This is a bit unusual, but a Sunday morning blog post is being written on a Saturday night, and uploaded, ready to go live… well, by the time you read it. ‘Cos if it weren’t live you wouldn’t be able to see it would ya? (Have been writing ‘in character’ this morning and am still in ‘Stag’ mode. All will be explained in time.)

So, here I am, it’s just gone nine on Saturday night in Tilos and, from what I have seen so far, it’s lights out at 10.30 on this island and no talking! So I best get a move on. I just left a wonderful taverna (‘Nikos’ – Trip Adviser review coming up) and came ‘home’ (‘Apollo Studios’ – another Trip Advisor review to be done) by way of something like 50 meters, to write this before sitting on my little balcony and reading a bit of James Herbert before heading for bed. The plan being to rise early tomorrow and walk fast up that hill to work off tonight’s dinner.

But, the Tilos tale so far: I left Symi on Friday night on the Blue Star which was traditionally behind schedule, but then, so would I be if I’d come from Athens to Kastalorizo and back. After a Dolphin Pizza and an Elpida wine I got on the boat and spent a pleasant two ouzos crossing to Tilos. There was some poor deranged person reading ‘The Judas Inheritance’ in the bar, but I let him be. Nothing worse than an author coming up to you and saying ‘I wrote that,’ when you’re trying to understand a tricky story. Turned out that the owner of my hotel here on Tilos was also on the boat so we rendezvoused at departures and he, Andreas, and his partner Irina, drove me back to the hotel with a bunch of beer boxes, provisions and eggs. (Friday is a long day for Tilos folk going to Rhodes, longer if the boat is delayed, even longer when you have to deal with an English author at gone midnight, I suspect.)

I settled into my apartment sometime after one in the morning, had a nightcap and the packed lunch Neil that had provided (a packet of cheese and onion), and then crashed into bed. Only to be woken a few hours later by one of those cramps that has you jumping around the room like a Dufflepud from ‘The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.’ A couple of hours later I was surprisingly wide awake, and ready for the day ahead. This day, Saturday, had been planned as a day off, to recover from the trip and have a look around. I’d done all that by 10.00 so I set about a few thousand words for the book – which is what I am here for, and hence the ‘Stag’ speech above; Stag is one of the characters in the new book, btw.

That done, I was then planning a sandwich and a kip (both of which I had) and then some more writing, but Andreas, the owner – remember? – invited me out on a drive to the monastery of Agios Panteleimon, at the far side of the island, to collect some spring water and, well, away we went, with Irina, and with Melissa who happened to be passing as we were getting into the van – Melissa is a singer/songwriter with a band based in London, her singing partner was born on the Romney Marshes, as was I, so talk about… whatever it is you talk about when coincidences happen on small islands.

Anyway – a drive across the island and a guided tour from Andreas, who reminds me very much of Takis (Symi leather shop) combined with any stand-up comedian worth his salt, and there we were at a stunning monastery in a stunning location, all wrapped up as a fortification. We were even shown, on one of the more precipitous parts of the journey, the tragic spot where a couple, blinded by the sun, carried on in a straight line instead of following the road, thereby buying a one way ticket to Paradise. Will filled our bottles (I would have lit several candles for the return trip but the chapel was closed) and headed back with a fresh spring water in our step, enough to last for the next few days.

That done, and the idea of any more writing now out of my head until I’d eaten, I then went down to the square, 30 yards away, for a pre-dinner drink. Here I was treated to either a large group from SAGA (bless ‘em) or the local ex-pat over 60 club discussing Stavros’ new baby and Dinos’ new grandson, what ‘she’ did last Sunday and how ‘he’ asked for a small boy rather than a cucumber and ‘wasn’t that the funniest thing?’ (and a little risqué) and where I also bumped into the Greek (Athenian, I think) family who have a holiday home next to the old Symi Dream shop, on holiday with their two children – and isn’t it a small world? Coincidence number two of the day.

Dinner: Feta (and herbs) stuffed into a green pepper, homemade bread, half a litre of red, + pork in a pot with potatoes and veg and three cheeses, at ‘Nikos’ taverna, €17.75 and the bread I didn’t eat is now wrapped in foil ready for my breakfast.

Sometime tomorrow I will update you on Sunday’s activities. The plan is to get up early, walk up that hill for an unnecessary length of time, come back, shower, eat Nikos’ left over bread and settle down to 6,000 words of writing before lunch. We shall see! (P.S. Excuse any typos, I don’t usually write at night and, tbf, I don’t really care.)

More photos and news tomorrow.

Share on Facebook

I’m not here. At least I hope I am not here. It’s Saturday morning (it’s actually Friday morning) and I should be in Tilos by now. As long as the boat comes in tonight and doesn’t break down then all should be well. As it’s a Symi Saturday, today’s update from the desk is mainly about the photos (well, it was meant to be, but I rambled on a bit) starting with this stunning one Lyndon took of Bee-eaters on a wire in the wind.

Remember that if you want to follow a blog that is about the wildlife of Symi, then Lyndon is your man. Symi flora and fauna http://symifloraandfauna.jigsy.com/ There are loads of other pics and interesting items there, including a ‘terrace watch’ where you can see what happens to a particular terrace through the year.

And while we are talking wildlife, I thought you might like this shot of the Alarm Cat who, as you can see, is not pampered at all.

The other photos today were taken on Thursday when I called into Yialos to get my boat tickets and pick up some post including a phone bill which is the lowest we’ve ever had. Our internet connection cost seems to have gone down, or something has, and as I don’t go near the phone-thing and Neil uses Skype to call the children, we hardly have any calls to pay for. Nice surprise.

As you can see there were quite a few tourists about in the harbour yesterday (Thursday), a day that brought a break in the weather –until the night when it rained again, and on my washing too! Tilos may not now have the benefit of my M&S shirt as it’s still wet. But the harbour has been busier in May, in fact everywhere has been busier in May before. Things are very quiet around here at the moment. I can only imagine the dreaded Daily Thing (see yesterday’s blog) are succeeding in putting gullible people off coming to Greece because, after all, the country is descending into the seventh circle of hell, there’s no cash to be had ‘not even for ready money’, and the islands are filling up with foreigners – or however they like to ‘report’ things. That, by the way, is all rubbish so ignore it.

But yes, quiet it is, which means if you hop on a plane and jet over you will find perfect beaches, not crowded, you will find the usual Symi hospitality, this year enhanced by Neil working at the bar – and being far more popular than I ever was – and you will have plenty of room to swing an Alarm Cat, as they say. (Which has nothing to do with actual cats, as we know.) And next week it will be even quieter as I won’t be here. But I will be blogging from Tilos, all being well, and you should get the first instalment of that no Monday – or possibly Sunday, I will see how I get on.

The aim is to get there, get to sleep, as I won’t arrive until around midnight I reckon, should be 10.30 or so, but with the boat usually being late on a Friday… And then start work on Saturday afternoon, having stocked up the apartment with essentials and done some exploring. So, Sunday morning I should be up and at it early and may get a blog off before starting on the book. “Blog off!” I hear you shout and I will, in a minute.

In fact I am off now as I apparently have something waiting for me at ACS down in Yialos. It’s either going to be my proof copy of ‘Lonely House’ or it’s going to be two pairs of summer shorts. Either way, the thing will be useful for the coming work-away-week. Have a good weekend! Oh – here are a couple more photos to scroll through.

 

Share on Facebook

I don’t normally get myself into this kind of thing on my blog, but this is a story that could run, and not everyone would have picked up on it yet. Greek Reporter have picked up on a ‘shocking’ article in the UK’s Daily Mail, their (GR) headline reads: Σοκαριστικό άρθρο της Daily Mail: «Οι μετανάστες μετατρέπουν την Κω σε αηδιαστική κόλαση» Or: Shocking article in the Daily Mail: «Immigrants convert Kos to a disgusting hell.”

I read the online piece by the DM and wasn’t sure if I was more outraged by the dreadful writing, or the misspelling of Dodecanese, or the scaremongering, or the tourists reported as saying things like they couldn’t eat their lunch with refuges watching, or… well all of it really. A complete disgrace to the British press in my humble opinion. And the British people. I mean, people coming to Kos for a holiday and saying they won’t return if it looks like a refugee camp again, and saying this, I assume as they quaff into their beers and three course meals, while camping out at an all-inclusive hotel that cost them only a month’s wages ‘cos they got a special offer in the Daily Mail.

 

The Greek Reporter also says that: “At least 6,000 migrants arrived on the island of Kos in the past two months, while the Dodecanese totaled 30,000 refugees. In the last two days alone 1,200 people arrived in Kos, and every day more come.” (My translation.) The full article, in Greek, is here: http://rodosreport.gr/dail-mail-kos-metanastes/ You can copy and paste it into a translator online. I won’t give you the link to the Daily Mail article at the center of this storm as I don’t want to promote such hideous reporting, but I am sure you will find it online if you really want to.

 

And, by the way, read that again: 6,000 refugees, on Kos alone, in the last two months. If you know Symi you will know that 3,000 people live here. So that’s like the population of Symi all leaving in one month and leaving everything behind, because it’s a case of ‘Kill, or be killed,’ as a refugee explained it to me.

 

When we were in Kos last year we met some refugees and shared our hotel with others. We chatted, they told us their story, which I’ve noted here before, and we also saw them at the police station which was very well set up to deal with them. Now that numbers are increasing there simply isn’t anywhere else for them to go while they wait for a boat onwards. Local people donate money and clothes even though a lot of local families are struggling to make ends meet. The refugees then move on to other European countries, the guys we spoke to were heading to Scandinavia. Some of them had to swim 200 meters when thrown overboard from their boat, others, as we know, don’t make it and get washed up on the shores, dead.

I reckon we should shove a boat load of so called ‘reporters’ into an inflatable dinghy at night (with very little money, no clothes, but with their children) and see how they get across the sea to Asia Minor, and then see if they can survive with 100 people sharing one toilet while they get their papers stamped and sent into unfamiliar territory with little or no local language and… Well, I can’t go on, my blood pressure is up.

It’s getting out of hand, it’s a humanitarian disaster, the world needs to help a semi-third world country like Greece to deal with the thousands of arrivals each week, and the British hate rags need to either report objectively or shut the farouk up. So, if you go on holiday to a Greek island this summer and find a refugee family temporarily housed next door, just remember, you are on holiday, love, you’re not fleeing for your life!

Share on Facebook

After yesterday’s bonkers post here’s a quick and sensible one. After telling everyone to come to Greece for their holidays the other day, we then spent Tuesday night/Monday morning being rained on.

Come Wednesday afternoon things had settled a bit so those people arriving tonight (as it’s Wednesday afternoon as I write this) should at least get a warm and dry welcome. Mind you, it’s still pretty humid so it could well turn to thunder again.

And it seems my call to action was answered. The bit where I advised folk not ignore the British newspapers and come to Greece as all was well. According to Greek Reporter  “The number of inbound visitors in Greece jumped 45.6% to 1.728 million in the January-March period this year, from 1.187 million during the same period in 2014, while travel receipts grew 12.8% to 532 million euros over the same period, the Bank of Greece (BoG) said.” (Not sure about their abbreviation there, but whatever.) Click the link above to get the full story.

And talking of travel, I’m off to Tilos on Friday. Seems like ages ago I reserved the apartment. Good job I didn’t wait for a last minute deal as the complex has another apartment the same as mine being advertised for the same week but for four times the price. Not sure how that’s going to help tourism, and it may have been a booking.com thing rather than a price set by the hotel, but I’m glad I’ve got my piece of paper stating how much (or little, actually) I am supposed to be paying.

In other news I heard a rumour that the ‘Noddy train’ was back from its service and so the green one will go and the lovely red and yellow one will come back. At least it doesn’t have eyes on it like the one in Romania did. This was at Castle Râșnov and had we known it only took us up a hill and round a corner we would have walked. Mind you, it keeps someone in employment.

And, as the novel ‘Dracula’ was published 118 years ago yesterday, I thought you might like to see one of Neil’s photos of ‘Castle Dracula’ (which isn’t anything to do with the fictional castle and very little to do with Vlad Tepes (Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia (1431–1476/77)) which was taken on the same day as The Romanian Noddy Train. And with this, I will leave you and go and get the red rain dust off the outdoor furniture.

Share on Facebook

Here’s a post for when you’re having a leisurely coffee break. It’s been a long time since we did some pointless wordplay on these pages, so today I thought I would stun you all with random thoughts on a random word or possibly two (I have to go and cook in a moment so not sure how long I will be staying around), and while stunning you with nonsense I might also stun you with some of Neil’s photos of Symi, as that word is in the title of this blog after all.

 

I did think about dipping into ‘The Elements of Eloquence’ by Mark Forsyth  but then, after reading a little about Merism, Epistrophe and Epizeuxis I decide that he puts it so well there’s nothing more I can do to make it all make sense, except suggest you go and buy the book, if you are keen to improve your understanding of the English language that is. [And for those who may be wondering, Merism, Epistrophe and Epizeuxis are not the Three Graces, they are: Merism is when you don’t say what you are talking about and the example in the book is ‘ladies and gentlemen’ is a merism, for ‘people.’ Epistrophe is when you end sentences with the same word. Or end each clause with the same word, or end paragraphs with the same word. (So, basically, most pop songs.) And Epizeuxis is when you repeat a word immediately and in the same sense, for example, ‘Location. Location. Location.’]

 

So, now you know that (and there will be a test) we can move on to something less interesting. I love receiving books as gifts, and that’s not a hint, surprisingly, and for my birthday my mother sent me a book about collective nouns titled ‘An Unkindness of Ravens’ by Chloe Rhodes (appropriate to our location here on Symi I thought). What’s even better is that it’s a hardback book. (I just like the feel of them.) So, thanks to this gift we can have a little quiz here as I ask you if you know the collective nouns for the following random entries:

 

1. A ? of gossips
2. A ? of jurors
3. A ? of harlots
4. A ? of butlers
5. A ? of cobblers (and it’s not ‘load’)
6. And a rather nice one, A ? of fishermen

 

The answers are at the end of the blog. I was going to put them upside down, but then thought it might be difficult for those reading this on a desktop PC who would have to turn the monitor over; easy enough to do if you are reading on a Kindle (of kittens, by the way), but if you’re walking around with a device and get distracted you might trip (of goats). That’s why I applied some shrewdness (of apes) and didn’t want to make this too much of a labour (of moles) for you.

One day we may return to this book and do some more. That selection was from the People department, there are also animals, professions, religious callings and (other) exotic creatures to look forward to. My favourite has to be A worship of writers, of course.

But back to the task in hand, a random word from my Samuel Johnson’s 1755 Dictionary (another hardback gift).

The letter of the day is ‘S’, and the first word that jumps out at me is Sabulous. Not Fabulous, though it is rather, sabulous means ‘gritty or sandy.’ So I guess you could stretch that and say that a Stieg Larsson novel is sabulous (as they are considered a gritty read) and that Olivia Newton John was no only fabulous but also sabulous when playing Sabulous in ‘Grease.’ (She played Sandy.) So, there you have it, lots of new words to ponder over today as you wonder where all this comes from and why you’ve sat and read it all. And finally, here, without the need to stand on your head, are the answers to the collective nouns quiz.

 

1. A gaggle of gossips (Makes perfect sense to me, especially when at certain local watering holes.)
2. A damning of jurors (Goes back to Magna Carta – buy the book for the fascinating derivation.)
3. A herd of Harlots (Reminds me of: ‘You can lead a whore to water but you can’t make her think’, which is the punchline, but I can’t remember the body of the gag.)
4. A draught of butlers (To do with a draught of wine, rather than leaving the door open.)
5. A drunkship of cobblers (Drunkship being an out of use word for a group of drunk people. Poor cobblers.)
6. A drift of fishermen (To do with, er, fishing techniques, apparently.)

And a worship of writers? (To do with ‘the established tyranny of patronage’ – Thomas Wharton 17^th century.

Share on Facebook