Walking

Good morning (afternoon/evening) and welcome to the last week of September. Already? Aye, that’s how time goes. And the time is 5.00 on Sunday morning as I’m up early as usual. I seem to have fallen into a pattern of early mornings since… June I think. I much prefer this time of day. I like to make an early start and have my jobs done by mid-morning, leaving me the rest of the day to myself. Recently, that rest of the day has involved a walk in the afternoon, though I took Saturday off and am not yet sure if I will go for a stroll later today.

A few years ago, we were in the habit of rising early and going straight out for a walk which, after a month or so, developed into a jog/walk and then into a run. I’m not sure my knees will cope with running up and down hills these days, but I might give it a go in a few weeks and see how I get on – at least my knees are insured now. (My private health insurance didn’t cover knees for the first three years of my policy but now I am in year four, everything is covered.) One of my favourite walks is up to ‘To Vrisi’ (Lit., ‘the tap’) the monastery of Zoodohou Pigis Vrisi where there is a natural spring from which you can fill up your water bottle. From our house off the village square and back, depending on the route, this is roughly three miles, half uphill and half down. I have to admit, the uphill part can be a bit of a slog, but once your calf muscles stop burning, it’s pleasant. Running back down is like being twelve again – banking on the camber of the corners, jumping over goat poo, feeling the wind rush past, and you’re hardly making an effort as gravity does most of the work for you. Just watch out for the knees.

Last week I put some music on my phone and plugged myself in. I’ve not done this before, not even when I was in my early 30s and used to run from Hackney to Islington and back before work, along the side of the canal. (I sound very sporty today. I’m not.) I loaded up a selection of music that I happened to have in Mp3 format on my laptop, put it on shuffle and off I went – not too loud so that I could still hear approaching cars, bikes, mules, goats etc. One moment I was wandering the top road on the way back from Roukouniotis listening to The Bombay Dub Orchestra, sublime, ethereal, Indian and composed by my best mate from school, and the next we had The Weather Girls and ‘It’s Raining Men’, left over from last year’s wedding. A bit of a jolt. What I did find, though, was that the music took my mind off the calf muscles as I trudged uphill trying to keep in time.

Anyway… That was a bit of an early morning ramble in more than one sense, and now I must get on with the rest of the day. I’ve had a cup of tea on the balcony listening to the party going on down in the harbour, and there’s a second draft of ‘The Eastling’ waiting for me to tidy it up, so, it’s back to the book and on with the week.

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Symi Saturday Photos

It’s been a week of walking for me, well, an hour a day in the afternoon, up into the hills or up the road. Some of today’s Symi Saturday Photos are from those walks. The island looks very barren at this time of year, but soon, when the rain starts again, there will be more green to see. There are, however, still some interesting sights to be enjoyed if you look around, such as…

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Travel, Books, Films

The travel agency is back in operation; that’s our home travel agency, aka, me. Neil has a couple of trips coming up in November which will make him sound like an international man of mystery: Rhodes, Vienne, Czech Republic, Scotland, Athens, all within three weeks and all for family visits. Apart from Athens. That’s on the way back, and I’ll go up by boat to meet him, do some shopping and come back by boat too. The flights have all been dealt with by family, it’s just down to me to arrange boats and hotels in various places. Just the kind of work I love to do when not writing, or dealing with film scripts…

The screenplay that I wrote for Rebecca Hall based on her book, ‘Girl Gone Greek’ is a finalist in the L.A. Femme Film Festival, which is good news – another laurel, not that I show them off. The awards aren’t until October, so we’ll have to wait and see. Meanwhile, I’ve a three-day weekend ahead to work on The Eastling which is, I have to say, proving harder to get right than the two in the series before it, but we’re getting there.

Meanwhile, on the island, things are pretty much the same as they have been of late: visitors arriving and going, warm weather, calm seas, chilled-out atmosphere, everything ticking over nicely. We’ve been getting in some exercise walks, up the road to various points and down again, usually three miles per day. It will be interesting to see how we manage in the winter when it’s cold and wet. Well, when it’s raining, we shan’t be going out in it, as it can be dangerous, but on other days… Anyway, enough early morning blather. I have a book to improve.

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Rainbow views

A few shots taken from the Rainbow Bar on Sunday, plus an early morning trip to the bank. I was down in Yialos at 7.30, taking advantage of the cooler time of day to make the walk up the steps afterwards more bearable. Pleased to say I was able to do it in one go without being out of breath and without sweating too much. Today (Monday as I write), I intend to take a walk up the old donkey track to Xissos and then back down the road, that’s after I’ve worked on and edited two more chapters of The Eastling.

We’re still catching up on washing after the nephew’s visit. How can two lads get through seven towels in ten days? Best not to ask. Neil’s off out soon to lop a friend’s bougainvillaea, I’m going to turn the water off and then turn the washing machine on… I should explain: we can take in water three times per week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday and the best time to do it is early. It was on at 7.00 this morning, gushing in for a while but, as more houses do the same, the flow reduces to a trickle, but we keep it going for as long as we can. Especially after having four of us in the house for those 10 days. Luckily, we have a large sterna under the workhouse, but it can take a couple of weeks to get it back to full again. Roll on the rainy season when the water will be free.

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And back to the old routine

Here’s how today is shaping up – today being yesterday, Sunday, as I’m now back in my old routine, kind of. So far today I’ve done my admin, checked the emails, sent the messages, had a cup of tea and organised the day ahead, and it’s currently… checks time… 04.58. I’m still not back in a routine of waking up at a sensible time, it seems, but then I did go to bed at nine last night.

So, what is the usual routine? Well, I’m aiming to get my work done early in the day, set up a blog for the next day, and then, after lunch, get back to work on the next novel, in this case, ‘The Eastling’. I’ll be starting on that as soon as I’ve posted this blog ready for Monday. I have had my cover designer knock me up a draft front cover so I can start to share it around (still needs some work, like the book). One of the reasons for that is so I can publicise the two books that come before ‘The Eastling’ in case there’s anyone out there who hasn’t read them and wants to get up to date on the series before part there comes out.

I often get chatting with visitors who have read one or more of my Symi books (Symi 85600, Carry on up the Kali Strata etc.) but who haven’t ventured into my other worlds – the magical world of Miss P, the creepy world of the Judas Inheritance or Lonely House, or the mysterious world of Saddling. Why should they? These are not related to Symi or Greece at all. Fair enough, but, if you are interested, then you might like to pick up a copy of The Saddling, follow it with The Witchling and be ready for The Eastling come Christmas, or before. You can find all of these titles on my Amazon James Collins Author Page, and all my books are available in print, Kindle format and are free on Kindle Unlimited.

So that’s today plug and cover to transition me from holiday two weeks back into the usual routine where there will be some news from Symi as well as my daily chit chat about what we’re up to here and how my writing is coming along.

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