Well, that was blustery. Yesterday, according to Windfinder, the wind was up to force six. Felt more like force 16 at our house, with the roof tiles rattling in new ways, the aircon unit vibrating up on the roof, and the windows shuddering as though a freight train was coming through. Strangely, the shutters didn’t come away from their moorings and start banging about, but all kinds of things were flying through the air. Across the water, the sea was smashing against the rocks at Nimos and along the coast, and I didn’t see any boats venture out. My phone camera doesn’t do it justice, you; need the sound to go with the sight, but it’s better than nothing.

The spray was blowing inland across the top of the water in great gusts, and there was plenty of white blown up and about. Among all this wind was half the Sahara Dessert, apparently. [It’s made with whipped cream, sponge and custard, a little like a triffle. Of course, I meant to write Desert and trifle…]  There’s a great big cloud of very fine dust being blown across Europe as far north as the top of Italy, and although it happens every year and more than once, this year apparently, it’s bigger than before. The government have issued health warnings for anyone sensitive to fine dust, I guess, and the next time it rains, we’ll probably get what they call ‘red rain’, where the sand dust washes down from the atmosphere. It might mean you have to clean your outside surfaces afterwards, but at least it gets the stuff out of the air.

Today, though, it’s as calm as you like at, at seven in the morning, already 18 degrees. It’s hazy out there, but a good day for a short walk which I will do later before continuing with chapter four of the new book. That’s after I’ve done a little publicity to try and sell the others, and after I’ve posted my last photo of the week, the neat line of bikes on the top of the Pedi road. Made me wonder what was going on, except nothing was going on, it was simply where local folk park. Have a good weekend.

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I’m talking about myself here. I’ve just published the latest Victorian mystery in my ongoing series of novels set, in this case, in 1892. You can find ‘Follow the Van’ by following that link. [Btw: the link is to Amazon.com, if you’re in the UK, then change the .com to .co.uk, otherwise it will tell you the book isn’t available. The same goes for other countries, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Denmark, Spain… wherever you are.]

The first of the three series starts in 1888 with the hunt for the East End Ripper and the characters and story develop from there through 11 books and into series two. There, you find seven books, new characters coming and going but the core team remains strong, and that series then ends with a massive treasure hunt. Meanwhile, series three has been set up, and now, I am starting to write book four of that series. These are all fun mysteries under my pen name, and you can find all the books on my second Amazon page here.

I’ve got another Amazon author page under my real name, and that’s where you can find much earlier books and my Symi collection, as advertised over there on the right of this page. I’m lucky in that many people who go to read both authors are people who’ve been to Symi, who we have met and who I know, but I am also pleased to say I have many readers from all around the world. That might make me sound terribly popular and doing rather well, but that’s not always the case – being popular I mean. Or doing rather well, come to that, but now, my 40 + books pay for their own publishing, so at least I’m not losing out.

I’ve often been asked how I publish my own works on Amazon, and it’s surprisingly simple when you know how. However, the process takes too long to explain in any one article or blog post, or even conversation. If you’re interested to read about the basics, and see a quick summary of how I go about publishing, then check out the article I wrote for my other blog:

http://jacksonmarsh.com/self-publishing-how-i-do-it/

Meanwhile, I’ll leave you with the above random photos of Symi which don’t reflect today’s weather, which is cloudy and windy, though not overly cold. Still, a day for staying in and feeling lazy. Once I’ve written the next chapter.

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It was something of a lovely day yesterday. A little writing, a walk, a birthday dinner with the boys, much eating and making merry, perfect. And now, back to normal and onwards, except a few pounds heavier, and with a volume of Schubert sonatas to work through, to go along with the Chopin sonatas I collected in Rhodes recently. Plenty of piano work for me to be getting on with. Thank you everyone who sent birthday wishes, and thank you to my glorious husband for making a grand piano out of chocolate and putting it on a cake first made for Franz Joseph of Austria (who appears in one of my novels), and to Jenine and Sam for cooking me a pie that had mashed potato beneath the crust (no, honestly, and it was delish), and to Harry for the endless entertainment at my dinner last night.

Meanwhile, I’m, hearing more about who is getting ready to open for Easter (which isn’t until May 5th) and for the season, there are rumours that this might be happening and that definitely will, and she’s going to be doing this and he’s not going to be doing that this year, but will be doing the other instead, and so on and so forth. What I do know, because I read the sign on the door, is that up here in the village, Taverna Zoi is looking for staff, so if you fancy a summer job…

Mind you, you’d have to be from an EU country as Brits can no longer work in Greece without a specific and hard-to-get visa, and the days of working your summer in return for a party life when not at work are over. Makes you wonder how the clubs of Faliraki — and other places once popular with the late teen early twenties crowd who came to give out flyers all summer, drink cheap booze and cackle their way to a good vomit — will manage. Ah well, it must be that now they only employ casual staff from other EU countries. I have no idea how I got into this subject, but I’m getting off it now as I have some typing that needs to be done and it’s already a quarter to eight.

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It’s a lovely day out there today, so I may well do some more of this…

That’s after I do some of this…

TWO

Delamere House
October 1892

William Reginal Merrit sat upright in his bed and made a decision. Today, for the first time in his life, he would put his left foot on the floor before his right.

Yesterday, we did some of this…

Followed by a couple of hours of this…

And now I’ve told you all that, I’m off to do some more of this…

If you’ve been following the series (plural), then you might like to know that this has just come out on Kindle and KU. Paperback to follow.

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Today is Greek Independence Day, and a celebration of the start of the war of independence, 1821. It’s a bank holiday, and there will be services and celebrations because it is also the Feast of the Annunciation. Last night, Yialos and the road to Evangelismos were lined with flaming torches as part of those celebrations, and you can see great footage of this if you look at Symi TV, either on Facebook (link here) or on YouTube (link here).

This morning we woke up to cloudy skies and some light rain, but yesterday was a glorious day. I took myself off for a walk around the top of the Pedi Valley to admire the greenery and flowers, blossom and new leaves and had a lovely, quiet walk.

This was partly to recover from the fun and madness of Saturday night when our godsons came for dinner. Just us four, a curry Neil had cooked (I made the bread), and some homemade ice cream, lovely chats about all kinds of things, and a very naughty game of Cards Against Humanity. That raised even more laughs and some eyebrows. Since then, our oldest GB has secured himself his first long-term rental down in Harani, which will be close to his work at Pavone Café, which is just behind the police station. He is due to start his season at the beginning of May, while the other GB will start back at the Kali Strata Restaurant after his school exams, in June.

Before then, he’s got a Yamaha motorbike kit to finish building, a grade two music theory exam next week, and will start on his grade three theory, while continuing with his grade four piano. In our additional music lesson (we have two a week now) we’ve also been learning to play the clarinet (so much easier when you can already read music), and next month, we’re going to start looking at poetry, lyrics, and songwriting.

The last piece of news is that my next book is finally out on Kindle. It will be in paperback as soon as I get the full cover in the next couple of days. Click the cover to reach the Amazon.com page for more details.

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