Three random shots from my photo file today, apropos nothing in particular, as that’s what I have to say today; nothing in particular. Mind you, I often start like that and then wander on and see what comes out, and a whole page later… well, there we are.

These aren’t the best photos ever, but they show you three different locations. Horio and the ‘main street’, which is just wide enough for a very small truck or a carefully driven car, a square at the back of Yialos, and a view at the top of the main road by the windmills. If you look around blogs, social media, print magazines and websites, you will see stunning photos of Symi, the harbour and the neoclassical houses, but it also has beauty in the day-to-day. Like the ‘main street’ of Horio with the walls where bored and over-excited children have applied their marker pens, and where the flag gets changed only now and then. Where there are no glitzy high-fashion outlets for oligarchs on super-yachts, but a simple bakery, a butcher’s shop, some homely tavernas and other small businesses that keep the village alive.

All locations are worth a wander.

The village after you reach the top of the Kali Strata – keep going straight up, along the main road unit the very end, then do a right, first left, on until you can go no further, right, first left and up, and you will come to the museum, for example.

The main road from the harbour to the village and beyond. Get off at the windmills, walk back a little way on the pavement and you will see a splendid view of Yialos.

In Yialos itself, behind the town square, where this other hidden (and private) square can be found. If you’ve not found these views already, look out for them on your next visit.

There’s more to see than what we see.

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Day Trip

Yesterday was my first ‘lunch downtown’ for several weeks, and it made for a pleasant change. The King Saron is back in action, bringing day trippers over once or twice per day, there were three or four other day trip boats operating as well, so the harbour was busy, which is good to see from an island finance point of view. We did what we had to do; a visit to the dive centre, post office, buy some tea bags (not from the post office), buy a new bulb fitting for the laundry light (today’s challenge is to change it, and it’s only taken me a year to get to this point), and then it was off to lunch.

In the evening, the harbour was also full, from what I could see of it from up here, with a few boats anchored offshore too, and there was a concert in the village square. Neil was called in to work for the evening, and I’ll find out later how that went because he’s still in bed while I am starting my day’s work, but then, it’s only 4.00, so you can’t blame him.

Today looks to be a quiet one as I have nothing planned other than the usual writing work, and perhaps a quick sweep of the courtyard to get rid of some fallen leaves. Then, I can start reading my new book, ‘Life of the Victorian Stage.’ A book, I should add, that was hard to buy.

A Struggle with Amazon

I was trying to buy a Kindle copy because a) it was more immediate and I don’t have to wait for delivery, b) I don’t have to pay post-Brexit import changes, and c) it was cheaper. To buy it, I had to log into Amazon. So, I entered the details, and it came up with a captcha thing where you can hardly read the letters and numbers. I did though, and was told it was wrong. So, I tried again, and again, and again…. Until finally, I passed the challenge and was over the threshold, where I was told I would be sent a verification code to my phone within 90 seconds…

No code arrived. (Resend: nothing.)

I tried the process again – still no code.

Did some online research, and checked my phone’s ‘push notifications’ were on, made sure my password was correct and all that jazz, and tried again. (This process had been working fine a couple of days ago, btw.)

No code.

Rinse and repeat several times. No joy.

I headed to customer service only to find the only way of contacting Amazon was via phone. Not doing that! Actually, I can’t do that, as my mobile phone tariff only lets me phone within Greece, and we don’t have a landline anymore.

I then found a customer service email on the dark web and sent them a message – only to receive the auto-reply that the email no longer exists.

Then, I found some other links to CS via the lighter grey web, only to find those pages didn’t exist either – yet they come up at the top of a Google search.

Tried downloading the Amazon app, and that DID send me a verification code, so the phone was working fine, then.

I then found out, I can’t buy Kindle books through the Amazon app (it’s basically useless and tells you to use a PC to buy Kindles). Nor was I able to buy one through my Kindle app on my tablet, nor through my phone (verification code needed), and still not via the PC. (Ditto)

Had a break, turned the PC off and on again, and a while later, finally managed to get my password accepted, and get a code, and, I bought the e-book.

I don’t know why all that happened, but I got there in the end. Now, though, I have a message saying there’s a problem with the payment, yet the account page shows it all as being fine.

What do you reckon? Chinese spyware, Russian ghosts in the machine, an Amazon glitch, or perhaps AI having a bad day? Whatever the reason, it provided me with an hour of frustrated non-entertainment.

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It’s far too early in the morning, even for me, in fact, it’s probably not even morning. It started just before two when I woke up on the wrong side of the bed and having wondered how I got there, decided it must be time to get up.

It wasn’t. I might have started on the wrong side, but I didn’t get out of the wrong side (well, I did. I had to but…) and I don’t feel tired or grumpy at all. Not yet. I do feel as though I have no idea what to write about as I get my writing head in order, so, let’s just see what comes out.

First, I thought about shopping, not that any of the shops would be open at two in the morning (as far as I know), but for some reason, I remembered I’d taken a photo in our local supermarket and meant to share it a while ago, so it’s here today. Then I remembered something I’d said to the husband when we were talking about what shopping we needed when he was going because I was working. ‘Can you get some talcum powder? It’s usually next to the batteries.’ This reminded me of when someone needed some washing-up liquid, and I told them they would find it in the wine and spirit section because it’s that kind of shop. If you want to see island life at its best, go to one of the village super markets (sic) because they offer a great eye-opening experience – and decent prices if you shop around.

After a look at the news, and half a cup of tea on the balcony, I thought I should get to my writing corner and get on with the day/night. There was not much to see from the balcony anyway; the harbour lights, the stars, a bat or two (or a couple of very small nightbirds traveling at speed), so off to the office I go, stopping to see what temperature it is outside, just out of interest, and finding it to be 28°, not bad. I always turn on the porch light when commuting from the living-in house to the workhouse. Although the streetlight outside the gate lights the courtyard and porch reasonably well, I like to scare away anything that might be scuttling or crawling around outside the front door, particularly as I’m usually barefooted. There was no scuttling or crawling today, I am glad to say.

And so, the morning routine began.

A check of the emails via Mailwasher where I generally receive a heap of pre-marked spam offering me all things vital from loft insulation to Thai brides, and a download of those emails I actually need: daily news updates from an ex-journalist friend (scandal and sensation, end of the world stuff, things you couldn’t make up), and I switch on all the programs I will need for the morning. The PC protection comes on automatically and tells me my VPN needs renewing when I only renewed it three days ago, so I enter the activation code, and it still won’t activate, so I sign in, and fiddle about, and finally it works. There is always some such disruption before my day has even begun, but today, it was only a brief one.

Then I sit down to write something here, and this is what you get, and I scroll through my gallery wondering, apart from typos, what I can adorn the page with today, and I find photos of a cactus. Well, the Cactus Hotel in Rhodes, actually, where we stayed in May when I took the godson over for his English proficiency exam. Very nice it was too; huge room, great view, breakfast even bigger than the feast at the Plaza (and HP sauce in bottles – five-star treatment, I’d say), and right next door to the exam centre. I thought I’d post a view from the room. This isn’t the first hotel I’ve used in Rhodes this year, and I must tell you about the others sometime because although they were further out of town by about ten minutes as the foot walks, they were excellent. (Btw, I believe all the students of the English school passed their proficiency exams this year, I know the Gson did brilliantly.)

But that’s for another day, and mine is now about to start for real with around six thousand words about to pour from my fingertips into various projects. I’ll probably get about half of them done before I have to return to the right side of the bed and catch up on a few minutes of sleep, and start the second shift later this morning.

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