Passport, the dreaded Brexit and the cat

First, a quick walk on Monday morning. From the village square, through the village and down to the road, along and up a bit and then turning off to the Pedi Valley, down the right-hand side, across the old riverbed and on to Pedi, along the bay a little and back up the road, a quick stop off at the supermarket and back to the square. One hour thirty, just over three miles, or, for me, around 7,000 steps. Pleasant weather, lots to plant life, not too many butterflies yet, plenty of sheep, goats, lambs and kids, people working on their plots of land, and the sea to look at half way through the walk. Very nice thank you.

We were putting up ‘celebration lights’ in the courtyard the other day. These are what were once called ‘fairy lights’ (and still are in my vocab), but presumably certain online traders have changed the title to an all-encompassing, non-threatening, non-judgemental, everyone friendly term so as not to offend anyone who is terribly ‘PC’ and might object to the word ‘fairy.’ We don’t want to upset Tinkerbell or anything, do we? Anyway, we were putting up a string before the vine grows back so that when it does it, the lights will twinkle (‘flicker’, in case we upset anyone else) through the leaves. Neil was up a ladder, and I was holding it. I looked up and there, right above him, was some kind of large eagle surrounded by swallows. I think it was a short-toed eagle, like the one we saw the other day. Rather fabulous, I thought. I couldn’t rush to get my camera for fear of knocking Tinkerbell of his perch, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

And on into the week. A few things planned for today (Tuesday) including sending off my passport for renewal. This will leave me without one until the new one comes back, or gets rejected for some obtuse reason, but I should be okay. In case you were wondering, a UK passport renewal costs £103.00 (roughly) including the return postage, you need to fill the form in online, then print off the declaration and sign it, supply two photos (no need to be signed) and your existing passport, plus proof of address. Always a funny one that, for us on Symi. I have a letter from a UK local authority (that is within a year old), but I had to print it myself from an email as the authority are reluctant to send out printed matter. I queried this with the HM Passport Office, and they said it should be fine – that’s where I can see there being a problem if there are any at all. It was a very easy process.

I was distracted by a link I found on the site to where I could read the UK government’s proposals for the Brexit future or something. It was titled along the lines of ‘The Rose-Tinted Vision for Post-Brexit UK’ and had lovely photos of a happy, smiling PM and her minions reading this and cheerily signing away that, with subtitles such as, ‘The Way Forward (turn the clocks back)’, ‘A Stronger Britain (without Scotland, trade, essential workers, etc.), and ‘What Brexit Means for You (costly imports, racist bashings depending on your colour, loss of your freedoms and rights, bleak future for your children’, and all that – in the end I couldn’t bring myself to read it due to the intelligence numbing rhetoric, deciding instead to come back to it when I felt a bit stronger. The day I was doing it (yesterday) was the anniversary of my father’s death and, although I am fine with that now after 20 years, I know he will be hammering his Mayor’s gavel in a furious response to what his country is doing to itself. I’ll read it another day.

But the day was also Jack’s 14^th birthday, and thank you for his birthday wishes. I have relayed them to him. He just stared at me and wanted feeding as usual. Apart from the fact he is deaf, he is also Greek, I was speaking in English and, after all, he’s a cat. But he had a better day than the day before when his ear was bleeding over the Turkish rug and other parts of the house. He’s ‘dry’ in the ears now, but a bit piebald with dried blood, bless him. It comes and goes and he’s gone to celebrate his birthday up on his favourite roof, in the sun. And I am off to ramble on about something else elsewhere.

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Saturday in Yialos

Although Saturday was sunny, the wind was from the North-West and chilly, so I found myself heading out in a thermal top, a shirt and a hoodie over it all. We had a few things to attend to ‘downtown’, and set off in the late morning after feeding the stray cats up the lane.

As usual, there were a few stop-offs on the way, to say good morning to people at the café, to pop into the Olive Tree to see how the painting is going (very well; it will be open after Easter), and then on down to the big city. There had been some light rain overnight and recently painted and cleaned café tables were spotted with disturbed dust. Many places are now fully open while others are finishing off their preparations. The Trata taverna was open, only a few days ago the building was still under renovation, and parts of it still are, but work has paused now, and the tables and chairs are all out, ready for customers. We walked up to the banks to find the rent money, passing Takis at his leather shop, the new souvenir shop next to it, Nikos’ souvenir shop and the other cafes. Los, the ‘art yacht club’ was being done up ready to be open very soon. The harbour is quickly coming back to summer season life after the winter.

A walk around to the garden centre to look at plants and other things we might need for our courtyard, a wander around the square, more hellos and how are yous, and off to Taxas for some supplies we can only get from there, and then to Pacho’s to catch up with friends. A group of children passed by, taking part in a parading of the icon for the day of Lazarus. This reminded me that few days before we had heard and seen the scout group passing our house, brooms and bags in hand, singing as they headed off up into the village to clean up some lanes. Great to see this kind of thing going on. Later, on Saturday, there was lunch at Meraklis where we chatted to some visiting Belgians and where many locals and day-trippers had stopped for lunch. The Dodekanisos catamaran had come in for the day, staying in the harbour and bringing some day visitors with it, so there were a few tourists about. To Spitiko opened its doors and later, when we passed, was nearly full; good to see.

Back in the village with our shopping, we were met by our godson who was out to play. He sat with us for an ice cream while Neil gave Yiannis an hour off to go home and freshen up. Great isn’t it, that you can be left looking after a business while the boss heads home. Mind you, Neil does work there now, and I did for nearly ten years. This gave us a pause in the day to sit and wonder when the cold wind would die down – it was colder up in the village than it had been in Yialos – and finally we wandered home, still full from a very reasonable lunch.  Jack was waiting for us, keen to get onto someone’s lap.

And talking of Jack, it’s his birthday today, and he is now 14 years old. That’s not a bad run for a Symi cat, born of a rescue cat in our first house. Who’d have thought we would still have him after 14 years? He’s getting on, but still mobile and mostly lucid. He has his eccentricities, and now he has his bad ears and nose, but otherwise, last time he had a check-up (November) he was all fine and dandy internally. So, happy birthday to the Alarm Cat and now I will let you get on with the rest of your day and the rest of Great Week and the lead-up to Easter.

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A few observations from the weekend

Neil was covering the bar all day on Friday, and so I spent a couple of hours there in the afternoon. (No camera on me, so today’s photos are actually from Saturday.) So much was going on in the one short lane opposite my table that I was kept well entertained. Neighbour #2 had washed her courtyard, and the run-off had been swept out onto the street through the hole beneath the doors. Many courtyard entrances have these small holes bored through the stonework to allow water to escape. In this case, there was a stream of it heading down the lane towards the top of the steps. A sparrow took advantage of this and had a quick bath between the pairs of passing feet.

Neighbour #1 came out of her house and put a small blue plastic bag on her outside sink. No doubt there was something interesting in this rubbish bag as it attracted the attention of a passing cat. When Neighbour #1 was back inside her house, the cat sneaked up onto the stone sink and grabbed the bag in its teeth. It dragged it down to the lane and then began creeping up off the lane as if it was taking its shopping home. It ran into trouble when it found three children playing at the end, outside Neighbour #4’s house. It was forced to abandon its prize and head for home empty-mouthed, and the children’s grandmother came out to see what this blue bag was that had appeared on her doorstep. She later removed it, presumably to the bins.

A while later, while I was turning on the television for some of the children who wanted to take a rest from their games by watching Sponge Bob Surrealist Pants (or whatever it’s called), Neil was called to the house of Neighbour #1 to assist with a broken chair incident. This left its owner on the floor, the back two legs of the plastic chair having given up the struggle for life after several years in the sun. He managed to get the elderly neighbour to his feet, no harm done, and return to work. No sooner was he back inside dealing with a customer than Neighbour #1 was at the bar offering to buy him a drink for his pains. No need, Neil explained, just doing his neighbourly duty.

Friday afternoon drifted into evening and, when Yiannis returned at nine, we went to the taverna for dinner. Georgio’s has been redecorated inside and out and is now bright and fresh with white and blue paint. The photos that have lined the walls for so many years have gone, replaced by clean walls and smart paintings, with only a few images of the family now framed and placed there. The old photos, fascinating though they were, had seen better days. I reckon some had been there for at least 20 years, probably much longer. Some were nearly white with faded age, while some were peeling, some splashed with the spills of one retsina too many, and the display had become something of a fascinating eyesore. The ambience and food were still as friendly and tasty as ever, though, but no longer can you lean across fellow diners to see if there is still that photo of you taken in the 1980s when your hair was unbelievably as big as your spectacles. Time moves on.

Time moves on, and things change. Many return visitors will find a few changes in the village this year; a few closures. Taverna Zoi and Georgio’s taverna will, as far as I heard and understood, be the two places to eat dinner in the village this year. The Olive Tree is ready to go, serving breakfasts and lunch until three in the afternoon every day; the Sunrise Kafeneion has been open all winter, ditto the Secret Garden where Friday night is blues and western music night and Mondays will be Greek music nights – I assume. Georgio’s will also have live music on certain nights of the week. Lefteris’ Kafeneion has new outside lights on a dimmer switch and has been painted up. The new pie shop, bakeries, supermarkets, herb shop and others are all open and waiting for you.

That was Friday, Saturday brought a visit to the harbour, and that’s a story for tomorrow.

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Friday Saturday Symi Photos

Here are some Friday photos for you this Saturday. Jack, the Alarm Cat, is still going strong but becoming grumpier by the day. He popped out on Thursday night, as Neil was being interviewed at the gate by someone looking for our landlord, but he came back again – three times. Friday, he was watching the collection of cats down below, from the balcony, and seemed to want to go and join them. The trouble is, he’s done this at around this time of year for the last two years and both times we’ve had to go and collect him from the old house. He can go if he wants, but it’s a pain to bring him back. Anyway, he’s otherwise quite happy, bleeding every now and then when he scratches his ears off. We are planning to redecorate the worst affected parts of the house soon as they do rather look like a scene from the Texas Chainsaw Mascara.

Anyway, before the rest of the photos here’s a little tale that lets you know something. It’s a case of, ‘You know you are in Greece when…’ In this case, the story goes: While having our annual health MOTs done in Rhodes, Neil saw his lung doctor. She’s a very clever lady who looks after his asthma (now totally under control) and allergies. She gives him these prescriptions to last him six months at a time. We brought all that back with us and me, being the head administrator, put them in the medical files for when they were needed. Later, he took them to the pharmacy but was unable to use them because I had hole-punched them for filing. You can’t fold, hole, screw up or in any way damage your prescriptions here otherwise they will be rejected. Not so much by the pharmacists but by whoever then processes them at the IKA office. So, try and keep them as pristine as possible. Anyway, he rang Sophia (the doctor) and told her, and she said she would post him new ones. These arrived (and here’s where you know you are in Greece) with a Kalo Paska! card wishing him a happy Easter. I don’t think I’ve ever known a doctor send a happy Easter card before.

And so, the photos. These are quick grabs from the balcony on Friday morning when the Blue Star came in. Have a great weekend!

Oh, and ps. I did mean to write Mascara instead of Massacre.

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Fancy a week on Symi over Easter?

Easter is nearly upon us. The bangs have started – the firecrackers that are thrown to ward off evil spirits. The church bells have been ringing, the devout have been following the fast, and the plants have shot up after recent rains to welcome Great Week, Holy Week, which starts on Monday.

It’s not too late to be here. I had a quick look around for cheap holiday deals to Symi currently being advertised. It used to be a case of going to a travel agent and looking through a brochure, waiting for calls to be made and then having to decide on where to stay based on a few images and a write-up. Now, of course, you are inundated with websites advertising ‘cheap Symi holidays’, and it’s a case of not knowing where to start. I did a quick Google search and found the usual suspects, Booking.com, Expedia, Monarch and Olympic (and a post from Adriana’s blog coming up fifth in a global search, well done!). Thea Apartments came in seventh and a post from me came it at number eight – this was while searching for ‘Symi Easter holiday deals’, I must have once written something of note about the subject. I just had a look and it was a post from last April, talking about Easter and a visit to To Spitiko (which opens for the summer this Saturday, by the way).

Anyway, I ran two searches, one through Monarch and one through Olympic Holidays. Both were looking at London to Symi next Wednesday for seven nights. Monarch bummed out with no results found – a case of a business grabbing search engines rather than actually offering what they’ve advertised, perhaps. But Olympic came up with nine options, many at around the same price and all great for a place to stay.

Irini Studios – Yialos, €381 pp

Taxiarchis – Horio, €384 pp

Sevasti – Horio, €386 pp

Anastasoula – Yialos, €386 pp

Anastasia – Horio, €388 pp

Pedi Beach Hotel – Pedi, €491 pp

Opera House – Yialos, €497 pp

Nireus Hotel – Yialos, €508 pp

Iapetos Village – Yialos, €608 pp

These were package holidays with transfers included. These can cost you quite a bit if coming on your own – bus or taxi to boat, boat tickets, taxi up to Horio etc.

That was only one quick look around the package holidays on offer, and I did look at other sites that, like Monarch, offered a promising search engine result but no actual holiday – so they wasted my time. There are others, and it’s perfectly easy to arrange things yourself or get advice from the likes of The Symi Visitor or Kalodoukas Holidays (just search for them online and you’ll get straight there).

Well, that passed a couple of minutes, and I thought it was worth sharing. It’s the weekend and not too late to book a quick trip across to Symi. The boats are running, there’s a 15:00 Blue Star from Rhodes on Wednesdays now so if you can get a flight to land you on Rhodes no later than 13.30, you should be able to make that with no hassle. Go for it. I dare you.

 

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