I can’t remember if I mentioned Google Maps the other day. I meant to, but then probably forgot, but if I’ve forgotten that I didn’t forget and this is a repeat, then read it anyway and then forget about it, because this, like a lot of what I put here, is pretty unmemorable.

Now I’ve forgotten what I was going to… oh yes. Sat navs and Google’s map service. I’ll say that again, Google’s map “service.” I was coming down the road the other morning when I met a lady looking for the museum and trying to get there via her phone and Google Maps. I took a quick look at the screen, and it bore little similarity to reality. In the end, I took her there as that was easier and quicker than explaining the route. It reminded me that I passed by the other day and took a photo of the opening times.

It’s becoming a ‘thing’ now, to see people reaching the village square with their noses buried in a phone, glancing up, looking around and then following their phone again. ‘Are you lost?’ you ask, to which they reply with a firm, ‘No,’ and carry on being lost. On some occasions, as reported by Neil from his position of helpful barman, someone will be so adamant their phone is right, that they will stare at a building and swear there should be a lane there. ‘Clearly, there isn’t,’ doesn’t stop them from complaining that the village hasn’t been built according to their map, and off they go to get lost elsewhere.

The problem might be that the maps don’t have the steps marked on them. So, the best one is when you see someone on a hired moped, and they weave their way along past Sotiris’ supermarket to arrive at the Kali Strata Restaurant, and then look very confused, left, right, can’t go up or down, then their passenger shows them their phone as if to say, you can go that way, the phone says so.

The moral of the tale is, if in doubt, ask, don’t rely on a map on your phone. Besides, when you’re exploring, what would you rather see? The scenery or the screen?

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I had a stay-at-home book day yesterday, not just writing one but continuing to read the book about Victorian London that Colette bought and brought me for my birthday. So, today, I thought I would take ‘book’ as the word of the day.

Booking a ferry to Symi? You’ll see there’s a link to Ferry Scanner over there on the right. I was just looking at it to see about tickets for Mother and George who are coming over in June, and on the day they leave Rhodes, there are seven passenger ferries available from 8.00 in the morning until 12.20.

Looking for a Book to read? You might like historical fiction, in which case, you’ll find a couple of my titles in a KU promo this month, plus a load of other history-fic books in a range of periods and genres. KU is Kindle Unlimited, btw.

Research Books. Below. A few of my research books on a temporary shelf in the office. The other bookcases are full already, admittedly, one of them is half-full with the models I’ve been making. I tried to clean one yesterday while Harry was working on his car kit after a blinder of a piano lesson, but it’s hard to get the dust out of all the intricate places without knocking bits off. Which is what happened, because the glue dries in the summer heat. Still, that and fixing a new seal on the oven were the triumphs of yesterday.

Symi Books. I have a few reminiscences about moving to Symi and living here for 20 very odd years, and those links are also over there in the right column. The first of these books is from the early days of self-publishing, which was quite a while ago now. After four Symi books, I decided I’d move on, though one of the early novels is set on Symi (Jason and the Sargonauts), and the history side of it is as true to reality as I could make it. the rest is just camp farce.

Books written on Symi. For the past seven or eight years I have been writing full time and have been adding to my Jackson Marsh pen name catalogue. He’s now got over 30 books under his belt, most of which comprise my three Victorian mystery series. Each one of these has been professionally proofread, had a professional cover design and in more recent years, a professional layout. I’m pleased to say they’re doing okay-ish, not enough to live off, but we live in hope. More info here.

Table Booked. We’re having lunch with friends in Yialos tomorrow, and the table is booked. There’s that’s it for local news today, so I am now going to get on with my next book, ‘Where There’s a Will’ which is just entering the final reel.

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Yesterday. Up at six, check the temp: 19 degrees. Cup of tea, look at emails, laugh at spam, bin it, do some admin, pay a bill, check on sales. Go for a walk, up to the top of the village, say hello to a goat…

Continue onto road and down, find a visitor following Google maps to oblivion. Speak English? Yes. Right way for the museum? No. Come with me. Change route, back into the village, up this way and that, pass a stray microwave, ‘Oh look, a traditional outside oven.’ And some fell on stony ground. Top of these steps, can’t miss it, have a nice day. Back to the walk, passing a building site…

Can you guess what it’s going to be? Wander homeward, cup of tea, to work, write 2,000 words, something’s wrong. The right words, but in the wrong place, will adjust next time, this is too early in the final reel to feel in the right place, and that’s lunch. Afternoon reading, pop to the bar, watch the world go by…

Then, watch a wedding go by…

Then home for supper, a bit of TV, and bed. There, that was Sunday. Today? Partly the same but with the addition of piano lesson in the afternoon.

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The clouds are back, but it’s not yet as rough and windy as predicted, nor have I seen any Sahara sand, as yet. I can feel it blocking up my nose, and when it rained the other day, we found some of it on the newly painted outside table, but otherwise… just this.

Talkin of the outside table, we painted it a couple of months back when we redecorated the courtyard. This started because I was worried about the state of the shutters and the bathroom wall, and thought they needed a coat of protection if nothing else. We had Laki come in and fix the wall because it needed stuff other than a coat of paint, and when that was done, the rest of the courtyard looked really old and decrepit. It wasn’t, it just looked it. However, a couple of the shutters had peeling paint and exposed wood, so we sorted that out, put on an undercoat and painted them. Then the rest of the walls still looked out of place, so between Neil, Sam and I, we did the whole thing. To celebrate, I’ve arranged some lights for the summer, and we now have something of a theatrical corner out there.

In other news… I was out wandering yesterday and came across one of these (below). It’s interesting to see things like this and to know that someone spent a little time on that step with a compass or knife and etched out an image. There are others around the village, and I’ll try to look out for them and take some other shots. This one shows a couple of boats and a date (1980?). I’ve turned the contrast right up to highlight the engraving. I’ll leave you with that and head off into chapter 20.

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Sounds like a 1950s B movie, but last night was definitely the night of the mosquito. The joy of wearing earplugs is that you don’t hear the little blighters, but that doesn’t stop them from treating you as a pin cushion. I’ve not yet started on my summer habit of rising early (like, three in the morning), and I’m still on my winter timetable of rising at around 5.30 or six, so being woken by my own scratching at 5.45 wasn’t so bad, but I’d rather not wake up looking like a Picasso. I didn’t know which part of me to scratch first, so I left all alone and went straight to my instant cure, haemorrhoid cream. No, honestly. If you buy the stuff with the anaesthetic in it, it takes away the itch and reduces the swelling, which is exactly what you need for both conditions. The pharmacies here sell a very good one called Procto Synalar (the orange/white one), and I find it’s the only thing that works, for me, at least.

There. That’s today’s Symi survival hack dispatched, now let’s have a random photo.

Taking of piles, I was sitting on a friend’s roof the other day, as you do, and I took in the view, which was, in a way, one thing piled on top of another. A restored house, a ruin, a church, the sky… it reminded me of an A Level English lesson years ago when we were studying A Passage to India. Mrs Purvis, our teacher, had us read the chapter where there’s a polo match going on, and pointed out the way Forster uses the scene to subtly describe the Indian caste system. He describes the grass, the near distance, the rising hills, the mountains and the sun above it all. She called the technique… something I can’t presently remember, and told us how magical the writing was, the nuance, and the subtlety, and what did we think? What nonsense, we said, he’s only talking about the scenery.

There was no point to that anecdote, apart from to illustrate this second, not-so-random photo taken from that roof.

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