Awards, Random Enquiries and Supper

Sunday was an unusual day, or rather, a day with unexpected things in it. We had invited guests for supper in the courtyard, and so shopping was first on the to-do list. That done, Neil set about making his MasterChef inspired desserts, and I checked up on my recipe for vegetarian giovetsi. That’s like a lamb giovetsi without the lamb, but with more of other things in it, and it’s mainly a kritharaki (orzo) dish, and looked pretty straightforward.

With everything planned, we had lunch, Neil went off to work, and I found out I’d won the best screenplay award at the Santorini Film Festival. Well, me and Rebecca who wrote the book on which the screenplay was based. (You can find it here.) One quick siesta later, and I set about the giovetsi, being very organised and arranging everything I needed according to the list of instructions. The dish started off with two tablespoons of olive oil, onions and cinnamon, and continued through ‘set aside, clean skillet and add another two tablespoons of olive oil and gently fry the carrots,’ and onto, ‘meanwhile, take 450 grams of kritharaki and six cups of water…’ I never know how big a cup is, ours vary in size from a polite demitasse to a butch half-pint tea mug, but you know, you do what you can. Seeing how many ingredients were now cooking, semi-cooked or ready to be put together (with yet another two tablespoons of olive oil), I checked the recipe again. I was dealing with a huge mound of stuff, and there was no way it was all going to fit into one ‘large oven dish.’ The recipe was for six people, apparently, more like six families with a craving for olive oil, and I decided to split everything down the middle and bake two. Anyway…

Neil came home and was checking his panna cotta and other inspired desserts, still smartly dressed from work while I was in baggy shorts and nothing else, and sweating like a blacksmith’s bum, when all of a sudden, the doorbell rings. Thinking it would be a quick dispatch, I left my oil heating, the courgettes ready, and dashed to the courtyard to find a very handsome young lady at the door telling me her husband was a film director. That news got around quick, I thought, and a doorstep conversation took place with me half-hiding my toplessness behind the gate. They were looking for someone to speak on a documentary about Covid and faith, or some such, and not seeking a scriptwriter for a million-Euro feature, so I politely declined. I also explained that we had two people coming for a six-family meal in fifty minutes, and agreed to give her my phone number, which I wrote beneath my name.

‘Oh, you’re James?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then who’s Neil? We wanted Neil.’
‘He’s my husband,’ I said, while thinking, Good, he can deal with this, and on cue, he shouted out that my oil was burning. ‘He’s doing something complicated with a pudding,’ I explained and went to fetch him.

Neither of us was willing to be part of a documentary about Symi, Covid and faith, and we politely refused. Apparently, they’d been given his name by a variety of people; one person telling us it was X while another said it was Y, and we don’t mind who. Usually, we’d do what we could to help, but not this time. I’ve had a few enquiries about filming on the island and been asked to take part in TV documentaries before (I was invited to Star News in Athens once for the morning show, to talk about ‘Shocking the Donkeys’, but that was an oxi-oxi from me), but it’s not my thing. My thing was getting that dinner ready, half of which is now to be frozen for a very rainy day, and our supper in the courtyard, which was, I am pleased to say, very pleasant. Neil’s desserts were wonderful and should have won an award. They certainly would have been more interesting in a documentary about pandemics and faith than I would have been, not that they wanted me in the first place.

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Ants

Ants are the latest thing. In fact, they are very nearly flavour of the month, except we check everything before we cook with it or put it on a plate. I’m sitting at my desk in the office nowhere near the kitchen, and there are a couple of them running across the rim of my glasses, more investigating the desktop, a couple about to get squashed on the keyboard, and I came in here to get away from the ones crawling all over me in the sitting room. These are tiny things, by the way, not the standard size edition, and although they’re useful for eventually getting rid of dead cockroaches, they are annoying when clambering all over you and your kitchen. Anyway… I just thought I’d mention that as it was the first thing on my mind this morning. That and mosquitoes, but lets’ not start that one. Let’s have a gratuitous photo of Symi instead.

So, apart from becoming an adventure playground for ants, what else have I been up to? Not a lot. A few evenings in the square where there’s a mix of distancing and not. The weekend saw the August 15^th Panagia, and I know there were events planned, though I don’t know how they went off. Joyous and safe, I hope. I did a quick wander around some hills, Neil walked the length of the island as the crow flies by walking to Pedi and then to Nimborio and then back via the roads, no shortcuts, and stopped for a swim somewhere en route too. I happened to be on the balcony wondering about nothing when I saw him march past the clock tower heading home. It took 40 minutes from there to here around the harbour and up the main road; not bad going.

And talking of going, I am. An idea for a new story is presenting itself, and I want to get on with that. I can’t promise there will be any interesting news here this week, there rarely is these days as I don’t go out much. There’s far too much to watch at home, like this military parade of ants now assembling on the laptop screen…

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Yialos, Wednesday

All rather quiet in the harbour on Wednesday, but then we were there before the day boats came in. The taxi boats and others were at their stalls taking bookings, selling tickets, and hopefully, doing as good a business as they could. We stopped for an orange juice at Pacho’s to watch the rather small world go by before tramping back up the steps to home. Neil had already been to Nimborio via the main road, and back the same way, so he got good mileage out of his trainers that day.

This week is meant to be one of the busiest on the island and in holiday and festival spots around Greece generally, but I’m not sure how that’s going to work out this year. Adriana has thoughts on this, plus more information about what’s happening in the country and on Symi over on her blog here.

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Yesterday

I spent some of yesterday morning working on an idea for a ‘Clearwater Companion.’ This is an idea to one day produce an accompaniment to the series The Clearwater Mysteries which I am writing under my pen name. It’s come about because I have started blogging more regularly on my other blog which, until now, has been a hit and miss affair. With things being what they are, I need to try and raise more sales, and a regular blog is one way to go. So, I took out all my research books and photographed them along with some of my notebooks. I also made up a list of ideas for what might go in such a book, things like character backstories with photos where I can find them, notes on the locations as some of them are real, and some of them are not. I could also add information about the real characters who appear in the books, Tennyson and Henry Irving, for example, and note the times I have made up names and places, but based them on the originals. Places such as ‘Greychurch’ where the Ripper murders happen in book one. That’s obviously Whitechapel, and the murder locations are also changed in my novel world, but sometimes subtly which might be of interest to Ripper’ fans’. Mitre Square, for example, becomes Bishop’s Square in my book, although some places, like The Ten Bells, keep their original name. Meanwhile…

That was what I was doing yesterday early morning before wandering into Yialos to chase up a bit of accountancy business and take a walk. I’ve been lazy with walks of late, though Neil has been taking long wanders and swims in the morning and I am with him in spirit. There are a few more boats in the harbour, some large ones, some smaller, white sailing boats, and we are still receiving regular day trip boats too. I see them come and go as I watch from my balcony like the Lady of Shallot in her tower – oh, that’s a Tennyson reference, so you can see where my head is at the moment.

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Fun and games

Sometimes you just have to make your own fun, which is what was going on here.

I’ve not been in the square late at night, which for me means after 7.30 pm, but when I have been there in the afternoon, things have been very quiet. It’s always been a bit like that as most people are at the beach in the heat of the afternoon or having a siesta. Later, though, there have been more people about, when it’s cooler, after around six, and then even later – way past my bedtime – I’ve heard it’s also been busy. Well, on most nights anyway, and when I say busy, I mean busy for these days. I’ve also seen photos of a very quiet harbour in the mornings and evenings, but a busier one when the day boats come in.

We’ve been seeing some of them quite regularly, and the other day, from a safe distance on the balcony and through the binoculars, I watched one come in. Hardly any mask-wearing going on, which was a shame to see, as one day, like other islands, we’re going to see a case or two. Not a nutcase like the tourists coming over with no masks – but you know, a medical case, and whoever that unfortunate person is will suffer being talked about for a long time, possibly even blamed. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen. I guess many of the trippers on these boats think that because they are outside, they are ok, but seeing groups of passengers piling off, bumping into each other and still unmasked, well, you may be outside, but… Anyway, there’s no point me going on about it, I don’t have to work with or be near anyone else, so it’s easier for me to stay away. Which is what I am doing now, at 6.55 on Tuesday morning when, having done this, I am setting about a new story while the last one is in beta reading. That’s a technical term for having one’s husband read through it and say how good it is… Actually, he doesn’t do that, he tuts at the typos and tells me off when he reads a part that makes him cry, but he also laughs in the right places, so that’s helpful.

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