For someone who had little to do, I had quite a busy weekend. It started on Friday with some cloud spotting, and it wasn’t a hard task. The weather is becoming more autumnal, but not the ‘Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun’ of Keats’ imagination, more the ‘… from whose unseen presence the leaves dead are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing’ of Shelly’s ‘Ode to the West Wind.’ Last night was blowy, but let’s start on Friday.
We stood on the balcony that Friday morn… I’ve now got poems in my head. We stood by the pond that winter day… (Thomas Hardy). I’ll try again.
On Friday, we were on the balcony admiring the view, idly thinking, Earth has not anything to show more fair, than the sight of Symi harbour, nor even of the clouds wandering lonely above. It is the season of clouds, you see. For the first time in a while, save the occasional storm or off day, we are again seeing clouds on a regular basis. This doesn’t have to mean it’s cold and dreary, far from it; it is more like fresh and invigorating.
What was fun about Friday morning was trying to work out what the clouds were telling us…
At first, I thought I saw a four-letter word but then they changed to what you see here, a line of bears and cartoon creatures, with a bear on the left reaching for a lemur perhaps, who is following a Disney crocodile about to eat a jelly baby. I should point out that this was early on Friday morning, and we’d not yet had our medication. Or we’d had too much of it. Can’t remember. Anyway…
There were a few more clouds around later in the morning when I went stomping up the hill, and then it was back to work for me, the gym for Neil, followed by his work, and the weekend progressed.
Saturday became interesting We are organising a family outing to Athens for New Year, which came about because there’s a production of one of my favourite musicals I want to see, and, frankly, any excuse… As well as this, we are now also attending a performance of The Nutcracker at the National Opera House, and each of our party has been given the job of organising an activity – not during the performance, but on the other days we are in town. There may well be rock climbing involved, a trip to the cinema, a day’s outing out of the city, perhaps something involving a mystery (my doing), and a shopping afternoon in a shopping mall, simply because none of us can remember what one looks like.
Sunday was mainly given over to wind of the external variety, and to closing windows that had been open all summer, looking at the blown leaves in the courtyard and thinking, ‘They’ll be more by tomorrow’ so leaving them there, and thinking ‘There’s no point sweeping into the wind.’
There was a wedding on Sunday afternoon with celebrations running into the evening. So, if you were wondering what the fireworks, dynamite and streams of cars and bikes all sounding their horns as they wove around the island were all about, now you know. Just a Symi wedding. Oh – and if you are reading this on Monday before 11.00 and you are on Symi, don’t worry about the air raid sirens, it’s just the annual system test.
I also took a hike up a hill, and while there, I noticed a plant with bright yellow flowers. From a distance, I thought it was gorse, but it’s not. Then I wondered if it was a herb so I rubbed and sniffed its leaves and… yuk, nasty. I can’t describe the smell but it’s not pleasant. I’m not a plant person, so I have no idea what it is called (Archie, maybe, or Brian?), but maybe if you follow us on the Facebook page, you might comment and tell me what it is.
I’ll leave you with a photo of it to look at, but I don’t advise scratch and sniff.
