Symi golf challenge and other things to do

December 16, 2014 James Collins

Symi Greece photos — Ah, the things you see in Pedi. Must be some students living nearby.

It seems like ages since I have written a blog post at this time of the day; it’s Tuesday morning, 6.45 and I’m just sitting down at the desk. The last couple of weeks I’ve had the weeks’ posts ready to go by a Monday evening, because we’ve been out on long walks and I’ve had plenty to talk about, in advance. This Sunday we had a Sunday lunch at the Harry House instead, so I’ve not been able to move much since then and it’s put my schedule out of sync.

But here we are, with the sun not yet up, the temperature outside chilly, a few clouds in the dark grey sky, and even the Alarm Cat still asleep on his outside bench. What’s the day got in store?

A wander to Yialos to see if there is anything at the post office. Apparently Friday’s delivery (via the big boat) has been unpacked and people have started to find things they were waiting for. Let’s hope the 101 things we ordered are waiting for me as there is only one more boat before Christmas. That’s on Friday of this week, if ordered items are not on that boat they won’t be in until after Christmas Day as the post comes on the Blue Star and that only comes on Wednesday and Friday. Fingers crossed.

We still have our local Christmas Shopping to do, but that’s about it. Mind you, I don’t know when Neil is going to find the time to fit it in what with his Pilates, Zumba and tap dancing classes. We went to tap last night and had a good thrash-o-the-feet for an hour and a half or so. We’re half way through learning one routine for a show in April, but nowhere near up to speed on it, at least I’m not, but we are pretty hopeful that we will be by the time we get there.

And after Yialos? A game of golf is in order tonight I think, we’ve started up our Symi golf challenge for the 2014/15 season, we’ve played four courses so far and Neil is first on the leader board by one stroke.

If you were wondering where the course (let alone courses) is on Symi, it’s in our sitting room inside the Xbox; it’s a winter tradition us boys have set up, the Tiger Woods challenge, it keeps us off the streets. So the week currently runs as: Monday, tap, Tuesday, Pilates, Zumba and golf, Wednesday (possibly aerobics – can you imagine!), Thursday Pilates and Zumba, Friday, card school, Saturday (and relax) and Sunday long walks. Ah the winter life on Symi!

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Day to day on Symi

Random Sunday observations and thoughts

December 15, 2014 James Collins

Neil has just discovered that the parachuting Santa his bought from Haroula on Friday evening (after a very long lunch) is voice activated. He started singing along to the loudspeakered Sunday morning liturgy (!) and it went off right beside him, giving him a shock, but waking him up. There will now be no peace on earth in our house. As I try and work in the front room I keep hearing, ‘Boo!’ followed by ‘You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout or I’ll spit in your eye,’ or something similar.

The first Christmas presents are under the tree, all the way from Penzance in a box that also included a t-shirt for padding; very practical my mum. The T-shirt has a slogan on the front, in French, and Neil has already claimed it for his own, the slogan reads: ‘I don’t have a minute to myself, I’m retired.’ I know the feeling. I keep trying to get on with ‘Straight Swap’ my comedy novel, but keep getting side-tracked by other things, mainly checking the post and eating.

Neil’s upstairs in his new office right now and has just shouted down, ‘There’s no blog today then?’ like it was some kind of accusation. I reply: ‘It’s a Sunday,’ to which he counters with a rather grudging, ‘Oh, okay then.’ I mean, I’m actually writing tomorrow’s post now, and it IS a Sunday morning! As my nephew would say ‘FFS.’ (Wasn’t that a furniture store?) I should be out doing the garden or feeding the cat or something, I don’t have a minute to myself and I am not even retired yet. Apparently you can’t do that these days unless you are 95 because the average life expectancy of a normal person is 123, assuming they never eat at McDonald’s and strictly avoid polyester. I mean, DFS! (That was it.)

And so I move on to tell you that after last week’s deluge, the weather has perked up and Saturday was and Sunday so far is, rather sunny and lovely. We decided not to go out on a walk today because we wanted to do nothing at home instead. Actually, I have planned to wrap some presents and put them under the tree, but I am currently waiting for a wagon load to arrive in the post. My box to mother took about ten days to get to Cornwall, but other things coming in the other direction seem to be taking weeks. It’s one of those strange Star Trek time-warp (just a step to the left) things where posted items move more quickly heading up and to the left than they do down and to the right. (I put that in just for you, Terri.) But there could be a reason for that as my tame journalist in the UK wrote to me the other day:

“Meanwhile, just heard that Christmas in the UK is descending into chaos. You may have heard there was a major airports computer failure yesterday that brought loads of airports to a complete standstill. And of course James (1) found himself stuck in a plane at Heathrow going nowhere when he was heading off to Berlin for an important shoot today. Don’t know if he’s made it.

But the biggest mess is the complete collapse of the UK’s online delivery services. So many people have ordered their Christmas online – not just presents, but the food orders as well – that the online retailers and their delivery companies are in melt-down, unable to cope. Warnings are now going out that many deliveries will not now be made in time for Christmas. So I expect a lot of people will be having a “Margot Christmas”. Remember that episode? (2) When Margot’s bought in Christmas failed to arrive? Christmas at the Leadbetters had to be cancelled but they ended up having a great time with Tom and Jerry next door and their homemade Christmas.”

I hope your Christmas arranging hasn’t fallen into chaos, and I am very much looking forward to our dress rehearsal this afternoon, where Jenine has invited us and a couple of others for a roast dinner. I am currently making up some proper Christmas music CDs to play (carols, not songs about parachuting Coke advertisements) and am even going as far as to consider going to Yialos to buy some horseradish sauce. I’ll keep you posted on that scintillating adventure in due course. Meanwhile, have a good week ahead.

Notes:
(1) James. Not me, my friend’s nephew who is the current Hugo Boss model.
(2) ‘The Good Life’ 70s TV series in the UK.

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Day to day on Symi

Forget the Symi storms, here are some nice photos

December 13, 2014 James Collins

We have all been battling storms and bad weather this last week, and especially here on Symi in the last couple of days. We were up during the night on Thursday/Friday, putting down towels, unplugging things and checking the shutters. The storm came in around 1.30 a.m. and then rolled away, came back and rolled past again, then later in the morning on Friday came back again.

At one point on Friday morning there were two Electricity Board guys outside the house, up the pole, swinging wires around and, I assume, fixing next door’s supply. I did hear a strange ‘bang’ sound during the night. Each time it rained or hailed or thundered, they took shelter under our balcony and each time I went to tell them to take shelter inside our lobby it was pelting too hard for me to get out there.

But still, enough about that, Saturday has dawned bright and clear, as if nothing had happened. Here are some photos from Neil taken last weekend. You can click to open them in the lightbox and then run a slideshow if you want. Have a good weekend and stay dry!

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Walks

Walking through the Χαμές area of Symi, part 4

December 12, 2014 James Collins

The main road through Symi was only really opened up in the 80s and 90s. When I was first here, in 1996, I followed the tarmacked road from outside Lavinia Studios, where I was staying, and up the hill to see where it went. I followed it to the start of the forest about half way across the island and there it ran out, becoming a trail of rocks and stones, blasted out and ready to be flattened and tarmacked. I may be wrong (usual am) but it wasn’t actually finished until we came to live here in 2002, or it had only just been finished all the way, or something like that. Since then new roads have been laid (lain?) across the island to link distant homes and farms and even beaches to the main road. Still no traffic lights or roundabouts though.

And we’re now walking on this road heading back towards Ag Konstantinos, past the now collapsed army outpost building where once upon a time soldiers used to stand guard, past their old shooting range and the old kalderimi, the original path from Yialos to Panormitis, or at least one of them. As we walk along we can follow the edge of this, though it disappears under the main road, the scree that’s been churched up from the road building, under piles of trash thrown over the hillside by lazy folk, old washing machines and stuff that the council has to come and clear away (woops there goes our council tax) and even under someone’s house on the edge of the main road.

From up here we can see the island of Halki, which looked like it was being rained on, and Tilios and Nissyros and even the bottom end of Kos behind the Turkish peninsular. The clouds are still massing and passing, some grey, others white, a cloud-spotters dreamscape I imagine. And far off by the old fish farm the gullet that was used to illegally transport some refugees, and that was listing to port last week (if you read last week’s walk you will have seen the image), has now capsized and gone under. I guess the council or port police will have to try and do something about that, I am thinking they might like to get a team in to clear away any pollution (whoops there goes the rest of my council tax), but that may be my own kind of dreamscape.

And onwards, the old kalderimi running out as we pass the fork for Ksisos/Panormitis, my feet finally starting to ache as we’ve been marching now for four hours, the tummy rumbling and someone in the party mentioning a glass of something at Mandeio’s on our return. This kind of spurs us on, as does the thought of the thing in the slow cooker that I rustled up this morning, making dinner an easy thing to organise when we get home.

I have to pause at the house by the road to check out the contraption. I am not sure what it is, looks like a clothes line, or a way of getting things from road to house, but it’s an intriguing use of a bicycle pedal.

And we finally make it to Mandeio’s for a glass of red four and a half hours after leaving home, having done a circular route, and passed the museum where the external scaffolding has now come down at last. It looks like there’s still work going on inside and on the roof, but the outside walls and the shutters appear to have been fixed up.

And so to home and dinner where our walking friends made a complete fuss of Jack, the Alarm Cat who, after an hour or so of being allowed to share his fur with anyone on the sofa, was quite overcome and, by the looks of it, took to the bottle. To round off the day (and remember we’re still talking about last Sunday) we went to the switching on of the Spalding illuminations, which was a fun event. Now I just need to head back up the hill to 400 metres and see if I can see the lights from up there and the betting is that I will be able to. But I am not going up there at night to check it out.

Scroll down for the boat I mentioned, before and after.

Got that sunk feeling! (Photo by Lyndon -thank you!)

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Walks

Walking through the Χαμές area of Symi, part 3

December 11, 2014 James Collins

Still Walking through the Χαμές area of Symi (part 3), still wandering the Symi hills last Sunday:

Following the road-come-track we pass a church dedicated to Agia Marina to our right and come out of the woods to an area with no specific name; it’s between Pervola on the west and Koupi on the east, and, from the centre of this area you can look south (towards Rhodes, roughly) and down into the Nanou valley. If you are looking at a map you can find us near the church of Ioannis Tsagrias where a threshing circle is marked, that is if you are on the same Symi Terrain Maps as me.

Anyhow, there is an ancient ruin hereabouts, which is a few metres from the path, or thereabouts, and this is where we find us four walkers, or layabouts. Actually, we’re not laying about we’re clambering about and examining the stones, many of which are dressed. Some of them are in the same design/formation as those at the bottom wall of the Castro, which we know from books to come from Byzantine times (330 to 1453 a.d.); closely cut together to fit neatly leaving no gaps and not requiring mortar.

The stones are forming a wall on three sides of a natural hill, the fourth wall, facing south, is mainly made up of natural bedrock, sharp and rising to an apex. If there was a fourth wall there it’s long since gone. In nearby shepherd huts and once-were buildings you can clearly see some of these dressed and very large stones, so the site, whatever it was, has been robbed out.

Within the walls there is a large stone circle which could have been a roundhouse, it could have been an animal enclosure or it could have been something else. I wondered what this place may have been. If agricultural, why go to the trouble of dressing so many large stones and building what would have looked like a fortification? I didn’t think it was a temple as it didn’t face east-west as you would expect, and it was more square in shape, rather than rectangular. So, I wondered if it had once been some kind of fortification or defence, or even an outpost or beacon.

From the top of the centre, the rocky outcrop, you get a panoramic view from Nanou and beyond (you can just make out Rhodes), all the way around 360 degrees to the various hillsides. If anyone was going to come up the Nanou valley you would see them, if anyone was coming from Panormitis across country (before roads) you would see them, and you could easily light a beacon to warn anyone at the top of the mountain, who would then light another one to warn the town. Just a thought.

We had a great time carefully exploring the site, there are pottery shards there but they could be ‘recent’ and there are stones which were clearly, at one time, door steps with holes cut for posts and the like. But what this place actually was remains a mystery for me; perhaps someone will let me know at some point?

And so onwards towards home. This involves following the road and keeping the Vigla (the main mountain) to your right as you head towards the main road, which is where we shall pic things up tomorrow.

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Symi Dream

Symi golf challenge and other things to do

Random Sunday observations and thoughts

Forget the Symi storms, here are some nice photos

Walking through the Χαμές area of Symi, part 4

Walking through the Χαμές area of Symi, part 3

Writing on a Greek island