And some good news about a wedding ring

It’s fun writing detective novels, though I have to say, it’s hard work at times. Not only do you have to plot how a crime is solved, but you must first figure out how it was committed. On one side, you have the good guys getting on with their job and then finding they come under more and more pressure, while on the other, you’ve got the villain not necessarily trying to thwart them as they go along, but planning to thwart them before committing the crime. That’s why, if you see me sitting in contemplative silence, it’s because I am watching what’s going on around me and plotting despicable and near-unsolvable crimes. Sometimes that’s because of the company and has nothing to do with a novel, but that’s another story. I do, though, like a good mystery.

Like the case of the missing wedding ring, a thrilling tale that’s kept us all on the edge of our seats for the past few days. How a man can lose his wedding ring in a relatively confined area, and how it cannot be found for days, despite an extensive search. And how it then turns up in plain sight and in a place where many people have already looked, as if magicked there. In this case, Yiannis found Neil’s wedding ring behind the bar sitting atop a bowl of uneaten crisps, three days after it went missing. Bearing in mind that bowl hadn’t been there when I looked on day two, the solution was simple, but a few facts had to be established first. For example, do they usually leave the leftovers out in the bowl so long? No. (You don’t want to leave any foodstuffs out for long around here because of ants, roaches, rats, velociraptors…) Deduction suggestions: had it dropped off in that bowl when he was serving it full to customers? No, because as soon as he found it missing, he rummaged through every bowl recently served, much to the customers’ surprise. (After which, they all helped him search the area, and he gave out fresh supplies.) So how come it was witnessed as not being in its finding place one day, but was there the next? As Conan Doyle has Holmes and Watson say: “When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

I won’t tell you my solution just yet, but you’re welcome to put yours in the comments on the Symi Dream Facebook page, and there will be a free crisp for the one who get closest. (The crisp will be fresh when we fax it over to the winner.)

All of which nonsense leads me towards the end of the week and my current conundrum of how a man can disappear in a tunnel with only two ways out, and not be seen using either of them. Usually, simplicity is best.

If you’re into detective novels, and I haven’t already mentioned my own enough, you might like to visit a certain Amazon page and take a gander or have a butcher’s at The Delamere Files. The first story in this series was inspired by a true story as retold by the investigative journalist, James Greenwood, in the 19th century. It’s pretty mild compared to some that come after it in the series.

Anyway. We end the week by ignoring a slight worry (our house contact runs out in a week and we’ve not heard a thing from the landlord, but I am sure we won’t suddenly find ourselves homeless a week on Sunday) and end instead on the happy note that Neil’s wedding ring turned up and wasn’t thrown away by accident. We can add to that, calm and warm weather (though next week looks dodgy), and some great sunrises to take us into the weekend. Have a good one.

As you can see from this photo, it’s all go in the village at the moment.

In fact, it’s not. Not really. The days have turned warmer again, the wind has dropped, and the skies have been clear. More importantly, the sea is calm, so the boats are not currently disrupted. It’s around now that you start to see posts in ‘the socials’ from people in a panic because the November timetables are not out yet, or what is showing may not necessarily be what’s going to happen. This is something to do with permissions and concessions, and no-one receiving their definite word about what subsidies they will get and not finding out until nearer the end of the month. I looked yesterday, and there were no listings on the Blue Star timetable beyond the end of this month, but that is what usually happens around now. The timetables will be up again soon, and apart from possible changes around the time of the Panormitis Festival (when some boats go to and from that end of the island instead of this one), it’s likely we’ll be back to what we had last winter. For the past X years, we’ve relied on the Blue Star three times per week, and that’s likely to remain the same. He says, not knowing for sure.

Anyway, the chances are, we won’t see boat arrivals like this for much longer:

If you zoom in (it was taken from a long way off), you’ll see that the Sea Dreams looked to be full of happy day trippers enjoying the late October warmth. The day before, I randomly counted three larger day boats in the harbour, and we also had visits from the Sebeco and Panagia, an indication that Rhodes is still busy.

Here at the house, we (i.e. Neil) has started painting up the flat roofs to help stop the internal showers. I did the sanding and filling after work, so I am helping a little. I also do a lot of invaluable directing from a distance. My next big home job is to cut back the vine, which currently looks like it’s on its last legs, or its last roots. It’s best to get the turning leaves off before they blow off in the wind and end up in the gutters, thereby blocking downpipes and forcing the water up and over the soffit board, beneath the rafters, and down your internal walls. At least, I think that bit’s called a soffit board; it’s been a long time since I did my housing studies degree. So long ago, in fact, I think the most modern building construction we studied was the round house. Might have been the cave. Can’t remember. The point is, winter preparations are well underway in readiness for the next rain.

And as for today’s ‘plug’, this will be of interest to everyone who likes reading mysteries and thrillers set in Victorian times, Victorian London in particular. Like now, London then was a place for the rich; if you were poor, forget it, because it forgot you — apart from some well-meaning charities. Crime was rife, as it no doubt is now, though these days, there aren’t so many people selling babies and poisoning husbands, but you never know. This is a collection of books by indie authors with Victorian London as a theme; at least it was meant to be. By the looks of some covers, they’ve let in all kinds of other mysteries too, but at least I know my series starter is in there, and that is set in 1892, so I’m well in. Which reminds me, I must get back to 1904 and the Greenwich foot tunnel mystery.
Have a click, have a vada as they say in Polari, or varter as they said in Latin, because there may be some reading there that will take you through the rest of autumn.

https://books.bookfunnel.com/victoriangaslight/xz2nu27auk

Today’s plug comes with a couple of lovely views, as seen yesterday from the top of the village not long after sunrise. That’s the time when the hills turn a shade of pink. It’s a slightly different shade to the colour they become towards sunset, when the hills on either side of the Pedi valley are a glorious dusty something somewhere between pink and… I just popped off to find a colour chart to find the exact shade, but it wasn’t possible. I don’t think it has a name yet.

The plug is more of a reminder. Yesterday, I told you about ‘We are the Monsters: On the Road with Lindsay Kemp’ by Kinny Gardner; well, today is a reminder that you don’t have long to order your Symi Dream Calendar before the C word is upon us: Christmas.

I’ve already ordered a couple, and as usual, the images are a lovely reminder of Symi throughout the year. The date boxes are big enough to make notes in, and this is the only place where you can order them: Symi Dream Calendar 2027.

Somehow, Neil has again managed to keep the price low (as low as possible without giving them away), and again, there are 12 unique images from around the island. Some people collect these, frame their favourites and get a recycle out of the calendar, which sounds like a great idea.

As for other parish news… The road to Pedi (and partly from Yialos to Milos) is being resurfaced, so access is limited in places. There’s never a good time to do this necessary work, but now is infinitely better than that time when we had many more visitors on the island, and people were wearing plastic bags on their feet on the way down the hill. There was pitch or whatever it is in tyre and footprints all around the village for weeks after that debacle. No idea how long it will go on for, but if you use Facebook, visit Ράδιο Σύμη – Ειδήσεις (Symi live news), you can read the report there. If you don’t read Greek, you can use the Chrome browser and right-click on the text to find the ‘translate’ command, and it will come up in English. Other web browsers may also offer you this, and there are other ways to translate from Greek to English, such as 25 years of trying to learn the language but being too lazy to bother too much. Ahem. Moving on…

Guess where I am going today? Yes, back to the chair and drills, but it should only be for a few minutes. We started patching up the flat roof yesterday with some sanding and scraping, and some mixing and slopping on of what is known locally as ‘mud’, which, yes, looks like the stuff, but actually fills the cracks and dries hard before the concrete paint goes on. Hopefully, this will stop the ceiling shower in the bathroom, but we also have a running-wall shower or two in the porch and lean-to, and although we’ve cracked-filled and painted there over the years, we still can’t stop the rain coming in that way. Further investigation yesterday revealed no further clues.

Anyway… I’ll let you get back to ordering your Symi Calendar 2027 before they sell out (they won’t), so you can get some in as seasonal gifts. Depending on where you live, they should arrive within a few days, although here it takes about three weeks; then so can a quick drink with friends at the bar.

We are the Monsters: On the road with Lindsay Kemp

I am going to be pushing some products this week (that’s not a euphemism; I’m talking books and calendars), but first: A few things to do on a rainy day in Symi:

Leave home at ten, walk down to Yialos, have a chat with a few people en route, attend a dentist appointment, pop into the pharmacy for a flu inoculation, and, again, be home within one hour. Thigs didn’t stop there, though. Oh no. Not long after getting back, the phone rang, and as I was expecting a call from my mobile provider, I answered it to find someone from the electricity company. ‘Would you like me to speak in English?’ she asked. ‘It would be safer,’ I replied, and laughter ensued, as did a chat about our program/contract, which had lapsed. The upshot was cheaper rates, but a €2.50 increase in the basic plan (with some going to environmental projects), so as long as we carry on as normal, the overall price should reduce slightly.
That done, another call arrived five minutes later, this time from the mobile company and their rep over in Rhodes. Now, my mobile bill has been half the price of Neil’s for about 10 years because I signed up to an offer. During that time, the bill had only increased by €2.60 a month, whereas his for the same service has gone up substantially more, and I was expecting a price rise. Apparently, my contract ended a while ago, and would I like to renew for the same services, but at €2.00 a month less than I was paying? Er… Yeah, fine. (Ask no questions.) So I came out of the morning only €0.50 down on the start of the day, and with no toothache. Yay!

Another cause for celebration is the release of a friend’s memoir about working with the Lindsay Kemp Company. I was lucky enough to read this before publication, and it’s a fascinating, humorous, poignant and honest telling of life on the road and in the company, and, in particular, with the hypnotic and mesmerising figure of Kemp at the centre of a revolving and now lost world of courageous creation, endless travel and ongoing dreams.

Knowing how you like to support the creative, I thought I’d mention the book and drop in the link. This is to Amazon UK, but the book is available worldwide, and it is already at number one on the Amazon seller list for ballet, classical dance, and opera – as the Kemp productions contained all three.

I’ll be ordering a copy, and if you want to do the same, you can find it by clicking here, and there, you can read the blurb and back cover before diving into true stories of British and European theatre. Oh, and you will read some eyebrow-raising true tales of this innovative innovator of the total performance, and his wonderfully creative and eccentric troupe.

We are the Monsters (Amazon paperback)

If you were thinking the name rang a bell but… As well as his own creative work, Lindsay appeared in The Wicker Man, Derek Jarman’s Sebastiane, and Jubilee, and Todd Hayne’s Velvet Goldmine. He was also a mentor to Kate Bush and David Bowie, among many others.

And for those who think the author’s name rings a bell, Kinny appeared in all four of my musicals, and we created cabarets and revues together. For those who were there, he also sang on the balcony of our Symi Dream shop along with our godson, Harry (who was five at the time). However, I think his work with Lindsay Kemp was of slightly more national importance