I’m hoping to bring you news from Harland & Wolfe in a short while; I am just waiting for the photos to upload after changing a setting on my phone which had become unset somehow, so my gallery wasn’t communicating with the cloud where I keep the images before sending them to the laptop and… It was so much easier when we had prints and albums, though not so easy to share them with the rest of the world. Anyway… Come on a short Symi walk with me while I tell you a story.

Sorry if you’ve heard this before, but what I just wrote reminded me of it. Picture it: Dover, early 1980s, and I applied for a job in Wales (Dolgellau, to be precise and no, I don’t know why I did it, but it looked like a lovely place). A few days later, a letter[1] arrived telling me I had an interview, the day after tomorrow. Gosh, I thought, that doesn’t leave me long to travel the 280 miles from the southeast of England to the Snowdonia National Park, how will I get there? At the time, I had a Morris Minor[2] and knew that wouldn’t make the trip so I had to go by train. However…

Having made phone calls[3] to the local railway station to discover the timetables, I discovered I would have to stay in Cardiff overnight. Hmm, Booking.com was a thing of… well, wasn’t even a thing or a thought, and the only way to find a hotel in advance was to find a newspaper or magazine, visit a travel agent, or… Well, I didn’t know, but I did know that my brother was at University in Cardiff, and better still, I had his address in Splott. Only, he didn’t have a phone (student, you see), and a letter would take too long, so, ‘Ah ha!’ I thought. ‘A telegram,’ so I phoned the operator to ask if I could send a telegram.

‘Sorry, m’dear, British Telecom don’t no longer do them telegrams.’

‘Really?’

‘Aye. After 139 year, the service stopped back end last September, eighty-two, so, sorry, me luv’r, I can’t be of no assistance to ye.’

I have no idea why she was Cornish. But still… what to do?

All I could do was go and hope for the best. ‘I’ll turn up on his doorstep and hope he’s in,’ I thought as I wandered to the railway station the next day. ‘Hopefully, he’s not on a field trip, but if he is, maybe one of his housemates will believe I am who I am, and let me stay so I can travel on the next day, and arrive… Ah ha!’ An idea occurred.

Cut to 6pm that evening when I step from the London train onto Cardiff soil and Lo! There is the kinsperson waiting for me. Despite the embarrassment I’d caused him, he let me stay, we spent the evening drinking Brains Mild, and the next day, I journeyed onwards via Barmouth, feeling surprisingly smug and non-hungover. How?

I’d passed an Interflora. I popped in and asked, if I sent the cheapest bunch of flowers they had, when would it arrive? and the assistant told me, midday, or whenever I wanted after that time, so I sent him a bouquet with a message, ‘Arriving station 6pm, staying the night, meet me.’ And, despite his housemates taking the petunia because he’d got flowers from a bloke, it worked. So, there’s a tip for you, though these days, all you need is in eth palm of your hand.

The trip back also went without incident, except for when I had to change trains somewhere among the mountains, and alighted to find myself alone with only one other person on a single-track platform surrounded by hills and nothing else. ‘Is this the right place to change for Wherever I’m going next?’ I asked, to which the man replied, ‘Now let me see. What day is it?’

Oh, and I didn’t get nor want the job.

[1] Letter: Personal communication often written by hand, sometimes typed, sent through the post.

[2] Morris Minor: Antique car that ran on prayer.

[3] Phone calls made by putting a finger in a dial and turning a combination of numbers to ask a real person because no-one was online back then.

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I mention this only to give you fair warning that I am on a four-day week this week. What that means is I am going to Rhodes on Friday, so I won’t be here to bring you up-to-date news on very little as I usually do. Before then, though, I can bring you some of the reasonably up-to-date images I took over the weekend while wandering aimlessly about in the name of keeping moving. How about this one showing the treatment plant building site on ‘Council Corner’?

I don’t know how it’s going to look when it’s done, but it’s coming along. I wandered down to the main road through Pitini, and then came back up the road, and as I did I noticed the themed benches that anyone can use when wanting to stop and admire the view. There’s this strange thing local authorities have in some countries, Greece being one, where it’s fashionable to plant trees right in the middle of the pavements, or in some cases, to build the pavements around the trees because they were there first. You can see this in Athens where you’re forever stepping out of the way of ornamental orange trees. The same applies in Rhodes, and on the roadside path up from Yialos on Symi. However, we also have benches, and two in particular caught my attention. First, the ones where you can sit and put your feet up while you admire the sea, or put down your cup of coffee while you sit and ruminate…

And the other which has been designed for couples who want a bit of distance. Either that or it’s for those who like to sit and study tree bark.

I also found the standard single glove by the side of the road, and some other classic roadside attractions, but I’ll save those images for another day, and get on with mine, leaving you with a reasonably picturesque shot from the road.

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Select the icon – or press (something or other) for… There’s some new AI thing that’s just appeared on my Word screen as soon as I open a blank page. Didn’t ask for it, don’t want anything to do with ‘creative’ AI, doubt I shall use it, and I am already sick of AI generated… stuff. Daft little videos where non-real people pretend to be real people… Images of long-dead relatives suddenly animated and ‘alive’ again just to wrench your heartstrings… And don’t get me started on the “I just released my first book” brigade who’ve only managed to learn the process of ‘copy, paste and send to Amazon.’ Did you know, only a short time ago, Amazon made a rule that an author could upload only a certain number of new books per day? Something like ten. I mean… I write full-time, and I can only manage four decent-length pieces per year, so who’s writing this stuff? Worse, who’s buying it? I just saw a trailer for some novel or other and, OMG it was A B – the first word being Absolute.

And there’s a case in point. I changed that word to italics and this icon popped up with the message ‘Draft with…’ whatever the AI thing is called. CoPilot, or something. Isn’t it the copilot who actually flies the aircraft? Yeah, well, I’m not having that. So, my first job is to look up how to permanently disable this takeover.

And breathe…

Well, that took me longer than expected to get out of my system, so I’ll be brief. Yesterday: Writing, piano, and building the largest moving object known to man (at the time). Mr Andrews had me painting the hull, twice, tying knots in the rigging to secure them below decks, and painting the nameplate. The boss took care of the first attachments to the foredeck, and after two hours, we had one section of one deck 80% done.

Today, the sun’s out again, the boat’s come and gone, and it looks like it’s going to be a glorious day for staying in, writing, maybe popping out for a walk later… Now that’s something AI could do for me. It could do my exercise while I create more stories from my own head.

Have a good weekend!

A gift for other grumpy creatives:

To disable this CoPilot thing:

1 Open Word

2 Go to File (top right), then Options (down the bottom)

3 Click Options and you should see Copilot in the menu

4 Click that and untick the ticked box

(Some versions may have an ‘Experiments’ link in the File/Options list, in that case, you turn it off from within there.

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Yesterday was a mixed bag. Writing and rain in the morning, followed by rainbows and relaxation, followed by music and mayhem. Let me explain…

I am just over 30,000 words into my next Delamere Files mystery, book number eight in the series, so I spent the first part of the morning writing and researching…

Here’s one of the publications I read as part of my research, The Illustrated Police News, 23rd November 1889. I can tell you, a membership to the National Newspaper Archive is worth its weight in gold just for its reading material never mind its research value.

The rain came in during the morning, was heavy around eleven-ish, and finally died off, leaving this rainbow, which was a double (you might just be able to see the upper one):

Later, I’d arranged for the music student and I to visit ‘George the Guitar’ for an introductory lesson on how to start playing the guitar, seeing as how we now both have one. As does his brother who originally couldn’t make the lesson and then could. So, the three of us met just after dark up at the windmills, one guitar each, and set off to meet the teacher like a travelling mariachi band. An hour later, the boys came away buzzing with what they’d learnt and done (Sam’s face when he played a scale of C Major was a delight, but I could see Hary thinking, ‘Not more bl***y scales’ – lol. No, actually, they were both buzzing with what they were going to do next in their musical quests, so let’s hope they keep up the dreaded P word (practice). Huge thank you to the very generous George.

The mayhem then came after when I dropped into the bar to meet up with the planning committee – we’re planning something later in the year, which I’ll keep to myself for now. And following that, a very nice sleep thank you very much, and I’ve woken to a bright, calm, and sunny day, though every window in the house is condensated as it’s still very humid. That, thank you for asking, was my yesterday. Today, it’s more about writing this morning, piano lesson this afternoon followed by a couple of hours building Titanic this evening. Photos to follow tomorrow, maybe.

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There’s not a huge amount going on, for me, up here, at the moment. January is a quiet month all round. Except for those who work in the necessary industries and shops who keep going all year round. I’m always very impressed with the guys who empty the bins and clear up the bin-store areas. They see to ours several times a day, working all day and in all weathers. Of course, I’m not out and about much at this time of year, and I’m sure there’s a lot more work going on than I see from my window, or the occasional amble through the village. Talking of which, we did one of those the other day and Neil took some photos. As you can see, the greenery is already starting to return.

This entranceway (arch) has always interested me because of the style of the stonework.

It’s raining this morning, and the sun’s just about to come up, and when it does, I don’t think we will see the perfect blue sky we had the other day when passing by Ag Athanasios in the village…

And that’s about all I have for you today. I mean, if you want to know exactly what life is like for us in the winter, we spent a thrilling couple of hours yesterday sorting out kitchen cupboards. The other night, Neil carried a chair back from Jenine’s house as you might have seen in the photo (scroll down). It’s one of two for the courtyard, a Christmas present, and the one is in place, while we await the arrival of the second. Roll on summer when we can use them.

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