It’s all rather lovely in the office this morning, as the weather has cleared, the view is delightful and sunny…

…and I have Debussy playing on my new speaker. I will turn that off when I start to write the rest of chapter one of ‘Holywell Street’ as the next mystery is currently titled. Yesterday’s research included discovering the answer to such questions as, ‘What did men use to dye their hair in 1893?’ and ‘What did a felt pork pie look like?’ (Clue: it’s a hat.) I managed to write about half a chapter while looking things up in the Newspaper Archive where I find the advertisements as helpful as the stories, and where I love to read that in April of that year, for example, Henry Irving was appearing as Becket in Becket, and there was a display of high diving at Olympia.

Meanwhile, closer to home, the Sebeco set off yesterday just after I had posted the blog and written something about the storm having passed. The Sebeco sailed blithely through a huge downpour not long after setting off but managed its first run of the season without and issues, and returned later for its second run, so that’s now fine and dandy.

The photos today are from the same window (which needs cleaning after the dust and storm), as you can probably tell. Apart from not wanting to get my slippers wet by going outside, we still haven’t opened the balcony shutters, so this view will have to do. As I am not likely to be going out anywhere else today either, they will probably be the same view tomorrow, but at least you can see how the weather changes, as they were all taken yesterday.

Finally, I’d like to introduce you to a book promotion that doesn’t cost anything to browse. I’ve a few titles in a few of these through the month, so you’ll see others along the way. Today’s mission, should you care to accept it, is to click the banner or link and look at the titles in case anything is of interest. It doesn’t cost anything, but each click gets me a point which helps me get books in future promotions which, in turn, help me find a wider readership which, in its own turn, means baked beans on toast for tea rather than simply toast – not that I’ve seen baked beans in the shops for weeks. Have a great day!

Lit Fic, Women’s Fic, Memoirs, Historical, Time-travel books

(Look out for ‘Bobby, a life Worth Living’, apparently, it’s a book worth reading.)

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If you follow Greek news sites or TV, you might have seen the state of some nearby islands over the last couple of days. As I mentioned yesterday, the weather was foul for a while, with warnings arriving by phone, travel cancelations, floods… The whole kit and kaboodle of kakokairia hit across the country with hail in some places, and massive rainstorms in others. We had thunder rolling about for most of yesterday, including a couple of mega bolts from the blue, but as far as I know, there’s been no damage other than what usually happens when there is heavy rain, such as the top soil being washed into the lanes, roads and sea. Our courtyard is a minor indication of what was lying around elsewhere.

That’s sand from the Sahara, we’re told. At least the rain brought clearer air, for a while. This is what Poseidon System is showing for dust cloud cover right now.

With what us humans are doing to the planet, we can no doubt expect more extreme weather as the years go by, so don’t be surprised if you start hearing folk around here say, ‘It’s hot, isn’t it?’ earlier than usual. It tends to be around June 1st that someone turns up the heating, but we’ll see. Perhaps this year won’t be as intense as last with a humid 40° plus for so long. Right now, the colds are gradually clearing, and the sea is calm, so there’s hope that ships will be able to move again, and that the Sebeco will be able to make its first trip of the season. It’s due to set off in a few minutes so I’ll have to take a look from the window.  

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Here I am back at the desk after a long weekend. It started on Thursday when Harry wired up my new Bluetooth speaker to the TV. Now, we have to rewatch every film we’ve ever watched because they all sound so different. Then, on Friday, we spent the day in Rhodes as did half of the island, it seems, because the boat was so busy.

I saw a couple of things over in Rhoes that made me smile. One of them was this, a five-aside football pitch built between the walls of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the moat of the Old Town. A perfectly peaceful and community use for something that was built to keep others out.

The other was found in Pappou, the supermarket on Kanadas, where we usually pop in to hunt for tea bags and things we didn’t know we couldn’t do without. We were lucky this time and found some decent ones, and while searching, came across Symi salt on sale. It’s good to see the expanded distribution.

The rest of the weekend was spent in contemplation of the weather, the rain we had off and on, but mainly off. Today, it’s grey and windy, and a day for staying home, writing, then teaching piano and building models.

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Well, yesterday was a fun and busy day. I took the whole day off, as you may have noticed, and spent it firstly at home doing little but unwrapping a very special gift (a Bluetooth speaker) and signing up for Spotify so I can use it. Then, the afternoon with the boys and their mum on their terrace where the being spoilt continued with much fun and laughter, not to mention food and two cakes. Thank you to everyone who sent birthday wishes and for those who, on reading that, thought, ‘I didn’t know!’ And that was followed by an evening making travel arrangements for our trip at Christmas.

On the way there, we passed the bakery where, it seems, not everyone had been in time to collect their bread order, so it was left, named, on the door ready for collection. You can still do that kind of thing around here; no-one is going to take it.

I also celebrated yesterday, because I had my annual payment from the Author’s Licensing and Collecting Society, an organisation that, like the PRS, arranges payments to authors when their work is used on other people’s websites, in academic papers, and so on. I still don’t 100% understand how they do this wonderful work, but it slightly makes up for the intellectual theft of 14 of my books by Meta, who have used them (and millions of others) to inform and train their AI so a machine can write books, so humans don’t have to, and all without the permission of the authors. It actually makes me more than nauseous to think of people making money out of having a computer write something in their name, lay it out, bang up a cover and even upload it to Amazon, then generate sales from doing bugger all with no creativity or thought, but don’t get me started on that, because this genuine work of fiction has just come out in paperback…

The only other things to mention before I head off into the day is that we are again covered in dust from the Sahara, and it is meant to be raining on Saturday, which will bring it down and cover every, so bring your washing in… …and, to add, that I shan’t be here tomorrow as we are off to Rhodes again for the day. So, I’ll see you on Monday.

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