Tooth Out, Head Off, Man Up

Here are a few things that we were up to over the weekend, and some photos from Friday. That was the day I had to go and see one of our wonderful dentists because an old tooth at the back has been playing up and I didn’t want it to turn nasty when we are away. I saw Vasilis who remembered the work he’d done on it last year when he did a temporary fix, as the tooth had a crack in it. Temporary lasted for over a year, so that wasn’t bad, but on Friday the only thing that could be done was to whip it out. I have to say, that was done without any pain at all after it was numbed, and although it was a bit of a tug-of-war, it came out in one piece.

I did feel a bit ‘knocked sideways’, as you do, but when the anaesthetic wore off, there was hardly any ache or uncomfortableness, so a good piece of work and, as usual, it was a very good price.

On the way down to Yialos, we passed one of the school classes having their photo taken on the Kali Strata…

In Yialos itself, there were a lot of deliveries being unloaded and sorted in the town square and many businesses were preparing for the summer. I’d been told by the deputy mayor (the dentist) about the visit by the parliamentary leader of the position the other day and the clean-up work that has been done after last November’s storm/flood. There is still work to do, and some of it is being hampered by lack of access. Moving massive boulders from watercourses without heavy lifting machinery (as it can’t reach the areas) is no easy task. (My words.)

It was a bright and sunny day, and I was tempted to sit outside a café, but not after having a tooth pulled out. Home for a rest and a snooze, followed in the evening by a lovely dinner up at Villa Jeanette (thank you Miss DJ). The theme continued on Saturday with another wonderful dinner at Holty Towers (thank you A & M & A), and today – Sunday – we’re off to the godboys’ house for lunch, but that comes at a price…

The price, in this case, being the transportation of one’s dinner from Olive Tree freezer to upper Horio. Neil dealt with that (it’s a standard Symi thing, wandering the lanes with a dead lamb in a blue plastic bag). Up at Mamma’s Kitchen, he helped with the surgical process needed to fit the thing in the oven. In this case, it entailed sawing off the head with a bread knife and hacking off the ‘happy sacks’ with a carving knife before chasing his eldest godson around the sitting room with one of them. Don’t know why godson was so outraged, it was only a few years ago the two of them ate the same things after frying them up.

And so Sunday is here, and I am at the desk adjusting to the view. I gave the office a good tidy up and spring clean on Saturday. We took the defunct piano apart and tried to get it into the mousandra (we’re keeping it in case a fix is forthcoming in May), but it weighs a tonne, so it’s ended up in the spare bathroom, which acts as a storage area in the winter. It’s passing has given me more room and so I had a re-organise. I haven’t turned the desk to face the window before because it means having my back to the door – uncomfortable – but I might get used to it. If not, I’ll turn it around, or maybe move it away from the window and sit with my back to the view; I can always turn and look out. Will see. And that’s where we are.

This will be the last week of blogging before a two-week break, and I will try and make it an entertaining one. Well, you never know, stranger things have happened.

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Symi Wedding Photos

I thought for today’s ‘Symi Saturday Photos’ we’d have ‘Symi Wedding Photos’ because I know that readers like to see images of people and I don’t very often take them. I didn’t take these. They are from the collection taken on our CP day last September on Symi, and I realised, when scanning my old folders, that I may not have put these up before, and some people in them might want to see them. (If you don’t want yours here, let me know, and I’ll take it down.) So, as you head into your Saturday, and I head off to start thinking about possibly packing ready for our trip in a week’s time, I’ll leave you with some faces from our Symi wedding party.

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How To Get To The Symi Museum

Here’s another short walk for you, how to get to the Symi museum. It should say ‘Folklore Museum’ as there is also a Nautical Museum in Yialos, so the one we’re talking about here is in Horio.

First of all, get to Horio. Bus or taxi from the harbour, walk up the Kali Start or one of the various others ways to reach Syllogos Square, the main village square, where you also find The Olive Tree, Georgio’s, Rainbow and Lefteris kafeneion, and other bars and shops in the area. You can also walk up from Pedi or take the bus. ‘I don’t care how you get here, just get here if you can,’ as the song says. Once here (or there if you’re not here as you read this like I am as I write it), you can check directions at any of the places I just mentioned. If you’ve noted these directions down, whip out your piece of paper of the back of an envelope, or whatever you’re noting this on, and then stand with your back to the sea.

Okay, so, I’m assuming you are at the top of the Kali Strata, let’s say, outside Georgio’s taverna, sweating lightly and looking forward to a steady climb to a higher altitude. With Yialos, Nimos and the sea behind you, keep walking past the square and what was Syllogos taverna (now slated to be a Chinese clothes shop, the last I heard) and keep walking. Past the Jean & Tonic bar, the butcher, grocers, toy shop, bakers (not necessarily in that order) and you get to Zoi’s taverna, which is where you can start from if you’re coming up from Pedi or bus. Carry on towards the mountain, past Zoi’s and the ‘American’ supermarket, and keep going… Past the junior school until you reach a point where you have to turn left and down, or right and up through an arch. Go up there (right under the arch) and take the first left.

You’ve now on a cobbled lane and heading into the depths of the village. Keep going in a vaguely straight line until you can’t go any further without turning left and downhill again (don’t do that) or right. Turn right and up a slope and then take the next left. Now you’re on the correct path, and as long as you don’t wander from it, though it does meander and do a dogleg or two, you will finally come to another kind of crossroads. A lane on your left (look out for house number 15b down an ally on your left – still never found 15a), and a very narrow lane on the right, only wide enough for one person as long as you’re not wearing American Football shoulder pads. Don’t take either of those but take the steps that are across and slightly to the right of that last junction. Up those steps and you’re walking past the wall of the museum on your left. At the top, you will come to the museum entrance.

From then on, it’s up to you. It’s recently been renovated though I am not sure if it’s all ready and open. When I went, two or there years ago, the main part was open, and the curator took us on a guided tour of the other buildings, still, then, being done up. We also saw the old Sala, the mansion house, which is now part of the museum and, assuming it’s open, well worth seeing. By the way, if you are doing this on a Monday or after 14.00 on other days, the museum will be closed. Last I heard, when it’s open, it’s open from 08.00 to 14.00 each day apart from Monday, as long as there is someone there to open it.

Hope that’s been helpful. If it sounds baffling, it’s actually this: Village square, towards the mountain, straight on, right, left, right left, up, found it. The images today might not exactly go with the walk, but they are all from Horio, the village.

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Random Photos from Symi This Year

Today, I thought just a few of Neil’s photos from recent walks might do the trick. The last couple of posts have been longer than usual, so here’s a slow-down event. Views of Yialos, Pedi, the village and at church, blessing the bread.

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Symi Wind

The wind we had on Symi on Monday didn’t start off on Symi. It started off somewhere south and judging from the state of the courtyard and roof, it started off in the Sahara or other desert down that way. We had a fall of what’s known locally as red rain. The rain brings with it the dust from the upper atmosphere (or something), and that dust starts off in North Africa as a desert. So, yesterday, I was able to go to the beach without leaving the courtyard. I’ve put a few shots up today so you can see what I’m talking about, but it looks darker in real life.

Along with the wind came a ‘Dyatlov Pass Incident’ kind of sound effect. What on earth is he talking about? You may well ask. Well, fifty-nine years ago last month, a group of experienced (and mainly qualified) Russian mountaineers set off to train in the area of the Dyatlov Pass (named after the group leader) in the northern Ural Mountains. On the night of February 1^st / 2^nd, something strange took place, and all the hikers were later found dead under very mysterious circumstances. They’d fled their tent half-dressed and were later found dead in all kinds of strange places and positions. There was specialisation that this was due to aliens, the military, group hysteria, drugs, a yeti, you name it. But…

One of the theories put forward in a book I read, ‘Dead Mountain’, suggests that it was a natural meteorological phenomenon that caused group panic and led to the students running barefoot and half-dressed into the snow and freezing wind. I can’t remember all the details, and they are very technical, but as I remember it, when the wind blows in a certain way it causes a very low vibration in the atmosphere that not only sounds creepy (although the main effects of it comes from sub-audible waves, if that’s the right expression) but that also causes nausea and severe brain function disruption. Just to add to my list of rarely used words, this phenomenon is called Infrasonic Intrusion, and that’s what it sounded like we had going on at our house on Monday night. Every time a strong gust came past, something upstairs and outside rattled with a low vibration that had us glancing across the room at each other. I had an idea what it was…

So, on Tuesday morning, I popped up to the roof to take a look, and a couple of photos as you will see, and I found the cause of this strange noise, which we had noticed before. On the roof of the ‘tower’ above the kitchen, our landlord has stored two totally unusable, rusty 1960s sun-bed frames that are, like many other things around here, tied down with electrical cable. What he intends to do with them is anyone’s guess, but he does like to collect useful things like un-useful old sunbeds. They had come away from their moorings and instead of being neatly shoved into the cover, were halfway across the roof. I reckon that each time a gust came, they vibrated across the flat roof producing the eerie sound that vibrated through the house below. I’ve not retied them with handy pieces of wire and flex and will wait and see if that has solved the problem next time we have such a Symi wind blowing this way again.

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