Passport, the dreaded Brexit and the cat
First, a quick walk on Monday morning. From the village square, through the village and down to the road, along and up a bit and then turning off to the Pedi Valley, down the right-hand side, across the old riverbed and on to Pedi, along the bay a little and back up the road, a quick stop off at the supermarket and back to the square. One hour thirty, just over three miles, or, for me, around 7,000 steps. Pleasant weather, lots to plant life, not too many butterflies yet, plenty of sheep, goats, lambs and kids, people working on their plots of land, and the sea to look at half way through the walk. Very nice thank you.
We were putting up ‘celebration lights’ in the courtyard the other day. These are what were once called ‘fairy lights’ (and still are in my vocab), but presumably certain online traders have changed the title to an all-encompassing, non-threatening, non-judgemental, everyone friendly term so as not to offend anyone who is terribly ‘PC’ and might object to the word ‘fairy.’ We don’t want to upset Tinkerbell or anything, do we? Anyway, we were putting up a string before the vine grows back so that when it does it, the lights will twinkle (‘flicker’, in case we upset anyone else) through the leaves. Neil was up a ladder, and I was holding it. I looked up and there, right above him, was some kind of large eagle surrounded by swallows. I think it was a short-toed eagle, like the one we saw the other day. Rather fabulous, I thought. I couldn’t rush to get my camera for fear of knocking Tinkerbell of his perch, so you’ll have to take my word for it.
And on into the week. A few things planned for today (Tuesday) including sending off my passport for renewal. This will leave me without one until the new one comes back, or gets rejected for some obtuse reason, but I should be okay. In case you were wondering, a UK passport renewal costs £103.00 (roughly) including the return postage, you need to fill the form in online, then print off the declaration and sign it, supply two photos (no need to be signed) and your existing passport, plus proof of address. Always a funny one that, for us on Symi. I have a letter from a UK local authority (that is within a year old), but I had to print it myself from an email as the authority are reluctant to send out printed matter. I queried this with the HM Passport Office, and they said it should be fine – that’s where I can see there being a problem if there are any at all. It was a very easy process.
I was distracted by a link I found on the site to where I could read the UK government’s proposals for the Brexit future or something. It was titled along the lines of ‘The Rose-Tinted Vision for Post-Brexit UK’ and had lovely photos of a happy, smiling PM and her minions reading this and cheerily signing away that, with subtitles such as, ‘The Way Forward (turn the clocks back)’, ‘A Stronger Britain (without Scotland, trade, essential workers, etc.), and ‘What Brexit Means for You (costly imports, racist bashings depending on your colour, loss of your freedoms and rights, bleak future for your children’, and all that – in the end I couldn’t bring myself to read it due to the intelligence numbing rhetoric, deciding instead to come back to it when I felt a bit stronger. The day I was doing it (yesterday) was the anniversary of my father’s death and, although I am fine with that now after 20 years, I know he will be hammering his Mayor’s gavel in a furious response to what his country is doing to itself. I’ll read it another day.
But the day was also Jack’s 14th birthday, and thank you for his birthday wishes. I have relayed them to him. He just stared at me and wanted feeding as usual. Apart from the fact he is deaf, he is also Greek, I was speaking in English and, after all, he’s a cat. But he had a better day than the day before when his ear was bleeding over the Turkish rug and other parts of the house. He’s ‘dry’ in the ears now, but a bit piebald with dried blood, bless him. It comes and goes and he’s gone to celebrate his birthday up on his favourite roof, in the sun. And I am off to ramble on about something else elsewhere.
