Symi Festival 2016 events for the week:
Tuesday 16th – A concert with Lavrentis Maheritsas and Mirella Pachou
Thursday 18th – Traditional Dodecanese night with lyre, lute and toumperleki
Friday 19th – A concert with the band, ‘Master Tempo’
Saturday 20th – The tradition of Koukoumas
Sunday 21st – Theatrical performance in the Symi dialect ‘Saint Avissinezos’
If you were wondering, a toumperleki is a small drum like the one in the photo below. Neil took the photos you see here today at a village concert last week. This one was at a concert in Horio last week.
Koukoumas is the traditional celebration usually held at the start of May. It’s the custom where the unmarried girls of the village discover who their husband will be and it’s all to do with jewellery (usually rings), a large jug of ‘silent’ water and spoons. With traditional costume, a song and much dancing, it’s a great village sight to see. I am not sure where it will be held for the festival as yet, announcements are made on the day, but it’s great that anyone can come and watch it. Many visitors miss it, being in May, but it’s happening here on Saturday.
As for my weekend just gone, I found myself in a very strange place on Sunday. I spent Saturday finishing off the last part of my college course assignment (first draft of a screenplay). After that I went down to Yialos in the afternoon to visit the bank. We’ve been doing this a lot recently as I had to get my health insurance paid and that meant several trips to take out the money. Although the card I use allows me a generous €1,000 per day (I wish I could!) at the ATM, the machine itself only allows me €300 for some reason. But still, I got there in the end and I am paid up and covered again for the next year. After that I walked back up the road, this was at four in the afternoon so it wasn’t too hot, there was also a breeze on Saturday. Mind you, I still arrived in the village looking like a drowned rat.
After some fun and chatting at the bar we decided we’d eat out as it was Saturday night, but Georgio’s was fully booked – great news! If you are heading for their live music nights on a Friday or Saturday, book in advance to avoid disappointment. They even have tables out on the steps at the top of the Kali Strata now, for these night, but still book. Instead, we went to see Zoi and had a great meal there. I am sure they are the biggest pork chops on the island. I had her chicken with cashew nuts and rice; very tasty, slightly sweet and you don’t get over-stuffed on chips. After that it was home and music on the balcony as we heard strains of the play performance drifting up from the harbour. But that still wasn’t the strange pace I found myself in on Sunday…
That happened as I sat at my desk, did my usual check of book sales and advertising things [‘Remotely‘ is still the biggest selling book of mine this month, closely followed by ‘Symi 85600‘ and some of my books are now on Kindle Unlimited, so if you get one that way, make sure you read them as apparently I make €0.002 per page, or something else equally as unnoticeable.] Anyway, I sat at the desk on Sunday morning and found I had nothing to write. Now, for me, that is a very strange feeling. (I did write this blog actually.) The latest book is out, that’s ‘Remotely’ and I will share part of the latest five star review tomorrow, the first draft of ‘The Saddling’ is done and I have set it aside for a while and am waiting for a print copy of the text to be sent (it’s cheaper than printing it myself), the college course is all but done and I have set that script aside for a few days too, to let it ‘settle’ as I call it, before coming back to it for a fresh look, and I’ve not got anything else started as yet. I could have done the housework, gone for a walk, cleaned the windows… In fact I might yet do all of those things as it’s only 8.42 on Sunday and I have the rest of the day ahead without any work to do. A day off. Now what do I do with one of those?
