Weekend, Behind Nimborio, Photos
Over the weekend, we spent about 15 hours watching the extended versions of The Lord of the Rings trilogy and thoroughly enjoyed them. They don’t feel that long, and, let’s face it, there’s not much else to do of an evening right now. Had the bars been open and things running as they were a year ago, we might have gone to Rainbow to watch a football match, or rather, just be in the company of other people while they did, by way of something to do. We might also have had the god-boys and family for lunch, a film and a bit of mayhem, but we still can’t do that, of course. So it was something of a stay-at-home weekend for me. The weather was a bit blowy too. (Any excuse to stay in and write.)
Which is what I did, write, I mean, and I managed to knock off several thousand words of a new story. I work along the lines of ‘don’t get it right, get it written,’ and then, after it’s written, I work on getting it right, so at the moment, I am simply telling myself the story through my keyboard. The writing process for me is a bit like carpentry. Finding the piece of wood is the first draft, shaving it down to a basic shape is the second when dead bits are cut away, you decide which way to work it, where the grain goes and so no, and the third draft is when I cut it into shape. Further drafts could be thought of as the turning, carving, polishing, depending on what you’re making out of this metaphorical piece of wood. Then, when it’s done, you’ve got a finished piece which needs to be looked after through its life. I’ve recently gone back to a couple of my Jackson Marsh novels and been through them again to give them another polish and ‘treat’ them for those niggly errors no-one spotted before the first publication. (Like the use of the word ‘Okay’ in 1888, long before the word existed.)
That was all very interesting, wasn’t it? Of more interest, I suspect, are Neil’s photos, which show us a property and area behind Nimborio. There is a shot of it on yesterday’s blog, at the top. If you walk to that bay and along the shoreline at the head of the bay (where you might have to walk in the sea depending on tide and moon), you will come across a wide opening heading into the hills. This, I guess, is an old riverbed or natural water channel, and if you walk along it, taking care as it’s rubbly, you will find this property which was abandoned some time ago. I don’t know anything about its history except that is used to be more colourful and is now very atmospheric, but if you’re ever that way, it’s well worth taking a look. What with the palm trees and other plant life, to me, it all looks rather exotic, Arabian almost or at least tropical.
So, it’s Monday as I write, early morning, of course, the wind is buffeting the house a little, and as it’s still dark, I’ve not yet seen whether the weather will allow me to go for a short walk or not. Rather, whether I want to face the weather and take one. We do, however, need some money, so one of us will have to go to the harbour, but I think Neil might be walking that way. Great news! Not only will I not have to, but he’s bound to get more wonderful photos to put up on this blog.
