Clearwater, walks and Araby

After a couple of months off, I have started on another Clearwater novel. In case you’re not sure what I am talking about, this is my Victorian mystery series that begins in October 1888 with the Ripper murders, and so far, has reached summer 1889.

There are five books in the first series, but the sixth should be available at the end of May or early June. That one rounds off everything that’s been going on during parts one to five but leaves the ending open for a future series, which is what I have started working on. For those that have read the series, it concerns the same characters (those that survive part six, wink, wink) but moving in a different direction. I can’t say much more until you’ve read number six, ‘Artful Deception’, otherwise I might spoil the ending of that one for you, but this series will still contain mysteries, clues, puzzles, humour, excitement and perhaps a little sex, just like the others. The idea came to me on my morning walk the other day.

These walks are not only good for the BP and other health things, but they also help clear my mind and allow me some quiet time to focus on stories. The thought process is occasionally interrupted by a wave to a passing acquaintance, or these days, a chat across the empty road, and sometimes by Araby, the sheepdog and he runs up to greet me like he did the other morning. I think he was telling me to watch out as there were sheep and goats ahead, but I’d already spotted them by then.

Ps. If you are interested, the Clearwater Mysteries are available on Amazon around the world, in Kindle, print and Kindle Unlimited. The links lead you to Amazon.com where, if you are in certain countries, you may find a message saying ‘currently unavailable’. That’s because you’re not in your home country Amazon. Replace the .com with .co.uk, for example, and you should be fine.

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Two walks and a tortoise

Two walks in two days, a record for this year. Admittedly, Tuesday’s march wasn’t far, but yesterday I managed to drag myself up to the monastery on the side of the hill, and what’s more, it was at a reasonably early hour. I sent an SMS as we must, but for some reason didn’t receive a reply until half an hour later (usually it’s straight away), so I didn’t leave the house until seven-thirty, but still… I got myself out there and went back to my old route.

Walking uphill from the village, I came across a tortoise crossing the road, and as he/she had narrowly missed being crunched by a passing car and had frozen in fear or lethargy, I gave it a lift across to the verge. There, it carried on its meander among the grasses and colourful weeds. Passing the church of Agia Marina, the air was heavy with the scent of tree bark and later, incense, and just around the corner, with the sound of Persian as some guys were tidying up the area by the bridge. There’s a newly rebuilt wall beneath the cemetery now, and metal railing across the bridge. The ravine is built up with square cages of rocks to aid irrigation, and the piles of sand are being removed along with the machinery. So, maybe that work is nearly complete?

I’ve also seen men fixing grilles to the water channels at the side of the road, and other council services are running as normally as possible. The refuse trucks are out and about from early morning until late, and the street sweepers are about their business, solo-style. Apart from fewer people on the streets, no bars or socialising and fewer people in the shops that are open, everything looks pretty much as usual. Except, of course, we don’t see the concern and frustration of those with businesses which must continue to pay their regular bills and debts with no income and not much chance of the usual income in the coming months. The latest I heard on that was the PM was to make an official speech soon, but there’s talk of some tourism reopening towards the end of May – I may have misread/heard, so don’t quote me on it.

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Meanwhile

Meanwhile, in the courtyard, the plants continue to struggle on. Because of Easter and bank holidays, our intake of water was restricted. Usually, it comes in on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but last Wednesday was the last time the mains feed was turned on, Friday and Monday being holidays. We have been restricting ourselves as we only have a small tank, so the washing pile had built up, and the garden left mainly un-watered. Until yesterday when the feed was on again, and we were able to top up and relax. Often, when there’s a bank holiday and no water on the Monday, it comes in the next day instead, and that’s what’s happened this week, which is good news. So, we were able to water the plants today (some of which look rather forlorn, and I’m not sure if that’s what they are meant to look like at this time of year), and the washing machine is churning away. So, for today’s news from a tiny part of Symi, here is an update on the courtyard.

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After the weekend

Here we are back from our Easter weekend and all in one piece. It was a weekend with dynamite, bangers, fireworks, and music played through the island’s speakers. I believe church services were held and streamed to congregations, rather than worshipers attending the churches, and despite the lack of people in the lanes, you could still pick up on the celebratory atmosphere. We spent Saturday evening on our balcony watching the flares from the patrol boats and coastguard and being rocked by the explosions from up near the windmills and behind us, either at the Castro or on the hillsides. I did take a video at midnight and tried to upload it to the Symi Dream Fakebook page, but so far, it hasn’t finished doing its thing, and I’ve got a feeling it was too big a file. Anyway, there are many more videos around showing the fireworks from various places and where you can hear the power of the bombs.

We took a short walk on Sunday, around the village lanes and up, then down again, of course. The weather was perfect. Sunny in the morning and slightly cloudy in the afternoon but with no threat of rain. I took some photos while we were out, and as I write this, I am in the process of downloading them from my One Drive, which has just gone ‘pix-up’, you might say, and crashed as I was highlighting the ones I wanted to download and resize for this page. Clicking back in and starting again, I find they have been deleted, and I am now I the process of trying to get them back, so I’ll stop and go and do that. Bloomin’ IT interruptions! If you see images beneath this last line, you will know I was successful.

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Easter Weekend

It is the culmination of Lent and the celebration of Easter here on Symi and in Greece, but it is going to be quieter than usual, to say the least. We have had a couple of dynamite bombs going off this week, but hardly any hand-thrown crackers, and a lot less noise than usual, for obvious reasons. The services will be held behind closed doors, and many will be relayed via TV or streaming, or whatever can be managed so people can celebrate from the safety of their homes. I will be taking the weekend off from the blog, so will come back to you on Tuesday with any news there might be, and in the meantime, I will leave you with a few recent images. As you can see, after praising the weather, it turned around and slapped me in the face, but it’s nothing unmanageable. Have a good weekend.

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