A few photos to see you through the weekend.
All clear
All clear
Heading into the weekend with lovely warm weather but not a lot of news. Anyone following the waterworks debacle at our house will be interested to know that the leaking tank is now fixed thanks to Symi Property Services. I won’t summarise the water problems as they’ve been going on for nearly a year now, but this (hopefully) last one concerned the ‘temporary’ plastic tank the landlord’s ‘mastoras’ had put on the bathroom roof. He’d put it straight down over water pipes that were themselves over a concrete trough. The bottom of the tank had been pierced by one of the pipe’s connecting nuts, and the bottom of the tank was bowing under the weight of water. Anyway… SPS were here yesterday and sorted all of that out, and now, we are leak-free for the first time since sometime in the summer. I’ll celebrate with some random photos from the other day…
Outage
Outage
We had a bit of an odd internet outage yesterday. Many of us could only get into certain websites (Google and Fakebook) but no others. Of course, I suspected a global conspiracy, but it turned out to be something local. Still, it put me behind in my very vague schedule. Instead of a ramble today, here are a few photos from the harbour the other morning following the recent big storm.
Monday was another day
Monday was another day
Well, that was something of a wet day – Monday, I mean. Today (Tuesday as I write), there was still some rain around first thing, but now, at eight in the morning, the skies are clearing overhead, but only slightly. The force nine winds have gone, and the sea is calm again. It’s also back to a more natural colour after turning red/brown as the topsoil was washed down from the mountains and out to sea. If you are on Fakebook, you will be able to look around the Symi groups and Symi Dream page and find some videos taken by people who live in Yialos and Pedi where the storm had the most effect. I have very few pictures as it was a case of staying in, shutters closed, towels down, mop at the ready and the internet on and off as thunder and lightning joined the melee going on outside.
For more details on the storm, which brought tragedy and destructions in other parts of the country, you’ll need to look at news channels, for us, it was a case of staying in, trying to keep us and the house dry, and hoping that nothing leaked too much. I was rained upon as I did the washing up because there’s a gap in the storeroom door above the kitchen and the wind must have been from the east, blowing the rain under the door and through the floorboards which are our kitchen ceiling and the storeroom’s floor. A quick dash up to the bathroom roof with a large towel to block the gap stopped the waterfall, though I was only out in it for two minutes and came back soaked through. A rough day all round.
Tuesday morning, the sea was calm, no white water breaking on Nimos (which I tried to capture through the camera before things got really bad, but in that light and at that distance, it’s not so good), and no rough waves attacking Tholos and the point as they were on Monday. While the internet was off, unable to write as the PC was unplugged, I turned my attention to another model kit in between checking windows and so on, so the kitchen table is once again some kind of art studio workbench, but this one will take a while as I need to order more paints. Meanwhile, I must get back to a book of some sort. We were going to Rhodes today, but after the destruction there on Monday, we decided to wait until next week as the visit isn’t urgent, but we still have to get to Yialos to collect the post. That will be done between tidying the house, waiting for a viewing by a potential buyer, possibly waiting for some minor repairs to be done (though I think the guys will have more on their plates today than a dripping water tank, so I am not expecting a visit), and playing the piano. Hey ho! Back to the routine…
Blowing and glowing
Blowing and glowing
It’s raining and blowing a gale outside as I write this on Monday morning. We’re expecting winds up to force 9 Beaufort later this morning, so today is not the day for going to Yialos to collect some post and withdraw some money. We’ll have to make do with what we have in the house as I’m not going out shopping either. I did see the Blue Star leaving at five this morning just as I was getting up, but I’d be surprised if it left Rhodes once it got there, and was fairly surprised to see it at all. We’ve taken our chilli plant inside to escape a battering, but the other plants are having to fend for themselves out there. Meanwhile, I finished the model kit I started in last week’s thunderstorm…
I last made one of these in the 70s when I was 11 or 12. Then, there was a series of Universal horror film models with parts that glowed in the dark. They were Aurora models and came in square boxes, and I made them at my school’s Wednesday afternoon modelling club (anything to get out of sports). I was also a member of the history club at one point, but nothing could beat spending all afternoon in a classroom putting together bits of plastic. I had all 13 of the series – I think it was 13 – and am always on the lookout for them now, so I can make them again. I don’t think my technique has improved much over the years, but this was the first time I’d done anything like this in over 44 years. It’s still possible to buy the originals, I have two, but depending on which figure they are, they can sell for hundreds of pounds, if in their original box, under cellophane and unopened.
Luckily, these models have been recast by Monogram and other manufacturers, and you can more cheaply buy remoulds of the originals, but again, they’re not that easy to come by as they were produced in the 90s. However, I’ve just found an Invisible Man-made by another company and on sale in the USA for around $30.00, so I have ordered myself one as a Christmas present. He wasn’t one of the original 13, but the kit is in the same style, a scenario with more than just the figure. Anyway, that’s something to look forward to when the wind isn’t blowing, but I’ll have to twiddle my thumbs until the kit arrives. Below, for anyone desperately interested, are a couple of (bad) shots of my cabinet. The Phantom of the Opera and the Mummy (hidden) are originals, I also have the remake of the Witch, Wolfman and Dracula which I am keeping in the boxes, though tempted to open the Witch as that has glow in the dark pieces. The plastic models I found at Hamleys years ago and are not related to the kits. But that’s enough of ‘things to do in winter on Symi.’ We’ll be back to normal rambling tomorrow when I must tell you about some bombonieres…
