What to do on Symi in November? Well, let’s see now…

            You can sit out in the sun and catch some rays and generally wonder about the weather. It’s been quite mild, after the storms in October and a short cold snap. Most days were warm and there was plenty of sitting outside at home and in the village square to be had. Around the 20th things started to get cloudier with a mist that shrouded the coast of Turkey and even crept as far up as the Pedi valley and the Vigla.
            You can work. I finished my seven days a week afternoon shifts at the Rainbow bar on 7th November. Since then I’ve been hammering the keyboard doing my usual work and publishing the odd book here and there. Neil’s been opening the shop, taking photos of houses and people and has taken on a freelance Photoshop job, so we’ve been busy.

The odd book
Here for more publicity

            You can eat. Boy can you eat! We’ve been treated to three roast dinners and cooked one ourselves; we’ve had a curry and trivial pursuit night; we’ve even had a Thai curry (thanks Jenine); we’ve been through just about every kind of foodstuff available in the village and put on about half a stone already. But you need to do that for the cold nights.
            Apart from an afternoon G&T at Lefteris Kafeneion we’ve also popped into the Glaros bar to see how it looks now that Pan has given it a face lift. It’s much warmer and more homely in there now.
            We’ve been to the harbour (twice!) to collect mail and pay bills. It’s all very quiet down there now with a few tavernas open plus the usual collection of bars and cafes. There’s been some talk of boats and what will and will not be running during the winter but it seems that the Proteus is going back and forth most days.
            You can plan a holiday and I don’t just mean a day in Rhodes, though we need to do that before Christmas. We’re looking at somewhere off the coast of Ecuador. We haven’t had a holiday for seven years so have started saving like mad.

You can walk in the hills (Nov. 8th)

            You can sign on. Yes, for the first time in twenty years I’m officially unemployed. I wasn’t looking forward to this minefield of administration and red tape but it all went without a hitch. Stelios the accountant gave me a bundle of papers, I took them to the town hall, Irini went through them, (I think it helped that I could fill most of the three forms out in Greek) she rang Stelios, found the important piece of paper at the bottom of the pile and told me she would ring me when my giro was in. None of this take a ticket and queue up for four hours stuff like the last time I did it in Clapham all those years ago. It was more like going for a chat and took about ten minutes.
            You can watch every single DVD that Michaelis has in his shop and then start borrowing and sharing others with your friends.
            You can read, write, play the piano (if you have one), enjoy the delights of ADSL broadband internet for as long as you can stare at a screen, you can help people set up their ADSL internet connection, pick oranges, cut back the overgrown rosemary bush, search for firewood, walk in the village, walk in the mountains, have Greek lessons, feed cats, rearrange the living room furniture (still not enough space), clean the house and paint the roof so it doesn’t leak as much. Oh – and plan Christmas day; can’t wait.
            And then, if you still have time left, you can write trivia like this for our website.