Weekend

(It’s Sunday morning…) It’s been a fairly typical weekend so far. Husband’s birthday, anniversary, dinner with the godboys and their dad, wrote a chapter, edited a chapter, didn’t save the edits, rewrote chapter and chased a snake out of the courtyard… You know how it is.

It’s colder this morning, suddenly down to 26 degrees after a couple of months of over 30 or over 36 on some occasions, so it’s back to wearing t-shirts. It was plenty warm enough on Saturday night when we went downtown to have dinner. After a drink at Alegrito we toddled off to Meraklis to find it full so doubled back to Trata and enjoyed a mezethe meal and a good chat. After, we waited a couple of minutes for a taxi, and when Yiannis pulled in, we asked another couple who had arrived after us where they were going in case we could share. I could have sworn they said ‘Lindos’, which was perhaps somewhat ambition of them. We told Yiannis this when we got in the car, and he jumped out to check. Turns out they were heading to Nuatilos, so were able to share, which was good news all round.

The village square is busying up again as more northern European visitors come to stay. Friends old and new arriving at the Rainbow to meet up in the later afternoon is always nice, but far too tempting to stay and chat and have ‘just one more for the steps.’ I will rein it in after today so I can debloat in time for Athens on Saturday. Well, the journey starts on Friday with the evening boat up to Piraeus. I booked the cabin months ago and just as well, they have sold out now apart from one or two ‘luxury double beds’ (which I assume come with cabins). Looking forward to that, but it will mean no blog for a few days after next weekend. There, advanced warning. And here’s another one; we are back in Yialos tonight, Sunday, for our anniversary meal… Oh, by the time you read this it would have happened, so that was a retrospective warning. Anyway, enough chatter. That was my weekend, so far.

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Saturday photos

A few photos from the summer. Have a good weekend.

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Jobbernowl, Johnson and Tory

I thought you would find this interesting and hopefully fun. (Read to the end, and you’ll find some unrelated images.)
Up early as usual, sitting on the balcony with a cup of tea reading the online newspaper with the usual mix of outrage, hope and despair, and I started to wonder what my old friend Samuel Johnson has to say about his namesake. I only have a shortened version of his famous dictionary, and the word ‘Johnson’ doesn’t appear in it, but the nearest words to where it would be if it included are there, as is the word ‘Tory.’

Jobbernowl. (n) Loggerhead; blockhead.

Jogger (n) One who moves heavily and dully. (From Dryden: They, with their fellow joggers of the plough.)

Jotlhead (n) A dolt; a blockhead

I also looked in my copy of ‘The Vulgar Tongue’, a dictionary of old slang, but sadly, no Johnson. There was, however, a definition of ‘Tory’ which accords with Samuel Johnson’s:

Tory: (n) [A cant term, derived, I suppose, from an Irish word signifying a savage.] One who adheres to the ancient constitution of the state, and the apostolical hierarchy of the church of England, opposed to a whig.

That word comes between Torvous (aj) Sour of aspect, and Touchy (adj) Peevish; irritable; irascible. A low word.

At least Mr S Johnson knew what he was talking about and what he was doing. By the way, ‘The Vulgar Tongue’ has a slightly different take on the word ‘Tory’, describing it as meaning a vagabond, robber or rapparee.

In that dictionary, the word ‘Tory’ falls between:

Tormentor of catgut – a fiddler, and

Toss Off – manual pollution.

[Page 291 of the 2004 edition of ‘The Vulgar Tongue, Buckish Slang and Pickpocket Elegance’ if you don’t believe me.]

As a Ps: My name, Collins, can also be a noun. To write a ‘Collins’ was to write a thank you letter, but there’s no need for that.

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Lazy? Not around here.

I was out for a walk yesterday at 6.30, and on my travels I saw something that, at first, I thought was unusual. Yiannis from Lefteris kafeneion was coming down the hill towards me in a bobcat. Not seen that before. A wave, a kalimera, and onwards and upwards. It did make me think about how hard people work around here. Take, for example, his kafeneion. The patriarch of the family is always there setting up when I cross the square in the morning even when I go out at 5.00, as I do in the height of summer. His son works for the council, I believe, hence the bobcat because he was working to clear a section of beach by what used to be Kamaris in Pedi later in the morning, and that’s also why you see him driving the fire truck. His daughter-in-law works in a shop in Yialos, and with the grandmother, looks after the house and family. His eldest grandson comes to the café later to take over and run it through the day, afternoon and evening, until his father puts aside the bobcat after work and comes up to the village to take over running the café to give his son a break. His (the patriarch’s) middle and youngest grandsons work in restaurants on double shifts that may not finish until well after midnight and also come to the café to cover certain hours when they can. Remember that this kafeneion is also often open until well past midnight, and very often you’ll find the family outside their café, around the family table together or with friends, and the grandsons, strapping late-teens/early 20s lads, with their grandmother, shelling beans, or helping with the fishing lines, catching up with the family between shifts.

I just thought I’d mention that so when you hear people say the Greeks are lazy, you can point them this way and tell them to get a grip. And talking of hard work, here are a few images from that walk, with a couple showing you how the civil engineering project is going.

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Thoughts from the balcony

Another early start for me today thanks again to another early night (20.30 to 03.30, if you’re interested). I did spend a little time in this square after finishing work yesterday late afternoon, and it was good to meet a few couples who were visiting Symi for the first time, and loving it, I am pleased to say. The square tends to become busier later in the evening, but now the weather is cooling off a little, more people come up in the late afternoon, or stop off on the way back from the beach. During July and August when the temperature was up to and over 36 or 38 degrees, many people prefer to wait until the evening. Mind you, this year it wasn’t that much cooler then.

When I’m up early in the summer, I tend to sit on the balcony and have a cup of tea before firing up the computer and getting to work, and of late, I’ve had to wear a t-shirt out there.  I like the peace and quiet of that time of day. Well, I say ‘quiet’, some mornings there are still parties going on at some bars, as there was this morning. The sound doesn’t affect us, and I can only hear it faintly, bouncing off the wall of the property next door, depending on where it’s coming from. There is a club/bar/restaurant opposite us, and when the doors open the sound pours out, but again, that’s mainly during August. Other times, I guess the noise is coming from further into the harbour where we can’t see from our house; cheering, music and laughter ringing through the night.

I also get to hear more natural sounds and see some sights. The owls are regular background noise and last night while sitting outside we saw a barn owl flying overhead. I know it was a barn owl (there is a pair nesting somewhere in the village) because, well, I was once a young ornithologist and a barn owl is a barn owl. We also occasionally see the bats and little owls flying around the house, the occasional rat on the ruin wall, cats of course, and sometimes young people trying to get home in a straight line, taking a shortcut past the front of the house, following the torch of their mobile phones with varying degrees of success. And then there are the lights from boats and buildings, and the mysterious rising light over Turkey (must be some kind of weather balloon as it goes up in a straight line, waits, and then come down, fading as it descends). There’s plenty to see and hear on Symi even during the wee small hours.

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