We were treated to a lovely lunch at Trata yesterday (thank you!), and before meeting up for it, I had some admin to take care of that I should have done years ago. I’d asked our accountant to arrange for me, as Neil’s spouse, to benefit from his national health insurance, as married couples can do. (I have private insurance, but it doesn’t cover the cost of prescriptions, which can be expensive.) So, I popped in to pick up some papers which I then took to KEP who will do the application to send to Rhodes, and call me when they hear back. It all went very smoothly, and everyone was extremely helpful. We are very lucky to have the KEP office and the people who work there.

I had a little time to wait before going to lunch, so I sat at a café and watched the world go by, while I celebrated my morning with a Greek coffee.

Arriving home later, we discovered the Jenny plant had a flower on it. It’s called Jenny because that’s who gave it to us. It didn’t do so well last year, and we think it got too hot, so we’ve put it in a shadier place now, and it’s starting to come back.

As for the evening… it wasn’t a late night, in fact, Neil was in bed by eight, but I stayed up to watch a film. I got half an hour into Barry Lyndon and was thoroughly enjoying it, but the excitement of the day caught up with me, and I had an early night too. Hence the early morning. Today will be a typical Thursday for me, writing, maybe a walk, music lesson and models this afternoon, perhaps popping out to say farewell to some visitors, otherwise, a couple of hours of TV and hopefully, another early night.

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I can’t remember if I mentioned Google Maps the other day. I meant to, but then probably forgot, but if I’ve forgotten that I didn’t forget and this is a repeat, then read it anyway and then forget about it, because this, like a lot of what I put here, is pretty unmemorable.

Now I’ve forgotten what I was going to… oh yes. Sat navs and Google’s map service. I’ll say that again, Google’s map “service.” I was coming down the road the other morning when I met a lady looking for the museum and trying to get there via her phone and Google Maps. I took a quick look at the screen, and it bore little similarity to reality. In the end, I took her there as that was easier and quicker than explaining the route. It reminded me that I passed by the other day and took a photo of the opening times.

It’s becoming a ‘thing’ now, to see people reaching the village square with their noses buried in a phone, glancing up, looking around and then following their phone again. ‘Are you lost?’ you ask, to which they reply with a firm, ‘No,’ and carry on being lost. On some occasions, as reported by Neil from his position of helpful barman, someone will be so adamant their phone is right, that they will stare at a building and swear there should be a lane there. ‘Clearly, there isn’t,’ doesn’t stop them from complaining that the village hasn’t been built according to their map, and off they go to get lost elsewhere.

The problem might be that the maps don’t have the steps marked on them. So, the best one is when you see someone on a hired moped, and they weave their way along past Sotiris’ supermarket to arrive at the Kali Strata Restaurant, and then look very confused, left, right, can’t go up or down, then their passenger shows them their phone as if to say, you can go that way, the phone says so.

The moral of the tale is, if in doubt, ask, don’t rely on a map on your phone. Besides, when you’re exploring, what would you rather see? The scenery or the screen?

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I had a stay-at-home book day yesterday, not just writing one but continuing to read the book about Victorian London that Colette bought and brought me for my birthday. So, today, I thought I would take ‘book’ as the word of the day.

Booking a ferry to Symi? You’ll see there’s a link to Ferry Scanner over there on the right. I was just looking at it to see about tickets for Mother and George who are coming over in June, and on the day they leave Rhodes, there are seven passenger ferries available from 8.00 in the morning until 12.20.

Looking for a Book to read? You might like historical fiction, in which case, you’ll find a couple of my titles in a KU promo this month, plus a load of other history-fic books in a range of periods and genres. KU is Kindle Unlimited, btw.

Research Books. Below. A few of my research books on a temporary shelf in the office. The other bookcases are full already, admittedly, one of them is half-full with the models I’ve been making. I tried to clean one yesterday while Harry was working on his car kit after a blinder of a piano lesson, but it’s hard to get the dust out of all the intricate places without knocking bits off. Which is what happened, because the glue dries in the summer heat. Still, that and fixing a new seal on the oven were the triumphs of yesterday.

Symi Books. I have a few reminiscences about moving to Symi and living here for 20 very odd years, and those links are also over there in the right column. The first of these books is from the early days of self-publishing, which was quite a while ago now. After four Symi books, I decided I’d move on, though one of the early novels is set on Symi (Jason and the Sargonauts), and the history side of it is as true to reality as I could make it. the rest is just camp farce.

Books written on Symi. For the past seven or eight years I have been writing full time and have been adding to my Jackson Marsh pen name catalogue. He’s now got over 30 books under his belt, most of which comprise my three Victorian mystery series. Each one of these has been professionally proofread, had a professional cover design and in more recent years, a professional layout. I’m pleased to say they’re doing okay-ish, not enough to live off, but we live in hope. More info here.

Table Booked. We’re having lunch with friends in Yialos tomorrow, and the table is booked. There’s that’s it for local news today, so I am now going to get on with my next book, ‘Where There’s a Will’ which is just entering the final reel.

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Yesterday. Up at six, check the temp: 19 degrees. Cup of tea, look at emails, laugh at spam, bin it, do some admin, pay a bill, check on sales. Go for a walk, up to the top of the village, say hello to a goat…

Continue onto road and down, find a visitor following Google maps to oblivion. Speak English? Yes. Right way for the museum? No. Come with me. Change route, back into the village, up this way and that, pass a stray microwave, ‘Oh look, a traditional outside oven.’ And some fell on stony ground. Top of these steps, can’t miss it, have a nice day. Back to the walk, passing a building site…

Can you guess what it’s going to be? Wander homeward, cup of tea, to work, write 2,000 words, something’s wrong. The right words, but in the wrong place, will adjust next time, this is too early in the final reel to feel in the right place, and that’s lunch. Afternoon reading, pop to the bar, watch the world go by…

Then, watch a wedding go by…

Then home for supper, a bit of TV, and bed. There, that was Sunday. Today? Partly the same but with the addition of piano lesson in the afternoon.

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The clouds are back, but it’s not yet as rough and windy as predicted, nor have I seen any Sahara sand, as yet. I can feel it blocking up my nose, and when it rained the other day, we found some of it on the newly painted outside table, but otherwise… just this.

Talkin of the outside table, we painted it a couple of months back when we redecorated the courtyard. This started because I was worried about the state of the shutters and the bathroom wall, and thought they needed a coat of protection if nothing else. We had Laki come in and fix the wall because it needed stuff other than a coat of paint, and when that was done, the rest of the courtyard looked really old and decrepit. It wasn’t, it just looked it. However, a couple of the shutters had peeling paint and exposed wood, so we sorted that out, put on an undercoat and painted them. Then the rest of the walls still looked out of place, so between Neil, Sam and I, we did the whole thing. To celebrate, I’ve arranged some lights for the summer, and we now have something of a theatrical corner out there.

In other news… I was out wandering yesterday and came across one of these (below). It’s interesting to see things like this and to know that someone spent a little time on that step with a compass or knife and etched out an image. There are others around the village, and I’ll try to look out for them and take some other shots. This one shows a couple of boats and a date (1980?). I’ve turned the contrast right up to highlight the engraving. I’ll leave you with that and head off into chapter 20.

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