What's New on SymiVisitor.com?

Coming soon!

Early evening, central Lisbon last Sunday night. Looks quiet, but it livened up the following day! Plan was to have an early night after travelling over via Frankfurt (!)-finally got to bed at four in the morning after somewhat drunken night culminating in the Hard Rock Cafe watching a live band. Ended up on stage with them; oh dear! Also managed to have my mobile phone stolen at some stage during the evening. I'll put some more photos up of my Lisbon trip tomorrow.

No thanks to the club whose ticketing arrangements have been, as usual, a shambles, I managed to pick up a ticket for the Benfica v. Liverpool Champions League match next Tuesday night at the Stadium of Light. Fly out on Sunday morning, back Wednesday evening; can't wait! I am trying to set up a moblog; a blog to which you send photos directly from a camera phone-if I sort it out I'll post the address here. Meanwhile, any suggestions for things to see and do in Lisbon, please email me.

Blink and it's nearly another half term at work gone. Following the fire over Christmas that put a whole block of the school out of action, we are currently teaching in 10 portakabins which were put up on one of the yards. They are really top quality: warm, clean and spacious. Not the same as having your own rooms of course, but they'll do until the rebuilding is complete. The contractors have almost finished gutting the block; they've had to pull down one of the outside walls, rip out all the ceilings and rip up all the floors. I occasionally don a hard-hat and slip between the wire fencing to climb the stairs and survey the progress. It is very strange to walk through rooms where you have taught for over twenty five years and to see absolutely nothing left. Looking on the bright side, we will end up with brand-new classrooms which we can set up to our specifications. I also gain a new office: the original which I share with two colleagues was on the ground floor, four floors directly below the room into whose roof the fire brigade pumped thousands of gallons of water to douse the fire; it had to go somewhere.... The contractors asked us to go and rescue what we could. As you can see in the photo that wasn't much: some sellotape, glue, a tub of hair-gel and one of those things for getting staples out of things you wish you hadn't stapled in the first place. And I know the hat doesn't fit; I had to borrow one. Mine has 'Benny' on the front (Top Cat reference).

Anyway, enough of all that, what's new on the Symi Visitor website?

I've put two new holiday houses to rent on our accommodation page: Villa Voyatizis and Byron's House (no relation).

I've recently started a webcam gallery where I save and display interesting or unusual shots from our two webcams, bearing in mind that these are fleeting images and people may easily miss them.

The ANES ferry timetable has changed several times, as it is wont to do, especially in the winter. The 'new' ferry "Proteus" seems to be doing the neighbouring island run most lately performed by the "Nissos Kalymnos". Certainly a boon for Dodecanese island-hoppers such as ourselves.

Just yesterday I wrote a new 'testimonials' page, where we can display the emails sent to the office by happy and contented Symi visitors who have been accommodated and looked after by Wendy and Adriana.

Talking of whom, Adriana acquired a digital camera for Christmas; her twice-weekly reports from the island have sprouted photos recently, further to illuminate her inimitable prose.

That's about it; I'm off to Lisbon a week on Sunday to watch the mighty reds play Benfica in the Champions league. Booked the hotel and return flight, just need a ticket for the match now-still waiting for the phone call from the club. So if anyone out there is in possession of a pair of tickets for the aforementioned game, I'll gladly take them off your hands, or swap them for a pair for the FA cup game v. Man U. Yes, I'm that desperate.

Photo is of Joe Morgan Gadd, aged 1 year 10 months-showing you he can count to five as well as Robbie on the right....

All the best,
Mikey x

Here's another: will leave you to explore on your own!

Found this photo on Flickr: click on the links above to explore. There are some gorgeous photos of Symi on there!

Almost two months since I last posted here; scandalous really but will try to make up for it now.

So, working backwards, here's what's new. I was on the way to the match on Saturday when I started to get texts from friends asking if I knew anything about a fire at school; I didn't, went to the game and thought no more of it. Rang Jo on the way back who had just heard a report on the local news and that one wing of the building had been badly damaged. Don't know why, but I just knew that it would turn out to have been the Modern Languages Department and sure enough it was. Haven't been in to assess the damage yet but I know we have lost three classrooms, many thousands of pounds worth of equipment and resources including brand-new interactive whiteboards, not to mention childrens' coursework and exercise books. It could have been much worse; if the wind had been blowing the other way apparently, the whole building would have gone up in smoke. But at least nobody was hurt, the insurance will cover the losses eventually and the exam boards will be understanding about the lost coursework.

Spent Christmas in Amsterdam; I've always wanted to get away and do something different so Christmas morning saw us at the Van Gogh museum and very pleasant it was too. Public transport was all up and running over the holiday period and we spent a great couple of days just exploring and relaxing. Photo is me enjoying a glass of gluhwein on Dam square. Three weeks earlier I had been doing the same thing-this time in Bruges as we took 42 children from school on our annual trip to the Christmas market there.

Spent the weekend before Christmas over in Scarborough seeing the family; stayed in a very cosy B&B right on the beach. Got caught in the first significant snowfall of the year and nearly had to stop on the Whitby road on the way there.

Back to the website; if you are a new visitor then it's worth knowing that the following pages are regularly updated: Adriana's Latest News (updated twice a week) together with her Greek recipes. The webcam image is updated daily, or several times daily. The readers' photos gallery, currently up to 41 pages, is updated whenever someone sends me some pictures! The chat page is a lively forum for all sorts of topics, not just Symi related. Otherwise it is a quiet time as far as new content is concerned, mirroring life on the island. As the tempo picks up leading to the start of this year's season, so I will be busy updating accommodation details etc.

Anyway, that's another year gone and looking back down to the bottom of this page I can only repeat my hope that all my family and friends have a happy, healthy and peaceful New Year-and the all the visitors to this site as well of course!

Photo on the right is of our grandson Joe.

All the best,

Mike x

The screen on my laptop decided to fade to grey and then to black in the week; it works fine with an external monitor so I guess the backlight or inverter has gone. Really frustrating as although I can borrow another until I can get it fixed, all the programs, files etc which I need to update this and other sites is on the broken one. Coincidentally, the Vistor office computer has been laid low by a virus which is why the webcam hasn't been updated recently. Still, I have managed to update the ferry timetables until the end of November at least and our local ASDA has started selling Metaxa!

After many requests, I'm also going to put a permanent 'recently updated' section prominently on this blog somewhere, so that you can see at a glance what has been changed or added to the Symi Visitor website. Sometime, soon...

Photo of my grandson Joe for no other reason than he looks cute. Off to a big christening do in Timperley (posh Manchester) tomorrow and off for a run now then down to the gym for a swim and sauna; out for an Italian tonight. It's a tough life.

Oh and get well soon to my 'sister' Sue!

Love, Mike x

On the hottest October day in the UK since 1888 we took our grandson Joe for a walk round Scarborough. As for the 'Grand' hotel; don't touch it with a very large bargepole; if we'd realised that it had been featured last year on 'Hotels from Hell' or something like that on tv, we would obviously have looked elsewhere! We were warned off the food because of recent outbreak of food-poisoning (!) so the free dinner and breakfast went begging.

Here we are again; clocks go back at the weekend and the carefree days of summer seem a long way away. I really must buy that lightbox I saw on ebay... At least it's half-term so I can relax for a few days and try to regain my sanity. Off to Scarborough on Wednesday to see son and heir and family; booked a room at the 'Grand', a huge Victorian pile overlooking the sea-65 quid for two, including an evening meal and full English breakfast (not at the same time obviously). I have visions of it being full of the sort of people that Alan Bennett writes about, with decor unchanged since the 1970's. Could be wrong though, so will take a few photos and post them later in the week.

It's pelting down with rain here which is setting off all the car alarms round and about-quite a cacophony. Think I'll open a bottle of wine and start the book I bought the other day.

Mike x

Regular readers will notice that I have changed the layout of this blog again! No particular reason; just playing around with new designs and having a bit of fun. Seem to have lost the photo gallery of my grandson Joe for the moment, so here's a photo of him and my son Matthew.

Meanwhile on SymiVisitor.com, we have a new webcam, courtesy of a lot of work by Glen Beestone. It's mounted on a parapet above the SV office and can be panned, tilted and zoomed. A long way from my original effort back in Easter 2000....

Some photos taken in July/August this year by myself, Iaan Burgon and Alex Evans.

Compass Room at the Lowry, Manchester. That's Old Trafford in the background.

I've got the thing working properly at last; will continue to put up new photos for the next few days. Iaan (in photo on right)took all the good ones by the way!!

If you move your mouse over the photo and click on it, you can view its description and do lots of other clever things.

Back to work,
Mike x

We've been back home for two weeks, back at work for one. Spent a few days on the mainland at the beginning and the end of our six weeks away, but the majority of the holiday was spent on Symi. We were lucky that we had several friends out on the island at the same time and spent many a happy hour sunbathing, eating, drinking, jumping off boats and sleeping. I'm tring to organise the hundreds of photos I have into some sort of format whereby family, friends and visitors to this site (that's you)can share them. Hopefully there are some visible on the left-hand side of this page; the code is driving me crazy and refuses to do what I want it to do. Anyway, I'll continue to add new images as the days go by; hope you enjoy them too.

Off to Greece next Saturday. We fly to Athens, stay one night; visit the sublime and recently refurbished Archeological Museum on Sunday morning, then catch the bus down across the Corinth Canal to Nafplio on the Peloponnese. There we are staying at the Hotel Byron for three nights before taking the bus back up to Athens on the Wednesday morning to rendevous with the early afternoon flight to Rhodes. All paid for of course thanks to three weeks exam marking for AQA. Plan is meet up with friends either at the airport or at the harbour then catch the 6.30 ferry to Symi. That is where the planning stops: over the next four and a half weeks we will take it as it comes. I'd like to go down to Crete for a while but who knows; as a teacher whose whole day is governed by bells, lesson plans (stop laughing at the back) and routines, I love just going with the flow.

If you'll excuse my indulgence, I'll just update family and friends I haven't seen for a while with a few words and photos from the last two months. I often get email and phone calls along the lines of 'You haven't put anything new on the website for a while'- which means I haven't written a new entry for this blog. So: went over to Scarborough today to see the family; young Joe was enjoying the weather and splashing around in a paddling-pool in the back garden. I'm a real summer person; I hate cold, dark, winter days and long for blue skies and warm sun. Part of the reason why I love Greece. Since I last updated this page, my wife Jo and I have been to Barcelona for a few days; weather was gorgeous and spent some time on the beach topping up the tan as well as sightseeing. Stayed in the same hotel as with school earlier this year; more fun with no kids though! That's me on the right at Gaudi's Parc Guell.

A few weeks ago I took part in the Manchester Great Run with my colleague Gill Brunt and over 30,000 other people to raise some money for research into the treatment of breast cancer. Thanks very much to all readers of this page who sent me donations!


We had a great trip out from school recently when a group of us took a minibus to an evening meeting at Haydock racecourse. A reasonably successful night, especially as I had a few quid each way on a 25/1 outsider in the final race which finished second. Paid for the drinks and the curry afterwards anyway!

Photo on the left is of Jo with my father's new puppy called 'Bella'. She's cute as anything and loves digging up the garden (the dog I mean).


Talking of photos, I hope to get hold of a new mobile phone next week with a decent camera so that I can upload photos from Symi and wherever else we get to in Greece directly to this page. Moblogging is recently new phenomonen, but one which gives rise to endless possibilities. Whereas in years past I would take peoples' photos for the website and upload them when I got back to the UK, now I can simultaneously post them on this page. In other words, if I spot someone in Jean's or walking down the Kalistrata or in the taverna at Nos, I can have their picture up on here instantaneously. You have been warned!

Looking forward to seeing lots of you over the next few weeks.

Love,
Mike x

P.S. I'm wearing two things at the moment that a couple of months ago I would never have guessed in a million years I would be. A Symi Visitor t-shirt goes the to first person who guesses them both! One clue at the top of this page.

It's hard to believe, but I'm off to Manchester next Wednesday to an examiners' meeting, meaning that I'll soon be back deep in the three week purgatory which constitutes my annual marking period. The upside of this is that once again I can start thinking about how to spend the rewards; not too difficult usually as half goes on my season-ticket renewal and half on summer flights to Greece. It's been such a busy time since the turn of the year that I haven't even given a moment's thought to the annual summer island-hopping holiday.

I've got flights to Turkey on the mind at the moment anyway, after simply the most awe-inspiring (and I use the words advisably) evening I have ever spent at a football ground or anywhere else for that matter. If you watched the Liverpool-Chelsea game on the TV last week, I hope a small part of the atmosphere transmitted itself. The print journalists tried their best the following morning to put the occasion into words, you can read some here. So now I have to get a ticket, get a flight to Istanbul and then figure out how to get a day off work, difficult when you're a teacher. Anyway, I'll let you know how I get on. If I don't get to Turkey we will probably go to Symi for a week at half term; been looking for flights to Rhodes as well and there aren't many around, at least not at a price I'd be prepared to pay.

Meanwhile, I've been busy at work as usual recently; speaking tests to administer, reports to write, coursework to moderate etc, etc. As a bit of light relief, our Year 11 Leavers' Evening took place at a local hotel last Thursday and went off really well. Everyone had made the effort to look good (even the staff!) and after a civilised sit-down meal we proceeded to strut our stuff on the dance-floor. It was never like that in my day...

Anyway, here's what's new at SymiVisitor.com:

Two new properties on our 'Accommodation' page: The Loft House and Nimborio House.
I've updated the Rhodes-Symi ferry timetables until the end of May.
I've added some more desktop wallpaper here.
There are several new properties for sale on our real-estate pages.
Meraklis Taverna now advertises on our 'Restaurants' page.

I'm going to stop there and get back to scouring the Internet for cheap flights to Istanbul.

Kali Nichta

Mike x

It's not often I contrive to miss out an entire month on this page, but March this year just seems to have disappeared without trace. I'm sure I must have been doing lots of interesting things in interesting places, while simultaneously adding new and exciting content to this website. Not to mention keeping the various different strands of my day job going-just haven't had time to update this particular page. Anyway; the clocks have gone forward, I can go to and leave work in the light again and the summer doesn't seem too far away. We are off to Symi at the end of May hopefully (slight clash with my role as a GCSE examiner) and then back in July. I think we may go back to Crete for a while or maybe revisit the mainland; I'd like to go back to Monemvassia for example.

I missed celebrating my grandson Joe Morgan's first birthday on March 3rd, so by way of compensation, here is a photo taken at his party; four generations of Gadds: my father Harry, myself, my son Matthew and Joe (who doesn't look too interested!).

Hope you are all well,

Mike x

We've been over to Scarborough to see our son Matt and family today; left in bright sunshine-had me scrabbling around trying to find my sunglasses-but by the time we reached York we were driving through a blizzard. Checked the weather on my phone (show-off) and was somewhat disconcerted to discover that the Met Office was advising drivers; 'to carry a spade, warm clothing and hot drinks' if on the road for the next few days. So my pair of shades, packet of lemon bonbons and a Barcelona Hard-Rock cafe t-shirt weren't exactly going to stand me in good stead then. Happily the snow relented and we got to our destination in one piece; still left early though, just in case the weather had turned nasty tonight. All the family were well; grandson Joe was on good form: a complete poser. No idea where he got that from.... Presented him with his first football, a mini Spanish one from the Barca club shop, with the strict instructions that if he ever tried to pick it up, I'd disown him.
Keep it on the deck Joe and pass it.

My ticket for Cardiff arrived last week; plum seat half way up behind the goal. Mind you, for 58 quid it should be. Driving down Saturday night and staying in Bromsgrove; roughly half-way there and means a pleasant drive on the Sunday morning, time for a leisurely breakfast, a few pints then the pleasure of wiping that annoying smug grin off Jose Murinho's face (I hope). Champion's League on Tuesday as well, so all in all an expensive few days.

As I've been on holiday this week, I've managed to do quite a bit of work on the website: finally got round to scanning the past few month's 'Symi Visitor' newspaper front pages and uploading them. I've also updated the Visitors' Photos page, and the Out & About photo diary.

Back to work tomorrow, BUT-only four weeks until Easter!

Hope you're all well,

Mike x

Hard to believe, but it's half-term already! It's been a slightly surreal, very stressful five weeks for several reasons, so I'm more then ready for a week off. No plans to do anything special, just to try to relax and get my head back together.

Was in Barcelona last weekend with twenty kids from school and it was just the best trip we've ever run. Hotel was amazing (we'd been upgraded to a four-star as the original had double-booked us), weather was great and the children were brilliant; they just loved everything about the city and really made an effort to speak Spanish and sample the local food and culture. An English couple came over to our table at breakfast to tell us they'd been watching the children for two days and still couldn't believe that they were a school party because;'They're not running around and shouting'! Highlight of the trip for me was the tour of the Nou Camp; walking down the players' tunnel and out onto the pitch. Unfortunately we didn't manage to get to a game this time but will definitely be back next year and plan the trip round Barcelona's fixture list.

Meanwhile, I've been updating this website regularly, as usual. Just in case you missed anything, here's what's new: I've added a couple of places to our accommodation listings, 2 Fishes, a medieval conversion up by the museum in Chorio, and Despina's, a budget appartment overlooking the boatyard at Harani. Apart from that, I'm always updating the photo diary page and the readers' photos galleries and our two online forums are busy as usual. New visitors can check all those links from our Home page. Adriana Shum is on holiday in South Africa at the moment, so her very popular twice-weekly online diary will recommence at the end of this month.

That's about it really, I'm off to the gym. I'll be at the Millenium stadium two weeks tomorrow, so I'll give you all a wave.

Went back to work on Monday after the Christmas and New Year break. As usual, the feeling of well-being engendered by two and a half weeks of rest and relaxation lasted several minutes once I was back in school again. Oh well; only five weeks to half-term and then only another four to Easter... I'm off to Barcelona for five days with twenty two pupils on February 3rd, so that's something to look forward to. We were busy planning the itinerary today, hoping that Barcelona's game against Atletico Madrid gets switched to the Saturday for the TV so we can go to the Camp Nou-we won't know until a couple of days before we leave. I've also started to plan our department's summer trip to Paris; always a great holiday which the kids love.

Everything in our house seems to have decided to malfunction at the same time. The washing machine stopped emptying on Christmas Eve (since mended), then one by one the lights in the kitchen, hall, landing and one of the bedrooms stopped working. It is an old house, one of a row of stone cottages built in around 1880 to house workers in the nearby mill-now rather predictably for this part of the world lavishly restored as loft apartments for Manchester commuters-but the wiring isn't that old, so I'm not sure what the problem is. I'm not exactly typing this by candlelight, but it's a bit gloomy.

I almost forgot to mention, although it may be obvious, this page is now a full-blown blog, which means I can update it much more easily as I don't need to be near my home computer to add new content. I can even email new content from my mobile! As promised, I have moved Adriana's latest news onto the same format, for the same reasons.

Other updates to the site include the latest ferry timetables (until the end of February), some new wallpaper courtesy of Ian Woolway and plenty of photos of Epiphany on Symi on the 'Out & About' page.

That's about it, I think.

Hope you are all well,

Mikey x

I owe an apology to regular readers, since updates on here have been patchy to say the least over the last couple of months. Since I last wrote a report, I've been to Bruges on school trip which was fantastic-just great kids and everything was so easy..
As usual, sampled the odd gluhwein, did some Christmas shopping and brought back a few cases of Leffe. Only downside was ferry and motorway delays on the way back, which meant a three hour delay coming home.

Twenty four years of teaching and I've had a grand total of two days off sick; not that I'm boasting or anything, just lucky. Normally if I get a cold it lasts a day or two. But over the last two weeks of the Christmas term I picked up a humdinger of a virus which almost knocked me out; I did feel bad enough at one stage that I should have had a couple of days off, just the situation at work meant I really couldn't. I even stopped training for a week; didn't go to the gym or out running at all, so I must have been ill. It's only been the past few days that I've been able to go out and do some hard runs, push myself and feel OK.

Enough of me-here's what's new!
Hugo Tyler is writing an occasional series of his musings from Pacho's cafeneon for us; I've put them up on Blogger.com which makes it a lot easier for me to update them from wherever I am in the world, via email if necessary. I'll move Adriana's latest news over as well in the next few weeks.
The Rhodes to Symi winter timetables are updated until the end of February and I've put 2005's Greek holiday dates up as well. There's a new holiday property to let on our accommodation pages: The Hellenikon Wine Apartment.

Well that's it; I'm not going to burden you with my New Year's resolutions, just going to wish you a happy, peaceful and healthy 2005.