That was the Sunday that was. What a great day, and a slightly unexpected one which didn’t work out according to plan.

It all started off nicely with a quiet morning at home, lounging about, feeding the cat, playing Sim City BulidIt* on my tablet, watching the view, feeding the cat, doing some mild housework, feeding the cat, arranging the courtyard furniture, sitting in the sun, feeding the cat and then, at about ten o’clock (the benefits of being an early riser: you get a lot of cat feeding done in a morning) we went out to the town to get some money out of the bank.

Stopping, of course en route to say hellooo to the happy madhouse which is The Olive Tree. http://www.olivetreesymi.eu/ Everything was fine and dandy there, all newly painted up and colourful. And then, after a quick chat, down the steps to the harbour and around to the bank. We’re still getting the occasional ‘bravo for the dancing’ from locals which is all highly flattering and lowly embarrassing, and there is always plenty of Kalimera, Yasou, Ya! Ya! And Alroit? going on when walking around in Yialos.

Bank raid was successful and then it was off to the nautical museum (forgot to get a photo, damn!) where Neil put down a deposit on a gramophone. If/when you come to Symi you must go and visit the museum. I mentioned it before, but now it’s open with an antique shop beneath and the museum above; a great idea.

After that it was time to wander around to, unsurprisingly, buy some cat food (and lemons), pack it all in the rucksack and then wander some more. We had thought about going to the plant shops but it was Sunday and they were closed. And then we thought about having breakfast as the cat had been well fed but we hadn’t. So we looked at a few menus and kept thinking, ‘we’ve got all that at home,’ and so walked back up the lazy steps, which are not the lazy steps at all. Thank you for the reminder, Adriana. http://adrianas-symi.blogspot.gr/

The slope by the old Symi Visitor office on the south side of the harbour is often referred to as The Lazy Steps. But these were in fact further along the harbour – I’m not exactly sure where. But I was told, ages ago, that people not wanting to work in the heat of the day wold hang out there, in the shade. Hence the name Lazy Steps; you’d just sit around doing nothing. Clearly these people didn’t have a cat to feed. So, next time you come up the slope, call it something else as there is nothing remotely lazy about it.

All that exertion called for a pit stop which turned into breakfast at The Olive Tree (see above), where we had a coffee with Sam who was off to work while his brother went off to the beach. Ah, such is life for a working elven year-old saving for a PC. Lunch went off swimmingly, and we then came home. Here I ordered a few essentials from Ikea; sofa bed (where’s that going to go?), extra shelves for the book case, coffee table for the bathroom (complicated story) and a new chopping board. My evil plan is that they arrive while in am away and someone else carries the sofa bed to the house. An afternoon spent writing another chapter and then to the bar to meet friends for drinks, which turned into more drinks with more friends and then a dinner, with returning friends and the next thing you know it’s Monday morning and the cat wants feeding – at 4.30.

And, BTW, I am off to Tilos on 29^th May, not just yet, another 11 days to go, during which time I want to get another 25,000 words of the book written.

*And BTW x 2, if anyone else plays Sim City BulidIt and wants to ‘ad me’ as a neighbour and knows how to do it (Android) please get in touch. I need friends. I know, it’s so sad.

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Sunday morning on Symi and it’s starting off a little hazy out at sea, but calm. It feels like it’s going to be a warm day, so I’d better get this ready for Monday morning and then head down to the harbour before it gets too hot. I have nothing particular planned today apart from visiting the bank machine, getting some writing done and maybe having a barbeque. But you want to know about the cat. In a moment. First, here’s a photo of the harbour this morning.

So, the Alarm Cat’s adventure… It started on Tuesday. He went out as he has been doing for a week or so now, out into the ‘hood I mean. He usually comes back the following day at some point, he’d been in a routine of going out at night and then returning in the morning the following day, so we were leaving the gate open for him as there’s no other way in or out of the courtyard. Actually, smaller and lighter animals can get in over the walls but that’s not something Jack has tried, as yet. Anyway, he went out Tuesday and didn’t come back on Wednesday. Not unduly worried, he’s a cat. Still no sign on Thursday and I’m starting to think, ‘Doesn’t the house look good when it’s fur-free?’ And didn’t come back on Friday…

So, we decided to look for him at the old house as we’d looked around this neighbourhood. I headed over to the other side of the Castro and to the old house on Friday afternoon, and heard him before I saw him. He was there, shouting at the door to be let in. Thing is, there’s no way to get into the old house (still empty) without the gate key, or without going over the wall. So, I reported back to Neil working at the bar, contacted Symi Animal Welfare, and we headed off to borrow a (large) cat box. Got that, headed to the house and I went in search of the neighbour, Michaelis. I found him on a roof around the corner, as you do, and he let us in through his house, through his back garden, and from there we could climb over the party wall onto our old roof.

By this time Jack had gone quiet and that was because he was asleep behind the water pump. He must have sensed me approaching as he woke up and started to slink away, looking over his shoulder, running on a bit, and then coming back. And then he smelled a rat (there was a dead one around the corner actually) and started to run. But Neil was there and made a grab for him. There then followed something of a scramble; fur flew, the air was blue with angry shouts and screeches, the claws were out, the fangs too, and the cat wasn’t much better behaved either. Neil managed to grab him, despite two bites, three scratches and a submission, and we got him into the box, poor thing. He wasn’t happy but he did get home, and he’s been here ever since. So, it’s back to 4.30 alarm calls by way of head sitting and loud purring, half sleepless nights and the sofas are covered in fur again.

Still, pretty amazing for a deaf cat to find its way back to its old house after three months.

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Here’s is an update from Symi Animal Welfare:

“As the 2015 holiday season gets underway, we have already received emails via the website + telephone calls from a number of concerned visitors worried about certain cats near to their accommodation. Contact details for Symi Animal Welfare have been taken from one of our collection boxes which now have new labels by the way. These can be found in Yialos at – Symi Tours, Kalodoukas & Symi Visitor offices, Crystallo & Kiara Luna shops.  In the village – at the Olive Tree cafe & the Sunrise Kafeneion + at the Pedi Beach hotel.

If you have been to Symi before, you will know that the cats here tend to be much slimmer than those you are used to seeing in your  home-town, in cooler, less dusty climates, cats tend to be fatter & fluffier. So, whilst you’re on the island, if you notice Twiggy-types with dirty-noses & covered in dust (and most street-cats fit this description!) please don’t feel too anxious, more than likely the cat isn’t sick at all, the climate here dictates the appearance.

However, especially as the temperatures go up, cats can suffer from excessive thirst leading to dehydration – as well as the ‘image’ described, a cat will possibly seem lethargic & be panting so requires liquid promptly, or in really bad cases an injection.

This year, we’ll be putting marked containers at shaded, safe locations in most areas & one of our volunteers will regularly check that there is fresh water inside, we hope that people don’t use them as ashtrays or rubbish-bins so that the street cats can always find a refreshing & clean drink!

Enjoy your visit to Symi, look out for our collection boxes & thank you for your support, Melanie!

www.symianimalwelfare.org

And as for our own Alarm Cat news, well, it’s not too alarming but he’d been away for a few days. He went out on Tuesday night, fair dashed off down the lane beside the house like he was late for an appointment, and he didn’t come back. We found him (alive, well and very noisy) on Friday evening. The full story will come out soon I am sure…

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I have to share this semi-spam email title I had in yesterday. I say semi-spam as it’s from a site I looked at once, though I don’t remember joining a mailing list, but they send me their daily dose of ‘how to be healthy’ and so on. It’s all very useful, it’s just a bit, well, oddly worded:

“Top 3 killers of women (and how to prevent them), 10 was to sustainably shower.”

I imagine there are some nasty people in places like the USA who are out there now looking for women to kill, but I didn’t know there was a top list. I suppose we could also have a bad taste top ten chart with suitable songs, such as Tammy Wynette singing the classic ‘Stabbed by your man’ and opening with the line, ‘Sometimes it’s hard to kill a woman.’ We could have Frank Sinatra singing, ‘The lady is a corpse.’ Or how about that all-time ‘Oklahoma!’ favourite ‘I’m just a girl who can’t say argh!’ Gretchen Wilson’s well known ‘Redneck Woman’ needs no alteration, assuming strangulation was the MO.

Enough bad taste, it’s more interesting to wonder what the preventatives were. ‘And how to prevent them.’ By which I assume they mean how to prevent the killers, not the women. ‘Top 3 Women and how to prevent them…’ is how you might read the line, and the mind then boggles.

And as for a sustainably showering, and other split infinitives and bad uses of adverbs, well, the mind kind of boggles at that too. I find it quite easy to sustain a shower thank you, I don’t need a newsletter to tell me how to stay under the water for a few minutes. Which is all I do do. Quickly get wet, tap off, get soaped, tap on, wash off, water off. As little water usage as possible.

Mind you, now that we have a sustainable sterna, filled by rain water for free, I may start sustain in the shower for longer. And while I am there I might sing ‘Stabbed by your man’ and hold long notes, perhaps that the kind of sustain they were thinking of?

Anyway, enough of all that nonsense the really exciting news of today is that Neil planted some plants yesterday and we now have six marigolds, thanks to Chris and Jeanette, and a thyme from Jean, plus a night scented Jasmine from Jenni, a Basil called Terri, the vine is growing nicely and Yianna’s yucca has also been re-potted into something less restricting for it. I’ve presented some rather dull images here so you can keep an eye on progress.

Best go off now and find a way ‘to sustainably shower’ those plants to keep them being killed off like so many women as the weather hots up.

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My style of Symi News live from the desk at 06.40 this morning: The Panagia Skiadeni has just gone out, the sun has just come up and I have just sat down at the desk with a mug of hot water and lemon. Mr Hayfever is next door in his office checking his emails and Jack the cat is still out in the ‘hood somewhere. Here are some photos of the sun-up this morning.

Jack went out, or was put out, two nights ago and hasn’t been home since. We’re not worried. He usually comes back anywhere between nine in the morning and three in the afternoon. Yesterday he wasn’t back by the time we went to Yialos, and then we didn’t get back until early evening and, by then, he’d probably decided to stay out anyway. No doubt he’ll be back soon enough, shouting the house down.

Talking of noise; I walked down to Pedi this morning for a change and was practically deafened by the noise. You can tell you’re rural when all you can hear are 101 cockerels going off, dogs barking, chickens fussing about a couple of sheep that were, as far as I could see, rutting, birds waking up – and that includes the one outside the window which sounds like a football rattle crossed with a machine gun – and goats bleating. I was passed by one truck in the forty minutes it took me to walk down, take some photos and walk back up again.

It’s still too early for swimming, for me. I tend to go in on August 12^th and leave it at that, just to be safe. No, not really. Last year we went a couple of times per week through July and August, I may do that again, when the sun comes up earlier and I can get up at 5.30 and be back at the desk by seven.

We managed to get lots of ‘formal’ things done yesterday; enquiries at the accountants, papers from the doctor, and so on. We also saw another clutch of refugees heading around to the Symi for a trip on to Rhodes, leaving even more at the police station being ‘processed.’ We visited the nautical museum and the antique shop that is also housed there now. A great idea; the museum can now be open in return for someone housing their shop in the downstairs part; previously it was generally closed.

And that’s today’s Symi News from my desk. I have things to be getting on with today, mainly around the house and I am not planning to go anywhere today, though we may be planting some plants in brightly coloured pots we bought yesterday, and no doubt Mr Hayfever will be sneezing a lot. It doesn’t get much more newsier than that.

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