Busy doing nothing

We saw this little chap hanging around in front of the house yesterday, just sitting on a pole waiting and watching to see what was going on.

A lot goes on around the front of our house, actually. There is some ‘no man’s land’ where the fig tree used to be, to the left, there is a ruined garden with an orange tree and a pomegranate tree, and the building opposite and below has a spectacular bougainvillaea. There’s also an unkept area right in front of us and a rickety old vine, so lots of wildlife in a small area. As the pomegranates are ripe right now, they have attracted some attention. There were a couple of ladies with a ladder, leaning it up against the ruined wall and climbing up to take what they could reach, and then there are the hornets…

The hornets seem to work a short, midday shift as they are rarely about before 11.00, but between then and around 14.00, the air is buzzing with them, darting about, banging into the walls, feasting on the fruit and then staggering off again. It’s quite a dance just below the balcony at that time of day, and they rarely blunder into the house and bang their heads against the windows. When they do, I try and put them out, or just leave them alone and let them get on with it.

Anyway… The question I posed the other day, what was missing from the photo? Well, I finally have the answer for you. Here’s the original image…

And here’s the one showing what we couldn’t see because of the humidity. Either that or someone moved the entire range and then snuck it back overnight.

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Wandering

I managed a lie in on Monday and didn’t get up until four. This meant I was able to get some things done before going out for a walk as it got light, around seven. As usual, I headed up the road and off to ‘To Vrisi’. The engineering work on the water channel is coming on and is very impressive. They’ve been working there for months, and now a series of rock-filled cages have been set up along the base and sides of the watercourse. There is still more work to do, but it’s fascinating. The only downer is, I won’t be able to see it in action, because, if the rain is coming down so hard it needs this channel, it won’t be safe to be out in it.

Meanwhile, some of the day boats are still coming into the harbour, though not all, and some of the tavernas have closed for the season, but only a few so far. We continue to have visitors to the village, but not as many as a couple of weeks ago, and the weather remains warm enough to sit out in a t-shirt and shorts, but only up to a point. The evenings aren’t cold, but it’s gradually becoming long trousers weather. We’re in a fashion grey area where it’s often shorts beneath and a shirt and hoodie above.

And if you were wondering about yesterday’s photo and the ‘what’s missing?’ question, I’ll take another shot when the missing thing is back and see if you can spot the difference.

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Back to school

One of my winter projects is revision. By this I mean, I’ve decided it’s time to learn more of the Greek language and decided that the way to start doing this was to start again. For me, it’s mainly a question of vocabulary and confidence. I had nearly a year of private lessons before moving to Greece, and my teacher stressed the importance of learning the grammar as well as conversation. Luckily for me, nine years of Latin at school had prepared me for the grammar of language (I can’t remember any Latin though), so when discussing nominative and accusative, definite articles and pronouns, I knew where my Greek teacher was coming from. As an aside, she came from Germany, Greek was her second language and she was studying British law at Brighton University at the age of 24, which kinds of puts my book one of ‘Learn Greek Now’ at the age of 56 into perspective, but there we go, she was an excellent teacher, and fluent in at least three languages.

On Sunday, I took an hour out of my busy day of sofa surfing, and revised chapter one of my book. This did feel like a bit of a cheat, but as my writing skills are pretty rough, I wrote down any word that I couldn’t spell or was new to me. Chapter one is manly about hello and where are you from, which is pretty straightforward, but there were other words and phrases in the instructions, such as ‘put a line through’, which I noted in my ‘list of words I don’t know’, and although outside the remit of the exercises, I tried to learn these too. Chapter one done, I now have the homework book chapter one to complete before moving onto chapter two, which I will do later this week.

And the above photo is vaguely related to this story as I want you to see if you can guess what’s missing from the image. The clue came in a conversation I was having with Yianni on Sunday afternoon when we decided that there high Υγρασία, and the day was Υγρός. Another two words now on my list as, although I know what they mean and I use them (when I remember), I wouldn’t yet be able to spell them competently. Not yet, but then I am still only on chapter one. (The Y, epsilon, is one of several ways of sounding/writing the ‘e’ sound, so until you know which ‘e’ to use, you’re only guessing.)

[Note for the record. I’ve done all of this book before, but not with any great determination or success. Am aiming to change that over the next six months]

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Symi Saturday Photos

A variety of older shots from my folder of images I’ve not yet posted just to keep us going while I try and find something different to pepper my ramblings with. Off into writing world for the weekend now, have a good one!

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Ah, Friday!

Well, as I work for myself the weekend doesn’t mean a weekend anymore, I can work when I want, and that tends to be every day, so there are no weekends for me unless I want to take one on a Monday and Tuesday, or split one and have Wednesday and Friday off. I tend not to; there’s always something to write or write about. Like yesterday’s trip to Yialos for a big adventure. Not so big actually, just getting a Nominos Kritikos from the town hall for one of the godboys so he can start the process of getting his driving license. Driving license? Where did those 16 years go?

While down in the harbour, we stopped for lunch with some friends – Trata this time – and watched the world go by for a while before taking a taxi up as Neil needed to be at work. (Thank you, Pete and Pauline, for letting us go first; owe you one.) When I say work, I mean a social afternoon in the square chatting to all and sundry and pulling the occasional pint.

The photos today aren’t wonderful as some were on the zoom on my €150 phone, but it made a change to see a tour group taking an often un-walked path above the harbour to get some better views. Could do with a few more making it up the Kali Strata to the village. Next year, maybe. And as for the rest of today… Sweep the courtyard, hang the washing out, shopping, a couple of thousand words of something, and look for a good documentary on the History channel for some downtime. No need to celebrate the weekend, for reasons explained above, and actually, I very often forget what day it is anyway, but that might simply be age.

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