The other day, Neil was on a procession from Yialos to Horio, or vice versa, along the main road that zigzags up/down from the harbour’s eastern end. He came across this…
It’s a line of Pine Processionary caterpillars (Thaumetopoea pityocampa, if you will), and seeing this image, you can understand where they get part of their name from. They get the other part, the ‘Pine’ from the fact that they hang out in pine trees. The adult moths lay their eggs near the tops of pine trees. After hatching, the larva eat pine needles while progressing through five stages of development. In order to maintain beneficial living conditions, silken nests are built over the winter. Around the beginning of April, the caterpillars leave the nests in the procession for which the species is known. They burrow underground and emerge at the end of summer. (Wiki)
I’m not too sure what they are up to in that photo, perhaps discussing who’s going to be in the lead. There’s something you should know about them, though. The urticating hairs of the caterpillar larvae cause harmful reactions in humans and other mammals. So, if you see any, don’t pick them up. This is what the moth looks like, and I think they are harmless.
There, that’s my biology lesson for today. Now for a random photo of some cyclamen.
Let’s start the week with a quick message for people living on Symi. I was asked to let you know that a friend has two of these sewing machines available for free, I think. (See photo.) They are standard-sized machines but are designed for stitching embroidery, such as you see on shirts and aprons. They are Brother PE-150 machines and are available for collection from Nimborio. If you are interested, send me an email, and I will send that on to the person giving them away for you. You can email me at mail@symidream.com
There, that’s that parish announcement done; what else has been going on? It’s been windy and a bit wet over the weekend, which has been both good and bad for the plants. The Greek government has lifted (slightly) some of the lockdown rules, but not by much, and the curfew is now relaxed a smidge, and, I read, some church services can go ahead around Independence Day (25th), and beauty shops can open. There must be a connection. They’re still aiming for mid-May to allow more flights in, but… Well, don’t hold your breath. Some people on the island have now had two jabs, I think the older age group are now being ‘done’ because they couldn’t be before, and the rest of us are still waiting and may be waiting for a long time. There’s lots of speculation around, a lot of hope, some frustration and plenty of ‘Ah well, at least we’re still alive, so let’s do what we can to make the best of it.’
Our house remains in the usual routine of wake, work, walk (more so Neil than me) and write, and I am up to 70,000 words of the first draft of a last in the series book, which, at this rate, is set to be over 130,000 words long before I edit it. I am currently in Brasov (Transylvania) in 1890, London, and Cornwall all at the same time, juggling threads in my head and bashing out between 3,000 and 6,000 words per day. Neil has been out photographing on his walks…
I have set myself a new goal of 20 minutes of exercise per day. Whether it’s a walk around the village, up and down steps, to the monastery and back on good days, or just leaping around the living room to prog-rock like a loon, it doesn’t matter, it must be done, and it all starts today. Hopefully, it will increase over time to, say, 21 minutes. I also have a goal of returning to the desk to write in the afternoons, which I’ve not done for about a year now. Trouble is, I currently have a heavy afternoon schedule in a kitchen, on a desert island and in various places around the world, as we’re well into MasterChef, Survivor and The Amazing Race. It’s easier to return to afternoon working when Neil is back at the bar in the afternoons, and we’re still hopeful this will happen again sometime this year. It will be hard for small bars and businesses, and no-one is too sure which will have survived the winter lockdown, so all fingers are crossed for everyone. We’ll have to wait and see what happens.
Meanwhile, remember, if you are interested in owning an embroidery sewing machine, email me, and I will pass on your message. (I’m just the messenger, so there’s no point asking me anything else about them. They are machines, and they sew; that’s all I know, lol.)
To see us into another weekend, here are a few photos Neil took recently. It has been a week of changeable weather and the same old routine for us at home. It was this time last year that we were returning from Canada. Passing back through London, which had closed during our absence, and forgoing a two-day stop in Athens because there was no point. Switching hotels to fit with cancelled flights and sending for tax forms to prove who we were. Isolating in Piraeus and swapping boat tickets. Finally arriving home five minutes before the first national lockdown started. Oops, where did that year go? Ah well, let’s see the photos.
Time to delve back into Neil’s photo album for some more spring shots from Symi. Yesterday started with rain in the very early morning, and that was a hangover* from the day before when we’d had some showers and a little thunder. Some of the showers were hail, and they came and went with the speed of a passing train—all very sudden. The wind was also blustery, hitting the house from the north-west for a few seconds and then disappearing. Later on Wednesday morning (and ‘later’ for me means around 6.00), the cloud was clearing, and the rain had stopped, leaving the newly-planted chilli seeds a bit waterlogged, but not the inside of the house which stays rain-free, I am pleased to say.
Hangover.* Did you know the origins of this word? Yes, alright, so it could be too much retsina or ouzo that gave you one, but where did the word originate? There are a couple of theories for this, and neither have anything to do with alcohol. That usage has only been around for 100 years or so. One theory is that it came from business meetings in the 19th century, meaning any unfinished business at the end of one meeting was hung-over until the next. Another theory, and one which I prefer, is that it originated from rope houses, and it’s also 19th century. (A quick pause for a photo…)
In Victorian times, when you didn’t have a home and couldn’t afford a lodging house, weren’t sent to a workhouse or were fed up with sleeping in a cowshed or sty, you could, for a penny, take a place ‘on the rope.’ These were rooms in lodging houses where a rope was hung taut across a room, and people could pay to lean on it as a place to sleep. Some, the posher ones, offered a bench and a low rope, while others had no seating, and you had to, somehow, sleep standing up and hanging over the rope. It was cut or taken down early in the morning, no doubt sending people face-first onto the flagstones, and that was your night of hanging-over over.
These rope houses were mainly found in cities where populations were higher, but there were other places to sleep if you were short of cash, as many people were. Depending on the place, time in the century and other factors, you could pay 2d or 3d (tuppence or thruppence) for a coffin at an undertaker’s shop. Maybe that’s where the phrase, ‘to sleep the sleep of the dead’ came from? I’m not sure about that one, but it would be interesting to find out. However, sleeping in a tupp’ny coffin wasn’t the origin of the expression, ‘The graveyard shift.’ One theory is that it comes from the Victorian’s fascination with premature burial (and the 18th century). Someone was employed to stay awake in the graveyard overnight to listen for the bells. That is, bells which were hung above coffins and attached to them with a string that the potentially undead corpse could pull if the poor old sod beneath the sod found themselves buried alive. It’s also one explanation for the origin of the expression, ‘Saved by the bell’, though that is also thought to have come from the boxing ring. There is a school of thought that suggests this scenario also gave rise to the expression, ‘Dead ringer’, but I’m not so sure about that.
I’m also not sure how I got onto this subject as I started off telling you about the weather on Symi. Ah well, such is the wandering mind of someone just about to settle into chapter 17 of a new story at 6.15 in the morning. The sun’s coming up, the clouds are clearing, and it looks like it’s going to be a nice day. Oh, and by the way, I’ve not had a hangover for a year now, not since that night in Vancouver a year ago when we called into an Irish pub next to our hotel to find a forlorn landlord having to close as Canada was going into lockdown. He’d only just put up his St Patrick’s Day bunting and had to take it down and close his business. I wonder if he has been able to reopen yet?
I was so lost in my writing yesterday, I nearly forgot to post a blog ready for today. I was also distracted by sending an email to a friend, and when I read it back, I thought I’d share part of it with you as it sums up where I am with my next story. It also saves me having to think of anything else to write here. It sounds more complicated than it is, but all you need to know is that I am working on the tenth book in a series, and it is planned and plotted as the last in that series. Hence, lots of things have to tie up. This is the part I thought might amuse you. If you are following the Clearwater Series, you might not want to read this as it gives away parts of the story. But, I have redacted the twists from what I originally wrote.
Random photos today
Meanwhile, I am battling through Clearwater 10, which is a) going to be a long story, b) be published in two parts or c) need a lot of cutting. It’s all going very well, and although I am checking the word count, I am not curtailing my story because of length. Not yet.
I’m up to about 60k now, and usually, that would be about one third through, but I’m not even at the halfway twist yet. After that, it starts to pace-up towards the finale, but I don’t want to rush that either. I’m currently in Vienna in 1890, at the royal court and inventing Austrian nobility (for a subplot). I have ‘Baron Kubinsky of Judenburg’ turning out to be —. Meanwhile, Andrej — is escorting the young genius piano player, Jasper, to Castle Rasnov to trick their way into the home of the evil cousin to see a piece of music written by Clearwater’s grandfather, which holds the code which directs Clearwater to the location of an entail which will end his troubles and land him the inheritance. (And breathe.)
While that’s going on, the others are searching archives, trying to understand musical codes, breaking into a solicitor’s office to see if there’s a copy of another deed that would also solve the problem, and all this while — are starting to drop like flies because of the pandemic. Oh, and the country house is being wired for electricity (so we can have some near-death experiences later), and Clearwater is laying the foundations for his new academy, which will form the setting for the next series…
As you can see, I don’t do things by halves.
I just got a great review for book five over on a much-followed and vaguely respected site. It includes: “Once again, Marsh delivers an exciting and nerve racking, tale filled with action, and danger. “The Clearwater Mysteries” are some of the most exciting and down to the wire, twisted, tales of suspense in the Victorian 18th century, as the crew head off in different directions and show their expertise in solving the mystery. It always surprises how Marsh’s mysteries end, who will be believed and who will be saved, and how.”
The nice thing about writing these novels is that I don’t know how things will twist or end until I get there. With this new one, I am aware I have promised the breaking of a musical code, but I have no idea yet how I will do that. However, I need to start thinking because, in my next chapter, Jasper will meet Brahms who will unknowingly give him a clue that will unlock the first part of the code. Jasper will realise this on his way to Rasnov, thus making the viewing of the fugue vital. But… the new telegraph machine being installed at Clearwater’s country house isn’t yet working, and its installation has messed up communications. The evil count is on his way to — having, we suspect, already killed —.
I should write for EastEnders.
Off to drown in Australian reality TV now and put my feet up with MasterChef, The Amazing Race and Survivor.
