A quiet weekend for me, with some research, a new book cover to approve, and a birthday dinner at a packed taverna. It was voting weekend, so many people had returned from wherever they now live, as they must/should when there is an election – a local election for mayor, and regional elections too, I believe. I am vague because I, like many other UK citizens, am no longer able to vote for our local representatives, and thus, I haven’t paid much attention as there’s nothing I can do about any of it.
I’m none the wiser as to who won (I shall no doubt find out later in the day, as it’s still very early), but the dynamite and fireworks were going off just as I was getting into bed. Bedtime came later than usual, and I was in danger of working myself into that sleepless state of: ‘But it’s gone the usual time I go to sleep. If I drop off now, I will have five hours… If I don’t get to sleep soon, I’ll only have four and a half…’ I managed eventually, and, as my auto timer is internally set, was up at the usual time, leaving not much in between. I can see a sofa doze coming on later.
Apart from all that excitement, I also managed to get a little research done. Although I am working on book three of a series, book two, ‘A Fall from Grace’ has just come back from the proofreader, so I have switched from writing to reading. Once that’s done, the book will go to my layout people who will format the interior for me, and then it will be set free on Amazon, fairly hot on the heels of the first in the series, ‘Finding a Way.’
So, the images today show, 1) a map of the Boundary Estate in Shoreditch, the Old Nichol as it was once called. As we’d now call it, a slum, or a rookery. It was demolished at the end of the 1880s, and the start of the 1890s. 2) The cover with the paper over it is for a cover reveal later in the week on my other blog, and 3) the image of the taverna is… Well, it’s an image of the taverna last night, where we were served by a young chap (17/18 I reckon) who I have seen grow up. Once upon a time, I was on a busy hydrofoil in Rhodes waiting to come back to Symi, and slightly delayed because one of the passengers was running late. I remember it because when the mother and baby came aboard, everyone clapped to welcome him. The boat had waited an extra 20 minutes or so before setting off so the family could get home, and no-one complained, only rejoiced.
Gosh, the hydrofoil, eh? I wonder where the old thing is now; the metal machine with many nicknames, few of them pleasant, and where all the Cyrillic writing on the bulkheads had been painted over so many times it was hard to read the letters. I’m sure everyone has hydrofoil stories, and I shall save mine for a later date. I have a day of reading ahead, or rather, re-reading, and I am also looking forward to catching up on sleep.
