I seem to have entered a phase of quietness on the ‘news’ front. A lot of staying at home working on the next book, and seeing friends in the late afternoon, and that’s about it. I can tell you the dust cloud has moved on, the sun is back and it’s getting warmer by the day, the day-trip boats continue to come in (though there was no activity on Friday at all), the work to the power lines had been continuing, and that’s about it.

I managed to get to see ‘The Life of Pie’ via the National Theatre at Home app yesterday. The whole company came ’round and gave us an incredible performance. (Us being me and Harry because some other poor soul had to go to work.) I particularly wanted to see this version having read the book and seen the film, but more than that, because me old school bestie composed the music (for which he was nominated for an Olivier Award). Look him up on IMBD.

As for out and about photos this week, they’ll have to be a little out of date as I’ve not been out and about much recently. I dug out some from earlier in the year, though. A door detail (there are lots of unusual knockers around the village and town if you take the time to look), a shot of the harbour after walking down the main road, which affords some great views but is a bit bumpy underfoot as the footpath doesn’t seem designed for feet, and one of the inside of Niki’s Kitchen’s new upstairs dining area which we visited in the depths of winter, and very nice it was too. This traditional taverna adds to the complement of others we have in the village making six places you can come and eat at, and they are now all open.

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We’re heading into a day of planned power cuts and high winds with boat disruption thrown in for good measure. I’m planning to stay in, keep warm and remain un-windblown, if there is such a word. I’ll have four hours on the laptop battery if needed, I’ve a book draft to read and edit, and some research to do, and that’s about it. With nothing much else to say, I’ll leave you with some shots of the island, including the ATM machine in the village (next to the clinic) and the museum – in case you were wondering what those buildings were.

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I’m expecting to suffer from wind. I had it yesterday, and tomorrow will be worse, but so far today, things are calm. There’s been a warning that high winds tomorrow have already stopped the Sebeco and Dodekanisos boats, so they won’t be sailing (unless things change). If you’re intending to come to or from Rhodes tomorrow, check with your ferry company.

Oh, and be careful if you are going near the sea too, because there’s going to be a tsunami… there isn’t. There wasn’t, but it’s interesting how quick the services are to give out warning these days. Yesterday, there was an earthquake somewhere the other side of Karpathos which could apparently be felt for some distance as it was a six pointer, and people reported receiving tsunami warnings within a few minutes. This is a good thing, no doubt. Some people were also reporting earthquake warnings a few seconds before the tremor, and I, like them, wasn’t sure how that worked, but it was pretty impressive if a little pointless. ‘There will be an…’ Crash. We also get weather warnings here when there’s no sign of bad weather (but there is elsewhere in our region), in the same way we might suffer a ban on shipping on a perfectly calm day, because there’s a storm raging further up the island chain.

It’s good, in a way, but does remind me of the current trend for what are apparently called ‘trigger warnings.’ Now, I’m not putting anyone down, but when a total stranger writes to me to accuse me of not putting trigger warnings with my book blurbs, I tend to take exception. ‘All books should come with trigger warnings, you might cause someone upset!’ Ms Outraged of Wherever writes, to which I reply, ‘Your sensitivities are not my responsibility.’ I mean, honestly. The blurb makes it clear that there will be a murder in the story, it’s talking about the East End Ripper killing people. The blurb makes it clear there’s one of those hideous gay characters Ms Outraged doesn’t like, that’s the whole point of the… Never mind. I often wonder what ‘trigger warnings’ would go on famous titles. ‘Dracula,’ warning, this book contains descriptions of vampiric activity, blood transfusions, and Victorian women fainting. (Oh, btw, there’s also a stabbing and a big dog.) The Bible, warning, this book contains scenes of wife beating, torture, murder, revenge, violence, judgemental characters, mass flooding (worldwide genocide), and more than a little carpentry…

I mean… Tsunami warnings by all means, but otherwise…? If you feel obliged to pander, make it clear in your titles, covers and blurbs.

By the way, it’s interesting that when I use the instant thesaurus built into the Word program, and right click over the word tsunami, the synonyms suggested include eager and bore, and as I feel I am now being eagerly boring, I’ll sign off.

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A couple of parish news items to get out of the way first.

The new Poseidon is starting its trips around the island on Thursday, I believe. You will be able to find the details in Yialos along the harbour front where the taxi and other pleasure boats are moored.

We’re having some maintenance work down to power lines and so forth around the place, so there are some planned power cuts going on. Don’t be surprised if you go dark for a morning or longer. I think they should be finished by the end of the week.

Meanwhile…

After finishing my chapter yesterday, I took a wander around the village just to get some air in the system. It was strange, but I couldn’t stop myself looking at properties and wondering if they were available to rent, holiday homes, sitting vacant for no reason, not yet opened for the season, only to be used for four weeks out of a year, and all manner of other possibilities. When you start looking around you realise a) how many there are in the village, and b) the varying state of their repair. There are a lot because there were over 25,000 people living up here at one point (some books say 30,000 or more), which must have been a drain on the drainage, not, I suspect, that there was any. Some were being done up, others I passed were clearly occupied, some, I know for a fact, are holiday homes, and others, I assume, have been left fallow while someone tries to work out who owns them. Several were for sale, but nowhere did I see what we used to see, ‘for rent.’

I wandered on and out to the road and down, enjoying the scenery as always, and trying to put my mind to the next chapter, but failing. Still, things perked up later when a new sofa cover arrived. I know! The excitement was almost too much, as was the thing itself, with its stretchy material, odd shape, and no instructions. There was only one way the thing could have fitted, and I found it on about the fifth attempt. Yeah, it looks a bit… ew, but it covers up the… ew, beneath. The sofa is over ten years old and has been much used by godchildren from the age of seven upwards. At least now it looks clean. We could only wash the cushion covers before because the rest is too heavy to go in the machine even if we took the cover off the frame, so thanks in advance for your helpful comments on how to clean a sofa. Simply cover up the old one! We now have a new (looking) one, and it will do for now.

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I’ve heard a few people recently commenting on how colourful the island is at the moment, plant-wise, that is. It’s probably because we had a fair amount of rain, and it’s not yet been too hot. Because Easter was early, it feels like we should be in full season swing by now, and you have to remember it’s only May, where it feels like June. Except, the weather has remained reasonable, cloudy, windy, sunny, and a bit of everything and hasn’t yet settled into 30°+ every day. Yet. Anyway, I thought, as I was clearing my head of random thoughts and putting them on paper, I would put up some pictures showing a couple of the colours you can see right now. They will all soon be gone, I am sure, and we’ll be back to burnt earth browns.

How things change, yet remain the same. (I couldn’t be bothered to look up the quote.) In ‘the old days’ people used to have to clock into work; punch a card to show arrival and departure times. Well, the Greek government have now brought that back, so yesterday, Neil and Yiannis had a demonstration on how to use the tablet and phone technique of clicking in and out of work. All very well if your job is nine to five, five days a week, not so handy if you work in, say, hospitality as a private concern with arrivals and departures at all hours. Or if you are employed to clean properties after guests have left, because your start and stop times will vary. I’m not sure how that is going to work.

What this modern technology has done, though, is make it easier for me to pay the phone/internet bill. It came in yesterday to the phone, so I went to the app, checked the amount was correct, and paid, all while sitting outside the bar. In ‘the old days’, paying the bill would have entailed walking down to the harbour in the hope the office was open, only to find it closed, sitting around for a couple of hours because the whisper was, ‘He’s just popped out on a job’, having lunch, finding he was still ‘popped out’, having afternoon tea, and walking home again with the bill unpaid. Now, you can even pay your bills while you’re sitting on the loo. (Checks spelling. Fine.)

And so, to work. I am in the middle of a complicated scene which would work so much more easily on a screen, though it would have to be a screen split is several ways to show four different things happening all at once. Not so easy to do in a book, but it’s fun working it all out.

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