Grey, warm and wet, just about sums up the weekend over here. Grey the skies, warm the air (between 10° and 16°), and wet everything else. Quiet the seas, in hiding the cats, sofa-bound was I, but some exercise was had.

I have this app that sets me the hideously embarrassing challenge of a ten-minute aerobic workout a day (rising to much longer over time). I stand in front of my phone as though it were a Roman house god, listening to an American woman encourage me while watching two ladies doing the steps. One clearly doesn’t need to, and the other is there to make me feel better. I do this standing at my office window, looking over the sea to Nimos, and hoping no-one comes in. No-one, so far, has, but then, there’s only Neil and he’s usually in the other room throwing heavy weights around his shoulders, so I get away with it.

Due to rain and lethargy, my step counter has fallen off somewhat since our trip to Rhodes the other week, when I was averaging around six miles walking per day. It’s so much easier over there because it’s flat.

Rhodes not two weeks ago.

So, this week, and the build up to Christmas, what’s happening? Well, the town council have organised plenty of events in Yialos, with island organisations joining in to present dances, concerts, markets and other fun things for us residents to enjoy, and, hopefully, the weather will dry off a little. Here, I am eagerly awaiting my new glasses which I hope will arrive today. Ditto some more things for Christmas which I know are tantalisingly close by. I have my piano student this afternoon, followed by dinner at his house and the turning on of the Christmas lights down there. Later in the week, I have a physio session, more piano, an online meeting I thought was last Thursday, and not much else. I have an idea for a new novel for my mystery series and should be getting the last one back from proofreading so I can finish that and set it free on the world. Thus… Onwards into the week.

Here’s a set of mystery and other titles you might like to browse.

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As you can see, a cloudy start to today.

For the first time since whenever, I have a day with nothing in my diary, nothing in the typewriter, and nothing much to do around the house. That’s because I’ve finished the latest MS and sent it off to be proofread, so I can’t work on that, there are no piano commitments, dinners planned, drink meet-ups or anything like that, and I don’t know what to do with myself. I think I shall do some research for the next book. I had an idea yesterday, and I need to look into whether it’s going to be viable as the basis for a story set sometime in 1893. So, there, that’s my morning organised.

Two days ago

I was hoping I might receive some ‘You have a parcel’ notifications, because, according to tracking, I have a couple of things which are nearly here, and the Blue Star you saw in the photo above is the first boat in what seems like ages. I had a message about one delivery a few days ago and it was the one that says, ‘Delivery failed.’ This usually means the thing has arrived at the hub in Rhodes, but as it’s a Symi address, it automatically registers as ‘unable to deliver’ because, I assume, the system only accounts for Rhodes addresses. They have street names there, where we have very few here. Usually, when ‘Delivery failed’ appears, it means the thing is on the next boat. I.e., this morning’s.

Delivery rarely fails here, and that’s thanks to the excellent postal system and workers, and the conscientious courier staff. Often, I’ll get an automated message from, say, ACS, saying I have a delivery, and then, a personal text message from the ACS pickup point in Yialos. I’ve been sat outside having a coffee before and one of the post office folk has come past and told me I just had a delivery come in. On one occasion, we were having lunch at Meraklis when the courier came past, waved hello, vanished, came back a minute later, and put my delivery on the table.

However, if the rain starts and is as bad as predicted, I shall be staying home where it is currently, permanently night. That’s because the shutters are closed and the heavy curtain up, and if I want to see daylight, I have to stand in the courtyard. So, now, locked inside my dark office, beneath the one lamp, because I need to change the main light fitting to a new one, and with one bar on the heater as a half-hour treat, I shall start investigating the facts behind my next possible work of fiction. have a good weekend!

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Things around here are starting to get festive. There’s the Christmas tree in the Rainbow bar and the lights around the village, and now, we have splashed out on a new tree too. For years we were dealing with one we’d had since before 2007. I know this because on New Year’s Eve that year when Neil broke his heel, we had to go to Rhodes on 2nd January, and he ended up in hospital for an operation. The next day, or day after, I had to nip back to Symi to collect some things as he was going to be there for a week or more. Lefteris gave me a lift up from the hydrofoil, I dashed around the house putting away the decorations, packing bags, and sorting out work things via emails. That left the Christmas tree which I picked up, baubles and all, bunged in a bag and shoved in the mousandra. Before I knew it, I was back in Rhodes. The next year, we simply took it out of the bag and bunged it in a corner, and there you go. Anyway, last year, we’d had enough of the poor old thing, so we bought another one from a cheap online shop. This arrived in a pizza box. You put together the stand (four pieces), placed the round, shiny, horrible, plastic thing over the top and let it drop. Hey presto! A Christmas tree. It was so light and portable, we took it to Athens where Neil ended up wearing it on his head. We left it behind.

This year, we have a stunning arrangement, bought locally.

Mind you, that’s a close-up shot of it. It’s not exactly worthy of Syntagma Square, but it’s cute and does its job.

The Christmas programme from the town hall is also out. There will be a succession of carol singing, dance shows, markets, and other events in the weeks leading up to St Vasilis Day on January 1st. I’ll put the info at the bottom of this post for you to read or translate.

I have a busy day today what with a physio session later this morning, an online meeting at one, a piano lesson at three followed by the final part of the Mozart series with my student who is then staying for tea so we can watch an old Treasure Hunt or something. All that after getting up at four because I was in bed by nine last night. As for the weather, it’s back to normal, though only for a couple of days. Apparently, another wet and wild weekend lies ahead.

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Much inspired by our new Christmas tree, Yiannis at the Rainbow Bar has invested in one of his own.

Calling into the corner shop last night, I was as impressed as always with the Wonder Wall; the place where any child of any age is able to pass by and add their contribution to modern art.

And after admiring that, I admired the village Christmas lights from a different angle and was mightily impressed.

In the rest of our little local world, the rain has passed by, for now. There are still scenes of destruction coming out of Rhodes which was particularly badly hit by the recent storm, and there is more to come this weekend. In the meantime, we should enjoy the respite. It means we can open some shutters and brighten the house which has been in constant darkness since Friday. The washing is in the machine, the doors are open to let some air through, and I may even venture out for a walk, the first since I got back from Rhodes. There’s not a lot more to tell you about that trip, but if I remember anything, I’ll come back to it.

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The thrilling saga continues… I went out to eat on Monday night, over the road to the Wok and Roll. (See what they did there?) I’m not usually one of those who share photos of their noodles and things, so I shan’t, but I had Singapore noodles for my supper, and very nice they were too.

Further down the pedestrian street, Koukos was doing its usual roaring business. I’ve known this place for over 20 years, and it gets bigger each time I see it. It’s well worth a visit if you can ever get in, and looks a lot prettier than my photo picks up.

That was Monday. On Tuesday, with all day to myself, I started off with a walk around the peninsular as it is so much easier to get your steps in on Rhodes than it is on Symi thanks to it being mainly on the flat. I think I did 15,000 steps on Tuesday, in the end. Breakfast was at the Plaza where, for €12.00, you can have as much as you want from the buffet. Two cups of coffee, a plate of all kinds of cooked things, and some yogurt, toast, fruit etc., would cost more than €12.00 at a café, so that, to my mind, was a bit of a bargain.

Shopping was on my list of things to do; some new t-shirts and a hoodie, to start with, so I set off to the usual stomping grounds. Everything, it seems is grey. Blandness is making a comeback this season, with the dreary black and lighter shades of mediocrity being the in-thing for men. The trend has been set by H&M and their collection of drab, with the theme of off-white banality developing into the risky world of beige over at Zara. Even Pull & Bear have taken the bromidic path of couldn’t-careless-ness black, grey, beige, and ‘once might have been cream,’ coloured everything. Trousers, shorts, hoodies, jumpers, coats… Yawn. At least in the men’s department of H&M one can take a moment to ponder the ancient monuments.

Luckily, I found some colour over the rainbow at Terra Nova, where there, among the grey, were some offerings for men in green, purple and blue. So, with three new T-shirts and a maroon hoodie, I set off up to my next hotel, the Castellum, there to check in early (10.30) so I could make use of the facilities, dining room, bar, you name it, and the room which as usual, was clean and spacious. I set to work on the book for most of the rest of the day, apart from taking a lovely long walk in the afternoon to see if I could find my jeweller open in the Old Town, because I’d brought over Sam’s necklace to be repaired. The jeweller wasn’t in, but then I didn’t arrive there until two in the afternoon, so thought I’d try the next day. Thus, it was back to the hotel for more food and reading, chat and hanging out as I waited for Neil to arrive at some point around midnight.

The ‘what I did in the holidays’ ramble will continue tomorrow.

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