I have two parish notices this morning, and you’re probably aware of both by now. First of all, for those of us who lost the right to vote in our home country because of the 15-year rule, you can now register again and vote again. The full details are on this electoral commission page.
If you want more info, then the Gov.uk site has a page, ‘Register to Vote’ which tells you where to apply. Once I’ve got back to Brighton & Hove and put myself back on the list, I shall have a vote somewhere in the world for something meaningful. Since Brexit, I’ve only been able to vote of things like Cover of the Month competitions, and since leaving the yUK after 15 years, I’ve not been able to vote there. I can’t vote in Greek elections as I’m not Greek, nor in my local island elections or European ones because I’m an against-my-will non-European. And to all those who whinge, ‘Why should you be able to vote in the yUk when you call it the yUk and don’t live there…’ blah, blah, heard it before, the answer is, because I can, so I will. Also, some people have interests there like house, tax liabilities, finances, families, history, birthplaces, an inbuilt affection for the country, and living abroad gives you a less skewed perspective, because we’re not swayed by daytime TV and the brain-numbingness of UK news and newspapers.
Anyway… The second parish notice has to do with boat timetables for the summer.
There aren’t any.
I’ve noticed the winter/spring posts on various Facebook groups and pages where people say things like, ‘I’ve booked my flights for July but there are no boats! How can I get across to Symi? Will I have to stay in Rhodes?’ and so on. The current answer is: you won’t know the boat schedules until at least April, possibly later, and it will change around Easter time anyway, so there’s not a lot you can do. At best, you can assume/hope the timetables are the same this year as they were last year, but that’s not definite. So, book your holls, but don’t fuss about boats yet. There either will be or there won’t be boats to suit your arrival time, and if there isn’t one, yes, you have to stay in Rhodes or Kos overnight before travelling on.
Such is Symi life. Be grateful you’re not doing it in winter where it’s possible to visit Rhodes on a Monday for an appointment on Tuesday because there’s no Tuesday boat, and have to stay until Wednesday for the same reason, and then find the weather’s tuned and you can’t get back until Friday. We got stuck in Rhodes for six days back in 2013 after being in Romania for a week. Had we known there would be no boats for the second week, we would have stayed in Transylvania; far cheaper.
So that’s that, and I’m getting on with my day which will see the usual round of morning writing and walking, followed by a fun afternoon at the piano.
