Mildly alarming
I’m trying to find out exactly what it’s all about, and maybe someone will let me know, but it seems the police, or coastguard, or someone has set up an early warning system on Symi. I’m not sure what it’s meant to signify as I’ve not heard an announcement (maybe I missed one?) but we’ve now got this air raid siren thing which goes off every now and then. I heard it last week and assumed it was something to do with the coastguard boat that was out in the bay, but yesterday it went off around 11.00 and stayed ‘going off’ (i.e. on) for quite a while, and no sign of the boat. Then it went off again, and again.

There was no sign of imminent invasion, or anyone in trouble, in fact the bells carried on ringing, the guys unloading the van next door carried on chatting and the world seemed to go on as normal. I assume it was a test – but of what? Does this thing go off when someone has been spotted wearing socks with their sandals? Is it to warn the island that the tax inspectors are on their way? Maybe it’s to let everyone know that their coffee is ready. It could be anything, but I suspect it’s more important than any of those. As soon as I find out I’ll let you know, in the meantime, I don’t think there is any reason to be alarmed.

Actually, I’ve now been informed that it’s to do with the military, a drill of some sort – so all is well.

It reminded me of working on summer holiday camps back in the 1980s in Crowthorne, in Berkshire, a few miles distant from Broadmoor, the high security psychiatric hospital. We were working with children with epilepsy in a rather remote old house and grounds not far from the hospital through the woods. They would test the alarm every Monday morning at a certain time and we’d all know that’s what it was, so no panic. Not until the times when it went off at unexpected hours of the day and night. Then we had a Jack Bauer, 24, style protocol in place which basically meant locking everyone inside until the all clear went off. It happened with alarming regularity – but never actually amounted to anything more than a false alarm. Oh, apart from once, but even then we were all safe.

Anyhow. Today is a visit to the dentist day, some piano playing this afternoon and then all clear for the evening. Friday is a day around the island on the boat, the first (and probably last) of the year for us as we don’t often get the time off work. And then a weekend of not much at all is planned, so no news there then. I must away now and create a chicken pie for lunch, after clearing the courtyard of tamarisk shedding and dead leaves from the vine and, of course, seeing to the cat who is very grumpy today and already on his third, semi-ignored, breakfast. Ah, perhaps that’s what the new alarm system is! It signals Jack’s next feeding time and he is in cahoots with the authorities. Wouldn’t surprise me.

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End of season? Maybe not
I thought we were heading towards the end of the season and that things would be slowing down. Not so in Yialos with the day boats. They continue to come, bringing day trippers with them who fill certain restaurants and bars, shops and cafes for a few hours each day. If only they were not all wearing all-inclusive wrist bands so that they might actually have some idea of how to see the island and make up their own minds as to where to eat. There are some intrepid go-it-alones included no doubt and some who refuse to follow the herd, but it’s good that those who do have guides who give them a brief history of the island as they wander around trying to avoid buying things.

I don’t know what ‘actually staying on the island’ numbers are like at the moment, but I suspect that’s slowing down. I’ve had a lot of people giving compliments about the island this year, and about my blog and books (thank you all!) but I’ve also had a few moans and I can see where, in some cases, these are coming from. You might want to be aware that a couple of places are now charging more for sunbeds on their beach concessions. I think €3.00 or €3.50 per bed – though other places give them to you for free, or they return your payment if you eat at their taverna, which seems a lot fairer. But there are also some places now charging for the umbrellas – at €2.00 per throw, or rather, per put-up. That does seem a bit daft to me but I can also see why it’s being done.

Everyone is hard up in Greece these days, at least the hard working, summer business folk are with their 16 hour days (at least) and their huge tax hikes and insurance hikes, and pension cuts and extra taxes simply for having a business, for selling this or dealing in that, or simply for… well, anything really. And I guess some folk are thinking that if they up prices they will make more money to pay these things. Surely the better way to do it is to lower prices to attract more custom, where possible? If I had a beach bar with sunbeds, I’d give them away for free not fee (there’s a slogan for you) and certainly wouldn’t charge for the shade. Okay, so you have to buy them and replace them, so charge for the first year, save the replacement cash and then have them for free until they need renewing. That’d get more people to your bar or business, especially when words gets around.

Anyway, just my thoughts on local economy for the day as look out of my window and see the Panagia coming in full up, and the Sea Dreams boat already parked up and emptying its mass of visitors. The weather is set to be warm and fair for a few more weeks, with perhaps some rain briefly next week, and, so far, the season isn’t showing that many signs of slowing down.

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Photos from Yialos
Just a few photos today – I’m just back home after a lovely lunch in Yialos and need to sleep it off, so I’m not hanging around long, just long enough to say… Very busy in town today, even with only one boat in Nireus was packed, so were several other places, the harbour front was alive with people… and then two more boats came in; the usual day trip boats. Good to see things so busy.

This did not interfere with the domestic activities of certain felines. Have a good day.

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The trouble with the world today…
It’s turning out to be quite a hectic weekend and it’s only Sunday morning. We were down in Yialos on Saturday and it was heaving, as they say. Well, it was certainly very busy for October 1^st with three day boats in and a cruise ship back in again. We had lunch at Meraklis and it was just about full, George and Maria were scurrying about all over the place, working hard.

We also did some wandering around and shopping, as you’ll see from upcoming photos, had a coffee here and an ice cream there, it’s rather like being on holiday. In the evening we went to a memorial gathering at Tolis Taverna in Pedi where there was singing and dancing, poetry reading and speeches, a nice buffet and a good time had by all. We left at 11.30 and it was still going on – a bus had been provided for 12.30 but if I’d stayed that late I’d not have got up on Sunday morning, it was difficult enough as it was.

Sunday evening: we have an invite to drinks at Taxiarchis, next week we have guests coming on Tuesday, we may all be off on a boat trip on Friday as Neil has a very rare day off work, I have the dentist to look forward to on Thursday and… well, apart from that I think I’ll be on holiday for a while. It’s a lovely sunny Sunday out there, the sea is calm, the temperature was up to around 30 yesterday and it looks like it’s going to be the same again today.

One thing I did note just now online was a supermarket (not here but in the UK) selling peeled oranges in plastic tubs and labelling them ‘fresh produce.’ I mean… come on people – who needs to have an orange peeled and ready to go at a moment’s notice? And how can it be fresh if it’s been peeled and is sitting there in plastic on a shelf? And why waste that money, packaging and advertising on such a thing? And what about the environmental considerations of the plastic container when oranges come in a perfectly good (and edible if you like it) package of their own? Sheesh -I hope you never feel the need to buy an allegedly fresh orange just because someone has peeled it for you? ‘Ah yes, but there are people out there who can’t peel oranges,’ you cry! Well, take a look at the package, I reckon that’s just as hard to open as orange peel. Honestly, makes me laugh – kind of. No wonder the world is going to hell in a handbag. As Kander and Ebb wrote (well, Fred Ebb, as he did the words), ‘The trouble with the world today it seems to me, is coffee in a cardboard cup…’ Or peeled oranges for those too lazy to peel them themselves. Sheesh! Here’s a photo of some shoes:

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Please do not turn off Symi Dream, we are updating: 5%
A few photos today, taken while wandering around the village on my way to Taxiarchis Apartments. As you can see, a lovely sunny day. I carried a hoodie with me all day and all evening but didn’t need it at all. It was one of those feast days, lunch at the Olive Tree, dinner at Trata…

I would be writing more today, I was up early enough but someone up there in the cloud decided my laptop needed an update: ‘Please don’t turn off your computer, this could take some time, Windows will restart…’ Two hours later… The only thing that I can see is different is that they’ve unhelpfully changed the main menu to icons (simple enough to work out but… why?) and now all my programme icons on my task bar occasionally flash on and off as something sweeps through them. Firefox is taking longer than usual to do its stuff and… well, everything else looks the same.

So, that was a wonderful waste of two hours, hanging around and coming back every ten minutes to see if I had progressed from 5% updated. Actually it wasn’t a waste of time as it gave me an excuse to read some more of a friend’s short stories that are going for publication later this year. In a word, delicious (all revolving around a certain, small Greek island). I’ll tell you more when I am able to and when the book is published.

Meanwhile: Friday morning, the washing is on, we’re heading into Yialos later this morning for the post office (I think my ‘FitBit’ has arrived), a look at the shops and then lunch. There are no plans yet for this afternoon and evening so it could be a night in at home. That’ll be novel.

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