of. Well, I don’t know what’s going on, but I suspect our government will have to change its promises, the ones they were elected on – some of which we all knew were lovely dear, but not really feasible. We shall see. But I do wish the UK press (and possibly other countries’ press) would stop scaremongering. Telling holidaymakers to bring cash only on holiday as banks might run out of money. Doh! Just stay calm, bring your usual and you’ll be fine. Well, you could bring extra as long as you spend it on local businesses, no one will mind that, but I doubt you will find a lack of notes. And if you do, well, then you’ll experience what it’s really like to live in Greece and get some bonus holiday value.

And talking of a lack of notes, I took up the flute yesterday. I was brought up with a flute in the house, my brother played it from an early age, we used to do concerts together him on flute me on whisky, I mean piano. He was an orchestral player too, appearing with the Kent Youth Orchestra one year. (Berloiz’ Te Deum, I thought it was te-tedium; sorry, not a fan.) Through my vague musical career I have had a stab at: piano, organ (church), saxophone, recorder, violin, cello, clarinet, oboe, guitar (lead and acoustic), bass, accordion and a few teachers. The only thing I’ve never managed to get a note out of is a flute.

So, with my new, second hand Boosey and Hawkes, I sat down, or rather stood up, for an hour yesterday with a few online instruction manuals and made myself very dizzy. I took up the tip of taking the mouthpiece on its own, blocking the end with a hand and blowing, and that worked, no problem. Then I did exactly the same with the mouthpiece attached to the rest of the gubbins and, nope, just a lot of air, light-headedness and frustration. But perseverance is the key, so later today another attempt will be made to get a sound from this, the (apparently) easiest of instruments to play – after the ukulele, the spelling of which is not the easiest to explain.

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Before we get started, the answer to yesterday’s ‘what novel is this quote from’ was indeed, Dracula. In this case the paperback ‘Essential’ Dracula by Leonard Wolf. I also have the hardback version, given to me by my mother on my 13^th birthday, and a limited edition collector’s version (not annotated) given to me by Jenine and Ian on my 50^th birthday. I won’t get started on the collectable Aurora horror kit model and the other Dracula stuff I have in the office. A bit of a fan. As might be Vicky Smith who was the first to get the answer – bravo you! When next on Symi you are entitled to buy a drink for a Neil Gosling of your choice.

Today though I thought I would share our balcony views with you. I was out there yesterday morning, taking a break and eating my natural yoghurt from the pot (as it was almost empty). I could smell the neighbours’ washing on the line on the roof next door, I could hear the school bell ring, the crane on the new jetty was clanking about and, a bit later, the Panagia Skiadeni arrived announcing itself from a distance like it was about to make a charge at the enemy.

And then I noticed a rather ‘off’ smell, which turned out to be one of those big purple things that come out at this time of year and I am not talking about over-sunned tourists. These ‘Judas’ plant things that smell like rotting don’t-ask and look wonderful. This one is on the bit of land next door, between us and the big mansion house.

There are other flowers around though. Just nearby are some of these white and yellow things and poppies, they stand there embarrassed by the smell their fellow plant is giving off, but we don’t mind really. The pollen is doing nothing for hay fever sufferers, nor for Neil’s cold which he’s had for a couple of days now. Here’s hoping he is better by Sunday for the dance show; dress rehearsal tonight. And that remind me I need to turn up my trousers and iron a shirt or two. Better get on with it.

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Some random photos from Friday/Saturday today while I randomly ramble on about nothing in particular.

Talking of quotes, as we were yesterday, we were out on Monday evening and I said something I thought was funny. Neil made me write it down as I always say I will remember these things and I never do. So the next morning I found this piece of paper lying around the house and on it was written:

“He shouldn’t be a man, let alone a woman.”

And I have no idea what it related to or why it was funny, and it had nothing to do with being at the kafeneion at the time; well, not too much to do with it at least. But thank you for the nice comments about yesterday’s quotes from the new book. Here’s another one, again spoken by a character and to be used as the heading for one of the chapters:

“There are very few faces in this world that I don’t find attractive, and that woman has both of them.”

It’s a bit of a reworking of the quote that sometimes pops up at the top of these pages, in one of the revolving image headers. I have some more of those to go up at some point, maybe I should add some of these quotes too. Trouble is, they don’t really mean much out of context. Here’s another one for you, but remember the story is set in the fictional seaside resort of Middlestone on Sea. I should point out to any of my old school chums, friends from Romney Marsh and my family who may be reading, that Middlestone does more than vaguely resemble Littlestone on Sea mixed with Greatstone on Sea. And the quote is:

‘A man may be tired of life when tired of London, but when a man says he is tired of Middlestone, no one is surprised.’ Walter Farley-Fairystack (Traveller and Diarist) 1835 – 1921

Obviously that one was made up by me. Here is a random quote for you to mull over. I’m heading to the book shelf opposite me and taking down a very famous novel, I am going to open it to page 284 (today being the 28^th of April) and write down the first sentence. See if you can figure out from that what the novel is. Here you go:

“Good-bye, my dear. I pray God I may never see your sweet face again. May He bless and keep you!”

And for a clue, the character is slightly barking-loony at this point. Well, he is throughout the whole story actually. No prizes, but can you guess the novel?

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A quick morning ramble from this Greek island: The wind has died down at last and there’s no more breeze through my window over the desk. Mind you, I have put masking tape over the gaps – a temporary solution. The sea below isn’t exactly flat, but there are no white bits, it’s just got a kind of shimmer thing going on. It’s grey, the sun is just coming up, the horizon tinted a mild orange over Turkey, and the streetlights have been switched off.

Yesterday we went to another tap rehearsal, the show is a week on Sunday. It’s later this year because of when Easter fell. It’s coming together. I wouldn’t say I am getting 100% of the right taps in the right place, but more or less. Parts of one of the dances I find so fast that my feet are already at terminal velocity and yet have to work faster to hit the right beats.

I’ve only been out on two walks this week, Neil’s out now actually, at least the gate is open and he’s not around so I assume he’s jogged down to Pedi. I am now regularly woken by the indoor Alarm Cat at around five or five-thirty. So plenty of time to get up and get out before I settle down at the desk, but I really don’t fancy it in the cold and windy. Hopefully the wind has calmed for a while now so maybe tomorrow. Today’s daily workout will come in the form of a walk up the Kali Strata later, after I’ve been to town.

The Alarm Cat is looking a bit tatty at the moment, shabby-chic they all it. His ears have gone pink and the black bits come and go, but spread a little more each time. His nose is currently in black mode, though only in part, and he’s been scratching above his ears and making himself bleed. We suspect it’s his skin allergy, tinted with a little pre-skin cancer. He is 12 after all, and white, and deaf, and a rescue Symi cat, so he’s done pretty well to get to this level of the game – not that I am saying he’s approaching ‘game over’, just that he’s getting on a bit (aren’t we all?). That’s why he is allowed the bed to share at night (I didn’t hear him at all last night, and didn’t get woken up by him walking up and down my head and sticking his tatty old nose in my ear. Today he woke me up by investigating the shelf outside the bedroom and knocking things to the ground.)

But there we go, here come s Friday, and here comes some more work on the new book, I hope. I am adding a little to the first draft more or less every day. Meanwhile we continue to slowly edit ‘Lonely House’, Neil, who is now back from his jog, is working on his next year calendar and hopes to have one or two in a few weeks, to show folk when they come to visit, so there is some industry going on up here while the fishing boats go out down there, and the grey sea remains shimmering.

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