The Same Old Sun

Following on from yesterday’s sun-themed post, here are some photos taken on Monday as the sun was coming up. The hills turn a dusty pink colour in the first rays, though that’s not always easy to capture on a phone cam, and the low light casts longer shadows on buildings and along the lanes. I took a wander around the village, up some steps, through some narrow alleys and came out beyond the museum to the main road. From there, it’s an easy walk downhill back home, and at that time of day, the streets were very quiet.

Mind you, everywhere is very quiet. I popped my head out of the gate just after 4 pm and heard nothing apart from the chickens up the road. Things seem to be noisier at night when the motorbikes are out as, I assume, younger people look for something to do of an evening. The sound of a plane overhead is cause for conversation these days, and if you want to see something moving in the harbour, you have a choice of patrol boats, the Blue Star ferry and the Spanos catamarans. I occasionally see a fishing boat chugging about, and the other week, I saw some of those white charter yachts out at sea. I assume they were being moved from place to place by the companies that own them, or they were people who live aboard their boats all the time changing neighbourhoods. The tankers come in when needed, but otherwise, the harbour remains devoid of visiting and pleasure yachts, as it currently must.

So, quiet days, a brighter sun as spring continues, and now we are in a calmer weather period, and the temperature is back to the early 20s in the courtyard by the afternoon. There’s a sense of a clock ticking in the background as we approach the promised/possible reopening of the tourism industry, but as yet, no sign of businesses doing up their premises – not that I’ve yet seen, at least. Fingers crossed it can all start to happen again soon. We managed a summer season of sorts last year, and that was before vaccinations, so I am hoping it will be possible again, even if along the same distancing lines. Meanwhile, the same old sun will rise in the morning…

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Symi Sun

Finally! The wind died down over Sunday night, so I thought I’d share some sunnier views today. Mind you, these were taken a couple of months ago, but we will have such skies again very soon. The sun is coming up earlier each day, so you can expect some sunrise shots once I get this mammoth first draft out of my head and have time to get out and about more.

Talking of sunrises, regular visitors to Symi will know that on the wall in the Rainbow Bar, there is a painting of a ‘Symi Sunrise’ and the slogan, ‘Symi Sunrise is good for you.’ (It’s a cocktail.) Yiannis had this painted years ago, and it and the mural of the Symi scene still remain. I mention this because Yiannis has already checked in to make sure Neil is happy to come back to work as soon as the bar can open after Easter. Of course, he is, and we can only hope there will be customers. I know many friends from abroad are eager to get back to Symi, and who can blame them? I’m keen to get off it for a day just for a change of view and for something to do.

That’s going to happen in two weeks, as I have to go to Rhodes to start the process of applying for my residency card. The last time I did this, in 2008, it took about three weeks of toing and froing to the police station here on Symi, phone calls, and a lot of waiting around. Hopefully, as the authorities are now having to process over 30,000 of these applications, they will have streamlined the thing. The first trip is to deliver the paperwork and fill out the forms, the second a while later is to be fingerprinted, and the third is to collect the card. That is unless, by now, they have speeded things up and arranged for Symi people to get fingerprints done on the same day and for the cards to be sent to our local police station for collection. That would save a lot of travelling between the island and save money and time. The last I heard, though, three trips were still necessary. I’ll let you know in due course.

And back to the blue skies to finish.

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Weekend, Work and Writing

We are definitely in that changeable time of year weather-wise. The other day, the thermometer in the courtyard read 24 degrees. On Saturday morning, it read eight. Mind you, it was blowing a gale from the north, and this was at 3.15 in the morning. One of the bedroom shutters had come loose, and the noise managed to penetrate my earplugs and wake me up. Not wanting it to wake Neil, I slipped out of the room, got dressed in the kitchen as I usually do in the winter so as not to disturb, and went outside to fix the problem. I nearly ended up in the harbour but managed to put the rocks back into place (to hold the shutter open) and made it back to the house without being swept from the hillside. That was something of a wake-up call, I can tell you.

The winds battered us for most of Friday and Saturday, but no damage was done, and Sunday began in a calmer fashion. Most of my weekend was taken up in writing, as usual, but more than normal because I am four of five chapters away from finishing a first draft. It’s all mapped out in my head. I just need to put down the words and tell myself the story. Then, after a break, I can start again at the beginning and make reasonable words even better. I hope.

I also had to compose a post for my other blog, my pen name writing one, and this week’s theme was character creation. This is a subject that people write books about, but I went for my usual stream of consciousness style and loaded up 2,000 words on the subject as it popped into my head. I did try and keep things to a basic structure, and I included drawings an artist has made of some of the characters I was talking about. If you’re interested, you can find it over at Jackson Marsh. There, I post about all manner of writing thoughts: Putting together a series, individual books, character interviews… I have guest posts too, and from time to time, when I am feeling studious, I have posts about the research I undertake to make the novels more realistic.

So, as the new weeks starts… Only two weeks before I am due in Rhodes to start the process for my biometric permit. Before then, I need to organise my photos (SpacePhone in Yialos), find additional paperwork that shouldn’t be needed but, if it is, will prove I have lived here permanently without a break since 2002 (a blog won’t do it, sadly, but that’s now been on the go for 16 years). I will need to get permission to travel, plus boat tickets nearer the time. I think everything else is covered. And now, onto the firth-to-last chapter of a rather lengthy first draft that’s the last in the first series of historical mysteries…

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Yesterday’s Post – Cause For Great Excitement

Great excitement in the house yesterday as a batch of new tea towels arrived. That was kind of the highlight of my day… Actually, there were more. My certificate of adoption came through at last. I’m not being adopted, but I have adopted a Galapagos penguin. Rather, Neil adopted one for me as a Christmas present, and the certificate arrived yesterday. This was posted in January, and it’s an A4 piece of paper delivered by courier, so that goes some way to telling you how bad things are when it comes to new postage procedures post-Brexit. (But at least there was no extra charge.)

On which note, I also received a cable for my new Bluetooth headphones. I bought the headphones from an online company within Greece, and they took about a week to arrive. My piano has Bluetooth, and the idea was to connect the two things wirelessly, but it turns out my piano only Bluetooth-connects to a phone or tablet to read digital scores. I’m still a paper man myself and would hate to read a score from a screen. So, I had to order a cable, which I did via Amazon Germany on 9^th March, so that took just over four weeks to arrive. According to the tracking, there was a hold up at Athens customs, but, again, I didn’t have to pay any extra to collect it. Not like some folks who have been charged €120.00 customs and tax on top of the postage they paid online before they can retrieve their post from the UK.

I am currently waiting for one other thing in the post, and that’s a model kit from America. That’s about the only place I can find the kits I want, so I accept that it will take a few months for an order to arrive. That’s no problem, as they have always arrived eventually and in one piece. Well, in the correct number of pieces as you have to put them together yourself, which is the whole point. The kits only cost about $25.00 (depending on what it is), and the postage is usually the same again. However, I don’t mind that, because I know I will not be charged an extra €120.00 by the courier or customs. I’ve never had to pay any extra when ordering from the USA or even China, so I can only think the trade deal between the EU and yUK made during the Brexit fiasco was less ‘oven-ready’ and more’ past its sell-by date’ before it was even signed.

And finally, in yesterday’s post, copies of bank statements I asked for but shouldn’t need when I go for my biometric card at the end of the month, and a bill for the household insurance which I will pay online later today. As I said, great excitement in the house yesterday, and I’ve not even mentioned the new oven glove that came with the tea towels.

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Rough Seas

Today, so far, has been very calm but it’s still early and the high winds of recent days are apparently coming back later this afternoon. Here are some photos Neil took towards the end of last month.

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