Today, I am staying in under a cloud. A real one, not a figurative one. I’ve just been paddling in the bathroom, where the uncloseable window allows the rain to reign with a full rein. (Don’t you just love homophones?) It’s the only window in the house with no shutters, but it’s also beneath a spiral staircase, so is pretty well guarded. I don’t know. Nothing I can do about it except try and fix the window when it’s dry enough. Meanwhile…

I am raiding the old photo supply to give you a small gallery of views, which I’ll put up below. As with yesterday, these are older photos from summers past – maybe last year, maybe a few ago, I can’t remember. If I were to take any photos when I am out and about so far this year, you’d see nothing but wet pavements and the inside of the super market (sic). Now and then, the inside of the Rainbow, where we go to keep Yianni company, and the rest of the time, you’d be looking at our TV.

In years gone by, we might have been in the village square last night with souvlakia on the BBQ, families together, children playing, maybe some music and wine… The ‘old days’ of τσικνοπέμπτη, the Thursday before Lent, when meat is consumed, presumably to clear it out of the larder before Monday, which is Clean Monday in Greece, and the start of Lent. Already? I know, Easter is early this year (April 12th), I guess we’ve had and missed carnival, and there was no big outdoor τσικνοπέμπτη yesterday, and all thanks to the rain. I am guessing. Still, we have a birthday dinner to plan for Jenine next week, so we’ll put all our pre-Lent traditions into that day, and then carry on as normal.

And for the weekend? Back to chapter twelve of an ever-thickening mystery I still don’t know the way out of yet, and after that, I will be looking into moving my websites to a new host, so if these pages disappear for a few days, you will know I’ve pressed a wrong button.

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Well, here’s some cheery news. It’s raining, and the Poseidon weather map shows us looking like this:

The darkest parts are the heaviest rain, and I think the worst of that lot’s not long passed overhead. Then, fast forward to Friday night/Saturday morning, and we’re in for this:

Can’t wait. Towels at the ready. Staying home. I hate to think what the harbour looks like, but I can’t see, as I sensibly closed the shutters last night. We are now as watertight as we can be, except for the bathroom, where the window doesn’t close. Towel already down.

Mind you, yesterday afternoon, the sea was calm, and there were a couple of sailing boats out on the water. (Too far out to see in the photo below.)

I spent most of the morning trying to sort out new email addresses and trying to change my email address/login details for various things, and didn’t do too badly. Trying to get my new address set as the principal Microsoft account though, was a different matter, and one I shall return to after work. Perhaps. The change is upon me! That is, the change over from tools I have been using for at least 20 years to new ones, i.e. Thunderbird instead of Outlook (seems to do the same thing, but without the flashy bells and whistles, and what’s more, it works and is free), and later, perhaps, a different webhost for the two blogs/sites, but that can wait for a rainy day. Oh…!

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While showing you some photos from one summer not so long ago, I shall be having a business morning this morning, by which I mean, probably no time for creative writing because I have some technical issues. Mainly, my emails. I’ve been having trouble with Outlook over the past couple of weeks. It would open, download the house emails (the Otenet ones), and then freeze. After several frustrating hours trying to get to the bottom of things, it turns out that my Symi Dream and Jackson Marsh sites sit on shared servers, and these no longer support the email addresses attached to the accounts – or something. It’s all to do with not having a dedicated server, and I was thinking about migrating away from the host company anyway. The help centre is outstanding, but if I can’t reply to emails…

So, the news really is that I want to move everything you see here, and everything that’s archived, over to a new company, and I have no idea how to do it. In fact, I want someone at this yet-to-be-found new company to say, ‘Give it here, we’ll do it all for you,’ but that’s unlikely. Therefore, if these pages go dark for any length of time, you will know I lost my websites in the move.

Today, then, I will be searching around for a new host (I already have some suggestions), while seeing to some Jackson publicity, and then later, going for what will probably be a well earned relax sesh at the Sunrise, where there’s to be a quiz. In other news, I am assuming the electricity work is ongoing. We’ve not had a planned power cut for a few days now. I assume also that the boats are back on their timetables after that spell of bad weather, and I have to assume, because I’ve not left the house for a few days. On the upside, though, I am up to 40,000 words of the next mystery, so I’ve not been idle.

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I’m talking about water. At least, I will be in a minute. First, some parish announcements. To conclude yesterday’s tale of Sunday: our power came back on later in the afternoon, but we weren’t there at the time. We were having lunch with the family, finally trapping both godboys under one roof for the first time in months – and, sadly, probably for the last time until at least November, due to college and work. Lovely afternoon, and home to a lit house.

We had some rain the other day. The kind that turns the Kali Strata into an ISRD Class VI rapid, rarely attempted in competitions. The kind of rain that washes the topsoil down from the mountain and into the sea, turning it to the colour of the Red Sea, if the Red Sea were actually red. This was going on and off for days, and wasn’t much more than an extended but usual rainy spell for this time of year. Symi TV filmed some of the runoff as it washed down past the town square to the bridge (and you can see all Panormitis’ excellent videos by clicking that link and subscribing).

Irony #1. They’ve been doing works to the harbour road, and due to a variety of causes, the part along past Trawler Square and the corner is or has been flooded.

That’s irony #1 because of irony #2. While all this was going on, a local newspaper decided to announce the news that Symi was a disaster area, because of water (and we were not the only island mentioned). Odd timing. On first glance, it looked like the rain had made us victims of an horrendous natural disaster area, and I expect people were receiving messages of ‘stay safe’ (as if one wouldn’t), and ‘thoughts and prayers’ as if we were sinking.

Turns out, we aren’t a disaster area because of too much rain, but because of a lack of it. Our ‘disaster’ is that the island doesn’t have enough water, something I reckon most people have known since year dot. We’ve certainly known it with our current water rationing: no showers at the weekend, no washing machine unless the water main is on and the tank is filling, that kind of usual. I just thought it was unfortunate timing to suggest we were being washed away by a natural disaster, when in fact, we’re probably seeing a worsening of the ‘disaster’ of water shortage that the island’s had for years.

Anyway, that’s my thought for today. I am off to have others now, and spend a quiet day in reading and writing.

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Well, this is rather fine. I’m sitting here on Sunday morning, lit only by the overhead laptop light running from the battery, in an otherwise blacked out room, and Neil is in the courtyard with the camping stove, a saucepan and tea bags. There is no sound but the hiss of the gas and the thudding of my fingers.

When I stop writing and wander about the strangely silent and dim house, I can imagine how things used to be before electricity. We’re having one of those planned power cuts, you see. Could be off for half an hour, could be off all day. It doesn’t matter, because you get so much else done when you don’t have electricity Alright, so you can’t do the hoovering, run a tap, or stay warm, but you can sweep up something, tidy up something, and later, rustle up something that doesn’t need cooking. You could read a book if the shutters weren’t shut against the cold and keeping out the light. You could read on your Kindle if the battery hadn’t died. You could write up your notes (see above re: closed shutters and lack of light). Plenty of things to get done. A taste of the old days, except we know that the power will come back on at some time, and we don’t yet need to fill a bucket from the water tank.

The gas is still hissing.

We trotted out for a pizza last night (Saturday). We were going to go to the taverna, but the high school class was holding a fundraiser for its end-of-school trip later in the year, and the taverna was already booked out. Just like the old days.

The gas has stopped hissing.

I’m sure some readers will remember ‘those’ days. Those summers when both bars were so full, people were sitting on the steps, and where the taverna was so busy, there was a queue to get in. It is still like that in the summer, but there are fewer people on the steps, and that part of the season doesn’t seem to last as long.

My tea has arrived!

Who knows what the rest of today holds? Who can say when we might be back on the grid and back online? I’ll let you know.

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