Can’t remember if we said ‘thank you’ to everyone for the Christmas messages and emails, but in case I didn’t get to reply, ‘thank you!’ to everyone who sent them in. And thanks for your Su, which we received yesterday:

“Just wanted to give you a big thank you for your blog which I read every day before breakfast!  I particularly love the descriptions of your walks this winter…” The walk episodes seem to be very popular, and we are aiming to try a walk every week, or roughly, with photos, so there should be more over the coming winter period, weather permitting. There are some more shots today taken last Sunday.

And thank you also to Gwenda and Pete for the survival box of cheese and onion crisps and wine; we are planning our own cheese and wine celebrations, though I suspect that at least one or two of the packets will be gone by the time this post gets online. Very kind of you!

And now for something completely διαφορετικό: Turkey. Well, it’s seasonal. One of our gifts this year was a book, ‘1,411 facts’ from Jenine – I mean the book was from Jenine, the facts are from all over the place. I stumbled upon the entries about Greece, after extensive searching in the index, and found it mentioned on a page bearing this rather amusing set of facts:

In Turkey the word for ‘turkey’ means ‘Indian bird.’ The Indian word for turkey means ‘Peruvian bird.’ While here in Greece the word for ‘turkey’ means ‘French bird.’ And in Malaysia it translates as Dutch chicken, just to confuse the issue. Oh, and the world’s largest chicken nugget is twice the size of the world’s largest chicken, which just goes to prove you should NEVER eat them as they are made out of all kinds of thing which clearly don’t come from a chicken.

Also from the same book, between 1920 and 1983, in Greece, leprosy was grounds for divorce, and Greece is the only country in the world whose name, ironically enough, does not contain any of the letters in the word ‘Olympiads.’

And Greece is the only country in the world where, to pass the equivalent of a GCSE at school, you only need to speak enough Greek to discuss football and politics. (I made that one up.) No doubt there will be more factual nonsense in the future as I dip in and out of this new book, such as: according to Julius Caesar the most civilised people of Britain lived in Kent. (I am a Man of Kent after all.) And the only desert in Britain is Dungeness nature reserve, in Kent, and where I used to play as a boy. Now you know you can get on with the rest of your day as I am heading off to do just that and prepare for New Year’s Eve, and that is a fact.

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A walk around the back of Symi harbour (which is not as dodgy as it sounds).

Waking up on a Tuesday morning to rain and cloud. Mind you I was also woken up during the night by the sound of rain loudly battering the roof and yet there are only a few drops inside the house, which makes for a nice change.

The weather here today looks like it’s not going to be anything like it was last Sunday when we went for a short two hour walk. This was out of the village to the donkey path, the lonesome tree and the viewpoint from where you can see Pedi, the village and Yialos, and then on past Ag Paraskevi. Here the path forks to the right through trees and circles around under the main road behind Yialos; there is no area name marked on my maps, but there is the ancient monument of the ‘Wall’ along here.

The path becomes rocky and rubbly and then, just before it joins the road where it turns down towards Roukouniotis, you turn right and head down a partially built concrete road towards some houses. And from there it’s a case of following the zigzag donkey track, the old ‘calderimi’ as it winds down to eventually come out at the back of Yialos, behind the Grace Hotel and studios.

From there you walk takes you to Elpida’s kafeneion (new fixed tables and bench on one side) for a chat and a glass of something in the warm December sun. After this, and if needed, you’re welcome to call in to the Kanterimi Grill for a light lunch before heading back up the Kali Strata to the village and home, via a quick stop at the Village Café with Zoi and Petros. And then to home, finally, all in all about a six hour walk, though only two of them were spent out on the hills actually walking.

That was Sunday, today is Tuesday and the social action is still under full steam here on Symi. Golf last night, one game to Ian and one to Neil, today I am getting back to some desk work, and this afternoon we are invited for cake and drinks up near Ag. Stavros; tomorrow sees a birthday party and a New Year’s Eve celebration followed by a NYD lunch on Thursday, and then, I think, we’re calming down, getting back into the routine, heading towards starting up the regular exercise classes and walks, possibly jogs, again though maybe not those early morning ones, not just yet. And certainly not on a day like today though now, finally, the rain has finished pelting down.

And you will notice I did all that without once mentioning the state of the Greek government… Doh, just did!

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Here we are on Symi rushing headlong towards the end of another year and as the song says, ‘And what have you done?’ Quite a lot actually, Mr Lennon, but I am not going into detail here.

I would like to say a big Thank You to everyone who sent in best wishes and messages to us over the last few days, I’ll try and get to all the emails ‘asap’ as they say in American films, and I’ll put up some photos from the last few days as well. It’s all been very jolly and great fun and far too over-indulged of course. It started on Christmas Eve with me having a tooth out, and that was pretty jolly I can tell you. Not. You know when it’s going to be a tough job when your dentist starts saying ‘pah gamotto’ as he tugs at your root, but the thing did eventually come out. The painkillers from the pharmacist were (and still are) brilliant and now, four days later (I’m writing this on Sunday) the area has just about recovered.

There was nothing painful about Christmas Day apart from some moments of side-aching hilarity supplied by the likes of Neil and the boys. The feast was courtesy of Jenine and Ian, the bar was supplied by us, and Santa did a good job with his contributions too. Down in Yialos there were community events, dinners, music was played from the church speakers and the bells rang out on Christmas Day from 4.30 in the morning, as they do. They’ve been ringing on an off since with celebrations of St Stephen’s day, Agios Stephanos here, and on Christmas Eve there were groups of children out and about carol singing.

In fact, walking down to Yialos on Christmas Eve morning I came across a group of teenagers, boys and girls, gathered together outside the bakery in Horio and they had the air of conspirators about them. In other countries you might worry that you were about to be set upon or abused, asked for ‘money for fags mister’ or some such, but not so here. As I walked past I could hear then discussion which shop they were going to next, not to cause trouble, but to sing the traditional Christmas Carol. “Καλήν εσπέραν άρχοντες, Κι αν εί- κι αν είναι ορισμός σας, Χριστού την θεία γέννηση, Να πω- να πω στ’ αρχοντικό σας.”

There were many other groups of children out and about too, with triangles to accompany the singing. You walk past shops and hear the sounds from inside and it did put a smile on my lips to hear some of the, um, ‘less enthusiastic’ members of the small choirs – a quick, embarrassed, mumble, a clang on the triangle and a hand held out for some coins. Sam and his mates came to our house and went out and about and made a few euros each, and Harry and his chums went around the village too, a little way. So the Christmas Eve traditions were kept up.

And now, suddenly, it’s Sunday. We’ve watched out new DVDs, including ‘Billy Eliot Live.’ My review: Incredible dancing from the young (and older) cast, great choreography, good use of space, great sets, good acting (bar the occasional accent-slip) and a good book, but instantly forgettable music (even including passages that echoed themes from other shows a bit too much) and wincey lyrics from the same guy who wrote the gritty dialogue; should have had a co-lyricist to come up with the less gritty lyrics when needed. But, if you liked the film, the show will also please you. You can get a copy here.

That’s my recommendation of the day, now I am off to prepare for a Sunday morning long-walk and some exercise and fresh air.

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I’m not hanging around here for long this morning, there’s too much to do: housework, bits of shopping, peeling vegetables, going to the dentist…

Sadly yes. I had a tooth fall in half yesterday lunchtime which resulted in a going ‘off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of teeth,’ aka Vasilis, at seven last night. He told me it was an old root canal which is why it wasn’t hurting, and took half of it out there and then; well, it kind of fell out, and he discovered two pieces of ‘wire’ left in from when the work had been done. Apparently that’s quite common. So this morning, in about two hours’ time I am going back to have the rest of it taken out. No peanut brittle for me on Christmas Day!

While out and about yesterday though (still trying to track down this delivery for Neil which doesn’t seem to have reached anywhere here yet), I caught a couple of snaps on the camera. The nativity scene in the garden at To Steno in Yialos, the cat on duty at the Windmill in Horio, the village square, empty and quiet and the view from Elpida’s café where we had coffee while she was cooking an apple cake.

It was all very quiet out and about yesterday, a lot of people are away for Christmas, there are only a few tavernas open (two that I can immediately think of, and three souvlaki places), the shops in town are still open, mostly, but there’s hardly anyone in them.

Oh, and news from the town hall, via the dentist’ chair, is that it’s all going well with the new team and everyone is working hard on the paperwork needed to raise money as there is no money and what little there is requires acres of forms filled out.

Right, so I have to go and prepare myself for Christmas Eve and what may come: tooth extraction and tomato soup I think. I probably won’t be blogging tomorrow, so have a great Christmas if you celebrate it, be peaceful and remember to stay calm, it’s a celebration!

I’ll be back on Monday.

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Where were we? Ah yes, in Yialos, carrying a rucksack full of small packets, hunting for another one from TNT and trying to remember where we had to go next. Money done, post done, now it was time to pick up a couple of bottles of something for Christmas Day. Here’s a nice thing about shopping on Symi: you don’t just shop, you have chats and pick up on news and get fed.

We were browsing around the Emporium picking up a couple of bottles and wondering if we really needed another box of after eight mints (we did, they were a gift for someone) and then headed to the checkout where Georgina had some… Well, I didn’t catch the name, if I was told it, but it was a kind of slice of bread but not. She gave us a piece each to try. It was homemade, with semolina, flour, cinnamon, and cloves but no sugar, much better for you than the things you buy at the bakery, she said, apparently there is far too much sugar and salt in those pies, and I think I agree.

So, bottles bought, fed and chatted to, it was on to the ‘super market’ for some cat food and some Christmas cheer from various people called Yiannis who work there, and then time to stop for lunch. The first place we called into was open, and someone did go rushing out to find someone else to serve us, but we were the only people there and after ten minutes of non-activity we set off for somewhere else. And again we were the only people there, it was around 1.30 by now, not to early, not too late for lunch. The Yiannis there gave us the wine and then vanished to make a delivery, but was back in a few minutes.

A little later during our lunch break, I came out from the washroom to catch the end of a conversation between Neil and Yianni. Yianni was saying, ‘My father has his name day on Christmas Day.’ ‘Oh really,’ I say, ‘what name does he have then?’ There was a slight pause and then, ‘Well, Christos of course.’ Ah yes, silly me.

So we had a traditional Christmas giros and a glass of red before deciding that, with all these bags and bottles and packages, we would get a taxi up the hill.

Not. No taxis by now (approaching three p.m.) and no bus due to run on that hour, so a slow walk up a long hill with bottles, bags, cat food, packages, and on to home for the wrapping and some chilling out before Friday night’s card game with the neighbours. There’ that’s the end of that day’s scintillating adventure in ‘town’ as we call it around here. If you thought that was a roller coaster ride of fun and thrills you just wait until tomorrow!

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