Random Symi Cafe Shots
A few shots of cafes at random today as I am rushing a bit and don’t have time for many words.
Random Symi Cafe Shots
Welcome To August
Welcome To August
Kalo Mina! Happy month, and welcome to August on Symi. We managed an early morning walk on Monday, up along the main road out of the village to the old cantina on the hill. It was one mile, uphill all the way, and 2,000 steps, for those who use a Fitbit. We came back through the village, making 4,000 steps in total. That’s walking steps, not steps you actually walk up or down. In fact, from the village square to the cantina, there are no steps if you go via the road.
Last week, I managed a walk to Pedi, one to Yialos and back up the road and then another walk to and from Pedi later in the week. It’s a bit like bolting the stable door after the horse has given up all hope, but at least it’s something and, I am pleased to say, I managed them all without being out of breath. It’s a lot cooler at that time of day, setting off at six in the morning, but the sun is now rising over the Turkish hills at about 6.15, so to avoid even the slightest glare, we should really set off at 5.30.
The Symi Shrimp Festival was held on Sunday evening, with free shrimps, wine and bread, plus music and dancing. I have to put my hands up and say I wasn’t there. I was in bed before it started, but judging from the aftermath in the square on Monday morning, it was well attended and well enjoyed. The square had been half cleared during the night, with only a few things left to do, and they would have been done on Monday morning. I didn’t hear a thing, what with ear plugs in and the fan on. Usually, we sit on the balcony and can hear the music, we can even listen to the music from Georgio’s from there when they play live on the weekends. It makes for an atmospheric underscore to an evening watching the boats in the harbour and the stars above. When the fish taverna in Yialos starts its parties, we hear that as well, complete with the very regular ‘Happy Birthday’ from Stevie Wonder, which does get a bit repetitive. But it’s good to hear people having fun, and the sound is not intrusive for us. Once I’m in the bedroom, I can’t hear a thing. We’re fortunate in that respect.
I’m also pleased to report that ‘Honestly‘ has been doing very well – the novella that’s now available on Amazon Kindle. I wonder who will be the first to review it? I am also pleased that ‘Symi 85600’ has also done well this last month. I’ve been working away on ‘Symi, Stuff & Nonsense’ which will be the fourth book about life on Symi – plus, I should point out, a lot of other travel tales and bits and pieces. So, if you’ve not started on the journey yet, you might like to get the other three in before number four comes out, hopefully in November. Symi 85600, Carry On up the Kali Strata and then Village View is the chronological order to read them in, and you can find them all on my author page.
And finally, Neil is preparing next year’s Symi calendar. It will soon be available on Lulu.com. We won’t have any copies here, it’s an online purchase only, so don’t go looking for it on Symi. But I’ll let you know when It’s ready.
Symi Film Festival
Symi Film Festival
Or, the Symi International Film Festival to give it its proper title. Here’s a quick update:
SIFF update Saturday Noon. There have been 37 films entered so far.
Five Feature films
Three long-short movies (over 20 mins)
The rest are shorts.
There have been 10 entries from Greece (nine of them short films), five from Iran, plus others from around Europe, Benin, Algeria and Kazakhstan. The next deadline for entries is 14th August with entry fees ranging from $2.50 US to $15.00, depending on conditions as set out on the web page. The final deadline for submissions is 24th, August, with fees from $5 to $20.
If you know any filmmakers who might be interested in submitting, the Film Freeway page is here. https://filmfreeway.com/festival/SymiInternationalFilmFestival And you can reach the Festival’s Facebook page here.
Today’s photos are from Pedi on Saturday evening when we went down to have supper with some friends there. (Thank you!) We walked down and back, there was quite a breeze blowing in the early evening which calmed later, making for a pleasant walk, though still a hot one. Sunday dawned bright and clear, and I heard the soldiers singing the national anthem as they raised the flag at eight in the morning. If you are on Symi on a Sunday morning and up and about in Yialos, you will be able to see them perform this ceremony as they do it every week. You will no doubt hear them too.
I have a week ahead with nothing yet in the diary until Sunday. Marvellous. I have a new writing project to start on, and another one to finish, both will take me the next couple of months, so I shall be pretty busy. I am also planning some long morning walks, but as I am always planning them, I shouldn’t hold your breath.
Site may be hacked – it’s not!
If you have Norton security on your computer, you may get a message about
If you have Norton security on your computer, you may get a message about symidream.com saying something about the site being hacked. It’s not. I’ve checked twice with the server folk who, unlike me, know what they are doing and they have found nothing wrong. They say:
“Unfortunately there is very little you, or we can do to remedy something like this. Sadly we have no control over what Norton flags as bad or potentially bad, so we don’t have a way to ask them to “remove it” from their results if that makes sense. I do not see anything out of the ordinary with the site, nor does my browser warn me of anything malicious when visiting that link or the site itself. I personally would not worry about it, but of course, I understand where your concern is coming from.”
Thank you to everyone who has reported it to me. Apparently, there is nothing to fear. There is a link somewhere on the ancient Symi Dream site that needs to come off as it leads to a ‘page not found’ error, and that’s all the problem is. Finding that link and removing it is, however, something of a task. I’ll see if I can do it. Meanwhile, we’ve not been hacked, and there is nothing malicious here.
Symi Saturday Photos
Symi Saturday Photos
A varied collection today as we head off into the weekend. A weekend with nothing planned, apart from dinner in Pedi on Saturday, which we are looking forward to immensely. If you’re short of something to do, have a read: Honestly – a Miss P novella. It’ll help you pass a couple of hours. Wink, wink. Meanwhile, here are some random shots of Symi. Have a good weekend.
Bits and pieces
Bits and pieces
I was just having a look at my Kindle sales report for the month to date, to see what was the best-selling title so far. That’s best-selling out of my own collection, you understand, none of my titles is in a real bestseller list, yet. I was very pleased to see that ‘The Saddling’ is top of my list. It is, strangely, followed by ‘Village View – a year on Symi’. I say strangely as the two books could not be further apart. Mind you, there has been a bit of a rush on ‘Symi 85600’ over in the print section, so perhaps people have enjoyed that and wanted more of Symi life in book form.
While all that was going on, I have managed to get ‘Honestly‘ up on Kindle now, and it’s only $0.99p to download. (I am not sure if I need to put the ‘p’ on the end of that price, but it is a Miss P novella, so it seems appropriate.) That went live yesterday, so I will be checking in to my account again soon to see if a) anyone has bought it, b) if anyone leaves a review (in time) and c) if it boosts sales of Remotely. The links to some of these novels/books can be found in the right column over there >> or you can head to my Amazon author page to see the full collection.
That’s book news, in other bits and pieces… We are experiencing cloud as I write this (Thursday morning) and the temperature has dropped a little. Apparently, this isn’t going to last very long, and we’re not expecting rain. I was going to take a walk today (yesterday) and take some more photos, but I spent most of the night awake with a thumping pain in my foot. This started on Wednesday after our stroll up the main road, and I assumed I had pulled a muscle or something. But today my foot had swollen up and the pain increased. I am now thinking it’s a mosquito bite in just the right place to cause the swelling and thus the pain. There’s nothing nasty going on down there, but it does mean I can’t walk very far or dance around, not that I do much of either. I’ve had a similar thing before so am not unduly worried, just annoyed that I am not as mobile as usual.
Anyway, that’s my update for today. I am off to Yialos later today (Friday, do keep up) to meet a friend from way back when. We’ve not seen each other since about 1980, so that should be interesting. A lunch is in order, a visit to the house perhaps and a good old catch-up will fill my day.
Click the image to download ‘Honetsly’ from Amazon
