General chat and books

Things are going to start getting very busy here, for a while at least. We have family arriving next week and them more the week after that, coming for Neil’s 50^th and our Civil Partnership, both on the 8^th September. If anyone is here on that date, you are welcome to find us at the Rainbow Bar between three and five in the afternoon. We’re sorry that we can’t take everyone on the boat party with us in the evening, but there simply isn’t enough room to fit everyone in. Those who have been invited will have had an email from us a few weeks ago. But everyone is invited to have a drink with us at the bar before we head down town to sign the documents and do the deed.

I just thought I’d get that parish announcement out of the way now as I am not sure how much time I will have for blog posts over the next three or four weeks. I’ll try and keep them as regular as usual and let you know the news as I see it. At the moment, Thursday, I am seeing a cruise ship in the harbour, the boat from Cyprus that comes in from time to time. It arrived early and usually stays late so, when the day boats come in later, they will have to harbour on the other side. The wind has dropped today, it’s been a bit blustery and cooling of late, especially in the evenings, and the temperature had risen again, but not to the overwhelming levels of June and July; it’s all rather cosy.

I’d also like to thank those people who signed up for my newsletter on my Author blog the other day. I received notifications that I had some new sign-ups, so that part of the system is working. When I send out a newsletter (and I have no idea when that will be), I’ll also post here so you can keep an eye out for it. If you’d like to join it, just head to my James Collins Author blog and use the email newsletter sign-up box. Your info doesn’t get shared around, and I’ll only use the newsletter programme (if I can get it to work) when there’s some news about my books.

Good news there is that The Saddling is doing well, but I could still do with more reviews and more buys. If you’ve not read it yet, you can find it here: The Saddling. If you have read it and liked it, you could suggest it to friends and simply send them the link via email or social networking, wink, wink. Which reminds me, I had an email from Amazon today: “Hello James Collins, Are you looking for something in our Humour store? If so, you might be interested in these items. Honestly: A miss P novella by James Collins.”

Yes, thank you. I’ve read it and very good it is too! And other people think the same: I just found its latest review, another five-star!

“I read Honestly in one sitting whilst on the train from Newcastle to Halifax. The characters were well thought out and when they suddenly started to tell the truth their antics were hilarious. The vicar was my favourite and I would love to meet him. Also makes you think about how we treat people because we put them into compartments without seeing the individual. Am ready for my next James Collins novel.”

Share on Facebook

Some sea shots

We’re gearing up for family arrivals and so time is of the essence. Tidying up, giving the house a spring clean (or at least thinking about doing it) and getting other projects sorted out before next week. I have spent the last two days at home, only popping out in the mornings for a quick walk up a slow hill, and going to bed early so I can get up early and make the most of the day. The sun is coming up just after half six now, the temperature has cooled on the breeze, and none of the above has anything to do with this quick set of photos below, which is all I’m putting on the blog today. I have to get back to thinking about possibly doing some more housework, or not and it’s a huge dilemma.

Share on Facebook

Symi has some last minute deals!

Spam always amuses me. Not the meat product, nor even the Monty Python song, but the random emails that come in. There are a couple dissected and ridiculed in ‘Symi, Stuff & Nonsense’, as you may see later this year. Today though it’s the turn of Booking.com to wheedle its way into my inbox.

‘James, Symi has some last minute deals!’ (The exclamation mark is all important; you can hear the joy in the email’s voice.) Yes, well, I am sure there are some lovely last-minute deals on Symi, but I don’t actually need them as I live here. But what else do you have on offer? Symi from £45.00 per night – okay but I work in Euros. How about £49.00 for a night in Rhodes? To which I answer, Again? I can, apparently, stay in Ixia for £62.00, though it is not explained to me why I should. I am offered a ‘genius’ deal (how do they know I’m a genius?) for a night in London for £27.00 which is very generous, but it will cost me at least €600.00 to get there, and probably take three days what with boats and things. Or maybe Novi Sad?

Novi Sad is in Serbia, as I am sure you know, and it’s only £14.00 per night at whatever property they have me lined up for. I think I went through or near it on a train (the journey is also in the new book out later this year) but have no huge desire to go there. Oh, I just scrolled down and there’s more: “Vienna, Sibiu, Bucharest, show me more, show me more!” that’s blazoned across the bottom of the email as if the backing singers from ‘Grease’ have joined the celebrations with my ‘Last minute deals (exclamation mark)’ email.

I don’t know. I’ve been to those places already – which is why they get flagged up. Well, most of them. You’d have thought something as advanced as the alligator-rhythm, or whatever this called – algorithm, that’s it – that programmers programme into these sites would be able to think outside the box a bit. I mean…

‘Hey, Walt! Lets’ see where this guy has been to before and suggest he goes there again!’

‘No, Hank! Let’s think of some way we can suggest places he wants to go to! He clearly likes travelling but has no budget! He’s more likely to book somewhere new!’

‘Good idea! Say! How about Symi? He’d love that!’

Exclamation mark.

Share on Facebook

Walk, Author Interview, Newsletter

Here are some photos from the weekend. It was a weekend packed with variety: an early walk to Nimborio and back, some time at home, a dinner party, a 10^th birthday party and a concert in the village square. I’ll give you a taster of some of the events and then put up the other photos through the week.

The walk to Nimborio, by the way, works out like this: From the village square, down the Kali Strata and up the slope at the back of the town square, across the top (lovely countryside walk) and to the church of St George, down the donkey track and around the bay: two miles. Then, from the centre of the bay at the back near the Basilica and the Roman mosaics, along the seafront road and down to Nos beach, around the boat yard and into Yialos, another two miles. After a coffee at Eva’s café, we walked back up the Kali Strata to home.

Some of the photos were taken by me and some by Neil but we were sharing the same camera, and I can’t remember who took what.

On a completely different subject, if you’re interested in reading author interviews, I have an interview with Isobel Starling over on the author blog. Click here. While you are there, you might want to sign-up to my newsletter. I am not in the habit of sending any out, but I’m interested to see if the system works. I will get around to sending author updates when I have some news, but it won’t be one of those twice a day emails you never read, more like twice per year. Your info doesn’t get shared with anyone, of course, but you can stay in touch with any news I send out regarding price reductions, new titles and all that jazz. Mind you, I usually talk about them here anyway… but still. I’d still be interested to see if the system works and I should receive a notification when someone joins the mailing list. It’s a new (to me) advertising tool I am playing with.

That’s it for today – have a good one!

Share on Facebook

Symi to Rhodes: update

I am writing today’s post on Saturday. I usually prepare Monday’s on a Sunday but we are aiming to get up early and walk to Nimborio on Sunday morning, so I thought I should put something up and ready today. It’s only a few updates anyway.

I was talking about the boats from Rhodes to Symi the other day, and how to book tickets on line. Well, Andy from the Symi Visitor Travel blog I mentioned contacted me with a clarification. Thank you for that, and here it is:

“Dodekanisos Seaways on line bookings can be converted into real tickets at any of their offices/agencies, they just find your booking on the computer system and print the tickets. This includes the hut at Akandia, but if for some bizarre reason you wanted to collect a Rhodes-Panormitis ticket while you’re on Samos, you could. The days of “only on the island, you’re travelling from” are long gone, thank goodness. The Sea Dreams Sunday night service has been running since early July and runs to the end of September. There is no Saturday night service – this appeared on one timetable draft, but never happened.

You can book Rhodes-Panormitis and Panormitis-Symi as separate tickets. The fare for Panormitis-Symi is €0.00, and the fare from Rhodes – Symi is the same regardless of which port you get to first. Or just book and pay for Panormitis and ask for the leg to Yialos when you collect the tickets, which you’ll have to do before leaving Rhodes for both legs anyway, as there’s no ticket office/agency at Panormitis. Panagia Skiadeni operates non-stop Rhodes-Yialos on both Tuesdays and Thursdays, the days when there’s no 08:30 catamaran from Rhodes.”

Today’s photos, by the way, were taken on Friday when we popped into Yialos to see if there was any post, stopped for a bite to eat and had a bit of a day off. There were many people waiting for the taxi boats, having the photos taken at the anchors and milling about. Apparently it has been very busy in Yialos with the Poseidon’s day trips being popular and often nearly full. Book early!

Share on Facebook