Still on the Steps

Once upon a time, we had the Symi Dream shop and gallery on the Kali Strata. One afternoon, we had just set everything up for the opening of a new exhibition, put tables outside for the wine and so on, and were waiting to welcome guests to one of the Monday night wine nights with added art. And then this JCB came trotting up the steps… Well, maybe not trotting, and it was more like a small BobCat, but this mechanical digger appeared at Kali Strata corner and began its way up to Georgio’s taverna. I wish I still had the photo of that to show you, but I don’t. Instead, there are a couple showing the precautions taken (or not) when other machines need to come up and down the steps. In this case, we’re just below the Kali Strata corner.

Neil put up a photo like this on Facebook the other week, so you may have seen it. The blue arrangement is bags of soil or sand put there to create a temporary slope for the… whatever machine is being used. It looks like it’s driven up past the high school to reach the steps where the jazz bar used to be and then turned right. Heading down, it veers off where the two tall trees stand and has cut a path across the space there. Apparently, those trees are unusual for the island, so I hope it doesn’t damage them, and I also hope the plants that were under this path grew back and the site recovers. That’s only because I’ve always liked the view. The depth of field as you walk down and look off that way, the light between the trees hitting the foliage beneath them, always gave that small area a magical, still quality, particularly in the afternoons. Hey ho. Work goes on, and it’s good that people have employment and that they have tried to protect the steps.

In local news: all very quiet apart from the ‘biker boys’ and their baffling baffle-less mopeds at 3.30 in the morning. Expecting the edge of a storm to come over us today, but no sign of it yet, book writing continues… um… that is all.

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Kali Strata, there and back again

Yesterday, I had a package to collect from the bookshop, so I took a stroll down the Kali Strata for the first time in weeks. The package was a copy of my latest novel, which I had ordered via Amazon Germany to avoid the balls-up caused by the B-word that’s still affecting deliveries from countries outside of the EU. I am now ordering online only from EU countries (Amazon Germany, France or Italy) and from America because that has never caused extra expense either. If there was an Amazon Greece, I’d use them, obviously, but I use Greek companies for things I can’t currently get on Symi as and when I need to. https://www.skroutz.gr/ is a great place to start.

I was also able to pick up a new charger for my phone and a lead for my new headphones before walking back up the steps. For a reason best known to anyone but me, I decided to take the more direct route home, and turned right opposite the red-painted house towards the bottom of the Kali Strata. The steps there are pretty sheer, a bit like a ladder at times, and about 10 inches high, but that’s good for the thigh muscles. They take you to near Villa Papa Nicola, and a zigzag path, so it is not all steps, and needless to say, I stopped to take photos at every opportunity and breathe.

Because of the hour shift, I’d woken hideously late, 6.30 or something that felt like mid-morning to me, and so, I didn’t have time to work on my book. This morning, I was up at 3.00 and apart from going shopping and perhaps taking a quick 20-minutes’ exercise, I have plenty of time to work on the new book. Which reminds me, I have a question to ask. Is anyone good at creating maps? For my last Clearwater book, I want to include a map of Europe (1890) showing the basics, but looking like a real map, with the route of a journey highlighted. The journey is by train from Bodmin, England, to Rasnov, Romania, via London, Paris, Vienna, Budapest, and back via the Orient Express from Temesvar. If anyone knows anyone who might be able to produce something realistic, would you drop me a line or put a note on the FB page? It’s not vital, I just thought it would be a nice addition to the beginning of the book. Ta. Something like this (which is a modern one):

Oh, weather update: Warming up again, no wind, calm, sunny, 18 in the courtyard, all is well.

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From the weekend

I don’t know about you, but I had a lovely weekend. It’s currently Sunday morning at 5.30, except that’s really 4.30, but that doesn’t matter. The earlier I get up, the more time I have for the day. My weekend started on Friday, which you may have noticed was my birthday. My husband certainly noticed, and the day began with breakfast where the table and kitchen were strewn with glitter paper, the bears were invited, and we had yoghurt, fruit, honey and homemade meringues.

During the day, I spent some time on my writing work, in this case, preparing a blog post about my next project, which you can find here. As the breakfast came with a bottle of Cava, the morning was a little wobbly, but I soon sobered up when lunch came around; bangers and mash. It was accompanied by a bouquet of flowers. Later, in the afternoon, after the homemade birthday cake, I did an online piano lesson with godson #2, and later, a video chat with the family where he played me happy birthday and a tune from Phantom of the Opera. That fitted with the present I had bought myself; a model kit of Jekyll as Hyde, which is now waiting in line with my Wolfman and a second Phantom. (The first is in the sitting room with the Invisible Man.)

I was thoroughly spoiled, had so many messages on Facebook it was impossible to reply to them all (thank you!), and Neil wouldn’t let me do a thing, though I did have to put the washing out as it was a good drying day, it was only three things, so no great hardship. I was on a walk the day before and passed by where we used to live, right up at Ag. Triada. I passed under a tunnel attached to our old house and remembered a photo Amanda (of the Windmill fame) took around the time of my birthday 18 years ago when I’d just turned 40. I posted my photo, and she came back with the one she had taken all those years ago. It feels like only last week.

On Saturday, I was able to spend all morning on the next part of my new novel, which is now up to 100,000 words, and I still have a fair amount of story to write, and I found myself researching the Express d’Orient train journey towards the end of the 19^th century. I also found some interesting advertising from the 1890 Russian Flu pandemic and spent a couple of hours in the National newspaper Archives happily getting lost in reports and personals.

Sunday has only just started, and I am not sure how the birthday weekend is to finish. Probably with some sofa surfing and maybe a short walk later. Tomorrow, it’s back to the routine one year older but just as content as I was when I was 57.

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Celebration Days

Two days ago, there was the festival of Evengalismos, yesterday was Greek Independence Day, the 200^th year celebration, and today, it’s my turn as it’s my birthday. And, because it’s my birthday, and because it’s a Friday when I usually post just photos, I thought I’d share some pictures from various times over the last 58 years. These are images I found lying around on my computer and have little to do with Symi, except that I have ended up here for nearly 19 years. So, forgive me the self-indulgence and have yourself a good laugh.

In no particular order:

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Rainbows and other news

The dust cloud and other shady weather passed over us on Tuesday, turning the sky a mysterious colour and, where the sun broke through, giving us some interesting lighting. There was a little rain in the afternoon, enough to produce a double rainbow over the harbour entrance.

You can’t really see the second one, but it was there.

In other news, the country continues to struggle with more cases and fatalities. There are stories of this opening, and that not opening, tourism being promoted from this date but only from that country, and maybe restrictions will be lifted then but only when… And it’s all still in a state of flux around here. The mayor has advised people not to travel by boat unless absolutely necessary, and the island remains mainly quiet and cautious. The Ministry of Health has announced that the platform for scheduling vaccination appointments for people aged 70 to 75 will open on Friday. In early April, the platform will open for those in the 56 to 69 age group, and there’s hope that more vaccination centres will open from April 1^st onwards to speed the programme. I turn 58 on Friday, and so must wait a while longer, but some friends in their early 60s have received jab #1 and have an appointment for jab #2 in a couple of weeks; others in various groups have already had both.

So, we’re keeping an eye on all of that. The only trip I must make is later in April, and that’s to start the process of my biometric residency card, which can only be done in Rhodes. So, thanks for putting me in danger, Brexit, and double-thanks as it will involve at least one more trip after that, possibly two, a few weeks later. If I don’t or can’t keep the appointment, then the alternative is to take pot-luck one day after June 1^st, turn up in Rhodes and wait in the hope I will be seen that day. If not, I’d have to stay in Rhodes and try again each day until I can be seen, and then repeat the journey twice more to complete the process. Again, thanks, Brexit. The fine details of what this disastrous move will entail are only now beginning to show. Things like people having to pay twice the value of a package from the UK because of customs rules, people with properties here not able to stay more than three months out of six (roughly), and other personally hurtful scenarios that no-one bothered to think about before. No-one other than those who could see such things coming. But let’s not get me started on all that. Let’s just remember that there’s still a land that I dreamed of somewhere over the rainbow.

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