Symi update
It’s a bit chilly here today with a north-west wind blowing the clouds away. Apparently we’ve got this for a couple of days and then it should calm down. It’s good weather for sailing though and we’ve had a flotilla of sailing boats in as part of a regatta. They were in overnight Thursday and set off again Friday morning. Hopefully this has given the island its first major visitor-boost and helped those in their ‘end of winter finance’ mode.
I think I left you yesterday at the medical centre waiting for an X-ray. It was finally sorted and, though we’d not finished in time to make the boat, we had a great service from Euromedica and since then I have had an even better service from them via email. It used to be that we had a doctor on Symi who could authorise the paperwork after medical tests to allow you (by which I mean ‘one’) to work in food places; cafes, tavernas, kitchens etc. That doctor has now left and, at the moment, there isn’t one who has the right authority to do this, so another solution must be found. While in Rhodes I made some enquiries and was told various different tales from various people I know in the restaurants and hotels there, some of whom did their ‘books’ under the old system, some of whom had done it under the new system. The new one having come in this year, apparently. I was left not knowing if we would have to come back next week, stay overnight again, get to the clinic, collect the tests and then be at a place called 100 Palms, where the state doctors can do the ‘book’ and spend a morning queuing and waiting while fretting about maybe missing the boat again. So I asked Euromedica.
After some emails they confirmed that there is a doctor at their hospital who is able to authorise these books (which may not actually be books anymore), and that we could return next Wednesday, collect the results and then see the doctor. When I asked where we had to go for that they emailed back telling me to come and find them at the International Department and they would call the doctor to see to us. That simple email took all the stress and worry out of the process and now I am confident that Nephew will be fully authorised by this time next week. Okay, so two trips to Rhodes adds to the cost, but that’s because we live on a small island. I am almost looking forward to the trip, though will only be totally relaxed when he’s got his papers authorised and I know I don’t have to take any more trips across for a while. Well, I have to return the week after for an appointment of my own and then two weeks after that I am off to Tilos for a week, but otherwise, I’m staying home. Meanwhile, because the tests have been done, he is still fine to work in the taverna. I know a lot of people have been talking about this medical process and are not sure of the new regulations. I just spent half an hour trying to find them online without success. My advice would be to ask the doctor, the KEP office, or IKA, make a phone call and try and find out what this ‘new’ system is, if it is new at all. If anyone does get a link to the definitive, correct-department, answer, let me know and I will share it here.
Anyway; talking medical, Jack the cat has just scratched his ear and is dropping blood about the courtyard. He’s fine in himself but his dark patches on his ears and nose are growing slowly. This is what his personal physician called ‘pre-cancerous skin tissue’ and so we expect it only to get worse. Maybe to the point of where we have to have more of his ears taken off so he becomes a cat of the Lugless Douglas class. There’s nothing we can do about his nose but keep an eye on it and hope it doesn’t break out into full blown nastiness, though that is inevitable. People have been asking after him, which is very kind, and he is still as soft and daft, loud and deaf as ever, getting a bit more crotchety in his old age, a bit more grumpy and he loves sitting in laps and next to you on the sofa now more than ever.
That’s my update for today. I’ll just read it over to make sure I haven’t made that many typos -but even if I have I doubt I will spot them. Like the other day when I said I had been watering the pants, I meant plants; I’ve not got to that stage yet.
