The village square plays several roles throughout the year. It’s a playground, a meeting place, a dance floor, a car park, an artists’ studio, a cut-through, a place to store building supplies, a place to celebrate, a live music venue, and a gossiping ground. It remains some of those things throughout the winter, but there’s less live music and dancing, but otherwise, pretty much the same, except it’s quieter. Much quieter.
Currently, only Georgio’s and Rainbow are open, and then, the bar only in the early evening and not always in the morning. Lefteris Kafeneion is currently closed, but on the edge of the square, the corner shop continues to keep the local economy running, as does ‘Mr Chan’s Chinese Emporium’ opposite. (I don’t know if that’s its real name, I doubt it, but it’s what everyone at the bar calls it.) Other places are open elsewhere in the village (the Sunrise, Ringo’s), but around the square, there is definitely a sense of winter, quiet time, staying indoors, and even the young’uns aren’t out playing football so much, if at all. Mind you, it’s starting to get chilly, and dark early, it’s nearly 7.00 now, and still the sun isn’t up. Ah well, anyway, onwards we go…
I love it when the day starts with you not knowing your own name. My cover designer just sent me the full cover for the next set of Clearwater Tales (‘1893’), and very fine it looks too. She’d sent me the front cover a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve been touting it around in a pre-publicity attempt to raise vague interest. However, it was only just now, when seeing the full wrap-around, that I noticed there was a C missing from my name, ‘Jackson Marsh’ had become Jakson Marsh, and I’d not even noticed. So, the two covers have been rushed back to Serbia for that amendment, and hopefully, it won’t slow down the publication process.
Last weekend
Meanwhile, we’re enjoying calmer weather, with the temperature up to 15° yesterday in the shade of our courtyard, though the air is chilly when you’re not in direct sunlight. Neil’s popping down town today to finalise his end-of-work paperwork and so on, while I am finishing the edits on ‘1893’ and generally doing desk-bound stuff this morning, with no plans to do anything this afternoon. That’s always a nice feeling to start with – nothing do but put your feet up with a good book… For ten minutes, and then I’m thinking, ‘I should be doing something’, but what? I can’t spend the rest of the day watching reality TV and adventure films, I should do something…’ There are 101 things I could be doing and a few more I should be doing, but there’s too much choice, so I’ll carry on reading in the hope it all goes away.
Also last weekend
It’ll be a different story this time on Friday when I’ll be preparing for another trip to Rhodes. 7.45 boat, 10.00 possibly some shopping, 11.00 appointment, lots of walking, 12.30 meet up with the godson, lunch, boat back at 18.15, home by 20.00. However, this time in two weeks, we’ll be waking up in Innsbruck and preparing for a 10.16 train to Salzburg. That’s part of the trip the four of us are setting off on a week on Friday, which means the last blog of the year will be on the 18th, or earlier if the weather looks dodgy and we decide to leave on the Wednesday and spend three days holed up at the Castellum Suites. We shall see, but for now… On with the editing, and after that, I will write out 100 times, ‘I must learn to spell my pen name.’
We had something of a stormy start to the weekend. The main Athens-Rhodes ferry, the Blue Star Patmos, didn’t come in at 7.30 on Friday, but was postponed until around midnight. So, that put paid to my follow-up dentist visit. Mind you, I wouldn’t have been able to get down to the boat at the time it was originally due, as it was far too dangerous to be out and about on Friday morning. We had the towels down to catch the water blowing into the porch, and others beneath the bathroom window (which doesn’t shut properly), and under one window where we’d forgotten to close the shutters. We did manage a shopping expedition on Friday evening, between the downpours, and stopped to say hello at the bar. The storm raged on through the day, off and on, and came back again on Saturday, but by Sunday, everything was back to normal.
Apart from our house, where Neil made a Hungarian goulash, and we both contributed to an Austrian apple strudel, and after lunch, three of us watched the original stage production of Into the Woods, among other theatrical delights on YouTube. Probably not your typical Symi Sunday, but there you go.
Christmas has come to the Rainbow! (Clue: it’s beneath the TV.)
And here I go, as I have just received the final, proofed draft of ‘1893’, and I need to get on with my last readthrough before I send it off to be formatted.
As you may know, and as more local people will definitely know, we’re currently under storm Bryon, and the day is set to get worse. That’s one thing. Another is, when did all this storm naming start, or have we always had it? Do records really exist of the famous storm Æðelþryð of 590?
Whatever the weather holds for us today, we’re staying inside (apart from Neil popping out to feed the cats as long as it’s safe to do so). The wind isn’t cold, but it’s rattling things, and the rain hasn’t arrived yet, but the shutters are shut. As long as we don’t have to unplug everything because of lightning, I shall cosy up at my desk and write something, and later, cosy up on the sofa to watch something. (Currently trawling through Bake Off Professionals, The Traitors (done the UK, now on the USA), and various fantasy shows about vampires, the Jacobite Rebellion, werewolves, Vikings, witches and Gogglebox.)
(Must fix that curtain ring.)
I might come back in here and play the piano, pretending I’m that chap out of ‘The Legend of 1900’ who’s on a passenger liner, and playing the piano which is being waltzed around the ballroom by the heavy movement of the ship. We shall see, and we shall also see what Mr Byron brings us today. Meanwhile, a couple of better-weather images to change the subject.
The return trip to the dentist in Rhodes tomorrow is off. That’s thanks to the weather and the resulting change in the Blue Star timetable. (And not wanting to add another €300 or so to the bill by going yesterday and spending until Monday there, or coming back on a boat at two in the morning on Saturday.) We once worked out that if we wanted to go to the cinema, it would cost us over €200, what with hotels and feeding, etc., Mind you, these days, if we did, we’d stay at the Castellum (where we will be staying in a couple of weeks), and pay only €75 for a night with all our meals and drinks included, so a cinema trip would probably now only cost us around €150 if we were careful.
Anyway, not what I was going to say. It’s been raining already, and we’re expecting a big storm over the next two days, so I plan to stay in as much as possible. Here’s the new look for Rhodes rainfall on Friday afternoon, and the wind is just as bad.
I had a successful trip to town yesterday. A check up on the teeth, and now the naughty one has had its roots pulled out, the others around it seem to be behaving and don’t need any work, at least for now, so that’s good news. I picked up some supplies for our forthcoming trip, some new joggers, and some USB rechargeable heated gloves, some… What? No, honestly, it’s a thing. Two things, in fact, and they work. They are for when the office is down at 6° in the winter, and it’s hard to type. Some days, it can take me all morning to get the room up to 10°, and some days, I simply don’t bother coming into work, but take work home with me (and write at the kitchen table). That’s all to come after Christmas.
Before that, we have a long-planned and saved-for trip, and we’ll be leaving two weeks tomorrow, or earlier if the weather looks like it’s going to be dodgy. More about that in due course.
As for today, I am planning to hoover the office carpet, which is always something of a workout, then there’s some piano playing, and a guidebook to work on. I’ve also started on another winter project, which is to transfer my old music from CD to digital storage before the CDs refuse to stop playing. This is my music, btw, not other people’s CDs, but the cabaret recordings, and the theatre show studio recordings.
So, there’s plenty going on, and it’s all going to go on behind shuttered windows with towels ready in vulnerable places, like the porch.
