Olive, Feta & Ouzo (and some other news plus photos from last summer to warm us up)
I am just watching the Blue Star Diagoras coming in (sideways it looks like) on Wednesday morning. It’s calm and sunny out there and the boat is only a little bit late; a couple of hours. I think an afternoon walk might be in order, but that’s for later today. First, a piece of stunning news. The first (legal) civil union in Greece was conducted by Athens’ Mayor Giorgos Kaminis yesterday (Tuesday). You can see a fuller report here.

This means that, after posting this blog, I need to get back to ‘Shocking the donkeys’ the book I am working on that is all about a small island’s first civil ‘marriage.’ Equality within marriage is still not on the Greek statute books, but from today civil partnerships are legal, having been specifically outlawed as recently as 2008. Greece has come under fire for that piece of legislation, it seems to be coming under fire from all quarters recently, but a new law was passed a couple of weeks ago to ‘end a circle of embarrassment’ (Tsipras) that the country has been suffering. About time.

Meanwhile, going back a few days to when I posted links to a few blogs about living in Greece that I had found, here’s another one that you might like to add to your dream list and come back to regularly. Olive, Feta & Ouzo is a blog by Amanda Settle who lives on Rhodes. Amanda is also at the forefront of the refugee aid work in Rhodes, she gave us a guided tour of the facility when we there last November and she has been to Symi to meet with Solidarity Symi and share experiences. Her blog is a neat mix of personal observations and updates and general articles about living in Greece, being and Ex-pat and helping with refugees, among many other things. Click the link, take a look and I think you’ll love it. http://www.amandasettle.com/

And back to life on Symi. We were taken out to dinner last night (thank you Sue and Phil, a great time!) and we went to Georgio’s. Regular Symi visitors often ask what it’s like here in the winter and whether the tavernas are open. Georgio’s is one of the few that stays open through the year and we’re lucky that it’s only 30 seconds walk from home. Last night on the menu was fresh fish, as caught by Manolis who was on the next table, plus lamb chops in the oven (very nice) and the usual mezethes and salads. It’s warm in there, the atmosphere is fun even when it’s quiet as there is always a table of local chaps chatting and debating, and guests are made welcome at any time of the year.

Now, having posted this, I must email a man who may be designing book covers for me and then set about more Donkey work, before the usual daily routine of housework and cooking kick in. After that, perhaps a walk, and then the rest of the day will be given over to relaxing and enjoying life on Symi.

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Ela malaka! EU interior ministers please talk sense!
Some potentially bad and breathtakingly unfair news today, emerging from reports in Greek and other newspapers and on the broadcast news. Summed up by Greek Reporter as: “Europe is about to warn Greece that it has six weeks to stop migrants crossing from Turkey or it will be forced out of the Schengen zone for two years, says a London Times report.” I don’t think I am the only person who immediately sees the stupidity of this ruling, if indeed it is true. I am certainly not the only one to be outraged by it, though I am probably one of the few who doesn’t fully understand its political implications. I don’t go into all that, I simply look at the simple. And that ‘simple’ is: How?

Apart from anything else, apart from the fact that Greece is up to its meatballs in debt, its people are literally being crippled by pressures on services (hospital staff shortages, strikes etc.), apart from the pressure the government and country are already under to do the bidding of the EU, how on earth is anyone going to ‘secure the external borders’ when most of Greece’s border with Turkey looks like this:

It’s a bit ludicrous really when you think that Greece has 13,676 km of coastline and ranks 13th in the world in the table of longest coastline (2012). Not all of it is a border with Turkey of course, but a lot of what is, is simply made up of rocks and jagged rocks at that, and it’s all rather remote.

I wondered how the negotiations might go up at the EU headquarters when they sit down to talk to the Greeks about this issue.

EU: So, Greece, it’s now up to you to stop refugees and migrant workers, asylum seekers and immigrants coming through Turkey. If you don’t then we’ll take our Schengen toys away and then boot you out of the agreement that no country is supposed to be booted out of, or else the Union starts to fall apart. Okay?
GREECE: Ela malaka! I’ve not even finished my coffee yet.
EU: How are you going to pay for it?’
GREECE: I’ll put it on my tab as usual and consider paying for it later. Perhaps.
EU: No, the new border patrols, the boats, the communications, the medical supplies needed, the staff, the paperwork and the housing you will have to give to all the migrants (of various castes) who will start to fill up your nearly-third world country over the next two years. How are you going to stop migrant flow and pay for it?
GREECE. Pou na xeroume?
EU: Say what?
GREECE: Dunno.
EU: Well, it doesn’t matter. It’s your problem now, it’s your fault that you happen to border with Turkey at sea and a little on land, and it’s your fault that we are basically dumping this problem on your ancient doorstep. Deal with it.
GREECE: So, what do you suggest?
EU: We suggest that it’s not our problem. We’ll just block Greece off from the rest of Europe and expect you to deal with it. And, by the way, can we have our money back too?
GREECE: If you are going to be like that about it, we’ll just go back to the Drachma and invite others to do the same. Then we won’t owe you anything and we can keep the ‘donations’ you gave us to pay for the increase in population until the country descends into a riot and you have a border war to deal with. Sound okay with you?

And so it could go on. I can’t be the only one who thinks that this proposal, if it gets passed through whatever committees and groups it needs to be passed through, is at best unfair and at worst a annexing of a struggling country by more affluent countries and leaving it to struggle further. Apparently half a million displaced people arrived in Greece last year (according to the Express online) which represents around 4.5% of the 11m population of the country. Which means, in theory, that by the end of this year the country could have grown by 10% and that 10% is made up mainly of people fleeing a war Greece had nothing to do with. The country would then have to house, clothe and administer that extra one million. Unless it uses its “one of the biggest navies in Europe” (Austrian interior minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner) to repel borders at its coastal borders, the EU will do what it has been trying to stop happening and cut out one of its own union countries. That makes no sense either.

Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have something else to blog about. Something that doesn’t raise the blood pressure and make one want to bonk some safely removed and unaffected EU officials on their empty heads.

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Symi cold, windy, now calm…
I sound like the shipping forecast. Rising Dogger, Blight, westerly…

After yesterday’s long and winding ramble, I thought just a few photos today. I am actually in the middle of some Donkey work and thought, ‘I must get a blog ready for tomorrow.’ Then I realised I am running low on images, so apologies if these are all a bit samey these days.

I’ve not been out much, it’s a bit chilly. Over the weekend we had all the shutters shut against the wind – the wind which pulled the eye from my office shutter so I can’t now hook it back; the wood looks to be a bit rotten so I need to think of an alternative. I won’t use a rock as we do on other shutters as the soldier next door hangs his underwear and uniform out to dry directly under my window and we don’t any accidents. I feel a wedge coming on. (Nothing to do with the soldier’s underpants, I mean for holding the shutter back.)

The house is pretty dark without the shutters open and if I keep my office ones closed I don’t see any daylight, apart from that which leaks through the small kitchen window. There’s keeping warm and there’s enjoying the view, but the two things are not compatible when there is a north wind in January and it’s down to around five degrees (minus temperatures and ice are reported from the Pedi valley). But, I’ve been brave, I’ve had a shower first thing in the morning – no mean feat when the water pump decides not to work willy-nilly, as it has been doing of late – and I’ve spent today so far in thermals, five layers, gloves and hood. I may well finish this now and then go and camp out in the sitting room where yesterday we had both heaters running full tilt. The room was just about warm enough to take the blanket off my knees about half an hour before going to bed.

But, in other news: Symi had its ‘Vasilopita’ party on Sunday – the cutting of the new Year cake; that took place down at The Opera House function room. Georgio’s is still open and we’ve been saying for weeks that we must go there; we’ve not been since before Christmas. Every time we come up with the idea of going for dinner we then discover that we are holed up in the siting room and too warm to want to go out. One day soon! And while out and about, as I must be at some time or else I’ll go bonkers, I shall try and take some more interesting photos.

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You won’t believe what happens next. Pure genius!
Well, we’ve been having something of a chilly weekend with temperatures down to six degrees inside the house rising to a balmy 12 by the end of the day, all shutters closed and several layers on, plus blankets over knees. The wind has been a bit lively, reported at only force five but I reckon it was harder than that. It ripped the hook and eye from my office shutter so now it must be closed until I get it fixed, so I am without a view for a while. The living room shutters are also closed, with draft proofing around parts of them, the doors are shut and there is now a cover hanging in front of them which still blows out and into the sitting room right next to where I usually sit. I must see if I can find someone to make me a decent, heavy curtain – I shall explore the web later.

The rain did stop on Friday though so Saturday and Sunday were clear days, making things colder than they otherwise would have been I guess. We carried on with our weekend plans which were mainly shopping, feeding the stray cats, doing the housework and getting some writing done. But there were breaks for Roku watching. I’d ordered one of those things you plug into your TV so you can watch streaming TV from the net. I can’t ‘cast’ from tablet to TV with it but we can watch hours of American TV (OMG!) with lots of films and TV programmes, Netflix is on there (though it’s not regional, it’s American) as are loads of other channels and things like YouTube. You can even access your Facebook videos and pictures.

And talking of Facebook images and pictures, I am getting so fed up with some of the stuff that’s being not only put out there but accepted as acceptable. It’s like these ‘things’ are changing the way people communicate and not in a good way. I raise two examples which many people will feel are fine and won’t have a problem with, but which I think are stifling creativity (‘cos everyone is simply copying them). I don’t have a huge problem but these things are starting to taser my nerves each time I see them.

The first are those posts that try and lure you into another site so you will play a video clip, or flick through some photos and then click on an advert button and gain the site a few pennies. That’s not the problem for me as we do that, the £25.00 a year we generate from the advert clicks helps pay to keep the site going, that amount per day would help keep the whole island going, but that’s another story. The style of writing I am objecting to runs something like this:

You will see an innocuous photo but the screaming headline beside it is meant to draw you in and make you believe you are going to see something remarkable:

“She thought it was just an ordinary slide but then THIS happened!” (Woman slides down waterslide and ends up in a swimming pool. So What?’

“He thought he would never walk again, and then he did THIS!” (Man gets off his arse and goes for a walk.)

“He didn’t understand how it worked so she did this. The result is GENIUS.” (Man can’t work TV remote control, woman switches TV on manually.) That kind of thing.

I wanted to tell you about my number two pet hate, but you won’t believe what happened next. INCREDIBLE!

I hate all this ‘This is Bill’ though any name will do it seems. These ridiculous cartoons – that often say things that I totally agree with – are taking over. You may have seen them: “This is Bill. Bill knows it is annoying to post ‘This is Bill’ images on his wall. Bill still does it. Don’t be like Bill.” Or, “This is Bill.” (Yeah? So what?) “Bill doesn’t think it’s necessary to post photos of your food on Facebook. Bill knows they look like sick. Be like Bill. Don’t do it.”

That is so annoying! Being told what to do and think by a stick-man cartoon and someone trying to be flippant. One day these two crass witticisms (if that’s what they are, I can’t actually think of the word for them) will breed and we’ll get things like: “Bill just posted a photo on Facebook. GENIUS! Bill now thinks he is important but actually Bill’s a twit. You won’t guess what happened next. Be like Bill.” And they will make even less sense than they do now.

Thank you. Had my say, and now I am away, leaving you with these last words: “James is an old grouch when he sees unimaginative posts like these on Facebook. James will now ignore them and never post such things himself. James is smart. Be like James.”

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