During our long lunch break, one of the things Neil did a fair amount of was walking. Well, we all do it. I walk my daily commute from one side of the house, across the congestion of the porch to the workhouse every day before dawn, and back again each time I need another cup of tea. Neil, however, has been out and about climbing over rocky mountains ( like in The Pirates of Penzance), climbing every mounting (like in The Sound of Music, kind of), and standing high on a hill like a lonely goatherd, except he wasn’t lonely as he often went out walking with Clare.
One of the places they visited, with Francis as their guide, was the cliff at St George. This iconic bay was featured in The Guns of Navarone, or at least, part of the beach was, and it remains a favourite stopping-off point for some day trip boats and many visitors wanting a quiet, idyllic beach with no conveniences or taverna. Seeing it from above is something else, though, as you can see from a couple of his photos. The place has been used by base jumpers for competitions, both successfully and not, and the water in the bay is among the clearest around the island.
Above St George’s Bay
It’s a fair old hike to get there, especially without a car to take you some of the way, and I’m not going to give you the route because, mainly, I don’t know it. It’s listed in the various walking on Symi books, though, and apparently, well worth the trek. Only, be careful. As Tim Rice put in ‘High Flying Adored’ from Evita, ‘Don’t look down, it’s a long, long way to fall.’
One thing you might remember is that I tend to write these posts a day ahead of posting. I’m out of bed and leaping around gazelle-like bright and early, have a cup of tea, read the news and wish I hadn’t, and then sit down at the typowriter to start on the day. Being someone who likes things to be planned, and who likes to be at least semi-organised, I usually start with my admin, and that includes any blogs for the next day. Today (yesterday) I thought I’d start with a few words ready for Tuesday (Today), because on Tuesday morning, I must wright a WIP for Wednesday (the day after).
A WIP?
A Work In Progress blog post for my Jackson readers. This is something my PA had me start a while back now, and it’s become a regular thing. On Saturdays, I post a long post about research, what I’m writing or reading, about characters from my books, or something else more substantial. On Wednesday, though, the post is a where I am at with the current work in progress, and I like to have that scheduled a day ahead. Anyone interested in following where I am at with the next novel, can check the Jackson Blog here.
There’s also the Symi Dream Facebook page if you’ve not already found it. In other news…
Over time, I’ll trawl back through my photos from the past two years and see what I can share, while also posting anything new I happen to snap when I am out and about. Mind you, ‘out and about’ for me these days usually means the courtyard (see photo of the chilli farm), although I do occasionally get further than the gate. For example, once a week I pop down to visit my godson to play some piano and talk about music. Through the summer holidays, it’s more of a fun session than a classical lesson as it is in term time, and currently, we’re looking at lead sheets and how to interpret guitar chords on the piano. Once that’s mastered, you can more or less play any song simply by reading the melody and bunging in a few chords. After 40 minutes or so of this, and riffs, the basics of 12-bar blues etc., we have a chat and an ice cream. He’s working at the new Kali Strata restaurant this summer, doing what many people do young and old alike, working every day of the week without a day off until the end of the season.
From one seed provided by Yiannis Rainbow a few years ago.
While I am a stay-at-home basher of the keyboard, Neil has other things to attend to. Over the past couple of years, he has taken a variety of courses, such as intros to sociology, psychology and some basic BSL, and has taken up diving. He’s doing this with Blue Lagoon Divers on Symi, and is training himself to take photos underwater. (The one of him was taken by Alessandra, one of the instructors). It’s not a thing I fancy doing, but he’s taken to it like a man in rubber to water, and if you want to give it a go, or dive on your PADI card, then contact Blue Lagoon.
There will be more photos from under the sea in time. Neil has a great one of a lionfish, for example, but I can’t find it right now.
I must get on with the next book and leave you to whatever you’re doing. Just to say, the weather here is behaving, we’re hanging around the 30 degrees mark, I’d say, there’s not so much wind to blow the dust up my nose and make me sneeze, and the island is busy but not riotously so. Not yet, anyway. My bother-in-law arrives on Friday for a few days, so anything could happen. Watch this space.
It is summer, which means I am in the routine of waking very early to set myself to work. When I say early, I mean three in the morning, or 2.30 as it was the other morning, or 3.30 as it was today. All well and good, because I love the peace of what to most people is the middle of the night, and what’s wrong with taking a siesta before lunch? Being an early riser only causes a problem at the other end of the day when I am ready to drop off at 8.30 pm, often leading to a lull in dinner conversation as I slump headfirst into a bowl of gigantes at a taverna table. The other night, I managed to stay awake until gone ten, only to wake at 3.00 the next morning as per usual, so excuse me if I am no longer any kind of company beyond the cocktail hour which, for me, is somewhere around four in the afternoon. Except I don’t drink cocktails, and I’ve not actually drunk anything but tea and water for the past two weeks, but that’s another quirk my friends will just have to get used to.
Pedi at dawn
So, you are thinking, following yesterday’s opening and its set of rules and expectations, what has happened in the two years since I last put fingertips to keys on these pages? In a nutshell of no particular order, since we last chatted, I have:
Been to a wedding in Scotland, spent New Year in Athens, taken my godson to Prague for music and culture unfound on Symi, including an opera, a museum of music and Burger King. Taken the same godson up to grade three on the piano. Learnt a little BSL and forgot most. Built a few horror figure model kits, redecorated the house, survived and turned sixty.
As well as many other things too mundane to mention, I have also started up this thing again, and will continue to put up what I want when I want for as long as it serves a purpose – publicity for books both James and Jackson. I will be assisted in this by Neil who provides the unblurred, artistic and more professional photos that will pepper the pages, and by you, ‘Dear, gentle reader,’ as Bridgerton would have you.
Warning: As I am not many things (as outlined on yesterday’s post and the About page) you may not always like what you read, in which case, my advice is to do this:
I last posted here on July 2nd 2021. That’s a pretty long lunch break even by Greek standards, so, I thought it was high teatime I started again, at least for the time being. There are reasons for restarting the blog, and this time, there are some rules. Or, if not rules exactly, then guidelines. First, the reasons.
Reasons
Two years ago, I was retired enough to be writing as a full-time job. I still am, but now I am a little more retired than I was before. As well as keeping this blog, I was also writing freelance, but of late, that freelance work has either ended or slowed down to such an extent it might as well have ended, and that means I currently have no income other than what I make from my books and a small pension that doesn’t quite pay the bills. Contrary to popular belief, just because your novel hits the top five in a tiny niche on an Amazon list doesn’t mean you’re able to live like those famous novelists of novels and films. Those cravat-wearing, South-of-France-living dandies who give dinner parties and have Vanessa Redgrave as their publisher. Quite the opposite in fact. These days, I even have to send my husband out to work so I can afford to live.
Therefore, the blog is back to serve my self-publicity. You can see a list of the four Symi books on the right, and there are links to my Amazon page where you can order oodles more words from my typo-writer. As I write this, I am working on my 41st full-length novel. (It’s actually 37 novels and the four Symi books.)
While you are there in the right-hand column, preparing to order Kindles or paperback or adding the books to your Kindle Unlimited, you will also notice a chap called Jackson Marsh. That’s also me; it’s the pen name I am currently writing under. As the blog continues, I shall be talking more about him, as he’s my best-selling persona, and the stuff he writes isn’t what you might think it is. I mean, it’s not all naughty nookie and all that icky stuff about people falling in love. Jackson is currently my full-time job, often getting me out of bed at 3.00 in the morning to work through until 10 or 11, and again for an hour or so in the afternoon, depending on the temperature. He also has a twice-a-week blog that I need to maintain, and if you want to explore and bookmark it, you can find it here: www.jacksonmarsh.com
There will also be random images such as this one from the other morning.
Rules
For those who are new, and those who may not remember, here is what the blog is about.
First, what I am not. I am not a news agency, reporter, investigative journalist or gossip, so don’t expect anything sensible or scandalous, negative or nasty. Nor am I a travel agent, and thus, am unable to deal with random and accusatory emails such as, ‘I can’t believe there is no boat to Symi after my flight arrives! I must stay a night in Rhodes! Is there a boat I can take! What can I do!’ May I suggest, use fewer exclamation marks, and don’t take your lack of forward planning as my responsibility? Nor am I a trip advisor able or willing to recommend an apartment for a family of sixteen for one night on some obscure date a year next August. I don’t recommend restaurants. I am not an A to Z, a Kelly’s Directory, the Yellow Pages or Tourist Information.
I don’t get out and about much, so I’m not a roving cameraman who attends every church event, party, dance, concert, the opening of an envelope, and late night happening (late for me is 21.00). Similarly, I am not a typist, and as I have a kind of word blindness caused by bashing out between 4,000 and 6,000 words a day, you can expect many typos and odd speelings, becasue that’s how I am. I don’t have an editor, and as long as you now what I’m trying to say, who gaves a big rat’s arras?
What You Can Expect from the Symi Dream Blog
Random posts about random things. From one or two posts per month back in the sepia days of 2005 (I think it was when I started this), I was up to six or seven posts per week before I took time off. From now on… We’ll have to wait and see. It depends on what mood I am in when I wake up, what the time is, how much I have on that day, and whether I’ve got anything to say. Even if I haven’t, I might say something. It’s like the sign Michaelis used to have on the door of the Meltemi bar; if I’m here, I’m in, but if I am not I am probably somewhere else… Something like that.
It’s just me. This is simply a platform for me to get random thoughts out of my head in the early morning, to post some pics of the island and what I see, to talk about everything and anything, and to publicise my work and jolly up some support for it. Don’t expect an in-depth analysis of Symi politics, life, and traditions; even I’m not pretentious enough to suppose I am capable of that.
Yesterday’s short blog post was titled ‘wittering on’, and today’s, appropriately enough is ‘wittering off.’ That’s because I’ve decided not to keep this blog up to date so much from now on if I update it at all. There are several reasons for this, and the list is below. Mainly, I’ve been doing this since more or less every day 2005 in one form or another, and it was set up originally to promote the Symi Dream business. We’ve not had that since 2015 (or was it 16?) and since then, all I’ve been doing is wittering on and off about all manner of nonsense just for the sake of keeping the blog running. These days, things are different for me, and my time is spent, as you know, writing books in order to make a living. Writing a post here five times a week has become a distraction, and it doesn’t actually help me sell any books, so… As they say in USA TV-Land, ‘you do the math.’
I may make announcements here now and then and post them to the Facebook page, but if you want to follow life on Symi, then I highly recommend Adriana’s blog, and a search on Facebook for groups and pages with Symi in the title. There are loads of them with proper news and updates, information and useful things, plus regular images. These pages will stay up so you can look back through posts and photos, and the email address will stay active for a while at least, and I’ll be over on Facebook if you want me (inserts smiley wink). So, thanks for following all these years, and I’ll leave you with some of Neil’s photos, beneath which is a brainstorm list of my reasons for pulling back the reins on the blog.
If you want to know the reasons, I’m stopping this hobby after 16 years, here we go: Not much to talk about apart from what I am writing and the weather. Not many new or interesting photos to share, just snaps for the sake of it. I feel I have to take photos when I’m out and about. I’m constantly having to think of something to write. It takes from 20 to 40 minutes of my day to sort out, download pics and put up posts. I’m only giving rambling chit chat for the sake of it, and not much news about the island. These days, it’s not as easy to share the posts around social media; Facebook requires me to switch accounts, add a link and so on, whereas before, I could click a button on the post and it would be shared directly to the FB page. Now, it’s a pain I can do without. Then there are the enquiries that come in as if I were a travel agent, and other enquiries about the island asked as though I were an expert. I’ve started doing a BSL course, and I’d rather spend 30 minutes on that per day. I’m trying to make a living by writing books, and the fewer distractions I have the better. Oh, and I don’t get paid though it costs me money to host the blog. I could list other reasons, but mainly, the time has come to let it go.
