Yesterday was Pentecost here in Greece, which means a long bank holiday weekend with visitors from all over the country coming to see friends and family, attend church services, and take time out. It has also been a weekend of quiet, calm sunrises in the morning and feasting at sunset in the evening.

On Friday, we were at the Kali Strata restaurant, where our eldest godson grilled me the biggest pork chop known to Christendom, and our youngest one served it. Neil had a piece of tuna which was just about the same size. On Saturday, we spent the evening with their mum planning more of our winter trip, shooting the breeze, and catching up.

In between times, I started on my final read through of the next mystery, ‘Holywell Street’ and managed to get a little publicity done because someone has to try and sell these things, and that someone is me. I also push other indie authors’ work via free promotions. These, as I am sure you know, are lists of titles in a specific genre. Talking of which…

This one’s a selection of historical novels with some being romance, some comedy, some thrillers. Particularly intriguing is one titled, ‘The Organ Job (a musical mystery featuring JS Bach)’ by James Y. Bartlett. There’s also one called ‘Banyak & Fecks’ by me which is probably my most literary one to date, and not a mystery. It is a story of how a Ukrainian refugee and the son of an Irish immigrant come to meet and survive in the East End of London in 1884. It is a story about friendship.

(Click the banner to view all the titles.)

That all sets us up nicely for the week ahead, and I’m just trying to think of what other news I might… Did I tell you Apostolis in Pedi is (or should be) now fully open? Mind you, by now, everywhere should be fully open. All village bars and tavernas are up and running and have been for a while… Nope, I can’t think of anything else of interest, so I’ll get back to my editing.

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Some hearsay, news, and photos. That’s it. A quick note today and I’m off for the weekend. If you are here this weekend, the church of Agia Triada is holding a celebration of its namesake (the Holy Trinity) on Sunday evening at 19.00 with festivities afterwards including music and dancing. This is the church at the top of the village. You can drive or take a taxi to Periotisa or walk up past the museum. Everyone’s welcome.

I heard on the grapevine that the taverna, Apostolis (Pedi), will be open from Saturday onwards. As far as I know, all the other tavernas and beaches are now fully operational…? (Not 100% sure, not been to a beach in about five years.) Last night and this morning, there are boats lined up along the harbour all the way to the clock tower, so things look busy down there. It’s been so long since Easter it feels like we’re having a really quiet season up here, but you have to remember, the season is only just starting. Both godsons are at their summer jobs, and don’t tell them but we’re eating at their place tonight. Godson-the-piano did well at his lesson yesterday when I shared the news that the piece he is currently learning is a grade 5 piece, and some of the scales he is playing are grade 6. We’ve successfully finished the grade four book, so I think it will be safe to say, when we finish piano and music lessons at the end of the month that he has graduated with at least grade 4 practical, and grade 3.5 theory.

Meanwhile, I have started on book nine in my new series, and will soon be releasing book eight which can’t come soon enough to boost sales. (If you ever wonder what these books are all about and why I am always bleating on about them, follow these two links: James Collins and/or Jackson Marsh.)

And now, I’ll leave you with a few more photos and wish you a happy weekend.

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A trip to the dentist yesterday meant a brief discussion later about wisdom teeth. I was interested to learn I still had one, and it reminded me of what happened to the other three. One, I had out when I was 17. A friend’s dad worked at Dungeness power station, and he drilled a hole through it on some clever and powerful machine, so I could wear it on a chain around my neck, which I did for several years. The other two came out on April 17th, 1993, and they were extracted in Forest Gate, East London. I remember this date for a reason. It was a tricky operation which took about an hour in the chair, and which required stitches. The following Saturday, the 24th, I had to go back to have the stitches taken out. My appointment was at 11.30, and I was sitting on my patio (in Dalston) at 10.30 biding my time, when there came a great rumble and boom. My chair skidded back a little way, and I knew something somewhere had exploded. I found out, on my way to the dentist, that it was the Bishopsgate bombing taking place two miles south of me, which is how I know the date of the dentistry business. Anyway… After my checkup, I walked along the harbourside and back up the Kali Strata…

Which will probably be the first and last time I do that this year, certainly at midday. I can happily walk up the road to the top without stopping or having to sit down, but steps? Not so sure these days.

It may not look like it from that photo, but the harbour was busying up as the day boats were coming in, though people weren’t yet at the lunch tables. The sea was calm, and there were several private boats in too. I didn’t walk along as far as where they are building a new cemetery near the petrol station… (that’s how the translation came out, I think it was a mistranslation of jetty, or pier, container port, something nautical like that).

In other non-news, we watched a live recording of Barnum on YouTube last night and it’s as much fun as ever, and now, I am listening to the soundtrack from the stage version of Life of Pie, with music written by my old mate, Andrew T Mackay which you can find on Spotify or by visiting that link. That’s it. I’m off.

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What rambles do we have today? What news?

Not a great deal, I fancy. Yesterday was a quiet day at home for me, with time to start on a new story. I’ve been hanging around since the end of the last one, not being sure what the next subject is, and so I thought I’d just sit down and write something. So far, in the current series of mysteries set in 1892/93, I’ve had as my background: the life of a cabman, the old school network, the music hall, family feuds, magician’s & sewers, serial killers and saints, and graveyard antics and revenge. For the one that’s due out shortly, the background theme is the name of the book, Holywell Street, notorious in the 19th century for its seditious publications, naughty books and, later, photography. The next book…? Not sure, but perhaps something to do with ballooning.

Talking of books… yesterday, I released my short book of short stories as told by characters from my Victorian series, as an audio book through Amazon’s Audible programme. It’s a virtual voice, but there’s nothing I can do about that, and I can’t get the VV to do the accents the characters should have, but it’s there now. Already, I have had a critical fan wrote to say it sounds fine and they are enjoying listening to it. Here’s the link:

Anyway…

That’s where my head is at this morning, though I am not sure how much I will get done as I have another dentist visit later – they come in threes, don’t they? And that is all I have planned. Heading to the harbour later will mean passing by the pet shop which, as you can see, is very popular with pets…

… and, right beside it, Frederika’s clothes shop which is always so invitingly colourful and has gorgeous things for sale.

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Well, yesterday was a varied day for sure. After reading some newspapers from 1893, and searching out ballooning accidents and related crimes, I took a walk up to the top of the village and down the road. All very civilised and peaceful.

After lunch, the piano lesson went very well, I am pleased to say, and we started on the 3rd movement of the sonata, the first being all but in place bar upping the tempo while keeping the accuracy. Trills are also improving. That was followed by the youngest Yiannis from Lefteris’ Kafeneion having his first birthday party in the square.

That was followed by a film back at home and a reasonably early night, ten, I think it was. At 2.17, we were woken by the house shaking thanks to a 5.9 earthquake just the other side of the peninsular from us. As you can see from the list of other tremors down the right hand side of this graphic, the ground is constantly grumbling, but not usually so vociferously. The actual event was immediately followed by the phones going off with an earthquake warning, so I dragged myself out of bed to turn them off, only to have them stop when I reached the sitting room.

Returning to bed, I then had a dream about being back in Dalston, East London, where we had rented an Airbnb apartment for some unknown reason. All was going well until another family arrived, and tried to get in. The man upstairs threw them out, and that was that. Later, they came back and there were more of them insisting they had booked the place. There were children bouncing all over the bedroom, someone started cooking, and there was a party in the garden, and we didn’t even know there was a garden. We upped sticks, left them to it and caught a number 38 to somewhere else. In fact, I got so fed up with it all, I woke myself up thinking, ‘To hell with that,’ and set about my day.

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