A true path follows no plan…

So I had the fried, fresh, Calamari, sitting by the sea waiting for the boat. It was so fresh and so tasty. I’ve had Calamari a lot since being in Greece, and I even eat the tentacles and everything – I sometimes think I should be on the I’m a Celebrity programme!

I was ready to leave Kalymnos, as you’ll remember me telling you earlier. I’d ventured down to the jetty and was sat with a beer writing….what I didn’t mention is that I’d chatted to the owner of the restaurant, Stavos, Skevos or whatever his name was, and said I was off to Leros on the 5 o’clock boat, like the timetable outside said. “Yes, yes” and “Nice, nice” were the replies and chit chat. A bloke called Richard, English, retired, came along and had a chat a while later…all good…..”yes you’ll see the refugees from different places, they bring them here on the small boat to get the larger boat from Pothia out to Athens..” The boat was, apparently, going to be a blue, ex-lifeboat, high speed, tilts up on it’s end type of thing….”you’ll hear it before you see it”… That type of conversation. So, I’d eaten, and had a beer, and updated the blog, so was ready to go, got up to leave and Stavos or Stakis or whatever, insisted I sit down and wait and relax. “You’ll hear the boat, there is lots of time…” We chatted, he told me about his family’s apartments, Richard said about where he stays when him and his wife, when she’s not working as a Head Teacher, visit for holidays, I had my camera I faffed around with and at almost 5pm I said my goodbyes and went out on to the jetty to get some photos. I waited, and waited, and waited. It seemed like the pattern for the day after the post office! I took photos of Telendhos which was sitting directly in front of me, read my book, watched the fish in the sea below my dangling legs off the jetty, and eventually an ex-lifeboat kind of vessel headed my way. I zoomed in with my camera and it did look like there were people with the typical clothing and colouring of the countries mentioned previously. It docked, people disembarked, they had babies and small children, they did look and dress differently to the Greek, but I’m not sure where exactly they would be from.

I waited for everyone to pass then made my way to the empty boat. The captain made his appearance and I asked “Leros?” To which he replied, “No! Finished. You wanna go, €100 to cover my fuel!!” I tried to communicate that the timetable at the jetty, and at my hotel, both said 17.00 to Leros. He laughed and said it had finished, a new timetable was in place!

Argh! Ok. I went back towards the restaurant and there was Stavros / Stakis / Stan heading out to me “Ah Claire, come, sit down, it ok!” Well, actually, no it’s not! I told him about the times, and he simply replied that yes, it was indeed different times now. FOR F*CKS SAKE! Why the hell didn’t he say that 4 bloody hours ago!!!!!!!! Then the best bit……spoken in a dodgy, broken English / Greek twang – “but Claire, I live with my Mother, I have spare seperate room, you stay there?” Erm, thanks, but how about NO!!!!!

I was so agitated, I’m not even sure why. But I stomped up the hill back to the main road, walked about only 50m to Poppi’s studios, found a room for €35 and dragged the f*ucking huge bag up 2 flights of stairs. I actually think that’s what I was so angry about, the fact that I’d had to drag my heavy stuff around, and now I wasn’t actually leaving. I grabbed my camera and headed straight out as it was now somewhere near 6.30pm and sunset was looming. I stormed up the street, got some nice shots and found the nearest bar. I got a large Mythos and sat down. I took a couple of nice, long, refreshing mouthfuls and sat looking out to the ocean. Then kind of laughed at myself. I had found a cheap, clean room for the night. I’d caught sunset. I was sitting on an idyllic Greek island drinking an ice cold beer. What the hell was there to be upset about? Or stressed?!! I was still unimpressed with the restaurant guy for not speaking up about the boat, but maybe it was a genuine lost in translation moment. I look back at other times in my life, with work situations, places I’ve lived, lifestyles I’ve lived and I would have been seriously 100% more aggro and upset by the whole thing back then. Yes, I was irritated. Yes, I was frustrated that the guy somehow didn’t tell me, and I worried for a short time about where I would stay, but at the end of the day it was my fault for not thoroughly checking boat times. And there was nothing I could do about it, unless I paid €100. And no one died, let’s remember that! I have another chilled evening on the island, I’ll leave tomorrow at 1pm, or at some point after that, and life is actually ok. Plus, the bar I found was ran by a lovely mainland Greek guy called Sakis, who chatted with me and laughed about general island antics, and the reason why I seemed so agitated when I first entered the bar. We had a shot together with the obligatory “Yamas”(Cheers) and I ended up having a nice evening with a good bit of company. He cheered me right up (yes, he has a wife everyone! No island romance out of this one unfortunately!) And so, here I am back in my studio, typing away and saying goodnight – and telling you to remember to stop stressing about the small shit. Life’s way too short!!