In answer to yesterday’s vaguely rhetorical question about whether the season is showing signs of closing, after a trip to Yialos, the answer must be no. We arrived not long after one of the day boats had arrived, with several already in port, and there was the familiar sight of lines of tour groups being led around the harbour. They were plugged in to their headphones, listening to their guide at the war memorial, squeezing through the narrow lane past the chandler’s shop, trudging up the few steps to the courtyard of St John’s church, and huddled in what little shade they could find. Walking to the clock tower against the tide is always a game of ‘dodge the pink and tender’, though there is more of that on the other side where the open speedboat-looking boats come in.

These are the ones that make me wince when I see them arrive. On the way over, many passengers opt to sit in the bows in full glare of the sun, or have no choice, and at first, discover how pleasant that is. Very pleasant when out at sea with a cool breeze blowing over you while you’re at speed. Very pleasant to pause with hundreds of other people in St George’s Bay, where island stayers have escaped for some tranquillity, only to find a sea of bobbing heads and an overwhelming smell of Hawaiian Tropic among a mild oil slick. Not so pleasant to later realise that, where you thought you were cool and protected, the sun’s radiation has actually reflected from the sea, been disguised by the cool air, and left you turning pink and raw for the rest of the day. Each to his own.

Good to see the businesses appearing to do good business, and then not so good to see one frappe and three bottles of water between four people who remain blocking a table for over an hour just so they can have a nice sit down. Good to see a taverna full, with new customers taking the places of departing ones even before that table is cleared. Not so much fun for the owners, who now have to cover the work of the children who have gone back to school and can no longer act as staff. But… The custom is still there, and as Nikos said with glee at the taverna yesterday, ‘Only thirty more days.’

I haven’t been in Yialos much this summer, except for 12 visits to the dentist and a couple of days out. (A ‘day’ being three hours of shopping, collecting, sorting things and finding something to eat.) That’s why I hadn’t noticed the new things until yesterday. The ‘things’ are, I think, electronic notice boards. The one I saw was showing drone footage, with 90% of its time on the harbour and 10% of it showing the Castro, and looks like a good way of orienting the visitor. A kind of, ‘You are here… somewhere’ moving map seen from above. I’m not sure if they also carry advertisements or static maps of, for example, how to find the famous Kali Strata, but they also showed the time, and that’s useful. These now complement the speaking dustbins that say, ‘Thank you for using me,’ when you’ve dropped off your ice cream wrapper. Grateful dustbins? Makes you feel like you’ve wandered into a fetish club in a Berlin backstreet. (Apparently.)

Anyway, back to the rhetorical. No, there were no obvious signs that the season is ending, apart from fewer young people being at work because they are at school, vague warnings about possible high winds, and more autumnal weather. But we’re getting there. ‘Only thirty more days to go.’ Or to think of it another way, only about 16% of the season left to run.

Any signs that the season is drawing towards a close? Not yet. Traditionally, the season ends in October when charter flights start to wind down, although over in Rhodes, we’ve seen cruise ships coming in during the winter months. This doesn’t mean the tourist places there are all open between November and February. It means that when word of a ship gets around, some places in the Old Town reopen like pop-up shops, grab the visitors for the morning, and then go back to sleep. Not many, but we’ve seen it through the winter. A bright, sunny, but clear and cool day in the early spring is a perfect time to visit Rhodes and wander the cobbled streets of the Old Town with views across to Turkey from the higher parts, or the moat. There are only a few cafes and similar open, and none of that hawking you in for a boot of beer. But that’s in Rhodes.

Here on Symi, I guess we can say that the season begins to wind down proper from mid-October when, usually, the taxi boats stop running, and the more hard-to-access beaches start to close. I’ve always been told that the taxi boats have six-month licenses that run between May and October, which makes sense. There’s very little demand after that time, and no point buying an all-year license for hardly any work. The beach tavernas, too, aren’t profitable when there are no tourists, or only a few visitors, and sunbathing in December, though possible, is not always much fun. As Dickens wrote in Great Expectations: It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade. That starts to happen here about now, and runs on until the weather changes its mind in spring.

There is one thing I wonder about. What happens to all those sunbeds in the winter? Do they pop off for a week’s cruise around the Med? Perhaps they stow away in the guise of on-board facilities, looking like an innocent deck lounger, but actually enjoying some time off (save for the occasional over-fed rump of a passenger taking advantage). Maybe they just get put in the closed taverna and left to recuperate for five months.

Anyway, back to: Any signs that the season is drawing towards a close? Well, yes and no. Yes, in that the weather is starting to change. A cooler breeze (with, apparently, strong winds this Thursday), shorter days, and exhausted waiters, chefs, and anyone else who has been working 16 + hour days since May with no day off. Up here, the evenings are still busy — there was a queue at Georgio’s the other evening — and reports tell me the bars are still doing good evening business. Everything remains open up here and down in town (I will be there later and can check, but it’s still too early to call it a day). So, yes, the season is approaching its end, but I’d say we’ve got another three, nearly four, weeks to go before we see a shutdown. All the same, we’re seeing visitors going for earlier dinners, some days are spent away from the beaches, there is more people-watching in cafes, it’s good walking weather, and now we have bicycles for hire, you can always go cycling. They, of course, add to the still-available cars, mopeds of all breeds, quad bikes, electric bubbles, minibuses, boats and, possibly, scooters that are almost legion, and filling the road as much as vague day trippers do after stepping off a boat.

So, it’s not over yet, but for those who have been working from nine in the morning until well after midnight, the end is in sight.

There’s something very pleasurable about being able to help, especially when it’s a neighbour. Often on Symi, you will see a bag or similar hanging from a courtyard gate, or left on a wall. Often, these are deliveries for when the person gets home. You might see bags hanging outside the bakery; they are orders left for people who work during opening hours. Now and then, the taverna next door will leave lunch orders at the bar, again, for collection later.

Over the weekend, we left the house at 6.00 and found a bag abandoned in the road. This was what the Brits call a bum bag, and the Americans call a fanny pack (neither of which sounds in the least desirable), but someone had clearly dropped it. A quick investigation ensued. A check for an ID resulted in no joy, but it must have been dropped overnight. We hung it on our door using the logic that it was on someone’s route, and they would return once they found it missing, and to be certain, we put a post in a couple of local Facebook groups. Its owner collected it a short while later.

I’m not telling you this to be in any way show-offy, but to highlight how safe Symi is. A few times in the past, Neil has left his camera here, there and everywhere, and as that was the source of his livelihood, it was always a worry. But not for long, because someone would get in touch, and it would be returned. We used to hear the loudspeakers announcing such things as, ‘Mrs [Whoever] has lost her purse. It is [description] and contains €50.00. If found, please bring to the police station.’ A little later, we might hear a repeat, but the story that the amount of money inside increased with every announcement is an urban myth. Not long ago, a visitor lost his phone, wallet, money and probably his mind with worry, but it all turned up a week later with nothing missing.

So, if you happen upon a blue plastic bag containing bread, or a lonely suitcase outside a gate, it’s nothing to worry about, and certainly nothing to take. For the last couple of months, there’s been a new and still-boxed six-foot fridge freezer outside a house on the Kali Strata. Ah well. Someone will come back for it one day.

This is a strange time of year in the bedroom. Now, Missus, don’t get too flustered and grab your pearls, I am talking about the heat in there. No, hang on… I mean, the change in temperature generally… The edge of a recent storm brushed by rather disappointingly yesterday, and the temperature dropped to the high 20s, but the humidity was 60%. This means no more toplessness around the house, and no need to put a towel on the sofa to soak up the sweat. No need for the fan in there, either, not with the windows open, but it’s still sandals and t-shirt weather and in the mid-thirties during the day. The nighttime, however… Now that’s complicated.

It’s the time of year when we consider putting on a top sheet, or using a duvet cover without the duvet. The trouble is, after a while, that becomes too warm. So, you put the fan on and try to get back to sleep. Then, it becomes too cold under the fan, so you turn it off. This, in my case, leads to being woken up by sweat trickling down my back, and being woken at the unearthly hour of 22.30, means a trip to the bathroom, and returning to sheets made damp by the effects of my own humidity. (Or the male menopause, or just being generally ‘hot’, and no, Missus, I don’t mean in that way.) So, a towel is the thing to then lie on, and very nice that is too, to start with. Later in the night, it’s a case of waking up cold, but still somehow too humid, and considering a T-shirt, but not bothering because it’s three o’clock, but the pillow is now damply cold or coldly damp, and the fan is no longer on, but that’s okay because it’s cold…

Anyway, enough of overnight fluctuations… Once again, the village square saw a busy afternoon. There are lots of returning visitors here right now, and I must thank everyone for the donations of tea. Not everyone, of course, but everyone who has been kind enough to gift us some supplies for the winter. It tends to be that some things are not available here at that time of year, and decent tea is one of them. (By ‘decent’ I mean tea that has a taste and isn’t just dust swept up from a factory floor and put in a yellow box.) I can’t mention everyone by name in case I forget someone, but a heartfelt thank you goes out to everyone who has arrived with a bag or box of Tetley or Yorkshire, Glengettie or PG, or left one at the bar for me because I’m only there for an hour in the afternoon these days. All are now stored ready for the lean months of winter; those that are not already in use, that is. It’s a warming gesture for the colder months, and I’m very grateful.

And now, to head off into the weekend wondering what to wear at night, how to make up the bed, and looking forward to another cold shower because one thing that still isn’t hot around this house is our dead hot water tank. Hey ho!

Again, the weather is the topic of conversation today. Yesterday, the forecast told me we would have no rain, only clouds, yet we had a few drops of rain in the morning. The same one told me there would be no rain today, but now tells me we can expect it to be heavy this afternoon, so who knows what’s what? Except to say that we’ll get some kind of weather, and the current image shows we’re in for a wet afternoon unless things change, which they probably will. Mind you, clouds make for more interesting photos. (These three were taken yesterday morning.)

The downside, of course, is that with colder weather and the possibility of rain, people have to have a wet break time, as we called it at school, and lying on a beach to sunbathe is not pleasant. The upside is that a wet break time means a busier time for bars and cafes, and yesterday afternoon was by far the busiest in the village square that we’ve seen for a long time, possibly all year. Both bars were full up during the usual afternoon quiet time. We were out for dinner last night too, and luckily, we went early. By eight, people were waiting for tables at Taverna George & Maria, and the Kali Strata restaurant next door was also full. The advice to book a table before you arrive to eat remains.

Hunting season also started yesterday. At least, I heard it going on for the first time this year. Hunting isn’t just for sport around here, it’s to keep down the partridge population and thus protect the sown and growing crops from the birds, so that goats and sheep will have fodder over the winter. It only happens away from the settlements, out on the hillsides, so no-one is in danger, but don’t be surprised if you hear shotguns in the distance; no need to panic. (Unless you are a partridge.)

So, fair to say that, up here at least, we’re now in the busiest time of the season for returning visitors, and it’s great to see so many people meeting up and catching up, and relaxing back into their ‘Symi family’ way of life, at least for the time being. As for me, I have another couple of days of editing the next novel, ‘Journeyman Joe ’, which Neil has just finished reading and story-checking for me, and that is going off to be proofread next week. In the meantime, we’re starting on our fourth week without a hot water tank, with no news on its replacement, and the air is definitely getting colder. For now.