A Moment of Peace

Aside from the crime and the riots and the dead animals which are, admittedly, more newsworthy there is a world of peace and beauty on Kalymnos that's worth reminding you about

After a more than a year away from Glasgow it's still remarkable to be living with so much sky and water.

Dawn is the best time of day to appreciate this, the quiet hour after the sun rises up over Kos but before everyone wakes up and starts fighting.

Don't worry - stories of malcontent will return as usual next week...

Crime Scene

So we finally got exposed to the Kalymnos crime scene this week when a little local incident resulted in a trip to the police station to make a report plus visits to the neighbours to ask them to keep an eye out.

It's good for our Greek. We now know the words for "thief", "electric drill" and "together we must protect our houses."

Merry Xrisis!

So, the rioting has been cancelled for a few hours to let Santa Claus through to do his thing.


Don’t get us wrong: we have nothing against law and order, per se, but it's freezing and we find the best way to keep warm at this time of year is to set a car on fire and run away from the cops.


So whether you're an enemy of the state or one of the political mafia, we say: MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU!

Another Day in Paradise

The ants have eaten the best part of the fish and now they begin on the head.

The fish herself stopped thinking about anything a while ago.

Never Knowingly Understated

You might have noticed a bit of Athens-based bother on the news lately. There are no riots here in sleepy ol' Kalymnos but I did find this leaflet the other day:

The headline translates (as far as we can make out):

THEY MURDER CHILDREN, THEY STEAL PENSIONS
THIS ISN'T A STATE - IT'S A MAFIA

The headline is followed by a reproduction of Picasso's Guernica for added effect.

We did hear some car-horns and chanting the other morning but by the time we got out to look for the riot, everything had gone back to normal: old men were smoking fags in the cafes and old women were crossing themselves as they walked past churches.

We don't think the Greek state is about to collapse.

Financial Crisis Fails to Rock our Rock

Down here in Kalymnos, we've heard a rumour that there is some kind of huge financial crisis engulfing the world and everyone's going to die.

I don't know. A quick check on the Kalymnos money markets reveal that not much has changed:

Perhaps the hysteria is out of proportion?

Rats, rats, lay down flat.

There have been quite a few dead rats lying around recently. We don't know if it's co-incidence or whether there is something about October which leads to more rats getting caught out.

This one was photographed on the back road to Massouri and there have been several more closer to our house.

It looks as if he was hit by a vehicle and the other ones we have seen have been similarly splayed in the centre of roads. Perhaps with less light at this time of year the rats have trouble looking where they are going. Does anyone know the truth?



Look: there's a fair bit of meat on him!

But we're not that poor yet, so we left him where we found him.