Artful Deception

I have something to show you today that’s not a plant or a skyscape. It’s a book cover. Well, the first rough draft of one, at least; it looks too modern at the moment. Below, is the idea for a cover for the sixth (and final) Clearwater Mysteries novel, ‘Artful Deception.’ I say ‘last’, but I’ve left the end of the series open for a development to happen if I want to take the characters into the future. It’s taken me a while to get this one ready, and it’s still only in the 2^nd draft stage though must be completed by April 22^nd.

If you’ve not read the series, then you need to start reading in order with ‘Deviant Desire’ as part one. It’s a mystery series with ongoing characters and storylines set in 1888, London. Through the series, the stories involve a range of actual characters (Tennyson, Bram Stoker, the Ripper – but not in the same story), and a team of created characters who progress through the series. They all have twisting and surprising mysteries to figure out, there’s a fair amount of intrigue, plus humour, love and steam trains, and the books tend to be set in a certain ‘world.’ For example, ‘Unspeakable Acts’ (part three) is set in the world of the Royal Opera House, and part four, ‘Fallen Splendour’, concerns a poem, whereas ‘Artful Deception’ features paintings.

Anyway, it makes a change to show you this rather than the weeds in the courtyard or the empty sea, so here it is, with a link to the five available books in the series – so far. It’s an Amazon.co.uk link, but you can find the same in Amazon.com and Australia, Canada, Germany… Lots of Amazon stores. As usual, my books are available in paperback, on Kindle and as part of Kindle Unlimited.

The Clearwater Mysteries

Up on the roof

Another quiet weekend, but then there’s no other option. We’re allowed out after today, though we’re not going anywhere until Wednesday and even then only the ATM, pharmacy and supermarket and mainly to pay for the deliveries we’ve had over the last two weeks.

We have been managing to fill our time constructively, though an awful lot of TV has been watched in the later afternoon/evening. Yesterday, we had an online quiz session with a few others via messenger; nine people, five screens showing on one, but I managed to cast the phone to the TV so it was easier to see. Apart from the quiz itself being fun, hilarity was added when a Symi visitor was accidentally invited to the group. A good mistake, don’t get me wrong, but something of a surprise to her as well as us. Funnier still was that she couldn’t back out of the group without everyone closing down their phones and starting again, so she gave us the view from her window and carried on in the background, no doubt wondering what we mad people were up to. (Still waving at you Gwen.)

The up on the roof title of today’s jotting is because the photos were taken from up there over the weekend. The high winds on Saturday had the house vibrating as they were up to force seven, and Sunday was a misty morning. Today, there are still broken clouds around as the sun starts to rise.

And into the weekend

And so here we are heading off into the weekend with the weather looking variable, some cloud, possible rain, sunshine and warm… As usual for this time of year, we have a bit of everything. We’ve been watching a fair amount of television while editing a book and getting on with the usual as much as we can around the house. We were watching Countdown on TV yesterday when the random letters turned up as you see in the photo below. It’s not an anagram, and you can ignore the first D, but after that… well, we laughed when it got to Neil gas. Little things like this keep us going.

I think as I’ve so few photos, that I’ll take weekends off for a while and only post Monday to Friday. I’ll return to normal as soon as I can, but with not much to tell you and only photos from the roof or balcony, there’s not much point splashing ten pics every Saturday. So, bear with me and tune in Monday to Friday for this, the no-news, daily news channel, lol.

The blues

The blues, as in, the two blue rock thrushes currently hanging out near the house. I took these shots yesterday around dawn, so the colour may be hard to see, but I believe this is a male and a female blue rock thrush. They were up and about early, hanging out on the roof of the house next door, watching over the area around our house and, no doubt, keeping an eye out for breakfast.

I had another surprise the other day when a hoopoe flew past the house. I’ve only ever seen them up in the hills before, around the area of Micro Sotiris, to be exact, and it was the first time I’ve seen one in the village. It didn’t stop, so I was unable to get a photo for you. The same thing happened with a raven yesterday when one came closer than I’ve seen them before. Again, no photo, but at least I was able to capture the blues.

Green hills

A couple more balcony shots for you today taken with the long lens. As you can see, the hills are green with herbs and in some places with grass, but in other places, the mountains and Turkey in the distance are as rugged as ever.

I was up in time to see the Blue Star come in this morning. With the Dodekanisos boats now down to only two visits per week, I wonder how long it will be before the Blue Star also cuts down on its journeys. At the moment we’re able to order shopping from the local supermarket, and just about all of what we ask for arrives a couple of hours later. That was something of a highlight yesterday as was my exercise session which lasted all of ten minutes in the porch between the two buildings that make up our house. Must try harder, as my school report always used to say.