Busying Up

I’m not sure if that’s a phrase, ‘busying up’, but it kind of describes Symi these past few days. More visitors are arriving, some from the UK, many from other parts of the world, all tested and so on, and those I’ve spoken to report that are double-vacced, which sounds like what Sam does to my office carpet when he comes to do the cleaning. So, that’s all good news, especially as Colette arrived the other day bearing the gift of Tetley teabags. (Inserts gratefully smiling smiley.) The Rainbow bar was almost back to normal on Saturday afternoon/evening, as far as I remember.

In other news, Neil has produced his Symi calendar for next year. He’s always had this ready about this time of year because, when he had the shop, he needed it to be in stock by June ready for visitors to buy copies. Now, you can only buy it online. I’ll say that again to make sure the message is clear. You can only buy it online. When you go to the sales site, you can change your country/currency to suit what’s best for you. So, if you’re in the EU, for example, choose Ireland and Euros, that will save postage costs and import taxes from the UK, or long delays from America. If you’re in the USA, then there are no long delays, but as the calendar starts next January, you’ve got plenty of time for delivery. Click on this link to learn more: Symi Dream Calendar 2022.

As for me, over at my desk, I have just published the 10^th mystery in my Clearwater Series, and over the weekend, it shot to the top 10 of the LGBT Mystery rankings on Amazon, which was temporarily thrilling. There are actually 11 books in this series, the 11^th being a prequel which I count as one of my best pieces of writing to date. You can find the full series under The Clearwater Mysteries on Amazon. The 10^th book, ‘The Clearwater Inheritance’ is currently available on Kindle and in Kindle Unlimited (as are all my books), and I’m hoping the paperback will be approved before long. Amazon can take a few days to check the print files, and as this novel is 150,000 words long, someone’s got a bit of checking to do. So, bear with, and prepare to order. Ta.

You know me, workaholic, I’m already on chapter eight of the first draft of the first book in the follow-on series, ‘The Larkspur Mysteries’, and I am taking myself back to the Hackney workhouse in 1890, so, I have some reading to do, followed by some writing, followed by a piano lesson, followed by a collapse in front of the TV to watch a film. I’ll see you tomorrow.
PS. The photos today are not on the calendar, but they are by Neil.

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Friday Photos: Takis Leather Art

To see us through the weekend, a collection of images from Takis Leather Art. Neil took these when he was passing the shop recently. These works of art are made by burning tiny dots into leather. In some cases, Takis uses a whole hide, and in other cases, a smaller piece of leather which is then framed. You can see the finished pieces at his leather workshop in Yialos, on the north side of the harbour between the war memorial and the clock tower, and the shop is open all summer every day. As well as showing and selling his artwork, Takis also sells a large assortment of leather goods, including bags, wallets, coats. You can find the shop on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/takisleathersymi

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One Drive Me Mad

Had one of those mornings yesterday, not helped by it being Yiannis’ birthday the day before, and he slipping in another full glass every time you thought you were able to go home. But that’s another story, and one I don’t remember much about. Anyway… Neil had shared some more photos on OneDrive, and I was going to show them off today. However, when I went to the shared folders section of our cloud storage and tried to download them, I only got the folder and not its content. Odd. I checked my own photos and couldn’t download them either. Checked the disk space, fine, checked various settings, fine, and went through a whole raft of things put up online by some techie person who knows about these things… and nothing. Folders, not contents.

So, I went to OneDrive help and, of course, my question wasn’t covered in its list of FAQ, so I wrote it in the ‘other’ box or ‘ask the bot’ or whatever it’s called. The automated message came back, ‘please enter your error code.’ I replied, ‘there is no error code, just empty folders.’ The message came back, ‘please enter your error code,’ I replied, ‘There is no error code.’ The message came back, ‘please enter your error code,’ and I shan’t print what I wrote next.

So, today folks, and until I can figure out why I am unable to download from OneDrive, you will have to make do with some more random shots from the existing files. Btw, I had recently had a Firefox update, and that’s the only reason I can think of for the appearance of this overnight problem, so I will investigate that when my headache has calmed down.

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Recent Aimless Wanderings

I was just browsing through my photos folder and thought I’d post some random shots from the collection. These are just my ‘happy snappy’ efforts taken in idle moments while wandering aimlessly about. If you want to see top-class photos, you need to check Neil’s images on Facebook. We used to share more to our Symi Dream page there, but since Facebook has introduced a new page/profile system, it’s no longer easy to cross-post. I mean, if Neil added some photos, I used to be able to ‘share to your page’ in two clicks, ditto if I saw something from a page I belong to as me, which would help that page and mine if I shared it. Now, working on the laptop, you can’t just click and share; you have to save that URL, go into your page profile and make a new post. I can’t auto-share from the blog to FB either, and if I try and share a personal post to any of my pages when using my phone… Well, forget it. I don’t know why they’ve done this, but I assume it will have something to do with them making money and to be honest, it puts me off even having a page on FB.

Anyway, that’s why you may not see so much shared content on the Symi Dream page anymore. I have, of course, written a strongly worded letter to The Times (and Facebook) about this, but, also, of course, it will make no difference at all. Moan over with, here are some random shots from my recent aimless wanderings.

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