Some village snaps as illustrations today, a day on which I have nothing much to report to head office. Except…

We had a very pleasant lunch at Georgio’s Taverna yesterday. It’s one of the village businesses that stays open through the winter, only pausing, if it must, to redecorate for the next summer season. Next door, Rainbow and Lefteris’ also stay open, though not always at strict hours, and Scena also continues, as it’s a place frequented by local families, and late-night musicians. The film club shows a film there every Tuesday, there is often live music, and the kitchen is open most evenings too. It’s a nice place for families because of the play park right next door and often holds post-baptism celebrations and other functions.

Also, through the winter, the Sunrise is open, as is Ringo’s, but Taverna Zoi and the Kalis Strata restaurants eventually close, mainly because they have only outside seating. Also, without the guaranteed trade of the summer, tavernas have to weigh up the overheads and potential stock wastage against potential income. Soon, the lanes will be virtually empty as people stay indoors more, except for the all-year-round workers, and the weather will close in, driving us inside for warmth, except on sunny days, when walking is the thing to do.

As part of our pre-winter preparations, we’re having the balcony doors fixed so they can close, a good idea when you face north. I have already given the balcony a coat of varnish, but it needs another before it rains. We must paint the bathroom flat roof against leaks too, and I must get around to stripping the old paint off the outside bathroom walls, and re-do them. If I am feeing flush (unlikely), I’ll get someone in who knows what they are doing and pay them. Also, on my list of things to do one day is an overall of the workhouse bathroom which we mainly use for storage, but that’s a job I can do no matter the weather – as long as it’s not too hot, and as long as I can be bothered.

It will also soon be time for our annual health trip to Rhodes. Not to take the waters, but to have them metaphorically taken from us as we do our annual MOT with tests and check-ups from specialists; all so easy to arrange as long as you have the insurance or the money, not that the private consultants are expensive. I must tell you more about all that one day (I have talked about it in the past), and I must also tell you about other trips and things we’ve been doing that you may not have seen on our Facebook pages, especially if you don’t use Facebook. All that, though, is for later in the winter when I have nothing else to say – not that that stops me wittering on like this.

For now, it’s off to work I go, as I have a few hours of typing and editing to put in before door repairs, lunch cooking, piano playing and meeting up with returning friends who just can’t keep away from the island. Who can blame them?

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A breeze on the balcony this morning meant I had to put on a hoodie when I stepped out to look at the view and have my cup of tea. We’re heading towards mid-October and during the day, it’s still pleasantly warm, around the mid-twenties, but first thing in the morning (or halfway through the night for most), the chill is noticeable. There’s a sheet and a light blanket on the bed, and it won’t be long before we start closing the windows one by one. Not long after that, it’ll be the shutters, though winter isn’t on us just yet.

The day boats continue to come in, often packed with visitors, and there were at least four yesterday (boats, not visitors), more, actually, with the King Saron doing two trips, and the large ferries coming in to take away those who had to travel for the weekend’s voting. The taxi boats are still going, though for how much longer remains to be seen (they and some beach tavernas usually stop around mid-October), and in a way, it’s hard to think this summer season is nearly over. The village bars have been the same; busy and full one hour, quieter the next, all through the afternoon and evening, and the taverna the other night was full, and the other restaurants also seemed to be doing well. Maybe the Symi summer season is getting longer?

I just had a trawl back through my photo archives to see what I was doing this time X number of years ago, but the pics were all of book covers, Victorian slums and other book-related matters, so I decided not to bore you with those. Instead, just a quick post and a couple of autumnal images today. One to show the sky which isn’t as warm as it looks, and the other, the cats up the road (last year), some of whom continue to hang out at the bins with the chickens and their chicks where they seem to live quite happily side by side.

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A quiet weekend for me, with some research, a new book cover to approve, and a birthday dinner at a packed taverna. It was voting weekend, so many people had returned from wherever they now live, as they must/should when there is an election – a local election for mayor, and regional elections too, I believe. I am vague because I, like many other UK citizens, am no longer able to vote for our local representatives, and thus, I haven’t paid much attention as there’s nothing I can do about any of it.

I’m none the wiser as to who won (I shall no doubt find out later in the day, as it’s still very early), but the dynamite and fireworks were going off just as I was getting into bed. Bedtime came later than usual, and I was in danger of working myself into that sleepless state of: ‘But it’s gone the usual time I go to sleep. If I drop off now, I will have five hours… If I don’t get to sleep soon, I’ll only have four and a half…’ I managed eventually, and, as my auto timer is internally set, was up at the usual time, leaving not much in between. I can see a sofa doze coming on later.

Apart from all that excitement, I also managed to get a little research done. Although I am working on book three of a series, book two, ‘A Fall from Grace’ has just come back from the proofreader, so I have switched from writing to reading. Once that’s done, the book will go to my layout people who will format the interior for me, and then it will be set free on Amazon, fairly hot on the heels of the first in the series, ‘Finding a Way.’

So, the images today show, 1) a map of the Boundary Estate in Shoreditch, the Old Nichol as it was once called. As we’d now call it, a slum, or a rookery. It was demolished at the end of the 1880s, and the start of the 1890s. 2) The cover with the paper over it is for a cover reveal later in the week on my other blog, and 3) the image of the taverna is… Well, it’s an image of the taverna last night, where we were served by a young chap (17/18 I reckon) who I have seen grow up. Once upon a time, I was on a busy hydrofoil in Rhodes waiting to come back to Symi, and slightly delayed because one of the passengers was running late. I remember it because when the mother and baby came aboard, everyone clapped to welcome him. The boat had waited an extra 20 minutes or so before setting off so the family could get home, and no-one complained, only rejoiced.

Gosh, the hydrofoil, eh? I wonder where the old thing is now; the metal machine with many nicknames, few of them pleasant, and where all the Cyrillic writing on the bulkheads had been painted over so many times it was hard to read the letters. I’m sure everyone has hydrofoil stories, and I shall save mine for a later date. I have a day of reading ahead, or rather, re-reading, and I am also looking forward to catching up on sleep.

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I took a little wander along the new ‘road’ yesterday. For some time, there has been talk of a new road linking the main road of the village to the area of Ag Athanasios in the centre of the village. The area was originally only reachable by foot, but over time, local residents have made adaptations, putting in temporary ramps, or more permanent features to enable mopeds to reach further into the village; it’s happening all over. As with many things in a small community, the new road was subject to much speculation and gossip, and with anything like this, unless you know which horse’s mouth to hear straight from, it’s best to wait and see for yourself. I remember all the questions and outrage, ‘You can’t build a road from Lemonitisa to there without knocking down houses and widening the path…’ That kind of thing.

Turned out the new ‘road’ was the widening of a path, but without knocking down houses, and it is just that, a path. Half of it was already there; there was just a short part that needed to be developed and that ran across empty land anyway. You can’t get a car all the way, not a large one, and even if you did, where would you park it? If you’re too lazy to walk the 50 yards from the village ‘high street’ to the church, or you are unable to, you can now drive a moped ten times that distance from the Village Square to near Alamina Square just below Ag Athanasios. In fact, if your bike is small enough, you can get even further among the houses thanks to pre-existing, ‘temporary’ concrete ramps on some stone steps and the natural lie of the land.

This ‘road’ has been in for some time, and I’ve walked it a few times. It’s a bit steep and dodgy in places and cuts through the village below the Kastro. It starts/ends next to what I was told was called ‘The Artisan’s House’, a popular site because it still shows the colours and decorations of its original glory, and, they say, houses adorned like this would have been built/decorated by people showing off their skills. In other words, if you like the look of it, the person living there can do the same for you. I don’t know if that’s true, but it makes a kind of sense. The house is now lived in by wild fig trees and becoming harder to see every year, but what’s left of it still stands, and the new road hasn’t affected it. Yet.

The ‘bypass’ (as it was also called, he added, sniggering) has also opened up some previously buried ruins, or parts of them, which is my other photo today. You can just see a small arch revealed. This might have been the arch of the well cover, or an oven (can’t see a chimney though), or simply a small window in a storeroom, but there’s something under there…

In other ‘news’, tonight in the village square there’s a political rally for the currently elected local party, and the local council elections are on Sunday. Only European citizens can vote, so Neil’s alright, but I am not.

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