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…
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.
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.
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.
Visitors have left, and we’ve ended our two-week at-home holiday with a boat trip to Taviri for a party – thank you Colette and everyone else who made it a fun night. Because it was such a fun night, I’m just going to leave these photos for the weekend and then go and recover. I’ll be back on Monday with the usual.
In local news: the main road out of Yialos is being dug up to lay electricity cables to the new harbour – only in a narrow channel by the curb, so it’s still possible to use the road and pass the workmen. I was in a taxi the other day when one of the men stopped us so he could safely direct the oncoming traffic. I thought, ‘Oh! The first traffic light on Symi.’ A human one, but it reminded me that we don’t have traffic lights, or roundabouts and (as far as I remember) no road markings to speak of, yet we have surprisingly few accidents. I guess drivers around here take responsibility for themselves and don’t rely on the authorities to tell them how to use the road. Anyway… the road between the old windmill restaurant and Campos, in Horio, is also dug up at the moment and is being re-laid. If you’re getting a taxi up, you can get off at the crest of the hill and walk down the road to the village or ask the driver to drop you at Campos and walk up past Taverna Zoi.
And now on with the photos.
