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Symi Dream

Living on a Greek island

Symi Dream - Living on a Greek island

Friday Fun

We had something of a triumphant end to last week. On Thursday, halfway through Harry’s piano lesson, there came a knock at the door followed by a chap bearing four copies of the new contract for the house. We arranged, with some helpful translation by my student, to meet at the KEP office the next morning at ten because this chap had been instructed to return two completed copies to our new landlord. Sorted. So, the next day, we trotted down to the KEP office, signed the contract, and waited while the extremely helpful and patient lady added our passport details and my biometric card details to each copy. Meanwhile, the chap from the day before was doing his signing along with three other tenants of the same house. That’s a lot of passport detail copying (by hand) to be done. Anyway… We then went off to the accountant to give him his copy… Break for a photo:

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Stelios told me I needed to ask the landlord to send the contract up to Taxistet (the online tax portal), and I explained that when George the landlord and I talk, it’s via written message which I can translate because I’m terrible on the phone in Greek, and terrible on the phone in general, so Stelios rang him. The business side of the discussion was completed within two minutes, and all was well. There then followed about 20 minutes of general chat and catching up. George, it seems, used to be a teacher here, knew Stelios from when he was young (I think that’s what was going on), told him the story of how the houses became left to him in Andreas’ will… And so on. The upshot was, eventually, that our new landlord is a very nice chap who doesn’t know where the houses are, but, we think, isn’t interested in selling; at least, not just yet. So, we have a year’s contract and next summer, before it runs out, Stelios will check in to see what the future holds for the house and for us. Who can tell…? Another break for a photo:

The flags are up for the Oxi Day parade on Monday.

The flags are up for the Oxi Day parade (today).

By way of celebration, we went for a coffee and a walk and ended up having lunch at the Trawler because Neil fancied the psaronefri and I had a spag bol because I’m going ‘carb free’ (not). Meanwhile, Neil received news that his British passport had been processed and was on its way back. This is another rambling story, but in brief: his yUK passport expired so he sent it off for renewal, but also had to send a copy of every single page from his Irish passport (or the document itself). When that arrived with the UK office, they decided not to process the renewal until both passports matched. In the UK one he has all three forenames, but in the Irish one, only two. Therefore, he then had to apply for his Irish one to be renewed three years early and have his third name added… We put in a covering letter, and it all went smoothly, arriving back here about three weeks after being sent by courier at an exorbitant price. Then, once the new one (with all three names) came back, he had to send copies of every page even if blank, off to the UK offices, who had given him an application extension, and then wait, and then receive innumerable communications asking him to send his documents, and then chatted on their helpful chat box helpline, and then… Finally, it was done and on its way back.

There, I told you it was a ramble. To close, another photo:

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Still plenty of day trippers