Symi cats, trees, walks, weather
We’re back on track now with today’s post being written yesterday (Wednesday). The Blue Star has been in, gliding into port on a calm sea under the sun. It came in on Monday too as a special visit to bring supplies, so when we went to the post office on Tuesday there were several packages for us and there were fresh supplies today in the shop. Including cat food.
We’ve just had a tray of Rokus (cat food) delivered to the house along with a few packs of water. Habib brings it on his moped for us, it saves us carrying it the huge distance from the shop, and I think he likes getting out and about every now and then. He stays on his moped as he puts the water on our step, rings the bell and rides off to turn around. Usually by the time we get to the gate he is sailing back past merrily shouting ‘Your nero is here’ (in Greek) and heading off down the hill back to work. But back to the cats:
We have reached the end of our supplies – we’re talking stray cat food supplies here. I think we’ve probably been a bit over-generous with our set of strays as we give them leftovers and biscuits every day, or a can of Rokus and some biscuits, plus water. We also bought some cheap pasta to mix up with it all to make it go further so later the bin cats near us will be having ‘Pasta a la dubious meat from a tin’ with a side order of dry biscuits and a 2016 bottle of ‘eau de tap.’
We were out and about for a walk the other day, taking an hour after lunch to get out and enjoy the sun. You start off from home with your thermals and jumper and coat, and end up down to a t-shirt (with some kind of trouser arrangement of course) by the time you’ve reached the top of the village. It’s the same when you go to Yialos; start out dressed for the final push to the pole and end up at Elpida’s in a t-shirt, in the sun with a frappe. Such is Symi winter weather (not all the time). Apparently it was 16 degrees yesterday but try telling that to the sitting room where the thermometer read 10 all day, and it’s set to stay fair and warm (14 to 17 during the day) and sunny with some cloud. As we know, these predictions can change quickly.
We were on hand to keep our appointment with our landlord on Wednesday morning, but it must have slipped his mind so we did some work on the tree unsupervised. There’s a fig tree in front of the house that he cuts back each year and, as it grows back again, it obscures part of our view and, more importantly, endangers the phone lines above it. We went out and did what we could, taking off any branches thin enough for our loppers to cope with. The main branches need a saw and a strong arm, or an electric saw and me, and we need to know if we should take the wood away or leave it there in case anyone wants it for their fires. The tree will have grown back by June, but at least it will only grow back to how it was and not carry on growing higher, potentially cutting off six buildings from their phone connection. It’s a start and I am sure the landlord will knock for us when he wants us to help with what remains.
That’s about the highlight reel for the last couple of days: sun, a boat or two, cats (still no sign of Jack), shopping, lopping, keeping warm and vowing to call the plumber every time the pump fails to kick in and never getting around to it as you can (at the moment) simply flick the switch to re-set it and start again. We are planning a few more walks before the weather changes, as the forecast sown it will be doing in March, so there should be some more photos to look at over the coming days, which means that you can keep right up to date on what’s happening on Symi. At least, you can as far as what the weather and Symi Dream are up to.
