We should be getting back to normal now, blog-wise, kind of. We took last week off and went on a short holiday to Rhodes and Kos; we’re back now and the rest of this week is probably going to read like a ‘what I did on my holiday’ session like we used to do at school a long, long time ago. But bear with me and you might find some of what’s to come of interest.

So, just over a week ago, bags packed, and including six kilos of dumbbells as Neil was determined to carry on his weights while away, we set off down the Kali Strata for the afternoon boat. Pausing outside the old Symi Gallery to wait while Neil went back to collect the jacket he’d forgotten, I saw only two people; it was a quiet afternoon. But, as it turned out, not a quiet boat. Lots of day-trippers from Rhodes, mainly locals, and a few tourist, had come over for a Sunday on Symi, making the ‘Express’ a busy boat on the way over.

In Rhodes the Christmas lights are already up, and the hotel had a tree in reception; obviously ordered in a moment of wild abandon and no regard for size or proportion, they’d had to cut the top off to get it in, but it looked festive. Sunday night involved a trip to Saffron, one of only two Indian restaurants on the island, and, as we were the only customers, a long and interesting chat with the people who were working there. All family run, the nationalities involved included Japanese, Egyptian and, on our last visit, Greek, German and (I think) Iranian. The chefs are from India and the food is very nice thank you.

Monday: a walk around the town and up to the Acropolis and stadium in the sun, and then on (and on) to the hospital to visit Yiannis (Rainbow) who was there waiting for an operation. It’s one of those strange quirks of town planning that you can see the hospital for miles around, as it’s right up there on the cliff top, but walking to it is a bit of a gamble and, if you’re not careful you might end up arriving in an ambulance: no pavements along the main road, only in the areas where there are shops and turnings and where cars have to drive more safely.

We were back and forth across the path of incoming traffic trying to find somewhere safe to walk. But we got there, took the family by surprise, said hello, handed over a couple of his favourite sports newspapers and then, feet aching somewhat, caught a taxi back to Mandraki for lunch.

The boat to Kos was Tuesday morning, so we’ll talk about that tomorrow, but the rest of Monday was spent in wandering around the usual sites of the new town and having a light supper at ‘Koukous.’ There, that’s days one and two dealt with, tomorrow it’s on to Kos via a quick look at Halki, Tilos and Nisyros.

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And finally in our week-long advertising campaign, if you’ve missed anything, if you would like to order one of my books but also want to order some other items at the same time, you can use our Amazon store.

Just click to the page and there you will see all of my books and novels, a list of those by Anne Zouroudi, other books about Greece, or set in Greece, maps and guides, holiday reading, all kinds of photography stuff and loads of other ideas for gifts. Every item bought via our store benefits us by a tiny-weeny per cent and every little helps!

Simply click here for our Amazon recommendations.

Or, why not check out some of Niel’s photos at his new Photobox gallery where you can order prints and mugs and other things. Click here to explore (still in its early stages). http://www.photoboxgallery.com/4073451

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And today’s advertisement is not for a book, it’s for Neil’s 2015 Symi calendar.

These are now only available from our shop front at Lulu.com, as they say on the TV adverts, ‘You can’t buy them in the shops,’ and that’s quite true, you can’t. If you are a calendar user, or know someone who is, then this is what you want on your wall, or theirs, throughout next year. We use one, we have it in our kitchen where it is ‘kitchen proof,’ not exactly ‘wipe clean’ but it’s survived a steamy environment for this year so far. There are 12 images of Symi, each one, usually, taken during the month it represents.

So, rather than describe the thing to you I’ll just supply the link and then you can head to Lulu and order copies; there is an online preview to flick through if you want to see all the images. The process is easy, you may need to register but that’s quick and simple, and the payment method is very secure. We’ve been using them for years and have had no hassles.

So, you can order Symi calendars online by clicking to Lulu here.

(You can also find our books at Lulu.com at the Symi Dream storefront here.)

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Welcome to Thursday and today’s featured book is ‘The Judas Inheritance.’ Regular readers of the Symi Dream blog will already know something about this book, but there us some background to it that you may not be aware of. It started with a look in the desk drawer for inspiration…

Looking around to see what I had available here that could be used in a story I opened my desk drawer and saw a coin. My grandfather found this coin when he was in Palestine during the Second World War, where he was Naval Chaplain with responsibility for parts of North Africa and the Middle East. The coin dates from around 2,000 years ago and shows the Athenian Owl and a head in prolife. It could be from as early as 400 B.C.

Ancient coin, Palestine, Greek coins traveling there and back, silver pieces… Connections were made and, as often happens, a great big ‘What if?’ presented itself. What if the 30 pieces of silver used by Judas to betray Christ found their way along trade routes to Symi, bringing with them a curse of betrayal?

And that’s how the story started.

As anyone who has read my ‘Jason and the Sargonauts’ will know, I am rather fond of using local ‘clues’, tying them into a story to bring an air of possibility to the proceedings. Here there were several clues ready and waiting: Symi has been occupied by the Romans, Venetians, the Knights of St John, the Ottomans, Italians, Germans, British and finally Greeks. All, apart from Greece, have risen to fail. Why? What if each downturn in fortune happened at the same time these cursed coins were found, greedily used and brought to life again? When would the last time have been? Around 1912 when the Italian occupation, over fishing of sponges, World Wars and increases in taxes led to a mass migration from the island dropping the population from an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 to just a few hundred.

Just around the corner from my house is a square with a kafeneion opened in 1909, when the island was at the height of its prosperity and just before the great decline. What if the owner was able to build that new kafeneion because he had come into the possession of the cursed coins?

There is also an up to date tie-in which I felt was needed and poignant. In recent years, due to the economic downturn in the country, the suicide rate in Greece has increased. There has a curse on the country; the curse of bad government you might say. What if that curse was actually the curse of the Judas coins? I wondered, how would 30 pieces of cursed silver affect everyday folk? And the simple answer was suicide, the way they had affected Judas. This suggested to me that the coins were cursed even before Judas came into possession of them. (On this score, see the end of the book for a final twist that didn’t make it to the film.)

I could go on, but I know you have other things to do. As I write, the film version of ‘The Judas Inheritance’, titled by me as ‘The Judas Curse’ is still in post-production. From what I have seen of the rough edit it looks great. As happens in films, other people were involved in the project and a lot of the book story was changed to the extent that what I feel are the main elements of the story are missing – the modern day tie in, the clues, the history of the island, the progress of the curse and even, to a certain extent, the coins! But that’s how things go and I am sure – I hope – we will all see something in film form based on my novel at some point in the future.

“Brilliant storyline. It hooked me from the first page and I didn’t put it down until I finished and then only reluctantly. It had everything the more traditional thriller should; mystery, intrigue, heart stopping moments, even the odd tear at the sadness of it all.” Amazon review

You can order copies of ‘The Judas Inheritance’ here.

The photos are from the filming of ‘The Judas Cures’ and all are by Neil Gosling © all rights reserved

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I was writing ‘Jason and the Sargonauts’ before I moved to Symi and it is a story that had a long writing process, but was finally finished on Symi, up at the old house at Ag Triada.

The story was simple; it’s all here in myth: Jason goes to find the Golden Fleece and takes with him a bunch of heroes. Simple. The thing is to add in a ‘what if?’ and really get the ball rolling. What if Jason was a holiday rep in the present day (2003) and what if he worked for Sargo Holidays (Sensational And Relaxing Getaways Overseas), and what if Sargo only catered for the elderly, and what if… And so on.

Now then, years and years ago I was working on an idea for a story that was a bit of a cross between ‘The 39 steps’ and ‘Tales of the City’ if you can imagine such a crossbreed. It was all to do with smuggling codes and a drag queen defeating the rise of fascism in Amsterdam in 1995. Understandably, I put it away in a bottom draw for a long time. But the code idea stayed with me and, to be exact, a musical code. What if musical notes could be interpreted as letters? What could a piece of music say?

Anyway, it all got thrown in together and came out as: a young holiday rep working on Symi has a group of odd pensioners, including his grandmother, to look after during a very difficult week. Grandmother brings an heirloom which starts the group off on a treasure hunt for the Golden Fleece. But where and what is it? The answer is found by following a piece of musical code written a hundred or more years before.

And so we head off into a slightly camp romp (lots of theatre gags and references) as the group travel across Symi to search for The Golden Fleece. There are many hidden, and some more obvious, references to the original Myth: Castor and Pollux become Cassie and Polly, two old ‘theatricals’, for example, the grandmother’s name is an anagram of Hera, and so on. So, for fans of the original myth there’s plenty to figure out, for fans of code breaking there’s a riddle to solve, for fans of Symi there is some accurate history (the story takes place in the present, the late 19th century and during World War II, and a lot of that research came from Hugo), and there are also a few local characters popping up under different names.

So, if you, or someone you now, likes comedy, Greek myths, adventure stories, treasure hunts and reading, then Jason and the Sargonauts would go well wrapped up and under a Christmas tree. (As long as it was eventually opened and read.)

You can order copies of Jason and the Sargonauts here.

“This is Dan Brown meets Whitehall Farce with a bit of education about Symi’s history thrown in for good measure. Set on the Greek island of Symi, it’s a fast paced whodunnit with lots of laughs and loads of page turning moments. Yes, it was hard to put down.”

“This books deserves a large audience and stands up there with the best novels about contemporary Greece.” Amazon review

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