Friday morning and we’re waiting for the boat to Rhodes. At least, Neil is, so I’m keeping an eye on Marine Traffic to see where the Diagoras is (currently about one hour behind schedule and still on Tilos) while also updating my Mailwasher programme and writing the blog.
There are more decorations up on houses on Symi now as we prepare for Christmas week. When we first arrived here, thirteen years ago, we would hardly see any Christmas lights on houses and I remember the first season here as being rather dark and dull because of that. It was a change after the madness of Great Britain where neighbours compete to be the most American in their Christmas gaudiness. But over the years more and more lights have appeared, and some now even stay up for the whole year. Our neighbour here has a big star on the house and it’s very close to ours so we can pretended we have one on our house too. Inside the house it’s a simple tree (with half its lights not working), that will do for now.
I expect Rhodes and certain shops in particular are going to be busy today. Reports from Jumbo last week were that it was manic and mad enough so now, with only one week to go before Christmas, I suspect it will be busier than a one-armed violinist with fleas. Not that I have ever knowingly met one. But still, the trip must be made, the tickets are bought (€8.00 each way on the Blue Star, in case you were wondering) and the appointments made – not at Jumbo of course, you don’t need an appointment there.
And as for me, well, today I shall be mainly at the desk typing and catching up on some work and maybe some writing. I may get back to ‘Shocking the Donkeys’ as a book of some sort. The Greek government are soon to vote on allowing civil partnerships for same sex couples, or not, and that would make ‘Donkeys’ timely, though it’s never going to get made as a film, so a book that people can buy to read the story might do instead. But for that to happen I have to convert the script into some kind of readable book format. And I reckon I should try and do that while ‘Straight Swap’ is in edit and pre-publishing mode, as it now is. Anyway, that’s what I plan for the day and I really ought to go and make a start. But I’ll just check the boat position first… Ah, it’s left Tilos now and should be about another hour and a half. No rush.
