The temperature has dropped a little, there have been a couple of windy days, but there’s been nothing like the heat of last week. In fact, some mornings, it has felt almost autumnal, especially when it’s been humid, but that’s only by comparison to the 40° + we had recently. Over the weekend, as well as the usual write-and-work day-to-day, we were taken out to dinner on Friday night and had another fabulous meal at Kali Strata, a place so popular that unless you book, you will be disappointed. From where I was sitting, I saw my godson and his waiter colleagues having to turn away several parties of hopefuls who had climbed the steps to spend an evening in the village. Luckily for them, they still had the options of George & Maria, Taverna Zoi, and Scena, not to mention the bars, Sunrise, Ringo’s, Lefteris, Rainbow, and the Secret Garden, or the two cantinas further up on the main road. There are plenty of places to socialise in the village these days, but for some, you have to book. (And no, I don’t know the phone numbers and I can’t do it for you. These days, all details are online somewhere.)
Also over the weekend, a flotilla came into the harbour; the Rhodes Regatta (I think). I stood and watched a long procession of sailing boats heading in under sail and tilting in the wind. We had two cruise ships too, one that can moor by the clocktower and one that stayed out at sea and ferried its passengers in and out on its smaller craft. And, in other shipping news, the King Saron was still out of action, and the Blue Star Galaxy didn’t happen due to a mechanical fault.
In other general ‘news’, the Symi Shrimp festival is due to be held on Sunday night in the village (I put it in that tense because I am preparing this on Sunday morning). The chairs are stacked up in the village square ready to be put out, and someone has moved the central planter. Also, the Symi Festival is either underway or about to be underway. (Remember, I am not a news service.)
More ‘Also over the weekend.’ I have been battling with my PC. Not in the way you might see in an old film, where the hero wrestles with a giant monster in stop-gap animation, but in a more metaphoric way, and not with all of my PC. Here’s the thing: I am happily typing away in Word, glancing up now and then to see how many words are underlined in red, and then looking back at my fingers. When I look up again, I am staring at my files in Windows File Explorer, the program that shows you your filing system. It seems it’s taken on a mind of its own and pops up when it feels like it. This, I thought, was odd, so I went to the great know it all in the sky and Googled the problem. There, I found all manner of tips and tricks, and worked through them. You know what these helpful things are like: “Find your advanced menu from the main menu and click on file display under preferences, from the list select external drives and stand on your head for five minutes. Fixed!”
Not at all. I can never find what they tell you to look for as they seem to be using completely different Windows operating systems, even though they swear they are not. I’m on Windows 11, btw, and I have tried everything the online ‘experts’ tell me will fix my problem. Pah! It persists – the file viewing program opens itself whenever it feels like it. It’s not a great problem, except for when I am on a roll and write THE best paragraph ever, only to look up and find I haven’t because I am looking at File Explorer, not what I thought I’d been typing. Anyway… If anyone knows of a fix for this that I haven’t tried, please feel free to let me know. (It may have something to do with me using an external flash drive; the only fix I’ve found is to turn off File Explorer, the trouble is, like the flash drive, I use it all the time.)
Ramble over, here’s the last paragraph.
Neil’s been doing some snorkelling, hence the underwater photos taken in Pedi. I have been writing and working as boringly usual, and am about to release the first book in a new Victorian mystery/detective series. I will tell you more about that in a week or so when it’s ready. Meanwhile, I have a giveaway on Kindle this week, and you can find the free, full-length novel by clicking this link. It’s free from 1st to 5th August, so maybe have a look tomorrow.
