I’ve heard a few people recently commenting on how colourful the island is at the moment, plant-wise, that is. It’s probably because we had a fair amount of rain, and it’s not yet been too hot. Because Easter was early, it feels like we should be in full season swing by now, and you have to remember it’s only May, where it feels like June. Except, the weather has remained reasonable, cloudy, windy, sunny, and a bit of everything and hasn’t yet settled into 30°+ every day. Yet. Anyway, I thought, as I was clearing my head of random thoughts and putting them on paper, I would put up some pictures showing a couple of the colours you can see right now. They will all soon be gone, I am sure, and we’ll be back to burnt earth browns.

How things change, yet remain the same. (I couldn’t be bothered to look up the quote.) In ‘the old days’ people used to have to clock into work; punch a card to show arrival and departure times. Well, the Greek government have now brought that back, so yesterday, Neil and Yiannis had a demonstration on how to use the tablet and phone technique of clicking in and out of work. All very well if your job is nine to five, five days a week, not so handy if you work in, say, hospitality as a private concern with arrivals and departures at all hours. Or if you are employed to clean properties after guests have left, because your start and stop times will vary. I’m not sure how that is going to work.

What this modern technology has done, though, is make it easier for me to pay the phone/internet bill. It came in yesterday to the phone, so I went to the app, checked the amount was correct, and paid, all while sitting outside the bar. In ‘the old days’, paying the bill would have entailed walking down to the harbour in the hope the office was open, only to find it closed, sitting around for a couple of hours because the whisper was, ‘He’s just popped out on a job’, having lunch, finding he was still ‘popped out’, having afternoon tea, and walking home again with the bill unpaid. Now, you can even pay your bills while you’re sitting on the loo. (Checks spelling. Fine.)

And so, to work. I am in the middle of a complicated scene which would work so much more easily on a screen, though it would have to be a screen split is several ways to show four different things happening all at once. Not so easy to do in a book, but it’s fun working it all out.

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Windy, cloudy, sunny, a bit of everything apart from rain over the weekend, and this morning looks to be the same; grey, windy on this side of the hill and with a slight chill. That’s the weather. As for whether the wethered wether will weather this weather, well, that’s a different story. (Isn’t the language wonderful when you can make the same sound mean three of four different things by changing the spelling slightly, or not at all?) Anyway…

What kind of a weekend did I have? I had a sleepless Saturday night for no sensible reason. It was muggy and although I was tried, as soon as I went to bed, my mind woke up. I sat up reading until well gone three, and not even the memoirs of a policeman who was on the London beat in 1888 could send me off. Part of it might have been to do with the knowledge that our landlord was coming to see the house the next day, and we didn’t know what to expect. He came with his son, and lovely people they are too, but it reinforces that fact that we only have this lease until October, and after that… Who knows? Things might change before that, possibly, because the house is for sale, and I am pretty sure, now he has seen the place, he will want to change arrangements come October. This means, we are starting to think about a move, but where to and whether we will find anything are other matters. Whether we shall weather the what ifs whether things change or not… Don’t get me started on that again.

Apart from that and some writing, watching some snooker and doing some housework, we had a quiet weekend.

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I suppose yesterday’s highlight was seeing the fighter jets going overhead during the May 8th parade, the helicopters landing and taking off, and seeing a police motorbike on the island. At least, they were the highlights for our godson. For me, it was the story he told of seeing the cavalcade of officialdom in their posh cars headed by the head of the church, then the top brass from the military, and then came the island dignitaries, the consuls in their flash cars, a battered old Symi farm truck that needed to be somewhere else and didn’t care, more dignitaries and military braids… Well, it made me laugh. Typical Symi.

And nothing much to do with what I wanted to tell you next, which was to point you towards my BlueSky account in case you have also made the switch from the, to my mind, sinister looking X to the more inclusive and ‘not run by a Bond villain’, BlueSky. My profile is about my books, so it might be of interest to other authors among you. You can find me here.

And talking of books, I want also to point you in the direction of another collection of novels by indie authors. This collection concerns first in series books, those novels that start off an ongoing or related series that comes after. You can find that one here.

There’s also this one with far more on offer:

https://books.bookfunnel.com/mysthrillsus-may/2258rjb4jp

Now, back to the business in hand – the weekend ahead. We’re out for dinner tonight and then, I reckon, I am staying in to bash out the next book and watch some streaming Shakespeare, possibly I’ll go for a wander around the village to get some air, otherwise, I have no plans other than the usual. The skies are cloudy today, but that’s been the norm at the start of the days this week, and we are still under a Saharan dust cloud, as we often are. This means himself will be coughing, I will be sneezing, and I’ll have to dust the shelves for the second time in the last three years… Only joking, but if you do feel a bit bunged up or sneezy, it could well be the desert getting up your nose. I’ll leave you with one of Neil’s shots from the week, and a question. Why do we say ‘desert’ for an arid landscape etc., and ‘desert’ as in to leave, yet the pronunciation of ‘to desert’ is spelt the same was as ‘dessert’ as in pudding?

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It’s sunbed and day trip question season again on some social media, so let’s put the Q&A to (sun) bed. Yes, there are beaches on Symi, yes, they have sunbeds, no, they are not likely to be free. Do you have time to visit the beaches and ‘coves’ when on a day trip? That depends. What is there to do here on a day trip? Lots. For some ideas, see this page: https://symidream.com/symi-in-three-hours/

How long you have here depends on what boat you get across. If you want an all-day experience and have some spare cash, then take the Dodecanese Seaways as it sets off at 8.00 gets here at 8.50, returns at 16.30 (or just after 17.00 depending on the day), and gives you roughly seven hours here. Other boats are available. The Sebeco, for example, does Rhodes direct to Yialos (Symi main town), and there are several day-trip boats from Mandraki, but they only give you a few hours in Yialos after stopping en route.

I love it when someone writes into social media seeking ‘advise’ (ahem), and asks something like, ‘Is there a beach where we can go swimming?’ It’s at times like these that things become antisocial media. You get the diehard Symi-two-weeks-a-year regulars ignoring the question and answering with things like, ‘Why go swimming?’ like that’s helpful. Then you have those who have missed the point entirely: ‘A day is not long enough, stay for a week at So-kai-So Apartments’, again missing the point that the enquirer only has a day. Then, you have the helpfuls who set out a complete itinerary starting from where and when you get off the boat, how to catch a bus to the village, which café to stop in for your coffee, how long it will take you to walk down the steps and you must make sure you visit edo, eki and pantou (here, there and everywhere) along the way. Things get even hotter under the virtual collar when someone dares ask, ‘Are there any hotels with pools?’ The answer is either yes or no. The answer shouldn’t be a diatribe about why that person wants a pool, how the Aegean is on your doorstep, and how this isn’t Benidorm. My answer to many such queries is rather unhelpful, so I keep it to myself. Apart from this once: Do your own research. I spend hours researching for my books and I learn while doing so. It’s much more rewarding than simply asking someone (which is, admittedly, also research, but…).

Anyway, that’s something to contemplate while you decide whether you want to pay €7.50, €10.00 or even more for one sunbed for a few hours, or whether you just want to spread out a towel and lie on a beach like we did in the black and white days.

(Today’s photos are from Neil.)

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