A Monday morning ramble
As you know, I’m not going out and about much apart from the occasional walk up to the hill in the morning, the not so occasional visits to the bar in the late afternoon after work, and the necessary trips to Yialos, which tend to be early in the day before the day boats arrive. I was down there on Saturday, early, to collect a package from the bookshop. It turned out to be some music I had ordered less than a week ago. Not bad as it came from England. I’d ordered a copy of Für Elise and Your favourite 50 best classical easy things or similar, for ‘Pianino’, my little piano who I am helping learn to play. (Aka Mozart because, let’s face it, he is rather good.) In the afternoon, I spent about an hour working through the book and going over some of the pieces I used to be able to play about 30 years ago. It’s amazing what your fingers remember, though my technique is somewhat out of the window these days, and needs a complete overhaul. I found I was able to play pieces like Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata reasonable well (up to a point) because I’d learnt to play them when I was in my early 20s, but when I then had a go at something easier from the new book, I was all over the place. I should spend more of my home time at the keyboard doing my scales and Hannon exercises, but then I have so many books to read, let alone the ones I want to write, and then there’s always the distraction of Glee and other Netflix attractions, plus a couple of series of How the Victorians Built Britain and others I’m watching for research.
Anyway… Observations from being out and about on Symi of late. There has been some fun at the bar, where social distancing and safety are the names of the games. Note the rubber glove in the photo below. Before this Yiannis had been serving wine on a shovel – a good-humoured prank, you understand, he and his co-worker, Neil, wear their masks as required, and he’s forever spraying down the chair arms and tables before and after punters, and there is hand-san available on your way to and from the restrooms. The police have been doing their rounds, checking that the bars and tavernas are adhering to the rules.
We had lunch at the Trawler on Saturday, and as it was early, we were the first people to arrive. There was lots of distance between the tables, and yet… The next couple in took the table two away from us, the next party took the one beside us across the wide gap, and the third lot took the table between us and the first, so although there were about 15 other tables available, we ended up in a line of four. Strange how humans do this. It’s like when you’re in the cinema for a wet Wednesday matinee, and there are only ten people in, but they all come and sit in front of you, or just behind as if people can’t exist unless in a group.
But work goes on everywhere, businesses are doing their best to survive, and there are some intrepid tourists about, some behaving better than others, and life ticks along. I think a lot of people are waiting to see what happens in September when the island is popular with northern Europeans. I get the impression businesses are hoping they will have a typical September, though, sadly, I doubt it will be anything like normal nor enough to secure people’s livelihoods and see them through the winter.
On which note, I should stop rambling and get on with one of my projects. There is a Beethoven beast on the piano that needs taming, and it’s not as if I don’t have time to work on it.
