My intention was to finish the week with some more photos from the ‘Last Week in the Past’ collection on my One Drive. However, I discovered that I’d exhausted the past yesterday because there was no more past past 2020 and that photos of the goats. Instead, I hit on the bright idea of trawling the collection by hand, but then discovered that most of my images are of my book covers, artwork, mock-ups, research images and such like. Either that or they are pictures of friends and family on holiday, and showing you those would be akin to Douggie and Jeanette forcing you to watch the slides from their recent trip to Bognor Butlins where they met that lovely couple, oh, what was their name, Douggie? Was it Willy and Carmelle? No, it were Willie and Caramel. Don’t be silly, was it. Nay, I remember distinctly it were Caramel, as I remember thinking how nice she’d be to nibble on. Ooh, take no notice of Douggie, he’s got a hernia. Show them your hernia, Douggie, and I’ll fetch us all another glass of snowball…
So, here’s a photo of me and Neil on holiday in 1998. No prizes for guessing we were in the Jean and Tonic bar.
We met some interesting people in there and elsewhere on the island while on holiday. On one occasion, I met a chap who remembered me from a holiday in Skopolos back in 1988 or ’89. I was very impressed until his wife explained that before coming out to Symi he’d bored her ridged with his previous-trips-to-Greece photos on the back of which he’d written the names of every person he’d encountered, main players and extras like me included. I didn’t know him from Adam, and the whole thing was a bit scary.
Aye, we’ve met some odd ones in the past 22 years. The lady with no shoes who never paid for her drinks, and who lit a campfire in her hotel bedroom. The man who wanted to ship his entire family to Nimos so his unfortunate children could ride their 4x4s over the island, presumably for the rest of their lives. Then, there was the one who went to Rhodes and came back on a horse, the couple who did nothing but row all the time, the one who went to the town hall because she wanted to marry a rather bewildered man she’d met the day before, or something.
We didn’t meet them in the J&T bar, but when working, or socialising, but talking of that bar, we had some fun times there, including a few times when I played keyboards with Mike and Susan – and that reminds me of another old snap I found while trawling my One Drive. Now, this one goes back even further, to around 1986, I should think. I was asked to help out at some special 60s night thing in some obscure place like Walthamstow because the band didn’t have a keyboard player. Can you do it? Someone asked. Bung me the notes and I’ll have a go, was my reply. Two weeks later, there we go, ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ keyboard solo, natty outfit and everything (Thanks to Top Man, Oxford Street.)
Oh, now I’ve seen it enlarged, it must have been Steve’s birthday.
Anyway, you’ve had this odd ramble thanks to a sleepless night leading to an early morning, and I suppose, I’d better show you some Symi images before I get on with chapter seven or wherever I am. So, here are three random shots from my more recent collection. Have a nice weekend.
