Just catching up on weekend activities… A morning in Yialos for the annual Symi Dream Christmas party (a giros) and a Saturday walk down to Pedi followed by a quiz, a Sunday at home for the day and a dinner out in the evening, all very chilled and relaxed.
I have some photos to show you various parts of Symi in December, taken over the last couple of days and I’ll be putting up a blog post every day until Christmas Day, then I may take a couple of days off, so if I ‘go dark’ it’s (hopefully) not because I’ve exploded after eating too much on Christmas Day, it’ll be because I fancied a couple of days without having to think of anything to write.
So, Friday morning, I finished off some things at home, pottered about a bit, doing the hoovering and suchlike and catching up on the washing. Ah yes, you see, living on a little Greek island brings with it the same daily routines and rat-race-chores that we all have. A bit of light dusting, nothing too strenuous, and then a wander down the steps to Yialos. The accountant wasn’t in which is both a blessing and a pain as there are two large bills to be settled before the business can finally be said to be closed, and on into town.
We were just walking over the bridge when Neil had a phone call from a courier company, TNT, saying there was a package for him. ‘Where are you?’ he asked, not being too sure where TNT deliver to on Symi, ‘It’s on Symi,’ she replied, ‘Yes but…’ and that was the end of that call as far as she was concerned. We called in at the post office, collected a pile of bits and pieces and then headed off to find TNT. We checked ASC first, but they were away for five minutes please come back later, and then I went and asked Sarantis as he used to take deliveries, but he doesn’t and he didn’t know where TNT might be.
So, Neil called back to ASC and found them in but not knowing who the agent for TNT was, so he called into the newsagents, who are a courier agent, but who also didn’t know who TNT delivered to. And then we tried the bookshop as they also take deliveries from DHL, but no, no TNT and nothing for us (still awaiting some Christmas presents ordered two months ago). I phoned the TNT lady back and had an in depth conversation along the lines of, ‘you called us just now, you have a delivery for us, where is it?’ Apparently it is on Symi, in Yialos, with Valantis- someone. ‘Yes,’ I say, probing a little deeper, ‘but where is he? What shop is he next to?’ ‘I don’t know,’ she says, ‘I am in Rhodes.’
So we thought, ‘if in doubt, ask a postman’ and were just heading back to the post office when George (the postman) came around the corner on his moped. ‘Ah,’ he says waving cheerily, ‘did you open your box?’ Tempted to reply, ‘no, we took the money,’ we instead told him that we had, and asked where TNT went to. I mentioned the lady in Rhodes had said Valantis-someone, but no, apparently the TNT deliveries now go to George’s wife back at the newsagents and if they’d rung to say it was here then it was probably on the boat that night. All rather confused, but now knowing where this mysterious thing might turn up, we thanked him and set off for the rest of our adventure, intending to return to the hunt on Monday or Tuesday.
Stay tuned for part two of this riveting, action packed thrill ride tomorrow.
