Symi weekend
It was, as expected, a wet and slightly wild weekend as a bad weather front swept across the country. The edge of it caught Symi, and it wasn’t so bad, but it did mean a long Sunday walk in the mountains would have been pretty unpleasant, so we decided against that and just had the ‘after walk Sunday dinner’ instead.
But on Saturday we were out and about, down in Yialos doing a few minutes at the refugee station at The Old Post Office. There have been around 20 refugees on Symi this weekend, I expect they are still here waiting for the Wednesday boat to Athens. A bit of a shame actually as, I believe, they arrived on Friday but missed the Friday boat, so they have to stay until Wednesday. But Solidarity Symi and the authorities have looked after them, they have accommodation during this cold, wet weather, and they should be on their way on Wednesday Unless they decide to head to Rhodes for another connection. We just called into the centre to make up some more wash bags so that it’s easier to administer them for whoever takes the guests into the centre to hand over clothes and supplies.
After that we did a bit of shopping and wandering around, didn’t stop for a coffee or anything as we wanted to get back in case the heavens opened, which they didn’t as it turned out, but better safe than soggy. And so I spent the rest of the weekend entertaining myself with things online (shopping) and things in books (plotting a story, reading about the ‘Jack the Ripper diaries’), housework (tidying the sitting room for five minutes), writing (another chapter of ‘Shocking the Donkeys), and thinking about playing the piano. That’s on top of the usual chores of cooking, washing up, shopping, sifting the cat’s litter tray, feeding the strays up the road, sweeping the floors and trying to get the washing done.
Talking of Himself, the great He who must be obeyed, He went out for the night on Friday, dirty stop-out. We were heading out, around seven in the evening and Neil nipped down to Sotiris’ for some wine to take with us, leaving the front gate open. I was pottering around doing something highly important and noticed that Jack was looking at the open gate. As I came back past the same place a few seconds later, I noticed he’d gone. Either out, or up on the roof which is one of his favourite hanging out places. But no, for the first time in months, he took the opportunity to do a little exploring and, when we came home later, he was still not around so he stayed out all night.; We opened the gate again in the morning and he came back after about half an hour. No idea where he was or what he got up to, but at least there was no alarm call for us at 6.30 that morning.
And I must tell you that, apparently, Sunvil do come to Symi for holidays (see post last week). Lynne and Ian (who live on Tilos and who look after the cats there, and who kindly gave me a Tilos Cat Calendar when I was there last year) inform me that Sunvil operate on Tilos and Symi (Nireus and Iapetos Village). Lynne, the rep, tells me, “The 2016 brochure, which you can access online at http://www.sunvil.co.uk,/ features Symi on pages 206, 207. I often have clients on Tilos who do a twin centre with Symi.” So that’s good news and thanks for pointing it out.
