I was going to write a blog post about why there is no plural of sheep, as it was a conversation we were having the other day. I did some research and started reading all about “The prehistoric plural *skǣpu normally lost its final vowel in Old English, so that nominative and accusative singular and plural became identical.” (OED) And ‘long stemmed nouns’ and ‘long vowels’ (ee in sheep) or short vowels followed by consonants (o in folk) and so on and, well, quite frankly, I lost the will to live. But it is all to do with mutations (like the X Men) and Germany, and where you put your tongue: “Goose comes from an ancient Germanic word that underwent a process called “mutation” or “umlaut”. When it was made plural, an /i/ or /j/ sound was added, causing the tongue to rise in preparation for making that sound, and changing the “oo” to “ee”…

Still awake? Well, if you want to know more than I suggest you ask the font of all knowledge Google and see what come up. But here are a few others (Terri) which might be useful to put in your knowledge base: Salmon, Moose, Fish (hmm), Deer, Cattle, Bison, Pike, Plankton and Squid and there are others that are not related to animals but, frankly, life is too short so here is a photo of Jack investigating some donations for Solidarity Symi and giving them his seal of approval.

Seals is the plural of seal by the way, just so you know. And here are other photos, for example the sunrise and cloud of Tuesday morning when I went up to hill a-wandering at 6.15. I was back before the actual sun-up over the mountain, but had a pleasant walk. I timed myself this time, as I had been meaning to do for a while, and found it was 25 minutes to the Kantina from the house, and then 15 minutes back down again at a reasonably fast pace. That’s not too bad for a bit of aerobic exercise before breakfast.

And then onwards through Tuesday and the cruise ship came in followed by the Panagia Skiadeni and the Sea Dreams Symi, so there were day-trippers and cruise-trippers on the island through the morning and into the afternoon. Not that I saw any from up on my perch where, after some work in the morning I relaxed with some story editing in the afternoon.

As you can see, a slow news day from the desk. But for anyone who doesn’t do the dreaded Facebook and who is on Symi, there’s a meeting of Solidary Symi on Wednesday at 14.00 at the Symi Visitor office and repeated again at the same time on Thursday to discuss winter plans, if you want to go along. That’s me, short post today as I need to go and read up on why there is no plural for rice. Or is there?

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Monday morning and Vasilis is here to check up on the water pump that has taken on a life of its own. Problem diagnosed (silt in a valve) and now being fixed.

I think I’ve sorted the small leak in the workhouse though. There looked to be a broken seal where the rain water collection pipe comes through the roof so I got the mastic gun out (yes, I own one! Well, Ian left it behind one day and I’ve owned it ever since) and ran some new sealant around the gap. Now we only have to wait for it to rain again and I can test it out. And yes, apparently it did rain on Saturday night but I was in bed by then and missed a good thunderstorm. So, that’s the thrilling news on that particular home improvement.

The contributions for blog posts are coming in, and thank you to everyone who has sent write-ups and pictures, post and even poems. I’ll get those all uploaded in good time for going away in November. There is still room for a few more if you want to send something in.

If you were wondering about the above photos are all about, they are ones we took on Saturday last while on the balcony at sunset. This could well have been the approaching storm that I somehow slept through. Neil has shown these off on his Facebook page and I believe one or two are for sale (contact him to enquire), it certainly was a stunning display of clouds. The rest of the weekend was pretty wonderful to with an extra hour in bed, sunny weather and an invite to a lovely dinner in upper Horio. Monday dawned fair but chilly and I had to wear long trousers and long sleeves while writing, for the first time in ages. It’s about now when it’s hard to know what to wear; feeing cold in the shade and still hot in the sun, so best to go out with a removable top and something underneath, you’re hot one moment and cold the next. It’s like having the menopause, or so I am told.

I’ll leave you with that and go see what the rest of my day holds in store – nothing is planned apart from paying a bill at the bank, and making something for lunch or dinner out of some chicken that’s defrosting in the fridge. Oh, and some work on the book, can’t forget that. It’s not all fun and play around here you know.

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Living on Symi could be a general category for blog posts and here we have some thoughts on Symi living in a Sunday morning blog and news roundup. First the weather check (looks out of window): calm, flat sea, cool (low 20s) but not cold, sunny out there, a few clouds around, a couple of showers expected later, week ahead set for sun, declining temperatures, but soft winds. Inside the house conditions: generally dry, bit of dusting needed, slight leak from rain pipe into the laundry room. Now then, this was a conundrum.

After the heavy rains of the other day we had water in the workhouse. I assumed it had blown in there from the porch as it was warm enough to have the doors open and the porch is open to the courtyard and when the wind is in the wrong direction it blows rain in. But the water persisted after being mopped up and even when it wasn’t raining, so I blamed the washing machine which is over 12 years old. But on Sunday morning I noticed that the water was back, not a lot of it but still a mystery as it hadn’t rained, the doors were shut and the washing machine was off. It turns out to be something to do with the free water supply. There’s a pipe that has been designed into the roofing system to drain the rain from the roof and let it flow into the sterna and there must be a problem with one of the joints, and it looks like it’s the one I can’t get to. So we will have to put up with it or else take the whole thing apart and rebuild it. Note: keep mop handy.

The other news of the weekend is that the landlord dropped by with the electricity bill. Remember I told you we thought we’d been paying the wrong one? Well, we had and now we have the right one, and it covers the whole time we’ve been here which is eight months now. Luckily it was not as much as I expected and was just about the amount I had saved, so that’s all well and good and the reading is now accurate and up to date. Your electricity bill in Greece doesn’t just cover the power you’ve used, there are other things on it too: the use of the transmission network, the rather vague ‘Services of General Interest’ (I have a general interest in the Universal horror films of the 1930s, is that covered, I wonder?) and “the special duty of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction, destined to the development of green energy.” (Sounds fine by me.)

Plus: “charges resulting from selling generation power from photovoltaic systems”, (no idea) and “charges for works carried out on the network.” (Can I see the order sheets and specs before agreeing to pay for the work please?)

Plus: Excise duty, and “ΕΙΔ. ΤΕΛΟΣ 5‰ (SPECIAL DUTY 5‰) (L.2093/92): The estimated mean charge from the Special Duty 5‰ is up to 0.5 ευρώ per 1.000 kWh. It is noted that the Special Duty 5‰ is calculated in the Bills based on actual reading” (I’m not going to argue with that, I wouldn’t know where to start.)

Plus: VAT. And (we’re not done yet) charges for third parties (Municipal fees, Municipal tax, Real Estate Tax). And if you were wondering how those local taxes are calculated it’s by taking the square meterage of the property, multiplying it by the MF or MT coefficient, multiplying that by the number of billing days and dividing the whole kit and caboodle by 365. Then you take away the number you first thought of, add your paternal grandfather’s year of birth and divide that by the ASS coefficient (plus 18% VAT) and write down the first number that comes into your head. Bingo!

So that’s the water leak analysed and the electricity bill up to date and everything ready for a new week ahead during which I shall be working on draft three of ‘Straight Swap’ which is coming along nicely. It’s great to have a print copy of it that I can red pen all the way through, so much easier to do than on the screen (where the red pen gets in the way of other programmes and messes up my Facebook). Having a proof copy printed via Lulu.com was cheaper than using up paper and ink on home printing 130,000 words, double spaced, and the time it took to arrive, about six weeks, gave me enough time away from the story to come back to it with a more distant eye. So, that’s my week planed, that and wondering how to fix the water leak.

Oh, and by the way, the 100% duvet tracking is now showing that the duvet has been delivered, which is news to me as I’ve not seen it. What they mean, when they wash their hands of the delivery by saying it’s been delivered, is that it is now with another courier and probably somewhere between Derbyshire and Rhodes.

Your Greek electricity bill explained in English can be found at this link, but I am not sure how up to date the info is (percentages and VAT amounts etc.) https://www.dei.gr/en/oikiakoi-pelates/o-logariasmos-sas/entupo-logariasmou

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What day is it today? Oh yes, Saturday. We should be off to the old post office to see what we can do to help the refugees who might be here, or to help the project generally if not. After that, we have a guest coming for drinks tonight and then we are off out for dinner. And on Sunday we have friends coming to see the house before we go and see theirs, a kind of hospitality exchange.

Symi is very quiet now. Some of the folk who stay here for the entire summer have headed home and there are few pert time residents and visitors remaining. There are only a few yachts in the harbour, but there are also some winter residents returning. Others, who live here all year round, have gone off on holiday or have gone to find winter work elsewhere and so the seasons are changing. You can tell that from the weather of course and the vine leaves that are falling on a daily basis.

It’s still grey and wet and we’re hoping we’re not going to see a repeat of last winter when were hardly got any walking in due to weather and work. (I still do my five mornings per week at the desk, and Neil is still working at the bar, but that surely must end soon.) And now with Saturday morning as our volunteer time it only leaves us a full day on a Sunday to do a long-long walk, or afternoons to do a four or five hour walk, weather permitting. That’s on top of the morning walks which are what today’s photos are all about – though these are from Thursday morning. I couldn’t go out yesterday as it was raining at 6.45 and on and off during the day.

For those that know Horio, Zoi’s taverna has closed for the winter as has the Windmill and the Olive Tree, Syllogos is still open but inside seating only, and Georgio’s is still open with outside still a possibility. Soon enough they will scale down to inside only. The bars are all still open and there is live music at the Secret Garden regularly and special events at The Sunrise from time to time, the cinema event on a Sunday at Mandeios is on-going and Rainbow has its multiplex two screen TV extravaganza for football, politics and Animal Planet on demand.

Through the winter there will be dance classes for children and some for adults, there will be name day festivals and other church events and celebrations, the walking is good and there should hopefully be some social time as well, dinner parties and the like. I’ve got my trip coming up at the end of next month and a book to finish before then: draft three of ‘Straight Swap’ is now the item on the desk and I am already in talks with the editor over certain aspects of it, mainly my atrocious punctuation, rather extreme spelling errors and a little bit of structure.

So, lots to do but now I am off down town, with hat and coat on and a note to buy an umbrella or two. Have a good weekend!

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When it rains on Symi… But first: You’ll be on the edge of your seat to hear about the duvet delivery and I can tell you today that ‘my (own personal) Hermes’ tells me that the package is now collected (18.40 21^st) and at 01.37 on 22^nd, was on its way having been sorted at the National hub. I wonder where that might be? Where would the hub of Great Britain actually lie? Probably somewhere near Birmingham and I don’t know why I say that, it just feels right.

Anyway… Sometimes, when it rains on Symi it really rains on Symi. And the first real rain after a long hot summer results in the surface dust and soil being washed down the hills and into the sea. There’s always a certain amount of top soil washed away but when you get as much rain as we did on Wednesday, and after a long dry spell (one small storm aside) you can expect to see the sea change colour. So, today’s photos will give you an idea of how the sea changes when the rains hit. The sea in Yialos was, at one point, chocolate brown.

We did some mopping up after the storm. Half our towel supply was used to catch drips that came in under the windows before we managed to shut the shutters and, as we had the balcony doors open for photos, we also had some splashes come in there. The offices now smell a bit damp as we had to have the washing in there overnight and some rain had come in through the windows as the wind was driving in that direction, but compared to the old house, we got off lightly. Our landlord rushed across to see us after things died down to make sure we were okay and had remembered to unplug the flower pots from the hole in the wall that drains the courtyard. He’d not seen the water flowing out that way from his view across the road and was worried that we might have forgotten and thus had the house flooded (as would have happened had we been away and not unplugged the pots. Note: leave flower pots out of the hole in the wall when going away).

Another thing to remember to do, when you live around here, when you are going away – or when a storm is coming in – is to unplug everything else. On Wednesday we were constantly unplugging the phone line, the router, the PCs, the TV, just in case… It does interrupt work, though the laptops run for four hours on battery, but it must be done. Also when we go out and the weather looks doubtful, just in case. You don’t want to be under one of these when they come in to land:

I cut that from a video I made on my underwater camera during the storm. If you want to get a feel for how things can be on Symi in the winter, then take a look at this one too.

And a couple more photos…

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