I’m having that ‘end of the week’ feeling, though it’s not quite the end of the week yet – it’s Friday later morning actually. I am writing this now as I have some more work to do this afternoon, and I want to get straight on with things tomorrow morning.
I’ve got an online meeting to get to at 1.30. I don’t have to travel very far, just across the porch to the workhouse, the part of our house where I work. The editor of Lonely House and I are going to slaughter some widows and orphans, those hanging words at the bottom or top of a page that simply don’t look right. We’re aiming to do this live, via Skype and some wizardry (I’ve not done this before he has) where we can look at the same page on the screen and then chat about what to do. If you get rid of one orphan then you might create more later on you see, it saves lots of emails.
So, that’s going to be all new to me, and dandy. I hope. We should, after a couple of these sessions, have the text of the book tided up and ready to go. I just need to sort out the cover then, and the front stuff, and then get a proof copy to test quality and then… These things don’t happen overnight. But, with any luck we should be looking at a new horror novel out in the summer.
Meanwhile: dance show on Sunday, last rehearsal on Saturday afternoon for us and then we’re up and running, or up and tapping. 18:30 at the Opera House in Yialos if you are on Symi and want to come along. The weather has warmed up, we had our first breakfast on the balcony overlooking the harbour this morning; just need to get some balcony chairs sorted so we don’t have to carry the dining chairs out each time.
And we had our first water lecture in 12 years on Wednesday. The new house has a facility for catching rainwater and putting it into the sterna. So we’ve been happily using it up while the rains were here in the knowledge that the sterna was filling. It wasn’t. The pipework, of which there is a lot around here, was broken. This was only discovered recently and so on Wednesday we put the water on to start filling the tank again. So, you turn things on at the mains and in it comes. No. The dial wasn’t turning. So, you check out the pipes in the sterna cupboard to see there’s another tap there, so you turn that on and yes, the sound of running water. And the pump going. Odd.
So, you turn that off and check with the landlord who lives across the road. He comes along and turns the mains on. No. Then the tap. Yes but no. (That combination leads to the pump pumping water up from the sterna and then back into the sterna. Don’t ask me why.) And then he turns on another tap on a second pipe in the cupboard and… No. So he goes away and phones the council who say eight o’clock is the time – this was half seven. So, he comes back at eight and turns on the mains. No. And then turns off a fourth tap on a third pipe that goes up our courtyard wall and over the top of the lane. Then he pops into the sterna cupboard and turns the red tap from on to off, and the blue tap from off to on, and then the mains tap to on and hey presto! No water.
Only joking. The water does come in with that four tap combination, though it didn’t today as it was meant to; already the days are being rationed. At least the water is, though though the water boat was in the harbour as we were having breakfast. So, on water days it’s mains tap on, red tap on, blue tap off. It’s going to be a weekend for taps. And while the sterna is being filled we have no water in the taps for some reason. I don’t understand Greek plumbing! Then I don’t understand any other nationality of plumbing either.
Okay, off for my weekend now. Hope you have a good one too!
