The Village Bypass

October 5, 2023 James Collins

I took a little wander along the new ‘road’ yesterday. For some time, there has been talk of a new road linking the main road of the village to the area of Ag Athanasios in the centre of the village. The area was originally only reachable by foot, but over time, local residents have made adaptations, putting in temporary ramps, or more permanent features to enable mopeds to reach further into the village; it’s happening all over. As with many things in a small community, the new road was subject to much speculation and gossip, and with anything like this, unless you know which horse’s mouth to hear straight from, it’s best to wait and see for yourself. I remember all the questions and outrage, ‘You can’t build a road from Lemonitisa to there without knocking down houses and widening the path…’ That kind of thing.

Turned out the new ‘road’ was the widening of a path, but without knocking down houses, and it is just that, a path. Half of it was already there; there was just a short part that needed to be developed and that ran across empty land anyway. You can’t get a car all the way, not a large one, and even if you did, where would you park it? If you’re too lazy to walk the 50 yards from the village ‘high street’ to the church, or you are unable to, you can now drive a moped ten times that distance from the Village Square to near Alamina Square just below Ag Athanasios. In fact, if your bike is small enough, you can get even further among the houses thanks to pre-existing, ‘temporary’ concrete ramps on some stone steps and the natural lie of the land.

This ‘road’ has been in for some time, and I’ve walked it a few times. It’s a bit steep and dodgy in places and cuts through the village below the Kastro. It starts/ends next to what I was told was called ‘The Artisan’s House’, a popular site because it still shows the colours and decorations of its original glory, and, they say, houses adorned like this would have been built/decorated by people showing off their skills. In other words, if you like the look of it, the person living there can do the same for you. I don’t know if that’s true, but it makes a kind of sense. The house is now lived in by wild fig trees and becoming harder to see every year, but what’s left of it still stands, and the new road hasn’t affected it. Yet.

The ‘bypass’ (as it was also called, he added, sniggering) has also opened up some previously buried ruins, or parts of them, which is my other photo today. You can just see a small arch revealed. This might have been the arch of the well cover, or an oven (can’t see a chimney though), or simply a small window in a storeroom, but there’s something under there…

In other ‘news’, tonight in the village square there’s a political rally for the currently elected local party, and the local council elections are on Sunday. Only European citizens can vote, so Neil’s alright, but I am not.

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Books & writing

Sales Day

October 4, 2023 James Collins

Not even my OneDrive photo collection can help me with inspiration today, so allow me to do some plugging instead.

First, what’s new?

In case you’ve failed to notice the advert over there >> Neil has a new Symi Dream calendar available. This one is for next year (2024), and it’s on sale now only from Lulu.com.

The thing with this supplier is they sell in your local currency and print the products at their nearest facility to you. Things usually arrive in a couple of weeks, and I’ve never had a problem with them, and the quality is good.

Interested? Head to this link: Symi Dream 2024 calendar and there, you can have a preview before you buy.

The same goes for my venture into the same world, and The Clearwater Mysteries calendar 2024. This might appeal to readers of the series, supporters of my writing, and anyone who likes a book cover on their wall. (Yes, apparently that’s a ‘thing.’)

With this one, you have a different book cover per month, plus that book’s blurb. The trouble is, there are only 11 books in the series (only!?), so the question was, what to do about December? For that mouth, I have installed a surprise so you’ll either have to wait until the month comes along or sneak a preview at Lulu.

The link for this product is here: Clearwater Mysteries Calendar 2024

And the other stuff

As we’re on a kind of selling day today, here are the other links you need to stock up on your reading.

James Collins: this is me and a list of all my titles as available on Amazon. All of them come with an Amazon sales page and blurb, so you can see what they are about, and they are all there on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited and in paperback.

Jackson Marsh: this is also me, and these books will appeal to anyone who likes a good story, a bit of romance, adventure, and mystery. The Clearwater, Larkspur and Delamere series are my best sellers (and they get better the more you read), and again, all titles are ready for Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and they can be ordered in paperback.

That’s it. Sorry to turn up at your door like a stray carpet salesman, but I overslept, didn’t wake up until 4.30 and am not discombobulated and unable to think of anything funny.

Except for lemurs and meerkats. They are pretty funny.

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Day to day on Symi

Last Week Through the Years

October 3, 2023 James Collins

For want of something else to witter about, I clicked a button in my OneDrive photo collection that said, ‘Last week through the years,’ and today’s photos are the result. There were also images of a house I grew up in, a wedding on Symi, the East End slums of the 1880s, Harry when he was about eight, standing stones on the Isle of Man, a random model (for a book cover), several views from our balcony, and some goats. However, I chose the four you see today. A sunrise at Pedi, a mask on the front of the building (I’m sure these things have a technical name, but I’ve not looked it up), Yialos at night, and Neil and Yiannis. (Clue: Neil is the one on the left.)

Apart from brightening up a slow news day, these are apropos nothing. What little news there is consists of this. There’s an owl right outside my window right now (4.20 am), and we saw it flying around the house last night, she he/she’s having a busy time. The air raid warning was tested yesterday. I read it was to go off at 11.00, and the last time I heard it, it wailed for a good two or three minutes. Yesterday, it had a go at around 12.53, wound up to almost full pitch and then wailed off again. But at least it works. (Unless it was cut short because it doesn’t work, in which case…)

The photo of Pedi at sunrise reminds me to remind you to get in your orders for the 2024 Symi Dream calendar, which is now on sale, but only available from one outlet. So you don’t lose the link, it’s embedded in the righthand column on this page. A click will take you to Lulu.com, the only place you can order it. Or, you can click here.

On this, a slow day for news, I plan to get a decent amount of book work done, take a short stroll up and down the hill, and spend some time reading about the life of Marie Lloyd (research). Yesterday, Neil received one of those texts that made us laugh at getting old. A message from Vassilis: ‘Can you come tomorrow? Your teeth are ready.’ It used to be, ‘Your photos are ready for collection,’ but now, it’s teeth – he’s having some new crowns fitted, we’re not yet at the gums-only stage. Well, it’s something to talk about.

Actually, that’s a thing. I’ll make a note here to remind me to witter about it again sometime. Why is it, when you get a group of over 50s together, it doesn’t matter where you are — outside a kafeneion, on a boat trip, at the dining table — the conversation invariably turns to medical matters? At least living here we can speak about how excellent the Greek medical system is, especially now we have our village clinic, and private consultants are available within days/hours at the drop of a very reasonable €50 note. Singing the praises of the medical services is for another day. Right now, I have work to do, and if I stay here any longer, I am in danger of becoming interesting.

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Day to day on Symi, Walks

I wandered Lonely as a…

October 2, 2023 James Collins

For someone who had little to do, I had quite a busy weekend. It started on Friday with some cloud spotting, and it wasn’t a hard task. The weather is becoming more autumnal, but not the ‘Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun’ of Keats’ imagination, more the ‘… from whose unseen presence the leaves dead are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing’ of Shelly’s ‘Ode to the West Wind.’ Last night was blowy, but let’s start on Friday.

We stood on the balcony that Friday morn… I’ve now got poems in my head. We stood by the pond that winter day… (Thomas Hardy). I’ll try again.

On Friday, we were on the balcony admiring the view, idly thinking, Earth has not anything to show more fair, than the sight of Symi harbour, nor even of the clouds wandering lonely above. It is the season of clouds, you see. For the first time in a while, save the occasional storm or off day, we are again seeing clouds on a regular basis. This doesn’t have to mean it’s cold and dreary, far from it; it is more like fresh and invigorating.

What was fun about Friday morning was trying to work out what the clouds were telling us…

At first, I thought I saw a four-letter word but then they changed to what you see here, a line of bears and cartoon creatures, with a bear on the left reaching for a lemur perhaps, who is following a Disney crocodile about to eat a jelly baby. I should point out that this was early on Friday morning, and we’d not yet had our medication. Or we’d had too much of it. Can’t remember. Anyway…

There were a few more clouds around later in the morning when I went stomping up the hill, and then it was back to work for me, the gym for Neil, followed by his work, and the weekend progressed.

Saturday became interesting We are organising a family outing to Athens for New Year, which came about because there’s a production of one of my favourite musicals I want to see, and, frankly, any excuse… As well as this, we are now also attending a performance of The Nutcracker at the National Opera House, and each of our party has been given the job of organising an activity – not during the performance, but on the other days we are in town. There may well be rock climbing involved, a trip to the cinema, a day’s outing out of the city, perhaps something involving a mystery (my doing), and a shopping afternoon in a shopping mall, simply because none of us can remember what one looks like.

Sunday was mainly given over to wind of the external variety, and to closing windows that had been open all summer, looking at the blown leaves in the courtyard and thinking, ‘They’ll be more by tomorrow’ so leaving them there, and thinking ‘There’s no point sweeping into the wind.’

There was a wedding on Sunday afternoon with celebrations running into the evening. So, if you were wondering what the fireworks, dynamite and streams of cars and bikes all sounding their horns as they wove around the island were all about, now you know. Just a Symi wedding. Oh – and if you are reading this on Monday before 11.00 and you are on Symi, don’t worry about the air raid sirens, it’s just the annual system test.

I also took a hike up a hill, and while there, I noticed a plant with bright yellow flowers. From a distance, I thought it was gorse, but it’s not. Then I wondered if it was a herb so I rubbed and sniffed its leaves and… yuk, nasty. I can’t describe the smell but it’s not pleasant. I’m not a plant person, so I have no idea what it is called (Archie, maybe, or Brian?), but maybe if you follow us on the Facebook page, you might comment and tell me what it is.

I’ll leave you with a photo of it to look at, but I don’t advise scratch and sniff.

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Books & writing, Day to day on Symi

End of the Week

September 29, 2023 James Collins

Friday, so a look back on what’s been going on this week.

The weather is finally starting to become more like its old self for this time of year. A short, sharp thunderstorm early on Thursday morning cleared some humidity and brought temperatures down to a more late-September level. The winds are still calm, so transport is not a problem, and we’ve still got windows open at night, but now, I put on a shirt during the morning, much to the relief of anyone passing, I am sure.

The early mornings are quiet. Today at around four, all I could hear from the balcony was one lone cricket and the waves lapping at the quayside wall. The moon, behind the house, was so bright the sky was grey — when it came up last night, it was huge and full over the Pedi hills.

We’ve had very busy days and nights in the village cafés, but now the September regulars are starting to leave. This doesn’t mean things will quieten down because October is also a popular month, and I just heard Tui are extending their charters into November. Not sure if that will affect us here, but it will hopefully be good news for someone.

In wider news, there’s a new leader of the leftist political opposition party and apparently, he’s gay, so that will be an interesting story to follow. While here, the island is gearing up for mayoral elections next month. Right here, at this desk, I have sent my next novel to my proofreader, and the cover is with my cover designer, so I hope to have the book released by the end of October. Meanwhile, I can start on the next one. (I already have, actually, and have a cracking plot with a sideline of angst, several twists, and some fun scenes already plotted in my head.)

I’ve been out and about a couple of times, up the hill and down the hill for the sake of it in the mornings after work, but only as long as I haven’t been up since one in the morning as I was yesterday. I’ve looked into putting a PayPal donate button here on the blog to help with running costs, but to do that, you need to have a business account and that gets complicated, so I can’t. Not to worry. We’ve managed all these years.

And so, into the weekend which, for my part, will hopefully be another quiet one where I can march onto the next story while seeing to my chores. In this case, I have the courtyard to sweep today to clear it of the dead vine leaves blown about during that rain, and that’s about it. As I said, a quiet time ahead, I hope, leaving me headspace for something more creative, like putting mastic on the gaps in the porch cover so the rain doesn’t drip through; I’d forgotten I had to do that. It’ll take me five minutes, he says. It’s bound to go wrong, and I’ll chop my finger off somehow, or bring the whole roof crashing down, but it will be fun trying to be Mr DIY.

Assuming all goes well, I’ll see you back here on Monday, and leave you now with a reminder that the Symi Dream Calendar is on sale.

For anyone who has read my Clearwater Mysteries, there’s also a Clearwater calendar on sale this year (as asked for by readers), so if you can’t decide between the two, you can have both.

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Writing on a Greek island