I was writing ‘Jason and the Sargonauts’ before I moved to Symi and it is a story that had a long writing process, but was finally finished on Symi, up at the old house at Ag Triada.

The story was simple; it’s all here in myth: Jason goes to find the Golden Fleece and takes with him a bunch of heroes. Simple. The thing is to add in a ‘what if?’ and really get the ball rolling. What if Jason was a holiday rep in the present day (2003) and what if he worked for Sargo Holidays (Sensational And Relaxing Getaways Overseas), and what if Sargo only catered for the elderly, and what if… And so on.

Now then, years and years ago I was working on an idea for a story that was a bit of a cross between ‘The 39 steps’ and ‘Tales of the City’ if you can imagine such a crossbreed. It was all to do with smuggling codes and a drag queen defeating the rise of fascism in Amsterdam in 1995. Understandably, I put it away in a bottom draw for a long time. But the code idea stayed with me and, to be exact, a musical code. What if musical notes could be interpreted as letters? What could a piece of music say?

Anyway, it all got thrown in together and came out as: a young holiday rep working on Symi has a group of odd pensioners, including his grandmother, to look after during a very difficult week. Grandmother brings an heirloom which starts the group off on a treasure hunt for the Golden Fleece. But where and what is it? The answer is found by following a piece of musical code written a hundred or more years before.

And so we head off into a slightly camp romp (lots of theatre gags and references) as the group travel across Symi to search for The Golden Fleece. There are many hidden, and some more obvious, references to the original Myth: Castor and Pollux become Cassie and Polly, two old ‘theatricals’, for example, the grandmother’s name is an anagram of Hera, and so on. So, for fans of the original myth there’s plenty to figure out, for fans of code breaking there’s a riddle to solve, for fans of Symi there is some accurate history (the story takes place in the present, the late 19th century and during World War II, and a lot of that research came from Hugo), and there are also a few local characters popping up under different names.

So, if you, or someone you now, likes comedy, Greek myths, adventure stories, treasure hunts and reading, then Jason and the Sargonauts would go well wrapped up and under a Christmas tree. (As long as it was eventually opened and read.)

You can order copies of Jason and the Sargonauts here.

“This is Dan Brown meets Whitehall Farce with a bit of education about Symi’s history thrown in for good measure. Set on the Greek island of Symi, it’s a fast paced whodunnit with lots of laughs and loads of page turning moments. Yes, it was hard to put down.”

“This books deserves a large audience and stands up there with the best novels about contemporary Greece.” Amazon review

Carry on up the Kali Strata is what you might call part two of ‘Symi 85600’ as it follows on to cover the next couple of years of living on Symi, so it is actually a carry-on from ‘85600’ and hence the name. Well, it’s not rocket science is it?

Back in the days when we had the Symi Visitor newspaper to look forward to each month, I would write a column for them. These articles sometimes also appeared on the Symi Dream blog, but they were often constrained by the number of words allowed in the paper; column inches I think they call them in the biz. After the success of ‘Symi 85600’, people were asking if there was going to be another book. So, it seemed a simple process to collect the articles together, the newspaper having since finished operating, and put them in a compilation with some other pieces of writing that I wanted to get ‘out there.’ And that’s how ‘Cary On’ came about.

We also decided to add in some of Neil’s photos for illustrations (some pictured here) and we had Gill Bennett, who used to live on Symi, design the cover. The thing was, it was still just a collection of articles and had no real through-line. ‘Symi 85600’ had taken us on a journey, the first five years living here, and so that had a kind of structure, but ‘Carry on’ didn’t.

I started thinking about the questions we often get asked here, ‘What’s it like in the winter?’ for example. (And, as I write this – last Friday – there’s a thunderstorm raging, I can’t see Nimos or even the sea through the rain, much of which is coming in under the doors and through the windows, some of which is coming in through the kitchen ceiling, the roof over Neil’s office (for the first time) and through the still not fixed bedroom window. All towels are down, the electricity keeps flickering and there’s a junction box nearby that keeps sparking. We’re expecting a full on power cut any time now and I have to get to Yialos to buy boat tickets. Yeah, like that’s gunna happen.) That’s what it’s like in the winter madam!

Another oft asked question is, ‘What is it about Symi that made you stay?’ And that’s what I thought should be the structure (loosely speaking) of ‘Carry on up the Kali Strata’, ‘What is it about Symi…?’ So, through articles, anecdotes, a couple of short stories and the photos, the answer is found in this book.

Originally published in landscape format (it can still be found at Lulu.com in this format) it was republished via Amazon a couple of years ago in portrait format, and, like my other books, is also available on Kindle. Same words, same images just a different layout.

You can order a copy of Carry On up the Kali Strata here.

“Thoroughly enjoyed this insight into a small Greek island life. For all of you who’re familiar with Greece in any way and love its warmth and can’t QUITE put your finger on what exactly it IS about Greece, James is here to help you answer that.” Amazon review

“This is a good laugh out loud honest account of life on a small island.” Amazon review

I used to work for a Trust, many years ago, and, after about eleven years of day-to-day and climbing up the ladder to end up with my own office, staff team, area, and million pound projects to run, decided one day that I didn’t want to be doing that any more. I wanted to be doing something else.

After some deliberation and a month in the Greek islands, including two weeks in Symi while off work sick – which always makes me think of people throwing up, ‘can’t come in I’m sick –eughch’, why are people not off work ‘ill’, or ‘unwell’? I don’t think I have actually been sick since having one too many pints of Shepherd Neame (Britain’s oldest brewery apparently) back in 1990 or something – we returned to England and I resigned.

Well, that was it; instantly felt better and so excited that there I was cutting off all ties with an income, what with a large house and mortgage, credit cards and such like. For about two weeks after making the monumental decision I hardly slept, I’d sit up all night and write and, during that time I came up with a thing called ‘You Wish!’

Now then, if you like your novels to be sophisticated and sensitive, well put together and deep, if you like great sentence construction and intelligent thought, perfect grammar and a calm, adult storyline, then you don’t want to buy this book. It poured out of its own volition over two weeks of sleeplessness and just kind of fell onto the page. Once it was out I decided to leave it for a while and come back to it later to rewrite it. That’s what I did, only I didn’t. I left it more or less as it was because it kinds of works as it is, and it is what it is and actually, it still makes me laugh if I reread it now. (I’ve even left some of the typos in for you, how generous is that.)

What’s it about? It’s about five friends who get their wish come true for one day and then find they have to suffer three days of the consequences; it’s about the gay scene in Brighton, dead parents (and others) coming back to life, it’s about having X-ray eyes and being the biggest, butchest, most macho gym-fit stud the ladies could wish for, it’s about magic gone wrong, nudity, and mayhem. Someone once said, ‘Think Tom Sharpe on loony juice with a camp gay twist and you’re getting close.’

Yes, it’s rude, crude and very often nude, has some typos, and it’s not for snobs, but you don’t have to be gay, mad, young, all of the above to like it. A local Brighton magazine reviewed it as ‘Perfect poolside reading’ so that kind of suggests it’s light and pointless, which is 100% accurate. But, if you know someone who likes Nick Revel and his ‘The night of the toxic ostrich’, or even Tom Sharpe (may I say, while bowing low), then the chances are they are going to like this piece of madness and slightly camp mayhem. But it is really only for adults. Or only for adults who haven’t quite grown up yet.

You can get a copy of You Wish! here.

“Mr Collins took me into a world packed with original characters in very unusual situations, with hilarious consequences. I have read many humorous books in the style of Tom Sharpe, not all of them good. In my view, this book adds much to the genre and I recommend it to anyone with a lively imagination and a good sense of humour.” Amazon review.

For the next week, Saturday to Saturday, I am running a series of posts about my books, what’s behind them, what they are about and where you can buy copies. It’s that present buying time of year again and I can get these posts ready in advance so I can take a week off from blogging and let them run themselves. Today, the first ‘living on Symi’ book, Symi 85600.

You may already have a copy of this book, but if not, you might like to consider ordering one for a friend or family member.

This is my first book of anecdotes from Symi and covers our first five years of moving to, and living on, the island. It is made up of emails, and letters, blog posts and some articles, plus a few extras that were written especially for the publication, and it also includes a ‘How to’ guide. ‘How to move to a Greek island or other place in the sun.’

The How To section was written following requests from several people and it’s really a handy list of things to check, remember and organise. Nowadays I expect a lot of the information needs double checking as I wrote this back in early 2004, but there are still useful thoughts and ideas in there for anyone thinking of making the move.

What’s also interesting about Symi 85600 is that it was written with a newcomer’s eye. I remember, in the first winter we lived here, meeting Faith Warn who wrote ‘The Bitter Sea’ a book about the sponge diving industry of (mainly) Kalymnos. She, a Radio 4 presenter at the time and journalist, told me that a diary in the first year was invaluable as you wrote what you saw before you became too self-aware. In other words, it’s all still fresh and new. After a while you think ‘I’d love to write that, but I can’t as it would upset him/her so best leave it alone…’ And so on. Mind you, these days I don’t care so much about that though I do stay away from naming names.

There’s a look at the ex-pats in Symi 85600 too, in the How To part, in a section based on my early observations of ex-pat’s generally. I notice I gave them titles, stereotypes if you like: The chairperson, The Keen drinker, The Montague, The Capulet, The moaner and so on – I expect I could add a few more ‘types’ to that list now. The rest of the book remains, I hope, an honest and sometimes funny account of moving to, and living on, a small Greek island.

And if you ever wondered what the title meant and were too afraid to ask, it’s (part of) the post code.

You can get a copy of Symi 85600 here.

Symi 85600 book review: “A must read if you’ve ever thought of moving away from it all and starting afresh. James writes accurately about the trials and tribulations of living on a small, beautiful Greek island with humour in such a way that not only can you not help but fall in love with the island AND James but makes you wish you could do it too despite knowing the pitfalls that go with it.” Amazon review.

I hope you enjoyed our four day walk. You will be pleased to know that we are back to more usual posts now, though only for a couple of days. Next week I am going to run a week-long advertising campaign, showing a book or a calendar every day, maybe two books. It’s that present buying time of year again so I thought, now’s the time to give you some info and maybe clips from some of the Symi books and my novels, in case you were short on ideas of what to get for people. Things ordered next week should arrive in plenty of time.

Before that though, there’s some catching up to be done. And to start that off, today I’ve been asked to pass on a message from Symi Animal Welfare. So here it is:

“The weather is slowly becoming more wintery now and many houses are closed up, their summer residents gone until at least spring 2015. Cats who have enjoyed food during much of the summer & autumn at these houses have relocated, usually to one of the nearby rubbish bins or skips. Their winter diet may not consist of tasty BBQ titbits or one of the more expensive cat-feed brands available over the next few months, but alternative food will be delivered 2 or 3 times per week by one of our volunteers – as always, an enticing mixture of pasta, biscuits & canned food.  Most supplies for the 2014/15 winter feeding programme were delivered earlier today so we have been distributing some of them to volunteers in Pedi, Harani & Mylos areas this afternoon.  This year, Suzan has organised supplies for the harbour & Nimborio whilst I am responsible for Chorio & Pedi – as there are now so many feeding stations, we decided that a ‘job-share’ was really necessary.

We are also finalising arrangements for an Australian vet who arrives next week for a few days, her visit to Symi comes at the end of a sponsored, outreach neutering project to other islands. This is an extremely positive start to what can be such a bad period for street cats, your donations & support + our conscientious volunteers will help Symi’s cats survive yet another winter.

Thank you all, Melanie, Suzan, Hazel, Tove & Claudia”

As usual, you can find out more about Symi Animal Welfare by clicking to their site.

And as for us? Well, Neil’s meeting his landlady today to formally hand back the shop and its keys. He’s been to Rhodes to end his phone contract at the shop, and his accountant has been dealing with all other paperwork. Tell you what, if you are thinking of opening a business in Greece, you best check out how much it costs to close one down! No wonder people don’t bother and just wander away leaving debts and things unpaid.

But on the lighter side, well, not that light actually, the Ikea things arrived and were carried up to the house, the cabinet is together, Neil bought a floor-standing light that is too tall for his new office, so I’ve got that towering over me like a 1950s hair salon dryer, and there’s a long box on my office floor which should soon transform into a book case. If only I could remember where I put that screwdriver for safekeeping…