Sorry I haven't posted for a while but I've been on holiday and, on my return, had to get stuck into a pile of line edits that my editor sent me just before I went away (I deliberately didn't look at them until I came home in case I went into panic mode). Now the edits are done, I can concentrate on carrying on with novel two. It's taking a while to get into the swing of it but it's slowly taking shape and, today, I reached the halfway mark which I'm happy about.
As always, our Greek holiday was fantastic. This year we tried a new island, Meganissi (sometimes spelt Meganisi) and it was exactly as we'd imagined it - small but perfectly formed. In fact, with its little harbour, hilltop villages, green slopes and pebble beaches (not to mention the flotillas that moored up each evening) it reminded us of our two previous Greek holidays in Ithaca and Paxos. Above, is a picture of the little house we stayed in. We had our own pool with a gorgeous view which we sadly shared with several wasps (Ian got stung between his toes on the last day) and some rather scary looking hornets (which luckily weren't interested in us at all).
So what does this writer do when she's on holiday? Write?
No.
I read lots, ate delicious food, drank Mythos beer and swam - not necessarily in that order! One day, we hired a little boat. Mooring up in deserted bays and swimming in the crystal clear water was heavenly - until we ran aground and damaged our propeller. As if that wasn't bad enough, we then found, once we'd left the shelter of the harbour and were setting off home, that the wind had picked up and there were waves. I absolutely do not 'do' waves.
The only way I could cope with the journey back was by taking the wheel. It was better than being a passenger and awaiting my fate in the choppy water. "We'll be alright, won't we?" I was heard to say more than once to my husband. Needless to say (as you're reading this) we got back unscathed.
The harbour town of Vathi was the perfect place to have lunch and watch the sailing boats come and go. Each day, we'd choose something different to accompany our Greek salad. These are the delicious courgettes in tempura batter we had for one of our lunches. This year, we also discovered Portokalopita for the first time. It's a type of Greek orange drizzle cake and was absolutely delicious.
To counteract all this lovely food we were eating, we made sure we went to a beach for a swim at some point every day. The beaches in Meganissi are all pebble (ranging from shingle to large white stones) but that is how we like it as it makes the sea even clearer and turns it the most beautiful shade of blue/green. Usually, we'd stroll down at around six in the evening, when the weather was cooler, and have the beach to ourselves but, on a couple of days, we treated ourselves to a whole day at one of the two 'organised' beaches. This meant a sunbed and shade and a beach taverna.
The photo above was Fanari beach with its great taverna playing reggae music (sounds strange but it works). As you can see from the photograph at the top of this post, it looks very Caribbean! The other organised beach we went to was at Spilia. A storm was brewing, which made for a great photo, and we huddled under the sunshades as lightning forked the sky and the heavens opened. It lasted about half an hour and was quite exciting!
So now I'm home again and have been chuffed to find that I've had five stories published over the last two weeks in three different magazines. It doesn't always happen like this I can tell you. I've made a little montage of them because it makes me happy... but maybe not as happy as going to Greece!
September wouldn't be the same without my annual post about my holiday in Greece (sorry, no writing post today).
As many of you will know, if you've been following my blog for a while, Greece and its islands are my favourite place to holiday (apart from the Lake District). We try to go every year, picking somewhere new each time - although we are finding it harder and harder to find new places to fit our tough brief: quiet, scenic, green, little harbour, pretty beach.
To date, I have holidayed in Stoupa, Kardamilli and Parga on the mainland along with the islands of Corfu, Thassos, Kefalonia, Samos, Skopelos and Ithaca. All lovely.
This year's choice was Paxos, a little island off Corfu, and what a delight it was - although at one stage we weren't sure we were ever going to get there. Due to the inefficiency of the long term car park staff at Gatwick (resulting in a wait of 50 minutes to hand in our car keys) we missed our flight. This also meant that by the time we'd caught another, at five in the evening, we'd missed our hydrofoil connection and had to stay overnight in Corfu Town. Not a great start to our holiday. Anyway, we got there in the end and it didn't spoil the rest of our beautiful week.
We stayed in a house just outside the harbour village of Loggos on the side of an olive-clad hill. This is the view of our pool.
The position was perfect, just fifteen minutes walk through the olive groves to Loggos and ten minutes to a choice of four small pebble beaches.
This is one of them. September is the perfect time to visit as the summer crowds have left and when we walked down to the beach for a swim at six o'clock, we had the beach practically to ourselves. What a treat. We're quite used to pebbly beaches, so the lack of sand didn't bother us. In fact, it's nice not to have sandy towels and feet!
Of course, as usual, we ate much too much. When we first holidayed in Greece we'd buy our lunch and eat it at wherever we were staying but in recent years we've found we can't resist the lunches in the tavernas: tatziki, tiropita (cheese pie) Greek salad, fried courgettes and saganaki (fried cheese) washed down with some Mythos
beer. No wonder we always come home heavier than we arrive! I'd better not mention the bakery in the village which sold orange or walnut cake steeped in Greek honey and the best baklavas ever.
In the evenings, we were spoilt for choice as there are several lovely tavernas. In fact we never had a bad meal and after we'd eaten, we'd wander along to a bar on the harbour front for coffee and baklava and to watch the world go by.
I'm home now and my week in Paxos has given me the motivation to work on my first novel which is set on a Greek island. It's been put away while I wrote my second novel but now it's time for an airing... I can't wait!
If any of you have any recommendations for our next Greek holiday, do let me know.
Lots of pictures and not many words in this post today as we've been away again - this time to the Greek island of Ithaca (or Ithaka). It was an island we hadn't been to before and, as usual, we were smitten.
The island is small and you reach it by ferry from Kefalonia. With only one crossing each afternoon, and a flight that had been delayed by half an hour, our drive to the other side of the island to catch the ferry was an interesting experience! Luckily we just manage to get there in time.
This year, instead of using a travel firm, we decided to go it alone and try airbnb. We certainly weren't disappointed as for the same price as a package, we ended up with a three bedroom house with plunge pool and a view to die for! This was the view from our extremely large veranda.
Ithaca is an island you only go to if you want total rest and relaxation. It's a beautiful but sleepy place with only a handful of towns: Vathy, the capital, the little beach resort of Frikes and the exquisite harbour town of Kioni where we stayed - a popular place with the boating set. Late each day the flotillas would moor up in the harbour and it was immensely entertaining, at the end of an evening, to watch the well dressed couples take off their smart shoes and clamber aboard their (rather precarious looking) rubber dinghies to get back to their yachts.
The beaches were pretty pebbled coves (only two on the island had sunbeds and sunshades) and the water was crystal clear. Being September, the season was beginning to wind down and we had most beaches almost to ourselves... except for this one! I've never shared a beach with a goat before.
As you can see, we hired a little boat and came across this beautiful Robinson Crusoe beach. It was so romantic with just a shipwrecked old boat on it. A young couple who swam out from their yacht a few hours later obviously thought so too. When they started stripping off their clothes, we though it was time to make our presence clear before things got awkward!
While we were away, I took the opportunity of doing some reading. I deliberately turned my back on the psychological thrillers I've been reading recently as they've all become a bit samey. Instead, I took a trip down memory lane and read a Rosamund Pilcher. It was an enjoyable beach read with beautiful Cornish scenery but rather dated. The other book I read was Elizabeth is Missing. This has gone into my top 10 best reads - what a great book.
I'm home now and ready for an Autumn of writing but I have to say that in my mind, I'm already planning next year's Greek holiday!
Last week's break from writing in the Lake District did the job as I've managed to write two stories since I came home on Sunday.
I came home from the Lake District refreshed and have managed to write two short stories (you can read my post The Perfect Writing Break here) which is just as well as at the weekend, my husband and I are sneaking off to Hayling Island for our annual modern jive weekend... yippee!
Today, I saw that I had two stories in The People's Friend Fiction Special. Both of these stories have stories attached to them (if you see what I mean) and today I though I'd tell you the inspiration behind one of them, The Two Brothers, as it is particularly dear to my heart.
As most of you will know, the last year has been spent writing my novel. It's been a steep learning curve, getting enough done to submit it to the RNA New Writers' Scheme, finishing it, writing a synopsis, sending out submissions in order to find an agent for it and, most recently, doing considerable edits and writing a blurb for the agent who believed in me and my writing.
My novel, at present called The Marbled Book, is set mostly on the Greek island of Mystos. Now Mystos doesn't actually exist, but it is based on the islands of Skopelos and its smaller sister Alonissos (as well as parts of other islands I've visited over the years). When I wrote the book, I'd never been to either of these islands but pictures I'd seen of them during my research looked perfect.
By September, when the novel was almost finished, my husband and I decided to visit the islands in order for me to complete the research. I would be able to immerse myself in the sights, sounds and smells of the two islands (you can read my blog post on it here).
Whilst on a day trip to Alonissos, I discovered there were two smaller islands off the harbour town of Patitiri. They were called The Two Brothers. All through the holiday, the question floated around in my head - why were they called the two brothers and could I make them into a story when I got home?
I didn't want the story to be contemporary (it would have encroached on my novel) so I decided to set it just after the second world war. A guidebook I'd bought had mentioned the failure of the grape harvests around that time and I decided to work my story around this. Of course, as the title suggests, the story is about two brothers. It's a love story but also one of sibling rivalry.
But what of the two small islands of the same name which I mentioned earlier? Well, legend has it that there were once two giants called Otus and Efialtes. When they were children they liked to play at skimming stones into the sea. From these pebbles grew the Sporades islands. I knew it would be a perfect story to weave into my own fiction.
The special will be out for the next three weeks if you want to find out more about the story.
