Weekend, Work and Writing

We are definitely in that changeable time of year weather-wise. The other day, the thermometer in the courtyard read 24 degrees. On Saturday morning, it read eight. Mind you, it was blowing a gale from the north, and this was at 3.15 in the morning. One of the bedroom shutters had come loose, and the noise managed to penetrate my earplugs and wake me up. Not wanting it to wake Neil, I slipped out of the room, got dressed in the kitchen as I usually do in the winter so as not to disturb, and went outside to fix the problem. I nearly ended up in the harbour but managed to put the rocks back into place (to hold the shutter open) and made it back to the house without being swept from the hillside. That was something of a wake-up call, I can tell you.

The winds battered us for most of Friday and Saturday, but no damage was done, and Sunday began in a calmer fashion. Most of my weekend was taken up in writing, as usual, but more than normal because I am four of five chapters away from finishing a first draft. It’s all mapped out in my head. I just need to put down the words and tell myself the story. Then, after a break, I can start again at the beginning and make reasonable words even better. I hope.

I also had to compose a post for my other blog, my pen name writing one, and this week’s theme was character creation. This is a subject that people write books about, but I went for my usual stream of consciousness style and loaded up 2,000 words on the subject as it popped into my head. I did try and keep things to a basic structure, and I included drawings an artist has made of some of the characters I was talking about. If you’re interested, you can find it over at Jackson Marsh. There, I post about all manner of writing thoughts: Putting together a series, individual books, character interviews… I have guest posts too, and from time to time, when I am feeling studious, I have posts about the research I undertake to make the novels more realistic.

So, as the new weeks starts… Only two weeks before I am due in Rhodes to start the process for my biometric permit. Before then, I need to organise my photos (SpacePhone in Yialos), find additional paperwork that shouldn’t be needed but, if it is, will prove I have lived here permanently without a break since 2002 (a blog won’t do it, sadly, but that’s now been on the go for 16 years). I will need to get permission to travel, plus boat tickets nearer the time. I think everything else is covered. And now, onto the firth-to-last chapter of a rather lengthy first draft that’s the last in the first series of historical mysteries…

Yesterday’s Post – Cause For Great Excitement

Great excitement in the house yesterday as a batch of new tea towels arrived. That was kind of the highlight of my day… Actually, there were more. My certificate of adoption came through at last. I’m not being adopted, but I have adopted a Galapagos penguin. Rather, Neil adopted one for me as a Christmas present, and the certificate arrived yesterday. This was posted in January, and it’s an A4 piece of paper delivered by courier, so that goes some way to telling you how bad things are when it comes to new postage procedures post-Brexit. (But at least there was no extra charge.)

On which note, I also received a cable for my new Bluetooth headphones. I bought the headphones from an online company within Greece, and they took about a week to arrive. My piano has Bluetooth, and the idea was to connect the two things wirelessly, but it turns out my piano only Bluetooth-connects to a phone or tablet to read digital scores. I’m still a paper man myself and would hate to read a score from a screen. So, I had to order a cable, which I did via Amazon Germany on 9^th March, so that took just over four weeks to arrive. According to the tracking, there was a hold up at Athens customs, but, again, I didn’t have to pay any extra to collect it. Not like some folks who have been charged €120.00 customs and tax on top of the postage they paid online before they can retrieve their post from the UK.

I am currently waiting for one other thing in the post, and that’s a model kit from America. That’s about the only place I can find the kits I want, so I accept that it will take a few months for an order to arrive. That’s no problem, as they have always arrived eventually and in one piece. Well, in the correct number of pieces as you have to put them together yourself, which is the whole point. The kits only cost about $25.00 (depending on what it is), and the postage is usually the same again. However, I don’t mind that, because I know I will not be charged an extra €120.00 by the courier or customs. I’ve never had to pay any extra when ordering from the USA or even China, so I can only think the trade deal between the EU and yUK made during the Brexit fiasco was less ‘oven-ready’ and more’ past its sell-by date’ before it was even signed.

And finally, in yesterday’s post, copies of bank statements I asked for but shouldn’t need when I go for my biometric card at the end of the month, and a bill for the household insurance which I will pay online later today. As I said, great excitement in the house yesterday, and I’ve not even mentioned the new oven glove that came with the tea towels.

Rough Seas

Today, so far, has been very calm but it’s still early and the high winds of recent days are apparently coming back later this afternoon. Here are some photos Neil took towards the end of last month.

This Day in (local) History

In the absence of anything better to write about… apart from the continuing high winds, the man who regularly decides to have a phone conversation outside the bedroom window at 4.30 in the mornings (why?), and my ongoing writing project… I had a dip into my memories to see what I was doing this day in the past. It’s actually yesterday as you read this, but there you go.

I notice that three years ago, Paddington was off on more travels. He was escorting the god boys to Athens for a short break, where he got to see the Corinth Canal, the Acropolis and other sites.

Also, three years ago, I took this photo while out on a walk just after sunrise. I have no idea what the weather is doing now, or even if the sun has risen because my shutters are currently closed against the wind.

Seven years ago, the herb shop on the Kali Strata opened. This is opposite where we used to have the shop before it was taxed out of existence, and the herb shop is still open and still the place to go in the village for herbs and suchlike.

Eight years ago, however, we were still on my 50^th birthday trip to Romania. This photo shows us travelling through the Carpathian mountains near Rasnov. That, by the way, is a place that features in the novel I am writing, but at the time the novel is set, it wasn’t called Rasnov. It was called various other names depending on which country produced the map you’re looking at, and who ruled what at what time and, frankly, the history of that part of Europe in the 19^th century is still a bit beyond me. Still, it’s a nice shot, taken by Neil.

Talking of whom, here he is on the same trip but closer to home in Rhodes, probably taken after we got back and somewhere near Mike’s Café in the Old Town. (Non-rip-off prices, a decent local café, a bit like Pacho’s on Symi, and near ‘The parrot experience’ at the taverna opposite.)

And finally, ten years ago at the opening of the Two A’s Bar in Horio, where Sue, Mike and I were doing a ‘sesh’ of favourites and folk, rock and retsina. As you can see, none of us had learnt our pieces, and we’re all sightreading.

Windy memories

You can’t really see much from my photo, but I tried to get a shot showing the waves being whipped up under an easterly wind on Sunday. It’s still banging around the roof on Monday morning, and it’s only force five or six. Sometimes, when it’s really windy, you can see the breakers crashing against the rocks of Nimos even from up here in the village.

A memory popped up on my timeline on FB over the weekend. It showed Neil doing a handstand on a bench in Mandraki a few years ago. It says it was 2015, in which case we would have been on our way back from Vienna, Prague, Hungary and Serbia, but I am sure it was when we were coming back from Transylvania in 2013. We went there for my 50^th, as it was a place I always wanted to go, and had a great time in Bucharest and the Carpathians, but got stuck in Rhodes for five days because of the weather. That was due to the wind, which stopped even the Blue Star from sailing. After two days in a hotel in Rhodes, you start to run out of things to do, after three, you’re starting to go stir crazy, and after four… Well, it’s open season on entertainment, and you have to make your own. In our case, another walk around the headland while battling the wind, doing handstands on benches, watching the waves crash over the seawall, and wondering if there was anywhere open in the New and Old Towns that we’d not yet explored. Still, we got through it, spent about as much money in Rhodes in five days as we did in two weeks in Romania, and finally made it home. The story is a warning for anyone coming over at that time of year, especially if you’re only visiting for a few days.

But that was then, and this is now, and nothing much is open anyway. [Hearsay alert:] Apparently, tourists have been spotted in the village. Visitors, at least. Perhaps homeowners, else how else did they get here? The country is opening up to Israeli tourists, I hear, and experiments are running on Rhodes and elsewhere to see if some kind of all-inclusive tourist holidays might work until the country is able to open up to ‘tourists proper.’

Meanwhile, I am still battling through the first draft of what’s turning out to be a very long novel that will need a lot of cutting. The shutters are shut, but at least it’s not cold, and I’ve hardly seen any daylight for a while. That’s mainly thanks to my addiction to writing stories which keeps me at the computer from five in the morning until midday, and my compulsion to watch ‘just another series’ of some Australian reality show in the afternoon, during which my mind wanders and creates the next chapter.