Blue Star Patmos
We’re almost getting back to normal now after a wonderful three weeks with mother visiting. I say almost as I’m going to be away for a few days early next week, and then we will be back to normal – or what constitutes normal around here.
I went over to Rhodes on Wednesday on the Blue Star Patmos for the first time. That’s an impressive ship! It looks too big to make it into the harbour and dock and yet it does. Once you are on it, up in one of the lounges, you hardly feel it moving and it is also very quiet inside. It has three outside decks at the back and at least five cafes that I counted, plus a self-service restaurant and an a la carte one and a shop. On the way back I wandered around it for ages saying hello to various Symi folk I knew and still met up with others as I disembarked, others that I’d not known were on it. It’s quick too and not expensive to buy a ticket. I’ll be on it again next Wednesday.
In other, more personal news, those who read here but don’t follow us on Facebook might not yet know that we have had confirmation that Neil is an Irish citizen, as we thought he was, and that he can apply for his Irish passport. We’ve been dealing with a very helpful lady in the Embassy in Athens who is helping him through the application process, and now a very helpful solicitor in Rhodes who is also going to help with affidavits needed (to do with Symi not having street names, our bills being in the landlord’s name and so on). These, or this, will satisfy the Embassy that he is who he says he is and lives where he says he does. Once that’s done, we will just be waiting on the form and a couple more documents which have been ordered. After that… well, he will be European twice so if the UK goes ahead with the…. and you know my feelings on that travesty, then he will be able to stay in Greece with no hassle if the situation for UK citizens changes in the future.
That’s a great relief but it doesn’t stop me worrying about everyone else who may have their European citizenship taken away from them following a very unfair, badly run, ill-informed and non-binding vote that gets taken as ‘the majority of the country’ and all that rubbish. So, it’s a case of ‘we’re all-right, Jack,’ at least for now.
And talking of Jack, he’s all-right too, though getting more and more demanding and noisy and grumpy with age. Meanwhile, it looks like the season is more or less over though day boats are still coming in and out. Neil will finish work at the bar on Saturday ahead of his winter family visit and we can start to settle down for the winter. This means, this weekend, putting up the thermal curtains, finding the winter clothes, making sure we’ve money for the heating bills, finding the warm slippers and electric blanket… Lots to do before the writing season really kicks in, which I am hoping it will do as of next Thursday.
