I was innocently wandering the hillside the other afternoon when, quite without permission, a song leapt into my head. ‘You’re my favourite waste of time.’ I didn’t think I was wasting time, I was merely getting in a few steps, a modern-day euphemism for what used to be called taking a walk. There I was enjoying the views and minding my own business when a line from the song kept repeating itself. Very annoying, particularly as it wouldn’t go away and followed me all the way from the house on the hillside back to Taverna Zoi. There, I finally managed to get rid of it, but not before I’d taught it and its lyricist a lesson.

‘You’re my favourite waste of time.’ Has there ever been a more insulting love song? (Answer: probably.) But what exactly do the lyrics mean?

If you take a look at them (and I’m talking the lyrics used by Owen Paul, Bette Midler the al, in case there are others with the same title), you will see how, like a Donald Tr*mp speech, they have been intricately and carefully carved from the English language. I quote:

‘Here I am. I’m playin’ day dreamin’ fool again, You’re my game…’ The next bit has a classic squeezing-in of an ‘ove’ rhyme to match with ‘love’, to wit, ‘the clouds above.’ (Question: where else are they going to be?) Then comes ‘And you’re my honey, you’re my favourite waste of time. You’re my Said (sic) you’re my favourite waste of time.’ From then on, it’s basically a repeat of the title ad infinitum with something about giving you my love tonight, with ‘love’ being another euphemism, I suspect.

It wasn’t so much that the song was repetitive and the lyrics basic, most pop songs are written like that to make them more memorable, thus, commercial, it was the idea that someone has a favourite waste of time, and what that implies for the object of the singer’s desire, the ‘You’ of the song. What exactly is his message here?

I mean, what other wastes of time does the singer indulge in?

I think the message of the lyrics is clear:

‘Hi, baby (they’re always called baby in such songs). Just wanted to let you know that when it comes to watching the washing machine go around for three hours on its sixty-degree cycle, and when compared to staring at a newly painted wall for the afternoon, you come out tops every time. You know, doll (an alternative to ‘baby’), I could sit and watch reruns of Payton Place all day, but I’d rather threaten you with my insinuations of ‘love’ (read joystick), and let you know that ‘I don’t care if being with you is meaningless and ridiculous’, because when it comes to doing things which help me waste my life away, you’re top of the list.’

Mind you, at least the thing has survived all these years, is still a classic (read, ‘anything old no matter what’), and it got itself into my head without warning. It will probably stay with me all day now, hey ho!

I set out to talk about the views I’d seen over the weekend, but somehow got sidetracked by that song and now I feel I’ve wasted my time and yours. So, I’ll give you three of my weekend views (actually, it was Friday), so at least you have some Symi photos to look at:

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Below are some shots from on high to round off the week. By contrast, one of them is a shot from underneath. It’s one of the tunnels you can find if you wander the upper village. I’m told these came about because parts of the village were built with narrow lanes to a) help support properties during earthquakes, and b) to make it more difficult for invaders to pass through. Possibly also c) because of a general lack of space. I’ve also heard or read that most of the lanes are just wide enough for a mule to pass through because when they were constructed, that was as wide as was needed. Coming down from the top of the village the other day, I passed through the narrowest alleyway in the village (that I have so far found). It’s so narrow, I have to turn slightly sideways in parts, yet it’s still passable for me, but a mule with a pack would get stuck. Next time I am that way, I will try to remember to take a photo.

Apart from a couple of walks, for me, this week has all been about sorting out my next book. I wasn’t 100% happy with it when I finished the first draft a couple of weeks ago, and it was only late last night that the reason came to me. I jotted a few notes which basically put the plot into perspective and finally gave me the frame on which the rest of the story should be built. So, later this morning, I will begin again on yet another draft, sift out what’s not needed, highlight what is, and hopefully, this will be the last round of edits and rewrites. I’ve never had such a drama with a story. Maybe I am more critical of myself now than I’ve been before, but something has always nagged me about this tale since I had the idea for it some years ago. Finally, the story found its characters, but now, they’ve lost the story, and it’s my job to put it back together.

I’ll start on this before I head down to the harbour for some essentials, namely, mastic, varnish and a brush (not metaphorical ones for the story, but real ones for those odd jobs that have been hanging around for years). There’s also a visit to the post office and a quick lunch at one of our favourite tavernas in the offing. So, I’ll get on with my ‘patch things up’ day, and leave you with these shots from on high.

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I had one of those nights where I couldn’t sleep. Yesterday afternoon, I went for a long walk (for me). Sensible shoes, water, a hat, and off I went, up through the village to the ‘lone tree’, and out onto the path along the hillside to Xissos, and back to the village via the road. Home to home in one and a half hours and straight into the shower. I wasn’t so much celebrating the walk at the end of it, but I was celebrating the fact we still haven’t had to turn on the hot water tank since June, and the water was still warm enough that it didn’t make me swear.

After being up since three in the morning and after doing three and a half miles uphill and down, I was ready for bed at half eight but hung on until nine, when I headed off, looking forward to a good night’s sleep. Could I? Could I buffalo. I tried laying this way and that, but posture made no difference. I tried all those other tricks too. Remembering places I’d been to and walking through houses I’d lived in, recalling pleasant memories, picturing nothing, picturing lying on a raft on a flat calm sea at night, and reciting Under Milk Wood, or the first few lines as I can only remember the first few lines of anything. Silence. To begin at the beginning… Try a poem. Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary…No. ’Twas brillig, and the slithy tories did grye and gimble in wabe: All mimsy were the Labourites, and the mome Libs outrgabe…

Nothing.

Try picturing scenes from the walk, like this one:

Then I got to thinking, ‘Perhaps I am too tired to sleep.’

Say what?

Apparently being too tired to sleep is a thing. So where did that expression come from then? To be a thing? When did something being a thing become a thing? As if it wasn’t bad enough wondering about that, I then started wondering if it was possible to be too tired to sleep. Surely that’s like being too hungry to eat.

‘What a wonderful banquet, Marjory, but I couldn’t possibly. I am far too peckish to eat a thing.’

Or being too thirsty to drink.

‘Just crawled in from the desert, dear. Hell of a tailback on the dunes. Kept me out there for six days. Oh, very kind, but no water for me. I am far too thirsty.’

Apparently, being too cold to snow is also a thing.

‘I think it might snow.’

‘Oh no, it’s far too cold to snow.’

Presumably, you can also say it’s far too wet to rain.

I tried asking the 348 cows in the field if they had any plans to lie down, but they told me to ask the sheep in the next field. There were 382 of them, and I was still awake.

Relive the wonder of the day’s wander…

I felt Neil come in, and realised I was in trouble. It was definitely late and I am body-clocked into waking at three, four at the latest, I started doing that thing where you count down the hours until you’re going to be awake, and thinking, ‘If I drop off now, I’ll have five hours.’ Check the clock. ‘I’ll have four hours.’ Think of nothing, and there we are having a discussion with Richard Burton about rain in the desert and what does mimsy mean? Yay! I’m asleep.

I’m awake. Mimsy means to be rather feeble and prim or affected, so Richard tells me. The fan is now off, but it’s neither warm nor cold, so do not adjust, normal sleeping service will return shortly. Ah, two thirty is it. Perhaps it’s too early to get up. Then again, if it’s too wet to rain, too cold to snow, and presumably, hot to be warm, it is, paradoxically, never too early to get up.

So I did. This is the result, and now, to work. Or do I have too much work to do to work?

[Before I suffer the slings and arrows of outrageously clutched pearls, yes, I know you can be too hungry to eat. Ditto paradoxical insomnia. It’s half three in the morning, so take the thing in the spirit it was meant.]

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Today’s list of things to do:

This blog post (obviously, and quickly), my other blog post to do, a short story to edit, four hours at least of another project, water the ‘garden’ as it’s a water day, washing (ditto), continue to rearrange and edit the first four chapters of the next book as I realised on my last readthrough that all the info and story I need is there but in the wrong order, take a short walk (if possible), make lunch, prepare lesson plan for H’s fist piano lesson of the season ready for Monday (this can wait until tomorrow). To make it worse, I didn’t wake up unit four, so I already feel as though I am in a hurry.

Luckily, the temperature is now down to around 32 during the day, so I’m not sweltering, and I have all day as I have no work to go to. No work? Ha!

I had time for a short wander yesterday afternoon. Now it’s slightly cooler, I don’t mind going out, climbing to the top of the village and back during the afternoon, whereas before, it was nigh on impossible to go out at three in the afternoon. There was a cooling breeze too, which helped. This photo was taken with a wide angle from next to the Panorama Kantina on the main road a little way up the hill.

These other two, which I will leave you with as I set about my to-do list, show you the balmy early morning of the other day and the view from our window, or one of our windows. It’s a pleasant view up the lane where we often see cats, chickens with their chicks, people with suitcases, the trash truck, and the occasional goat and other wandering animals. All delightfully rural until a moped with no sound insulation roars by in the wrong gear. However, today, there’s no time to stand and stare.

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Yesterday, I was able to take down the notes stuck around my writing station, tick them off a list in my notebook, transfer the facts/details to the main ‘bible’ notebook for my current series, and say, ‘That’s the first draft done.’ I then spent the rest of the day with my head inside the book, trying to put my imaginary finger on what’s missing, or perhaps, what’s not quite exactly as it should be… While wondering if there aren’t too many distractions to the main mystery plot, and knowing something isn’t quite right but I’m not sure what… Until it finally fell into place as I was drifting off to sleep last night.

So, today, I shall begin again, this time, reading through with a great big note (and only the one) right in front of me reminding me what to cut out and what to highlight. I know what the problem is. The protagonist isn’t sure whether he is going to do A or B, and that’s misleading the reader. It’s actually me, while writing, who didn’t know if the protagonist was going to do A or B, and leaving my options open, but like an open gate to a field of cattle, it’s let everything wander into the lane and get muddled up while causing a traffic jam. So, time to make a decision, close the gate, stick to the one idea, and rewrite the draft with that in mind.

Meanwhile…

Back in the real world, the chillies are doing well, bar one plant that has suddenly decided to wither and die while full of fruit. Very odd. It was planted at the same time as others, in the same soil (different pot), has been treated the same and was doing as well as them until recently. We’ve tried all kinds of things to keep it going but to no avail. The rest of the courtyard is doing fine, as we learn which plants want what levels of sunlight, and discover the best places to put them. There’s always one.

Beyond the courtyard walls, the Symi-September world revolves, with more regulars arriving, the same number of day trippers tripping, and yachts and gin palaces calling in. Temperatures are cooling by not mightily, so it’s still good beach weather, and as far as I can see, the season is behaving as ‘normal’, though, after the last few years, it’s hard to know what normal is. Still, upwards and onwards…

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