Well, the next few weeks are going to be interesting, both for us and maybe even for you if you have ever wondered what it was like to find, and move into, a new house, on Symi within four weeks.

Our landlady is getting married soon and needs her dowry house back; it was always a possibility of course, and not unexpected. We have, after all, been in this house for 11 years now. As Neil says, it’s the longest place he has ever lived in. Meaning, as I pedantically point out, the place he has lived in for the longest (‘length of time’ is implied).

So, from today (Monday) onwards we shall be house hunting. Funnily enough we saw a place in Pedi the other day and noticed it was for rent, though it looks big and cold and dilapidated somewhat from the outside. But we’d rather like to stay up here in the village, or as close to it as possible. We know of a house for rent on the main road, but it has no outdoor space suitable for Jack and he’d be squashed as soon as he went out for a wee as the only cat friendly place is across the road, and he is deaf So that’s out. Shame though, great view; but it also needs some work doing inside apparently as it was half built as a taverna.

We also know of the ‘Little Blue’ house where Rebecca Grant stayed when she was here filming. But as I remember it, it is too small for us. That’s going to be one of the problems. The house we have now has a conversion on the back which gives us the sitting room. So we have the saloni chock full of dining table, piano, desk, shelves and trunks; the bedroom full up, the moussandra now Neil’s office full of his stuff from the shop, the sitting room bulging at the seams with DVDs and other entertainments. Finding something as spacious (and as affordable) could be tricky.

We have already been offered a stop-gap house (thank you, you know who you are!) if we need it, though we’d have to store out things somewhere. And to think, when we first arrived here we had two rucksacks and a laptop.

Anyway, this tale could get boring or to could get interesting, but I will keep you posted as to progress. And of course, if you know of a place to rent, preferably in Horio (though we would consider elsewhere though probably not Yialos as we’d like to stay close to the village), that’s not a silly price and that would be long-term, and I mean years and years, then do drop me a line. Thank you. Right, off to make some phone calls now…

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Sunday afternoon, around 2pm, the sun is out, the neighbour is hanging out her rugs, her son has given us his selection of rock hits from the 1980s, and the neighbourhood is quiet.

Out in the street there are lumps of plaster and paint that have cracked off a few buildings, our own house included, thanks to the frost and cold wind (I assume). One of the triangles in our frontage-apex-pointy-bit (I don’t know what it’s really called, obviously) has literally fallen off. I hope it didn’t hit anyone. So, we can add that to the list of running repairs that need seeing to.

Talking of which, did I tell you I’d fixed a leak in the bathroom? The pump had been going off every now and then, a sign that all is not well in Plumbingland, and we’d been trying to figure out what was causing it. The taps in the kitchen  were tried, turned off and not to blame, ditto the bathroom and also the WC. Thing is, if the leak is very small you can’t see it but, over time, it’s enough to drop the pressure in the system which then sets the pump off. Annoying when it does it every 30 minutes day and night. But, as things started to set worse, I was able to see the cause, a drip from the tap in the bathroom where the actual tap fitting, named ‘Gloria’ (the name on the box when she arrived), meets the pipe coming out of the wall.

I was dreading there being a leak within the wall. That would entail knocking things down and fixing things up and I’m not good at that kind of stuff. Well, I could probably knock things down, and I did once remove and install a WC in my Dalston flat, but that was years ago. Anyhow, I had a look at this drip and puddle of water in the bath, discounted cat activity and Neil, and thought, ‘What the hell, I’ll borrow a adjustable spanner and see what’s what.’ So I did and what’s what was that the nut tightened up and the drip stopped. So, feeling strangely macho and very satisfied with myself, I got back to writing my next book.

A process which was interrupted by a friend sending me a link to a piece about this young man who has kept a video blog for several years, in Brighton, who is now making something like 20k per month. Now then, if every reader of my blog would like to click on the adverts, send the links to the books to all their friends with instructions to buy at least one, order a calendar or two, book their holidays through our Booking.com link on the right and shop via out Amazon shop, also on the right >> we might be on our way to making €2.00 per month. Every little helps and goes towards the heating bill. I mean, 20k per month from a video blog? We are all in the wrong jobs.

Meanwhile, out there in Symi, Greek island world, things remain cool but calm, flowers are starting to come out, there is still ice around, Sotiris registered -7 up at his farm the other morning, and outside our house there is ice in the plant pots – no plants of course, the snails have had all them, they’ve almost finished eating the chilli plants now. I have borrowed the image of snow on Symi from Sevasti (many thanks). This one shows snow on Symi in 1978  though it did snow here in 1987 too, and in 2004, a little. It’s interesting to see from this old photo that there is snow on the ‘Symi boobs’ as the hills on the right have been called, but no radio masts, towers or army installations.

So, that’s that and what’s next? Sunday afternoon party invite where chilli is, rather ironically, on the menu; Monday evening tap dancing; Neil also has his programme of aerobics and Pilates to adhere to, and I am seriously thinking about taking up the morning walks again. A quick check of the weather ahead shows the temperature reaching the staggering heights of 13 and 14 during the week, thanks to rain, so it might be warm enough to take up the early mornings again. I’ll keep you posted.

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You want to know how cold it can get here on Symi in the winter? Check out this photo which I have borrowed from Mihalis Tsavaris, it was on Facebook and looks like it was taken up in the hills.

We had a similar scene on our rosemary bush a couple of years go where the water runs off the roof, but it’s not been doing that this winter so far, so I can’t get a picture of my own, of icicles on Symi I mean. So, thank you Michaelis for this one.

Despite the cold we went down to Pedi for a walk on Thursday and I took the other images you can see on today’s blog. On Friday I tried to get some work done in the front room but even with both heaters on it didn’t get above 10 degrees, and typing with gloves on is not the easiest thing to do, so I gave up on that and diverted my mind to other matters.

Such as the leak the bath tap has developed and how to deal with it. That, as I write, is still on going. (Thursday morning – I am getting this done before evacuating the front room and closing the door on what I used to call ‘the fridge.’ I am now calling it ‘the freezer.’

The other freezer in the house is, currently, the bathroom, which makes for fairly unpleasant showers in the morning. But they ho! The sun is shining, we’re still breathing and we’re living on a Greek island; it’s what you have to expect. So, let’s look ahead to the weekend and what’s planned? Well, nothing really. Perhaps a walk on Sunday when the temp should be up a bit thanks to cloud heading our way. Perhaps some work in the garden (3/10 on the possibility scale), maybe another chapter of the book (9/10 as long as the front room warms up) and maybe an evening out, as we’ve not been out all week, apart from a walk. (8/10, depends on money.)

What’s a cert for next week is hunting through the postal services again as things ordered ten weeks ago have still not arrived. I suspect Christmas delays and apathy are to blame. Not by anyone here on Symi, the thing definitely has not reached the island, but by the courier service who, online, tell us that the thing waited for arrived with them, in Greece, on 21st Decemeber, they even rang but had no idea where Symi was. We’ll be hunting them down again next week.

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I’m not going to hanging around for long today. It’s actually Wednesday and I am getting this ready ahead of time, as has become my habit of late.

I find that I can witter on aimlessly more freely at this time of day, usually around lunchtime, because I’ve got my morning work out of the way and have the rest of the day to myself. Being an early morning person I like to get straight on with thing as soon as I have got up and sat down at the desk. In the old days the blog used to be my wake up routine, now it has become my wind down routine. Either way, it still gets done.

But the reason I am not hanging around for long is that my fingers are not working properly due to the cold. I have four layers on including a new woollen jumper, there are two heaters going, one either side, and now, after five hours in this large front room, the temperature has risen from nine to nearly eighteen degrees. But still my fingers are cold and stiff and I can’t type in fingerless gloves. Even the cat is not happy with the arrangements, he keeps wandering from one heater to the other finding no satisfaction with either, it seems.

But at least I am inside and not having to be working outdoors, That must be very bitter for the workmen, builders, and others who have to go outside to work. Neil went to Yialos this morning for aerobics at the gym, brave him, as a way of shaking off a cold he has picked up. He also picked up some post and shopping and carried it all the way back up the steps. I was hoping to be taking up my morning exercise routine again by now but it’s just too cold. That’s my excuse, not that I need one, and I am staying with it.

So, pointless blog post done, a couple of pics from the archives put up, a few emails to do and then an afternoon of keeping warm, either in the sitting room or back here for another chapter of the book. Oh, and in case anyone needed to know, the wind was in the wrong direction for the Blue Star to dock this morning (Wednesday) and the next boat isn’t due in, from Rhodes, until Friday. Let’s hope the wind has died down by then. Oh yes, and the Sunrise tells us that they have got their temperature up to above 20 degrees, so there’s a warm place to hide out in, should you be on Symi and venturing out and about.

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