For the last couple of years the Tsiknopempti party has been held at the school due to bad weather. But this year, on Thursday, the weather was fine, cold, but fine and so the party was held in the village square. I took some photos but they are really far too dark to see much, but you know, I do the words, not the pictures.

We’d been down to Yialos in the afternoon to get the rent money out, called in to see Takis who is working on his latest masterpiece, and then walked back up. Jenine had called to say the party was on, so we met up for a pre-party drink at Mandeio’s and then headed to the square.

The party celebrates ‘smoke Thursday’, the traditional day for eating meat before Lent starts in a week or so’s time. The town hall provide the souvlakies and the band this year were some of the music students – I am not sure if they are from the Symi Music School, or the general school, or have private tuition, I guess perhaps all three. They were great, and it’s really heart-warming to see and hear young, talented people, doing so well. They entertained for a good two, maybe three hours, with traditional dances and other songs with drums, bouzouki, accordion and guitars. All the made for a very special night, and the free wine helped slightly too.

Friday dawned cold and clear again and, after getting some work done, Neil went off to pay another bill and check up on Monday morning. All is now set for collecting the keys at 09.00 on Monday. There’s not a lot more packing we can do here, not until we have emptied some of these crates and boxes.

If you’re on Symi and reading this and have nothing better to do during the week, and fancy trudging back and forth from Ag Thanasis area to the village square carrying boxes and bags, feel free to join in, drop me a line or give us a ring. We will probably start on Monday and just keep going until it is done, hiring a couple of strong folk to shift the really heavy stuff. We were planning an all-day event on Saturday or Sunday but I reckon we will be mostly in by then. Because the phone should be going in on Tuesday, we’ll probably aim to be ‘working’ from the house on Wednesday, by which I mean posting the blog and stuff.

So, I’ll try and do a post on Sunday/Monday – and Monday will be ‘Moving house on Symi day 36’ – but if there is no post for a few days you will know why. I’ll post photos eventually, don’t worry, there will be photos of the moving, I may even share an image of the new furniture in situ to bore you, and there will certainly be endless pictures of the new view.

So, that’s me off to see what else can be packed while I await the arrival of the Ikea order which, we think, might be on the boat that came in this morning. If not, then next Wednesday. Watch this (almost empty) space.

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It was cold out there yesterday morning at 6.45 as we trudged up the steps through the village to the top road, and then along and back down via the main road, for a bit of a wake up with 20 minutes exercise. Neil later went off to his Pilates leaving me surrounded by heaters and boxes in the front room, where the thermometer read 12 degrees.

At least it’s nice and sunny outside with no wind, clear skies, and a blue but cold sea to look at. The Accuweather forecast is showing a low of seven degrees last night and nine today, slightly warmer tomorrow and then, after a showery weekend, a clear week ahead for moving boxes.

Things are starting to fall into place. Neil rang our phone company, Ote, on Wednesday – the phone is in his name – and explained what we are up to. The helpful person there said that the arrangements would all be made for us to move our number and package from one house to the other next week. An hour later our local engineer phoned us and we arranged to meet ten minutes later at George (the younger’s) supermarket so we could go to the new house, so he knows where we are going. We did that and walked over there and he had a good look around. He called in, told our new landlord (who is still clearing things from the house) what was going on, and that was that. About half an hour later the Ote lady rang back to ask what day we wanted the switch-over to happen. We said Tuesday.

So, this means that there may not be a blog for Tuesday/Wednesday or some days next week, though I can get Monday’s ready on Sunday, assuming we don’t get cut off earlier by accident; it’s been known to happen. We also double checked the keys hand-over arrangements; I’ll be getting them at nine on Monday and doing the inventory and learning how the water and electrics work at the new pace, Neil will be joining us a little later and then we can start actually moving in.

But in other news, I should probably mention that Thursday was ‘Sooty Thursday’ or Tsiknopempti, on Symi and in Greece, the traditional day for eating meat before the start of Lent, which is on its way. Clean Monday, the start of Lent, is February 23rd, which will be our first real full day and night in our new house, which seems oddly appropriate, and Easter weekend this year is April 11th (Jack’s birthday) with Easter Day being 12th April. We are planning a joint housewarming and birthday party (for me) on the last Sunday in March which I know is still in Lent, but anyone invited doesn’t have to eat, drink or celebrate.

And talking of celebrations, for those who don’t know, Yianni Rainbow has been back on Symi a while now and is looking fit and well. No sign of the bar opening yet, but then it’s often closed at this time of year, and no news on what’s to come for the summer. But all seems well.

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I was trying to avoid the use of the word ‘nice’ in the title of this post. ‘Nice’ is such a vague word, and can always be replaced by something better. Just like when you use the verb ‘get’, you can always replace that with something more interesting and more descriptive. Says he, who often doesn’t bother, especially when writing a quick blog post.

But we did have a very nice dinner on Tuesday night, a very pleasant dinner, a tasty, simple, inexpensive, filling, fun-filled, fantastic, celebratory dinner – just select whichever word you fancy you’ll get the picture. Or: You’ll have a better understanding of how our evening went.

The photos should also give you some idea. The boys were very well behaved with the exception of Neil who was, as usual, very entertaining. Well, he is if you are a seven year old. We had courgette fritters (kolokethokeftethes; break it down and it’s easy to remember, kolo-ketho-keftethes) cheese saganaki and tsatziki, and that was followed by chops and chips. Nice and simple and not expensive at all.

The taverna is quiet most nights of the week in the winter, unless there is a special celebration or an engagement party. Some local folk go there regularly on a weekend and we go when we can. We were the only guests last night, but then it was a cold and windy one, and we wouldn’t normally have gone out, but it was Harry’s name day treat.

February is often the coldest and darkest month of the year on Symi. It feels dark, even though the days are getting (replace with ‘growing’) longer, or rather, staying light for longer. There’s often so much cloud about it might as well be permanent dusk. But yesterday was a clear one, which also meant a cold one, with a bit of a breeze but nothing like the high winds that were expected. (Not up to midday at any rate.) And, looking ahead, it seems that the week of our move is going to be sunny and warmer, with the temperatures up in the ‘teens. Unless things change, which is always possible.

So, that’s my daily update. Neil’s currently on the phone to Ote talking about moving our phone and internet line over to the new house next week. The last time we ‘fiddled’ with our phone line set-up we accidentally got cut off for a week, so let’s hope that doesn’t happen this time. By the way, here is another video taken during the name day celebration in church on Tuesday. Processing the icon inside the church due to bad weather.

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The joys of living on a Greek island #32, ‘Our shipping is for mainland Greece only.’ So says the fridge company, so Jenine has now arranged for us to have the thing shipped with a bit of a surcharge (plus VAT). I mean, I’m not going through that again, this was the third time of trying. But on the other hand, the Ikea things may arrive today or if not Friday which will be perfect timing as we can store them in The Olive Tree temporarily and then move them in before the rest of our things next week.

And the other joys of living on a Greek island (#03 to #11), Attending Name Days. It was Harry’s name day as his name is actually Haralambos, and so we went to church. Well, to be honest, Harry, Jenine and lots of local people went to church and we arrived a bit late. This was mainly due to a huge downpour just as we were about to leave the house.

We were there in time for Harry’s communion though, and to see him parade the icon. This was done inside the church this year due to the weather. I should have some video clips to show you before too long.

After the service there was time for coffee and cakes. Jenine and Harry had made chocolate cakes for the congregation, and served them out with the coffee. There were also the traditional cheese pies, donuts and other goodies and a doggy bag to take away the excess. After another coffee at Harry’s house we headed off to Yialos to get some money out for the evening. (It’s Tuesday as I write, we’re just back and just in time, another storm is heading in.)

We are taking the boys out to dinner at Georgio’s this evening, chops were ordered on Monday night after tap class, and so we have that to look forward to later today. We’re just back home, just in time as the rain and wind are coming in, Nimos is slowly disappearing, I can’t see the Turkish coast any longer and it looks like it’s going to be (yet) another stormy night.

Yialos is still under water, mainly around the Custom’s House, the bridge and the Mediteranio corner, so we detoured around the back as we headed to the post office, bank and then to get Jack his food. Poor old Jack, he must know we are up to something as he’s become rather unsettled. He has taken to wandering the house inspecting the boxes and then running away when we approach. He’s tripped Neil up at least once today, darted out the front door for no apparent reason, and is finding it hard to settle unless we’re on the sofa with him. Next week is going to be even more alarming for the Alarm Cat as we start to move things out.

But that’s next week. We still have a few days of packing and planning and waiting before we can start o that great adventure. Oh yes, another joy of living in Greece (#17), the wife of the previous mayor come up to us in church today, all smiles and told us how happy she was that we were going to be her new neighbours. Their house is just in front of our new place, so news is obviously out in Jack’s new neighbourhood that we, and the famous AC, are on their way.

And talking of on the way, here’s a video clip of church on Tuesday morning. There should be another one on its way tomorrow, all being well. (You can find this video and our others at You Tube via: www.youtube.com/symidream)

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(Having a bit of a rant-come-grumble, a rumble perhaps, but at least there are some nice Symi photos from Neil to brighten things up.) Well, I’m having great fun here on a Monday afternoon trying to set up the new laptop with Microsoft Office. I am typing away on the ‘old’ machine while having an online chat with a virtual person on the new one. It’s no wonder people go for pirate products these days, Microsoft thinks it knows you and actually it hasn’t got a clue.

I’m mainly rabbiting about the way the new laptop has a ‘thing’ that says ‘Office’ and, when you click it, it tells you that you haven’t got Office (which I kind of realised thanks) and would you like to buy it? So you think, ‘Well, yes I should really,’ and so you look at the amount they want, grumble a bit and then see that it comes with online storage and a few other things to lessen the blow and at least you know that you’re going to get the real deal and will get support if needed….

And talking of support I just had to break off to move over to the other machine to reply to an answer. You see, when my know-it-all machine takes me to where I can buy Office, it believes that because I am in Greece (which I assume it knows from my IP address, or from the built in camera which is being used to spy on me perhaps) that I can read Greek, fluently. So, I don’t want to download and pay for Office only to find out the it’s all in Greek. I’m not that clever!

Anyway, as I’ve been chatting to you, Christina B. up there in virtual land has been helping me out and we managed to deduce that I can put Office into English though I have to download it all in Greek, through the Greek pages, as IT knows what’s best for me. And then we figured out that although I signed up for a Microsoft account the other day it’s already lost me and I had to reset my password again, which is actually the second time I’ve had to do that since I was forced to sign up with them – I do hate the way they are taking over my life –and I knew I had the correct password because I wrote it in a secure place and left it right there next to my machine where I wouldn’t lose it.

The upshot is, 45 minutes later, that I am about to pay €69.00 for the basics I need to be able to write on a laptop, I am sorely tempted to find a pirate version of it as that €69.00 is only going to be for one year and then they will automatically rebill me next February, so I still haven’t pressed that button yet. In fact, I might just leave it hanging there…

No, I went and pressed the button in the end and now I’m waiting for it to do something. And while I am waiting I’ll finish this post then go and put my feet up while it downloads. But no, there’s a catch. ‘We have received you order and it may take 4-6 hours to process and charge… Once completed we will send you an email with the download information.’ And I assume you will be sending this to the inbox of Outlook that I don’t actually have on the computer yet as you’ve not sent it to me ‘cos I only just bought it…? Luckily I have this machine still running though I myself am running out of patience.

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