Seen on Symi – and other things
Happy first of the month!

That moment when someone gets the timing just right. One of our godsons wanted to watch our copy of Pitch Perfect 2 and was half way through it when the things refused to play any more. We ordered him a copy for his name day (including Pitch Perfect 1) but it wasn’t going to arrive in time. We told him he had a present and it was on its way, and that was fine. Yesterday it arrived at the house and I opened the box from Amazon to check; yes, there it was. Ten minutes later the doorbell rang and his brother turned up out of the blue asking if they could borrow the film again. We said no, because it wasn’t working… but here, he can have his own copy on DVD. A very smiley face left the house in a hurry bearing good news and a double DVD to his brother.

If you haven’t seen the film, it has nothing to do with Greece but it has a lot to do with a capella singing. Here’s the Amazon description and link.

Double bill of musical teen comedies following the fortunes of an all-girl a cappella singing group. In ‘Pitch Perfect’ (2012), Anna Kendrick stars as Beca, a freshman who is persuaded to join The Bellas, her university’s all-female singing group. Raising their energy and expanding their repertoire, The Bellas have soon taken their music to a whole new level, culminating in a sing-off against their male counterparts in a campus-wide competition. In ‘Pitch Perfect 2’ (2015) The Barden Bellas enter an international singing competition that a group from the US have yet to win. Can they impress the judges enough to beat their competitors?

It’s worth a look, honestly and teens old and young (from 13 to 80 I would say) will enjoy it. Click here.

Neil’s birthday present also arrived, at least the first part did. The second part is a dinner at Mythos with some friends on his birthday next week. [Note: must remember to book table.] Meanwhile here are a few things I’ve seen going on on Symi in the past few days:

Day boats arriving | Pleasure yachts coming and going | Three clouds | Blue sky | Sunrises | The man from the grocer’s shop dancing in the street as someone played a Middle Eastern drum rhythm | Returning visitors | A couple of menus | A couple of gin & tonics | The Alarm Cat being very noisy all morning for no apparent reason and not settling down until after three breakfasts, six trips to the bowl and a good look around every corner of the house | The piano keyboard | Some coal tits | some serins | other assorted birds | The typewriter keys.

And along with these pieces of no news are a few photos from the other day. Can’t stay long today, it’s the afternoon (Wednesday) and I am back at the piano again shortly for another singing rehearsal (not me).

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Trumpet blowing
Brief news today and I don’t mean news about underwear. I mean I’ve not been out and about much (as usual) and have been busy at home, but still, I’ve got some good news to share with you, personal though it is.

I have the results of my scriptwriting course, the one I started in March with the South Africa Writer’s College. It was Adriana who suggested I try a course with them, they are good courses and because of the exchange rates, affordable. So, I went for the scriptwriting one out of interest more than anything else. I started off in March and had to work through 10 sections in six months, with notes to read, background books to read (luckily I had, out of interest, read most of them in the past) and then writing exercises to do. The last part of the course, which was marked separately and then added to the coursework marks on the other nine modules, was to write a script. You may remember me telling you this before. I did that and sent it off – a quirky comedy set on a Greek island, as I do. Yesterday I received the results and final course verdict. Along with some very helpful feedback on backstory and other things from an ‘Industry, independent adjudicator’ and my tutor, were some other fun feedback and notes, including:

“Your characters come so vividly to life, the humour is quirky, and unpredictable, you play with stereotypes but never in a lazy way, there’s so much to enjoy here.
You have a wonderful sense of humour and great observational abilities, and the combination of those shines through in this script.”

And my favourite part from Chris McEvoy, the independent adjudictor:

“Wow, this was fun to read – I really enjoyed it. It’s weird and quite original, and pretty funny too, and your characters, although all at least slightly insane, are well developed.”

So, having blowed me own trumpet I’ll pop off now and think about writing a TV sitcom. Oh, btw, the overall score was 87% out of 100%.

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Pedi valley walk/path
Sunday afternoon worked out nicely; a lunch in Yialos, a taxi upwards afterwards, some time at the bar and then music on the balcony. I had every intention of going to the concert in the square but was asleep by the time it happened, not due to the lunch I hasten to add.

Monday saw some cloud and slightly cooler temperatures; you can tell we’re heading into September. If feels like we had the hot August weather in July this year and now August is cooling off, but it may be a temporary glitch. It can still feel a bit humid and sticky though. The only trouble with it cooling down is that the flies and mosquitoes will be out in force before long. But you can’t let them put you off.

I don’t have much to report today, except to say that my new book, Remotely, is my best seller for the month, closely followed by Symi 85600 – the link is over there on the right if you’ve not seen it. And also to mention something about the Pedi valley – thank you to my ears to the ground reporters out and about in the village. There might be some confusion over the path through the Pedi valley now being fenced off. Apparently it isn’t, the rout has changed slightly though and it’s obvious where the path now goes; around a piece of now private land. You can start either at the top of the valley, or the bottom, and walk right the way through, walking around any fencing, of course, and following the obvious and oft used foot path. It’s a lovely rural walk that takes you behind the football stadium, through the groves, along the edge of the hillside and over some dried up river beds and finally out at your destination. It’s an easy walk, but wear sensible shoes as it’s a bit uneven in places. Enjoy!

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Some thoughts from the weekend
The weekend, of course, starts on a Friday around here and usually lasts until Thursday evening. If only! I did have to go to the bank on Friday and, due to the new work regime knocking out my time from six in the morning until lunchtime, the only time for these kind of things is in the afternoon, unless one of us manages to get through our chores early; sometimes we both manage that (or put things off) and we get the chance to go to Yialos together in which case there’s usually a call for a celebratory lunch. On Friday though I had to go down in the afternoon. I took the long zigzag path below Lemonitisa which, eventually and after being a bit rough under foot, comes out at the bottom of the Kali Strata by The Old Markets Hotel. I’ve not been that way for ages and it was a pleasant walk offering varied views of the harbour, some newly restored houses, some ruins and lots of chickens.

Once the business was seen to I decided to come back up along the main road. This is another very pleasant walk and easy enough, though the path is bumpy in places. You simply follow the road out of the harbour on the south side and climb the long slope upwards. It gets easier after the first stretch of road past Petalo. Mind you, I would rather be doing this in the early morning and not at three-thirty in August; by the time I reached the village I looked like I had been thrown in the sea and had to head home for a shower and change of costume. The whole walk only took me an hour or less, that’s from home and back up again.

On Saturday we attended the wine tasting up at a private party in the village, and that was a wonderful night. On the terrace, under the stars tasting various wines from Rhodes (and one from Symi which came in 2^nd out of all of them, bravo Chris!), chatting and catching up and having fun… all very pleasant and it didn’t, as I feared, wipe out my Sunday at all.

The odd thing about the weekend was booking a flight, or at least looking around for flights. I was looking for a one-way flight to the UK for Neil later in the year. Don’t worry, he is coming back, but we’re buying the tickets one at a time because of the, as yet, unfixed itinerary while he is there which will involve visiting Lincoln and parts of Scotland. I was aiming to get a direct flight to East Midlands airport, so needed to catch the end of the season charter flights. Well, I looked at all those CheapFlights and Expedia type sites that compare prices, found which airline was available and then went directly to that airline to check the tickets, only to find them slightly cheaper than advertised on the ‘cheap flights’ sites. It was the process that made me laugh:

Enter dates and details, fine. We have a flight for you for €200 (made up amount but not far wrong), would you like to take luggage? Yes please, €39.99 please. Hm, okay. Would you like a meal for €10.00? Are you kidding? No. Would you like priority boarding for €19.99? What’s the point, you’re not going to go without me. Would you like a seat? Say what? No, would you like a seat? I have a choice? In that case, no I’ll save a further $14.99 and stand. No, would you like to reserve a seat for €14.99? No, I’d like to reserve a seat for nothing please. You can’t do that. We can give you any old seat that’s hanging around but if you want to book a specific seat then it will cost you €14.99. Okay, then I’ll have that one there by the captain. You can’t do that. Then what about that one? That’s already booked. Oh for heaven’s sake… No, I’ll just sit where I’m put thank you. Fine, would you like… Sheesh! What now? Would you like insurance for €30.00? Against what? Not getting a seat? No, thank you I’m covered. And so it goes on: would you like to pre-pay for oxygen in case of emergency? Would you like to pre-book semi-breathable cabin air, use of the toilet, a cheery welcome form a stewardess, a glass of water, any other basic human right…? I’ll go and look at flights with Aegean instead, thank you.

And that was my weekend.

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Symi ferries, arrival circus
Just looking from the balcony on Friday morning… waiting to watch the Blue Star Paros come in… wondering what to do with the day… And I took a photo of the harbour on the long lens as there were quite a few people waiting for the boat. Don’t panic, not everyone was leaving the island. There is always a great assortment of folk waiting for the boats, particularly the Athens link on a Wednesday and Friday.

Friday is a good shopping day as you can get to Rhodes and back in one day and, in the evening, a lot of Jumbo bags can be seen coming off the boat with shopped-out shoppers. A lot of people waiting in the morning were probably heading over for shopping, to see doctors or other appointments, maybe to visit someone for a day, a relative on Rhodes, or to meet others from the airport. (It’s great here, if you want to see a medical specialist you can usually make an appointment for the next day – I’ve done it on the same day – and get a 45-minute appointment, or as along as it takes, for around €50.00. No waiting around, no queuing at the hospital though you can also do it that way and get seen for free, and you decide the time.)

Others waiting for the boat were waiting to collect goods as the trucks and supplies come off, having been sent down from Athens or islands along the way. They will be back for the Rhodes deliveries in the evening as well. That’s why there is often a little mayhem going on as lorries come off, passengers try and get on, the mopeds and cars come off, and others are running back and forward grabbing bags and boxes to put on their trucks to take to their stores and shops.

And then there will be those who are leaving after a holiday. The Blue Star, on Friday and Wednesday, arrives and leaves slightly later than the Panagia, which sets off at seven, so those who have a slightly later flight don’t have to be up at the crack of dawn, which is actually around 6.20 at the moment, and can saunter down a little latter all ready for a day of travel ahead. With the old ferry, the Diagoras, we used to be able to see it come around the headland, from the house, and then have plenty of time to wander down and around the harbour and get on. Not that we did, I was always there far too early. But the Paros is much faster and usually very punctual.

Other people down at the boat are the harbour authorities, the mooring men who work tirelessly all year around, particularly is the summer, the Port Police (ditto) making sure everyone is safe and keeping order. There are those seeing off friends and family and some, I understand, who just like to sit and watch the lively activity that always surrounds the back of the boats when they come in. It’s a good place to people watch and get ideas for characters if you are into that kind of thing.

Anyway, that’s what I was watching on Friday morning just after the sun came up and warmed the day. Now I am going to enjoy my weekend and have very little planed apart from a wine tasting on Saturday – oops! There goes Sunday.

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