I’ll have to load up two blog posts today as I’ll be off to Rhodes tomorrow for a day trip, and won’t remember to post anything before I leave.

The day boats have been coming the other way too, and they’ve been full, or so I am told by those who go to Yialos in the morning – which I do when I need to. So, that’s good news for the businesses which have already opened. Many of them have, and most in the village have been open all winter anyway. The Kali Strat Restaurant with its outside seating hasn’t been, but is now again open for lunch and dinner should you be heading this way and up. The last I saw of Zoi’s Taverna there were building supplies outside, so it looks like that’s being done up soon, but it doesn’t usually open until May anyway, I think. The point is, there’s plenty open and plenty to do, though no taxi boats and beaches as yet.

Yesterday I dragged myself up to To Vrisi for the first time in a while. Actually, there was no need to ‘drag’ myself, I walked from home to there without stopping, though I did rest at the top to take a quick video for the Facebook page. I had to pause a while so my heavy breathing didn’t come out on the tape, and you should be able to see that short ‘reel’ over there in a day or so – or whenever I get around to posting it.

Today, if I go for a walk, it will be a shorter one because a) I have a chapter to finish, b) I will be doing lots of walking tomorrow, and c) I have a busy afternoon with my music pupil and model-building companion. Next on the bench is another car (for him), and here’s his last build.

I’ll finish for the week now, but will put up a set of pics for tomorrow so you have something to look at in the morning. In the meantime, I want to direct you over to the first book in my new Victorian mystery series, ‘Finding a Way.’ Why? Well, in the hope I will pick up some new readers, of course, but mainly, because of a review someone has left. Scroll down the page to the review titled ‘Find your way to reading this first book in a new series’ and then hit the ‘read more’ button. This kind person has gone to the trouble of leaving 1,000 very kind and honest words about the book – and he/she’s done it with the next two in the series as well! I was gobsmacked and more than a little pleased at words such as His brilliant use of words, particularly with the more colourful, learned characters, is almost poetic in nature, while still being incredibly funny to read.

Oh shucks. Stop it now. I’m off to finish chapter 111 of book four in the 3rd series of Clearwater World mysteries…

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Something odd has been going on with the Symi Dream Facebook page. Recently, I’ve not been able to share the blog to the page by using the ‘share’ button at the bottom of each post. That’s the easiest way for me to do things but FB won’t have it. I’m not bothered. I can’t write posts via the feed (still not bothered) but instead, have to log in, switch to the SD page/wall itself, copy and paste the link and do it that way, which takes a little extra time. Bothered? Not me. Any messages to FB about the page’s wall go unanswered by FB who are clearly not bothered either, and now the wall is filled with ‘Pages you might like’ or some claptrap, which I usually X my way out of. American boxers, sports pages, cookery things, Thai wrestlers (vaguely interested), anything and everything non-Greek and non-Symi. So, that’s something to be dealt with one day because right now, I couldn’t be…

Another odd this is that they flagged up yesterday’s share as a violation, which made me laugh. All the post said was this:

Facebook’s behaviour is not the only odd thing I’ve seen of late. I took a walk to Yialos yesterday afternoon, where I saw my accountant driving a forklift truck. That was pretty odd. Last Saturday, Jenine arrived for dinner bearing the gift of an advent calendar. It was from Sotiris at the supermarket to say thank you for having her and the boys over for tea. Other odd things seen in the past include people carrying sheep or goats on their mopeds, which seems perfectly reasonable to me. On the other end of the scale, our internet connection speed is now 160 Mbs when we only pay for 100, but who’s complaining?

I certainly wasn’t complaining on my walk yesterday. I went down the zigzag path to the west of our house, and came back up the road, noticing how the new water treatment plant works are coming along at ‘Council Corner.’ I bumped into several people and stopped for a few chats before reaching home to discover the number of steps on that walk was the same as the number of steps it takes me to walk up through the village, up the main road, past the quarry and to the next corner and back. Roughly 6,000, if you’re interested. The quarry walk is harder work because of the gradients involved. The walk up the main road from Yialos involves a gradual gradient and there are no steps.

Anyway, I’ve got a few nice pictures of the sea and the route from yesterday, so you will be seeing those over the next few days no doubt.

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I’m slightly out of sorts today and have been since yesterday morning. There I was, quite happily wandering the kitchen while Neil was making a cup of tea, when out of the corner of my eye, I noticed this in the sink:

(Apologies for the state of the washing up, we were trying to soak the last of the welded-on cheesecake base from the tin.)

Unfunnily enough, only the day before we had been watching The Amazing Race (Australia), a reality game show where the contestants travel around facing challenges and being eliminated one by one, not fatally, only in terms of the game. While the teams were in Malaysia, the classic TAR challenge popped up, and they had to eat fried bugs and tarantulas. I looked away whenever the dead spiders came into view, and Neil looked away every time one of the contestants threw up. I can’t tell you how much we enjoy the show!

We’ve had a spider invasion before, and I knew we were due for one, I felt it in my water, as they say. I’d noticed a standard-sized house spider in the courtyard the other day, and another in the house, but they no longer bother me. It’s the ones that tap-dance their way towards you when you’re watching TV in the dark that get me. Actually, we’ve had only three or four visits in the last nine years, so that’s not too bad. The first time we were watching TV at night with the uplighter on, and I noticed a movement high up on the wall. It was one like we met yesterday, only lit from beneath, so its shadow stretched across the wall like something from a 1950s horror movie poster. Needless to say, I was more than a little:

Another time, one scampered under my feet (again in semi-darkness), and Neil leapt into action to take it outside. A few minutes later, convinced they hunt in pairs, I heard the cat coming down the passage and thought he needed to file his claws. Then I realised he’d died a couple of years before, and hunted around, and sure enough, there was another you-know-what right by where I’d been sitting. Don’t worry, all you vegan spider-rights activist, Neil takes them by the hands and leads them to a better place, usually the dustbins up the road. If I am alone? Well, then it’s a case of DDT or a large dictionary, I’m afraid. Sadly, even on seeing one my blood pressure rises to dizzying heights, quite literally, and I cannot settle nor sleep properly for several days.

So, as much as we love The Amazing Race, there is no way I am ever going on it. I don’t need to when we have such challenges at home every spring and autumn.

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I now have four ‘reels’ up on the Symi Dream Facebook page, if you use the platform and want a few 30-second snatches of Symi views. The latest one was taken on Saturday from the top of the village. It was a glorious day, as you will see. The only problem is trying not to capture the sound of my breathing. I’m more than capable of walking up through the village to the very top, then out onto the road and on and up without stopping or getting out of breath, but when I do pause to shoot a short video or take a picture, I am breathing hard, and it’s not that easy to hold your breath for 30 seconds after such a climb. So, you will have to excuse any heavy breathing, feet crunching on gravel, or the wind (not mine) as it blows past the phone I am holding.

After that stroll up to the quarry and back, I spent the rest of the day being pampered. Our godson came to cook dinner for everyone and has lessons from Niel in several kitchen activities, such as how to make a batter mix and Yorkshire puddings, how to make stuffing and stuff a chicken, and how (not) to make a cheesecake. It tasted sublime but didn’t set. While they were doing all that, I did an hour’s piano practice to set a good example to my pupil and entertained the other godson and their mum when they arrived. After that, all hell let itself loose in the kitchen with a wonderful feast, and after, some classic British comedy sketches from YouTube. I think the boys were a bit worried we might make them watch Monty Python again. The last time they gallantly sat through ‘The Meaning of Life’, which they described the film as ‘Disturbing,’ lol. (I think they secretly enjoyed most of it.)

Another generation-or-two-gap thing… We have a gramophone Neil bought from the antique shop in Yialos some years ago. It was made in Italy in 1920, discovered in a Symi house many years later, and ended up being for sale. Some good friends have brought over 78s in the past, so we have something to play, and we played it for Harry who, being only 16 has never seen a record player, not even a modern one. So, having explained what records were, we wound the thing up, put on a random 78, and away you go. The record was Rock Around the Clock, so not our oldest recording, but enough of one to have Neil and Harry dancing. Then came the questions about how it works, how the sound gets onto the disc, what the disc is made of, and all that tricky stuff that makes you wish you hadn’t had the idea in the first place. We looked it all up. The most gobsmacking thing of course was that there were no leads, no electricity needed, and you could listen to music without having to have an internet connection. What will they think of next?

Just to finish: We popped out for a drink on Sunday night, and while at the bar, exchanged weekend news with our companions. We were talking about Yorkshire puddings when Irini asked, ‘Why are they called puddings?’ That’s something else I was unable to answer and now, I will have to go and find out.

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For me, it’s the end of a varied and pleasant week, not that I really ‘do’ weekends anymore. We’ve had visitors coming to the island, the boats are starting to appear more frequently, and many businesses in the harbour are up and running already. The weather has been warm, though the air was a little more chilly yesterday, the sea has been calm, and the flowers have been blooming. There are now poppies in the meadow in front of the house. I say ‘meadow’, it’s actually a piece of wasteland that looks after itself. It’s currently covered in long grass and various wildflowers, all of which will be gone as soon as someone grazes their sheep or mule on it, which usually happens in the runup to Easter.

I’ve managed to get out and about for a few walks, but not as many as I would like, and we’ve been social, meeting friends to play cards, or just to sit and chat. My piano pupil passed his grade two music theory exam yesterday gaining just over 82%, which, in this case, meant only getting one question wrong, so I was very happy with that. As part of the ongoing music tuition, we’re starting to look at songwriting, so yesterday also saw me playing the role of English teacher and giving a crash course on poetry and lyrics. I realised, a while ago, that I still have my Albatross Book of Verse from when I was at school, oops, maybe I should have given it back, but it came in very handy. After the music session, we set to our model building, and his Yamaha is nearly completed, while I have embarked on my book-nook. Talk about fiddly!

Neil’s been heading back to the gym, cautiously since his recent attack of vertigo, and he’s also been gardening, not that we have a garden. We have a courtyard, like most, but you don’t really go courtyarding… or maybe you do. The weeding is done, some replanting has taken place and the whole yard has recently been decorated.

Plans for the weekend? Neil and Harry are making us all a roast dinner on Saturday – the older godson has now finished his chef’s training, so we thought it was about time the younger one had some life lessons in the kitchen. I intend to plough on with chapter six of the new book, take another couple of walks, and practice some of my new sonatas (I’ve found a Schubert one I might be able to cope with).

So, that was that and this is this, and off we go into another week’s end. Have a good one.

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