According to Windfinder.com, it looks like we’re heading into a cloudy and cold weekend, with the temps at 12° to 16°, the wind between two and four Beaufort, and no rain forecast – as yet. The Poseidon weather system has a ‘cloud’ option under its weather reporting, and this shows the position of the Sahara dust clouds when we get them. We’re currently dust free. As the sun comes up, I can see very few clouds at all, dusty ones or otherwise, but it’s still not yet light. I was asleep by ten last night (almost by 19.30, but I managed to stay awake a while longer), and thus, up at 04.00. This could also be a sign that summer is on its way, though I am still wearing at least two layers.
That might have something to do with the rising cost of electricity and how we keep the heaters off as much as possible. Our last bill was another just over €100 for the month (the one before was €250). We have to remember that there’s also the BDS, the boy downstairs, a sturdy young soldier chappie living downstairs who, for all we know, might have a heater running 24/7, but if so, he pays for it, and currently owes almost half of our total bill. He has his own counter, but the account is in my name, and the landlord works out the split by some means of algebra and other cabalistic signs, but the result is always the same; we are paying the same, or less, than we used to pay before the BDS arrived, because the charges are also split. BDS is leaving at the end of the month anyway, and we’ll have another person in below before long. Let’s hope they laugh, talk, sneeze, fart, sing and watch TV no louder than this guy whose phone conversations we have become quite used to sharing. (His ceiling boards are our floorboards. We live and sleep ten feet apart, separated by two inches of wood.)
But you didn’t come in here to hear about our domestic arrangements. Or maybe you did, I don’t know, but I expect you are slavering for an end-of-week gallery and update of news. Well, there’s not a lot I can tell you. In my little world this week, I have finished my MS as well as I can for right now, and it’s going off to the headmistress for proofing on Saturday. I had a letter from HarperCollins about my ‘Bobby’ book. The letter was semi-real in style, but had obvious traces of AI language, example: [your book] offers a vivid and deeply human lens through which to view key moments in twentieth-century British history. Yeah, well, that’s just blurb-recycling, love. Your ability to blend character-driven storytelling with historical authenticity… Is second to none, I know, darling, but either that’s corporate text or AI speak, and I’m not much strapped with either. Yet, the contact was genuine, and even if I am not what they are looking for (I am not, as it turns out), they have offered to suggest agents who might be. Tbh, I’m not sure if I’m that bothered. I like what I’m doing, and I like not being tied down to someone else’s ideas or editing, as you will see if you read any of my books, all of which need some kind of editing by a professional, but which readers like, so there we are. In fact, if I can perform my own trumpet voluntary for a moment, here’s a random message received from a reader only this week. “You are amazing, sir! I love everything that you write. Please keep it up.” It’s not quite Times Literary Supplement style, but it was from a reader, and that’s what counts.
Anyway, I have drifted. I was going to put up a gallery and be done, but I chatted on, and the sun’s now almost up. So, here’s the… Oh! I remembered the news. I won’t be here on Monday. We are spending the last of our savings on a ticket on the Dodecanese thingy so we can have Sunday night in a hotel before the pre-check-up starvation diet begins at midnight. (Annual blood checkups and tests at 09.00 on Monday, and no eating or drinking beforehand.) So, no blog on Monday.
Finally, here’s a gallery of fab-photos Neil has taken recently and some from previous years.
