Sounds like a 1950s B movie, but last night was definitely the night of the mosquito. The joy of wearing earplugs is that you don’t hear the little blighters, but that doesn’t stop them from treating you as a pin cushion. I’ve not yet started on my summer habit of rising early (like, three in the morning), and I’m still on my winter timetable of rising at around 5.30 or six, so being woken by my own scratching at 5.45 wasn’t so bad, but I’d rather not wake up looking like a Picasso. I didn’t know which part of me to scratch first, so I left all alone and went straight to my instant cure, haemo ..read more

There’s a parade on Symi today, as there is every May 8th. This celebrates the end of WWII and involves the school children, local organisations and services, and the laying of wreaths at the war memorial. If you are here and want to see it, the best place to be is on the north side of the harbour (Takis Leather side) along the quay, and to be there around 11.00 a.m. Here’s what the weather has in store for the day… I love this time of the morning when the sun’s just coming up, the sea is still silver, and the sky a little pink. The Blue Star is on its way in, on time as usual, and a couple o ..read more

As it turned out, we were fine, or we are currently fine, for water. Having said that, Tuesday is a bank holiday, and Wednesday is the May 8th parade, so we’re still favouring what we stored in the buckets over the tank, but as that was full on Monday, we should… Friday morning That’s all rather boring, isn’t it? You want to know how the Easter weekend went. The build-up was not as noisy as in previous years, and I wasn’t sure if that was because bangers are costly, outlawed, or simply hard to come by these days, but there didn’t seem to be as many of them going off in the last week. The fir ..read more

It’s Good Friday here today, so it will be a very quiet day, until this evening when there will be dynamite and bangers going off to ward away evil. For my part, I am planning a quiet day at home doing very little. We had a lovely day yesterday with a surprise visit from Aunty Tina, who I had been told was coming on Friday. In fact, I was told not to tell the boys (Harry & Sam) because it was a surprise for them. So what happens? I’m passing the time playing a game on my tablet at just after 2pm, waiting for H’s music lesson at three, when who should wander into the house but Aunty Tina (w ..read more

We are now on water rationing. Not the island, just us. Ages ago, our sterna was infiltrated by a rampant fig tree, and was emptying as fast as we could fill it, and our landlord installed a 500-litre water tank instead. That’s fine by us because the cold water comes out hot in the summer, so we don’t have to use the water heater, and after all, 500 litres is a lot of water, isn’t it? It is, normally, because we top it up every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and sometimes, on other days. Our feed is permanently open, so it looks after itself. However, this year for Easter, the May 1st bank holi ..read more

It all looks very quiet in the village in this photo, but a few minutes later, it was much busier. Things are set to get busier still as more people arrive for Easter weekend, and the photo was taken during siesta hour, so that’s the main reason there’s not a lot of activity. Now then, if you are heading over to Symi now or later and want to bring reading material with you, what do you do? I used to travel with at least one book, and then hunt around the book swaps for something to exchange it with when done. There are not so many of those places now, though they can still be found (the touri ..read more

We’ve had a few explosions already, I’ve heard some random bangers going off, and a few short fizzles from fireworks, all in the leadup to Easter. So far, it’s not been as noisy as previous years. Maybe everyone is saving the costly SFX for later in the week when we will once again be rocked by dynamite, bells, and joyous celebrations. Before then, we have normal life to be getting on with, which includes model building (nearly finished my latest project), writing (nowhere near finishing the current project), walking (not as far or often as I projected, but better than nothing). With little ot ..read more

Today is the start of ‘Great Week’, the week leading up to Easter at the weekend. In case you didn’t see Jenine’s photo that did the rounds on social media the other day, here’s her view of the Blue Star Patmos last Friday afternoon before leaving Rhodes. There was a big football event on Kos involving many schools, the Wednesday boat had been delayed, so some people were catching up on things they couldn’t do then, and it was the end of the week before the week before Easter, so something of a getaway. Sam told me that the only way his friend’s father could get across to Symi was by booking ..read more

The dust seems to have settled somewhat. Scroll down to see yesterday’s view, and then compare it with today’s. Much clearer and calmer… Which means I might be able to get out for a walk later this morning. I’ve stayed in as much as possible these last couple of days to avoid getting the dust up my nose (and failing most of the time), but today, like the sky, it is somewhat clearer. This leaves me free to push on into chapter 16 of the first draft of the next story in the new series which, I am pleased to say, is doing rather well. If you’re not sure what it is, you can find out more details ..read more

This morning, it was 20 degrees at 7.30, with 70% humidity. Maybe that’s why today’s view looks something like this: It could also be dust, but we do have days where there’s so much mist you can’t see Nimos – just like today. You can see other things, like cats strutting the streets and looking mean… (Photo by Neil) If you were to bring a picnic and a folding chair, set up a flask, and settle in for the day along our lane, you would, eventually, see all kinds of things pass by. Cats, of course, and in our case, chickens as both felines and foul live by the bins. You’d see a goat now and then ..read more