Neal Asher's Blog, page 14

August 2019 Facebook Posts

August 1st
There's that standing joke about the writer sitting staring out the window 'working'. Trying to figure out how I'm going to work the 'all over the place' timeline of the present book I did a lot of something similar this morning. Mainly it involved staring at a long list of single sentence descriptions of scenes, then lying on the sofa with my eyes closed trying to see the shape they must form. I had the whole lot whirling round in my head till they seemed to gain weight, then turned into a headache. I did a lot of brainwork this morning, and wrote only about 20 words.



August 2nd
Par for the course. I go out for a kayak run and it seems I'm paddling against the wind on the way out and the way back. A quarter hour after I get back and the wind just stops. Hard not to think it's personal sometimes.

2,000 words this morning and another 'piece' written. I'm coming to the conclusion that resolving the timeline issues is not going to happen quickly. My subconscious needs time to mull it all over.

August 3rd
Gawd I'm knackered. I walked to Voila this morning, wrote 2,000 words, then down here in Makri attempted a kayak to Koutsouras but turned back at two thirds the distance because the waves looked like they might splatter me. But it is a satisfying knackerdom.

I commented to a neighbour a couple of days ago that, had I got a gun, I don't know who I would shoot first, the owner or the dog. Howling yapping dogs in the village. Idiots with a dog they never disciplined because it is 'their baby' and when it was a puppy and started barking they went, 'ooh, isn't that cute'. Wankers. Of course it is no different in the UK, just that there we tend to have our windows closed for a larger part of the year.

Ah, the kind tourists feeding the cats. Two months later one cat is four cats. Yet strangely this place is not overrun with them for they disappear each Winter. I guess they're transported off to the cat planet of scratching posts and endless tuna.

August 5th
Bugger. I didn't know direct debits at my bank get cancelled if they're not used for 13 months. Lots of messing about on the internet and over the phone required to re-establish currency transfer. I'm sure Yorgos and Kostis at Revans won't mind if I run up a tab.

August 6th
Blustery day today. After being beaten about on a massage table I decided to swim rather than kayak. I didn't like it yesterday, when it wasn't so windy, getting skidded sideways across the ocean then having to beach the kayak because it was going backwards. Such trials I face.



August 7th
Perfect. 12K walk in the mountains, 2,000 words written and some major positive rearranging of the book, a 10K kayak on a lovely sea (with less wind than expected) and now a nice cool beer. Why would I want to add anything more? (he said, while eyeing some of the bikini-clad items on the beach).

 And actual research done today. Well, I looked up 'strangler fig' on the internet to see if the things looked like I remembered. Yes they do and, of course, my version is mobile and hostile.

August 8th
The erstwhile (yes, I know I like that word) short story has now cleared 60,000 words. Interesting way to write something - not straight-line development of the plot but putting together pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Though I have to carve the pieces, and the holes they fit, and there are no edges, and no box picture, and. . .

Annoying. I can't find red beans for chilli here (admittedly I haven't looked very hard), so I'm trying gigantes. These are the big beans used in a dish here that goes very well with feta. They also have a marked effect on the colon - often a quite loud effect.

August 9th
A quote for my Polity Separatists.



And another 2,000 words done today. I'll probably be two books in hand by the time it comes to discuss a further contract with Macmillan. Meanwhile I just received a contract from Analog for 'Moral Biology'. Only drawback here is I'm not producing all those short stories I intended to write.



Okay. I'm a bit pooped today. I kayaked to a beach called Stousa. This is the furthest I've been. Upwards of 15K round trip. I must check it on Google Earth.

August 10th
2,000 words done on a Saturday morning, which makes up for a day missed in the week. I'll may do another 2,000 tomorrow since I might avoid Makrigialos and its crowds. That being said, there are surprisingly few down here today. Perhaps an initial holiday rush is dying off?

The view has changed since four years ago. I think a TV aerial fell over.

4 years ago

Neal Asher
10 August 2015 ·
Yesterday it was cloudy and dull, and I'd also thought I'd returned to a more sordid area of Essex (y'know, where it's necessary to keep a baseball bat handy). But this morning I look out and Crete is still there. Kalimera!



...
Like the name 'Q-carbon' and its properties. Definite grist for the writing mill.

Good grief Messenger collects a lot of crap over the years. I really wish it wouldn't send that 'Say hi to your new Facebook friend'. If I had wanted to I would have done so!

August 11th
2,000 words on a Sunday. I had to close the terrace door to cut down on the sound of the yapping, whining and howling dog at the bottom of the village. I went down to knock on the owners' door to complain but they were out. The dog of course was on a leash in their yard. While there I saw another dog on a leash over the other side. It's yap wasn't up to much because it had grown old, but I recognised it as the constant yapper from years ago. Some people should have a 'No Dogs' warning tattooed on their foreheads.

August 12th
It's noticeable with some expats here that they become more of what they were back home. Accents broaden, national and local traits are emphasised. It almost seems like a defensive measure. Whatever. In the spirit of all that, and having run out of washing powder, I had to buy this:



Interesting conversation this morning. A French couple with a smattering of Greek, a Greek woman who speaks English and me with my sub par Greek. Lots of hand waving. Amazing what can be conveyed with gestures.

I'm sorry. My humour is crude. But this still makes me laugh. A lot.

4 years ago

Neal Asher
12 August 2015 ·
This put in in comments by Richie Jarvis had me spit half chewed cheese sandwich on my Ipad. I could say sorry if it causes offence, but I would be lying.



August 13th
First time I've seen these covers.





Okay. Apparently today's run was over 4 hours of kayaking. I went the furthest I've ever been to a beach called Stousa where I took a brief break. And I have to admit to not writing a damned thing today.

August 15th
The Gabbiano was busy last night with 50 or more people in it. It's been busy for a while as I could tell the other day by Stelios's yawns. I refuelled on piethachia meh scortho (garlic lamb chops) and Gabbiano salata then popped down to Revans. Full there too with people watching football. Not my thing so I buggered off home.

And another 2,000 words this morning. The book is zooming along nicely now and I've got most of the timeline issues sorted. Meanwhile in the village it seems the howling whining dog has been moved somewhere so it's not so intrusive and has resorted to yapping, so no visit to the Sitia Police today as intended. Now I'm trying to decide whether or not another 4-hour kayak run this week will be too much.


Bloody hell.
Bloody hell.Neal's posts have been liked 250,000 times 266 254 223 218 199 52Revans Bar, Chris Haringa and 50 others23 commentsLikeCommentShareChilling in Revans. The moon and lights on the Libyan Sea in one direction. Football in the other. Life is full of contrasts.


August 16thIt gets boring me writing 'and another 2,000 words this morning,' though I assure you the words are not. Humans adopt an alien form of communication while repelling lethal predators from a giant armoured car ... okay that's enough. Anyway, I kayaked for over three ... zzzzzzz ...
Oh, and I'm past 70,000 words on this book. That's a halfway marker (kinda). I wonder now about my chances of getting three books ahead of the publisher again over the next year. Pretty good I reckon.
Just too warm and nice to stay in. Feeding myself up at the Stratos tonight since my total food consumption today has been a small bowl of peanuts and similar of crisps. Heat is a good diet aid. I could probably have gone to bed on that.

August 17thAnyway. 2,000 words done this morning and now I'm off on my kayak. . .
Hmm, big bottle of water drunk because of ouzo-related dehydration. Twinge in my stomach muscles while kayaking. I think a zero alcohol evening of relaxation is called for, and maybe I should cool it on the 15K kayak runs.
I may change my mind.
August 19thA day's rest and the stomach muscle twinge has gone away. I ate pretty hugely too with three boiled eggs for breakfast with friganes, then pork steaks later in a kind of ratatouille (with chilli added of course) and with that, for the first time, I cooked vlita. Without the usual Greek load of lemon juice and olive oil it tastes like spinach - definitely something I'll grow again. The saucepans that came off my stove contained enough for a meal each for three people. I ate the lot throughout the afternoon and evening. Kayak today of course, and on both days 2,000 words a day as usual.
Morose speculations about past and present decisions have led to a third beer. The auspices are not good for sobriety of any kind as this day progresses.
I think I need to walk in the mountains. I'm a total cynic about anything supernatural or edging into the realm of pseudoscience, so the expression of a neighbour of 'taking power from the mountains' I regard with tongue in cheek. However, it does feel like that. A good long stomp through them and, though I may come back knackered, my head feels like it's back on straight.
Okay. That's enough. Time to lie on the sofa and stare at my eyelids. All is negotiable after that.
August 20th80,000 words cleared this morning. I'm rather enjoying this 'start from the present and explore the past'. It's really filling out the main character.
Quiet and peaceful down here this morning. The coffee and water crowds have yet to arrive. I've just had a nice fried breakfast at Revans and will shortly head off to have my bones thumped by a masseur. It's such a struggle here. 


Bone thumping completed. I probably should rest now but, looking at the calm sea, 15K on the kayak is looking increasingly likely.

August 21stNo words written this morning. I instead sliced off the lower rotten part of a friend's door and replaced it with new. Very satisfying, though I looked like I walked through a working saw mill.
August 22ndI put this up two years ago and am not really sure of the sentiment of the meme. The only kind of writing that would scare me a little would be attempting to write an aga saga or something for Mills and Boon.
2 years ago
Neal Asher22 August 2017 · Righto, 2,000 words done and the story advances apace. I'm now hitting a stage when I need to up the stakes, skew the narrative and throw a big oily spanner in ...

Annoying. I will probably have to go back to the UK earlier than expected and thus miss the raki season here. I guess my body will thank me for not eating barbecued pork and drinking raki all day. Meh.
Okay. Long chat with someone and afterwards I can't be bothered with food preparations even though they are only 'throw it in the microwave'. So the Gabbiano it is. Lamb chops with garlic and their salad. Mmmmm. The busiest restaurant in Makrigialos Stelios tells me.

A little bit of water in a small water bottle to wash down my food.

July 2019 Facebook Posts

July 1st
Here we go. I have photos now. This was the beach in front of Revans back in April.



July 2nd
And the path home. . .
















July 4th
2,000 words this morning (the 'short story' is now at 26,000 words), 15k kayak this afternoon followed by two beers. I may snooze on the sofa. . .

July 5thAnd another project to keep me from getting bollixed on my terrace in the evenings. Expats Tim and Helen had some work done on their house and took off some extremely rotten shutters. Coincidentally they had some hardwood shutters on their woodpile. I'm combining the two. . .




July 6thJust rescued a lilo from a trip to Libya. People don't get sometimes how strong the wind is here, especially further out to sea. I'm waiting for someone to claim it, else it goes to Kostis and Niki for their daughter Maria.
July 8th‎Lee Harrington‎ to Neal AsherThank you for the Facebook connection. I am in Australia. I am new to your books and this is my current read:

July 9thMore work on shutters. I took the morning off writing to get this done and tidy the garden. I'll have a pop at my 2,000 words this afternoon/evening if I'm not too knackered (as usual).


Garden now. I've already munched through lettuces, onions and radishes and now the tomatoes are coming. Still some pots to fill.




July 10th

July 11thAnd another shutter for inspection after, I assure you, I did my 2,000 words. How much rotten wood do I need to cut away to get to something viable?...Um. That much.



Okay. Bugger that. The waves out at the point and beyond are a bit silly even for me. I turned round and came back surfing part of the way. Maybe a swim instead.


July 13thOkay, the 'short story' has now slid past 30,000 words. Accelerated evolution, nanosuites possibly AI, polity weapons development (maybe) . . . It's all getting a bit to interesting to wrap up at magazine length. Yup. Looks like another book.
Not entirely relevant, but I love this quote:

July 14thFinal two shutters done but for a bit of cleaning up. Glad to remove all the pieces of wood from my terrace, but now I must sort out the pile of tools in my spare room . . . until next time of course.


And here, because it fascinates me, we have an orange tree in the process of being turned into a lemon tree.


Sea a bit too rough for kayaking and probably not that pleasant for swimming. I think I may head back home for a snooze. Still mulling over the idea.
July 16thWell this is bloody annoying: middle of July on Crete and it looks like it's going to rain.

Okay, time to bring the laptop down. It seems the edits for The Human have arrived. End of word counts for a while as I engage with them. That being said the 'short story' just slid past 40,000 words.
Sitting in the Stratos For the first time in a few years. Definitely the 'hot' chicken wings, followed by the roast lamb. Got to keep built up for the kayaking.

Ah what the hell. I can always delete this later if I've been premature. Here's the US cover of book 3 of Rise of the Jain: The Human.

July 17thI woke to rumbling thunder this morning. Really poured down with streams running down the village paths. All gone now and back in shorts.





July 18thBlimey. Actually cold enough up in the village yesterday to put on jeans. Down here in Makrigialos the waves would have flipped me in the kayak or done something untoward to a slightly dodgy back if I'd gone swimming. Constructive day anyway spending hours going through the editing of The Human.
July 19thIn glorious Technicolour here's the cover of the UK rerelease of Cowl:

And in further glorious colour here's the cover of the UK rerelease of The Technician:

July 20thUhuh. So 3+ hours kayaking is certainly a way to cure a hangover.
But the problem with 3+ hours kayaking as a hangover cure is I need a couple of beers to get over it. Mark this as the beginning of a steady cycle of self-destruction.
July 21stGood grief. Four years ago. And I'm still using sunglasses I bought along with those here (which along with the hat are at the bottom of sea).

July 22ndWell nothing much there has changed, but for the state of mind of the writer.
3 years ago
Neal Asher22 July 2016 · Sitía · Brain forced back into gear by self-disgust and other ... elements. 2,000 words written of a short story which, after nameless things dropped into my mind in an afternoon, formed while I was trying to sleep, and required excursions from bed to make notes.Καλο βραδυ!

...Edits for The Human dealt with and dispatched to Macmillan. Time to get back to writing the new thing again, though I think I'll start out with a catch up blog post.
July 23rdOkay, pretty good one today. 2,000 words written, chillies planted around the garden, 10K kayak and a 2K swim. I deserve this, so there!

Just heard about Boris. 'The End is Nigh' placards will be out. Meanwhile I'm guffawing.
I do like it when life's most critical decision of the moment is, have another beer or not.
July 25thI did like that cover.
2 years ago
Neal Asher25 July 2017 · Hey US readers. Do any of you have Gridlinked, The Skinner or Brass Man on kindle? - Trying to get to the bottom of something that's going on with those books...

...Feeling rather chuffed here. As mentioned before I recently got a story taken by Azimovs. Now (contract yet to be signed) Analogue have taken a story. Quite a long one too - novella I think.
Some brain twisting work this morning. The short story I started, which has now grown to 40+ thousand words, consists of lots of segments concerning the colonisation of a world (and other prador war related stuff) whose chronology is all over the place. Trying to impose some order is not easy. I'm thinking the 'all over the place' won't change much. Still, it's been done before to good effect: Use of Weapons by Banks.
As Winnie the Pooh would say, 'It's a blustery day'. I'm in the Stratos to eat what I firmly intended to eat last time: beefstekia. This restaurant is, incidentally, where the proprietor Dolores runs her 'spot Neal Asher' competition from when I go past in my kayak.

July 26thOh bloody hell. Not much achieved this morning. After that meal in Stratos last night I stopped off in Revans for a quick drink, and didn't leave till 3.30 in the morning. I now intend a thoroughly punishing run on the kayak to burn the shit out of my body.
Okay, the hangover seems to have been banished. Fruit juice only today and back to read my ARC of the next Hamilton book. Sensible behaviour now . . . for at least a little while.
July 27thNice.
Okay, my intention to be good lasted until I got back from my kayak run. On my second beer now. But then I have walked 12k written 2,000 words and kayaked 10k. Surely I'm allowed some leeway here?
July 28thAnd another satisfying day: 12K walking in the mountains, 2,000 words written and kayaking . . . well, I don't know how far though in the region of 15K - I was gone for over 3 hours. They didn't notice this last in Revans, despite talk of sending out a rescue boat or getting me to pay my bill before I head out.

June 2019 Facebook Posts

June 1st
Morning views from my terrace. The first two to the left and forward, and then to the right where there used to be a nice old stone building. . . Funny, in a village a few miles down the road some people had all sorts of trouble with the 'archaeology people' because they had to renovate their house in keeping with the village. This obviously doesn't apply in my village.







June 5th

The garden has achieved gardenness and now it's time for another sideline: renovating a chair. I blame Ian M Banks 'Use of Weapons' for this obsession.




The start of my walk. I really should have taken pictures of the broom when it was fully in flower. Stunning.









June 6th
Iced glass in Revans Bar.



Another day of garden and then kayak - recent other work (writing) I dispatched yesterday. Time to get on with some short stories now everything is running smoothly. Meanwhile I'm drinking a beer and watching the pirate ship come in.



June 7th
Chair progress. It looks a bit crap at the moment but the final product will be good.





Yay! New seat for the kayak I must road test today. Thanks for dealing with the order Revans Bar!



June 11th
Been bollixed by what seems to be a bladder infection but, in retrospect, now seems likely to be lower back and groin pain as a result of exercising like I was in my 30s and not my 50s. So rather than kayak 10k or mountain walk 12k I stayed in my house to relax. This of course meant 20 to 30 hours of painting and cleaning inside. I think I have an off button, but I'm not sure where it is. I am now in Revans Bar for a pre prandial drink.



Meanwhile, the chair has also advanced. No human bones or skin included yet but some local bamboo. It amuses me to see this stuff everywhere knowing how much one must pay for it in a UK garden centre.





Busy in the Gabbiano, nice to see Stelios is busy.



June 14th
Chair completed (though I may have to do something with the feet). Okay, I'm running out of jobs to keep me from the keyboard. I'll start with a blog post and move onto a short story.









It looks lovely but is a bad day for kayaking. The North wind is blowing, hopping over Makrigialos, hitting further out and either direction up the coast. Last time I went out in this I ended up hanging in the anchor rope of the moored 'Pirate ship' wondering how the hell to get to the beach. Tha kolimbiso simera, that is to say I will swim today.


The Warship available on Audible in the UK today.
Amazing. I'm half hearing a couple talking nearby. The guy is fascinating the woman with football anecdotes and stuff about what Brian Clough said. All I can say is that the glue must be hormones.
It was probably not a sensible move after a nice meal with copious wine with friends to hit the gin and tonics at Revans Bar. Ah well, life continues its learning curve.
June 15th
Windy yesterday and I swam instead of kayaking, even then I was finding myself getting blown out to sea. Even windier today with chairs attempting to take flight from my terrace, so I stayed home, wrote 2,000 words of a blog post, then did one of those ten minute jobs that takes two hours and requires a barrowload of tools. Now in Revans Bar where Yorgos has been putting down the umbrellas while beer crates have been crashing over in the entrance corridor come wind tunnel.


But all things considered. I'm sitting here in a T-shirt and not in the least cold. And the view isn't bad from Revans.

June 17th
Obviously a discussion about breakfast in Revans the night before last stuck in my mind. I all but inhaled this one.


Just a light breeze at sea while I was having breakfast so off I rush to get ready for kayaking. And now I return and the North wind has kicked in again. I guess I'll have to swim. Such problems so many wish they had.

June 18thOkay, back on track. I've just completed a 4,000+ word blog post which I'll put up next time I'm down here with the laptop and made a start on a short story. Unsurprisingly it begins with a guy out on a kayak. No idea where it will go, but that's part of the fun. I must hit this stuff every day now for the 2,000 words a day count. καλό απόγευμα!
June 20th
Yeah. Better than gin and tonic. . .

And today the dragon on the mountain is as clear as ever.

June 24th
Objectives achieved. This morning it was to write 2,000 words of a short story, this afternoon to kayak, and during the last miles back the objective is as below.

A Kostis Platakis club sandwich in Revans. One has to recharge the batteries!

June 25th
Ah well, start with a few bits and pieces that might make an interesting short story, 10,000 words on and as ever the story is not looking so short. But good stuff: I'm doing my 2,000 words a day.
June 26thRefuelling at the Gabbiano. Only at about 7 this evening did I note my total food intake was a small bowl of nuts and another of crisps. With beer. After a 10k kayak. But I'm a good boy: I wrote my 2,000 words this morning.

June 28thAnd once again what starts out as a short story idea has grown in the telling. Okay, dangerous predators on an alien world where evolution has been accelerated soon turns into predators with traits that cannot be evolved, on a world cut off by the beginning of the prador-human war, with a dodgy biophysicist who may want to do something radical with human evolution. And on past 14,000 words etc.
June 29thWell that was a dirty trick. Too windy to kayak so I swam. Meanwhile the buoys I was aiming for were taken in because of the wind. This added maybe a quarter of a mile before I realised the buggers were gone.

May 2019 Facebook Posts

Some have told me that they wish I would post more here than on Facebook. Apparently some people don't like Facebook, who would have thought it? So I thought I'd post a selection of stuff here.

May 1stHere are some photos from the signing I did in Forbidden Planet. I'm pretty sure there are others but right now I can't find them:
 




May 3rd
Not much achieved today. Work transferred to a laptop while I'm in a suitcase-half-packed hiatus. Even when I decided to go for a walk the skies opened.
May 4th
The sunny morning led me into a false sense of security. That wind out there is the breath of the Night King.
Damn, at 3AM I go to the airport, so why no need to snooze today as on others? Sitting here with suitcase packed, twiddling my thumbs.
May 5thEarly hours of the morning and another hour to go before my brother takes me to the airport. At least I achieved an evening snooze so don't feel too crappy.
Start with The Skinner (Spatterjay Book 1)

Owning the Future: Short Stories

Start with Dark Intelligence (Transformation Novel 1)

Get Gridlinked (Agent Cormac Book 1)

And appropriately the last I'm putting up tonight The Departure (Owner Trilogy Book 1)

That's enough spamming tonight. I wanted these at the top of my posts because I might not be back on here for a while.
May 7thConsidering the disaster stories I've heard the house itself wasn't bad. However, everything needed to be cleaned because of mould and because a family of rats moved in via the drain in the shower room.

Here's the front garden - in need of work.

So, house and garden on Crete. I knew I had some work to do since it has been two years and nine months since I was here. This is a picture of my front gate - the black fig took over.



Well, the Gabbiano is buzzing tonight. Pretty good for early May.

May 8thIn the Gabbiano again. I really need to do some food shopping. Today's lunch was a packet of 3 years' old Cheetohs.
May 10th
The Warship on Apple Books' What to Read this Month for May in Australia and New Zealand.
Warding off the May chill in the mountains or, rather, burning up garden rubbish inside since you cannot light fires outside now.



All clean inside now, though a bit chaotic still. Water came through the bedroom wall and stained it with mud, but just some repainting required there.

 


May 18thDamn. I came down to Revans in the hope of using the kayak today, but Yorgos has it stored in Irepetra. Next week then. I just tested the sea for swimming and demurred. Bugger.
Been doing plenty of work on the house. The skolichi have been at work (woodworm) so I've had to replace beams above two windows and let in a piece of wood at the bottom of one leg of the pergola. The garden is also now clear and I've started planting. Also an interesting if grotesque find in the garden...






Seems The warship has hit number 9 on the Bookseller's ebook rankings in its first week. This is for ALL fiction books. Nice.
May 21stAnd so it begins. . .

May 22ndInteresting development. No internet in the house here on Crete has given me my reading mojo back. Gladiator by Simon Scarrow, and Nexus by Ramez Naam. I'm now starting on some huge brick called Crusade. All books that have been sitting unread in the house for 5 to 6 years.
May 23rd
Over two days about 10k in the kayak each day - 2.5 to 3 hours out on the sea. Felt like I 'd been run over by a herd of buffalo.
May 25thEarly in the year so not busy at all, but Revans is looking very nice. Also, meet Yorgos and Kostis.
Sipping a drink to the sound of the waves in Revans Bar.




Uhuh. . .
May 28th
Annoyance with the fat around my waist has led to an upscaling in exercise. 12k mountain walking followed by 10k out on the kayak every day. I may add some swimming later too.
May 29th
Today thus far: 12k mountain walking, 10k kayaking, while my calorific intake has been two frappes, a beer and a bowl of nuts. I guess it's not an exercise and diet plan you'll find in a magazine.
I'm perpetually gobsmacked about those here on Crete who firmly believe ecigs are worse than smoking. Congratulations anti-ecig brigade - you are actually killing people.
May 31st
Yes, good day for a kayak. The sea is warm too. Very few people on the beach here, however - result of transfer times.And it's early in the season.





Very hot today. A brief shopping trip to Sitia, some gardening and now I'll go out and get boiled on the kayak. Work later: some alterations to some stories then moving on to writing the synopsis of The Human.

Crete Update

Checking dates I see I’ve been back on Crete now for just over two and a half months. I was surprised about that since it seems like a lot longer. I guess this is covered by the aphorism ‘a change is as good as a rest’ and my contention about why time seems to pass quicker the older you get. Our memories do not retain everything. They do not retain every cup of coffee we make or every dump we take. The more things we do, repetitively, the more we fail to retain and, as we get older, we’ve done more stuff so logically time seems to contract. I was in the UK for two years and nine months. Much of the stuff I’ve been doing and much that has happened to me while here is new, while things I’m doing that I have done before had perhaps faded a little and needed refreshing.
It’s been an interesting time. After all the work I had to do to restore the house and garden I returned to writing. First I did the lengthy blogs posted before this one, then a synopsis of The Human for Bella Pagan at Macmillan, then a reworking of the three Mason’s Rats stories into two possibly for Tim Miller’s ‘Love, Death and Robots’ on Netflix. Directly after that I decided to concentrate on some short stories opening my first file called SHORT STORY ONE and just writing, getting bored with that and then opening another. SHORT STORY TWO is as far as I got because it grew in the telling. I did my usual 2,000 words a day but this time not for the five working days a week but just whenever – taking breaks for shopping trips, some gardening or snoozing on the sofa because of too much kayaking or too much raki. I’ve just been writing segments telling the story of the colonisation of a world where evolution was accelerated by its sun becoming sufficiently active for radiation to penetrate a weak magnetosphere – not so intense as to kill everything but enough to drive mutation.
To this world come colonists out of the Polity, their aim to themselves evolve along a new course as they adapt to this world. They are old and just past their ennui barrier, these people – highly experienced and capable. But the world has some surprises, like a particularly dangerous and adaptive apex predator. Their chief scientist is also a little bit dodgy and may want to drive human evolution more than the colonists intend, while the timing of their colonisation is not so good, since the Polity had just encountered its first living alien civilization – some crablike creatures that might be just a little bit hostile.
This erstwhile short story passed 42,000 words before I had to put it aside to go through the editing of The Human. I’m writing this blog now as a warm up before getting back into it.
Other activities. . . In the previous posts I detailed how I renovated an old bamboo chair I found on the coast while out kayaking. While visiting two expats here called Tim and Helen I noted shutters they had removed from their house while renovation work was being done. They weren’t sure what to do about these rotten items. They also had some old hardwood shutters holding down the cover on their woodpile and I thought it might be possible to use them to replace all the rotten stuff in the other shutters. I offered to give it a go and these kept me occupied for a week or so. I’m no carpenter and wood filler was applied but they seem to have turned out okay.
Why do I do this stuff? I’ve worked all my life with my hands and find it relaxing, calming, while it also occupies time I might spend on less worthwhile activities like drinking too much. I could of course go for more walks but have found my limitations as far as exercise is concerned. I could and want to read more, and though I have read more books I’ve felt a little bit jaded by them. This, fortunately, has changed now upon receiving an ARC of Peter F Hamilton’s Salvation Lost and hopefully when I receive a care package from Macmillan (once they get a courier who can find my village). Why not write more? I hear the cry. Well, that has its limitations too kinda like burning the candle at both ends. If I write a lot I get mentally exhausted and need to stop and recharge. 2,000 words a day seems a constant pace I can easily keep up.
The garden too is another activity I enjoy here. I guess another point about all this is enjoying activities outside, because it is bright and warm – I can only sit tapping away at a laptop for so long when the sun is shining. The garden is pretty good now. I have just about eaten my way through a crop of lettuces, have an excess of spring onions, and am also enjoying radishes and a burgeoning crop of tomatoes. Initially the tomatoes weren’t doing well. They all looked good at first but when I checked them closer I saw that all of them had ‘bottom end rot’. I had heard that this was due to a lack of magnesium and thought about getting some. When I mentioned the problem in Revans, Yorgos said I should take one to the Agrotiko just a few doors down from the bar – a place full of the output of an agricultural chemical factory. The next day I did this, but the boss wasn’t there. The guy in there solemnly took my tomato and said the boss would look at it when he got back and to come back tomorrow. The boss, when I saw him, was obviously very knowledgeable about this sort of stuff. I questioned me on how much watering I did and some other things, then declared, ‘Calcium.’ He opened one of the numerous sacks in the place and filled up a carrier bag with white granular calcium and when I asked, ‘how much’ he just waved me off – no charge. I duly applied this. A week or so later new tomatoes showed no signs of bottom rot while some recovered – just having a brown mark on the bottom and being fine inside.
My lemon tree, which had suffered for three years without much water, threw up masses of leaves this year and grew very well. It had flowers on it and small lemons, but then they all fell off. I noticed the depredations of some leaf-cutting wasp and that some of the leaves were rather pale and sickly. Again I went to the Agrotiko. When I told the boss that I water every day he said, ‘Stop it.’ Apparently the tree won’t grow lemons if it’s getting everything it wants. The fruit (seeds) are its shot at genetic survival. The sickly leaves are apparently due to a lack of iron, and I am now applying that particular potion.
Chillies have been a constant with me here. I’ve grown all sorts but the best area type I first grew here from the seeds in dry chillies I picked up on a path in a nearby village. These are stunningly beautiful. The chillies, as they ripen, go through numerous colour changes so you end up with a plant scattered with chillies of green, yellow, orange, purple and red. The plant doesn’t look quite real – almost like a decorated Christmas tree. Unfortunately I had no seeds here. When I checked that local village I could find no sign of the original plant or any others (note: chilli plants can survive year after year here and in some cases grow into small trees). When I asked in my village about them I was told that there doesn’t seem to be any about. Later I remembered that another couple of expats – Pete and Katie – had those same plants self-seeding in their garden. I asked an a day later Pete turned up with about 30 or fort seedlings. Victory! Chilli sauce is back on the agenda this year.
Chilli sauce: half a kilo of chillies, one whole bulb of garlic, two cups of sugar and two of vinegar, whizz in a food processor, bring to the boil in a pan and jar in hot jars. Delicious.
While I had done my front garden I had been a bit desultory about the side garden and the one at the back. This was mainly because I’d buggered my back with too much walking and kayaking and simply did not fancy wielding a mattock on earth like concrete. But there is always someone here who wants the work. Neighbouring kids – the eldest of who was nine when Caroline and I first came here – have grown up. In order of age they are Angelo, Kostis and Yorgos. Yorgos and Kostis are now in their twenties while Kostis sports a large black beard. They all work hard and in fact have done so since teenagers if not before. There isn’t much money here to they’re working for wages most people would sniff at in the UK. Angelo – who is eighteen – though having little money to spend on himself let alone on others, decided to have a barbecue for neighbours, and I was invited. During this (I brought pork chops and raki) I asked him if he wanted the work and of course he did. He went at it hard for six hours and did an excellent job. I paid him his going rate, plus a tip, plus a bottle of wine and plus a bottle of chilli sauce which he had wanted at the barbecue but someone forgot to tell me.
I’ll now begin planting those areas with the numerous chilli plants (and other plants of course) I have in pots. These now include capsicum plants whose seeds I bought from Lidl, a cherry chilli plant Yorgos above snaffled for me from someone else’s garden, and ghost peppers. These last the seeds were given to me by Tim and Helen. I forgot they were in my pocket and they went through the wash, but they have now germinated. They should certainly add a kick to the sauce since they’re something like a million plus on the Scolville Scale.
What else? Well, my day usually consists of 2,000 words in the morning. Often I do these quite early because I’m usually up at dawn if not before. This is followed by various jobs around the house and in the garden. I then head off down to Makrigialos to use the internet in Revans and then head out on my kayak for two to three hours. A couple of beers usually follows this, though I am trying to be good and get back to karpousi (watermelon) juice and orange juice, but that’s difficult after you’ve been on the ocean in the hot sun for that length of time. Back here I usually flake out on the sofa – another habit I’m trying to break since it interferes with my night time sleep.
I’ve been out a few times in the evenings for meals at various establishments – a couple of times meeting up with old friends Shona and Rich, but often just recharging because I cannot be bothered to cook. But in that respect I am being fed here in the village. I helped a neighbour with some work on her house and she is now repaying me with various meals. The best of these is either meat or fish with ‘vlita’ – a vaguely spinach-like vegetable cooked with a few courgettes and potatoes then liberally doused with olive oil and lemon juice. A relative of hers has also turned up in a house nearby and she seems a dab hand with mousaka. The Greek mommas are keeping me fed.
Meanwhile, in Makrigialos, the tourist season is getting into full swing. At the weekends it is sometimes difficult to park because of the Greeks coming to the coast. These crowds, if past experience is anything to go by, will increase in August. I’ll probably have over-protective Greek mothers shouting at me when I come back from my kayak run – warning me not to bump into their precious brats splashing in the sea about fifty yards away. Maybe I’ll start walking in the mountains again and avoid the crowds, but otherwise, all is good here!

Return to Crete (Part Three)

Everything I could do with the house and garden here is all but done now and it is time to turn my attention to writing (hence this blog as a warm-up), but there is still a problem here that’s nagging at me. Before I came out I heard from expats here that now everyone in Greece must register their house or houses. This typically Greek bureaucratic process has apparently not been too difficult for many people. However, I have a problem in that this house is still in both mine and Caroline’s names. Stelios, the guy who sold me the place, put me in the hands of another Stelios – an accountant in Makrigialos. I also had house taxes to pay for 3 years. The accountant sorted out my taxes and I paid them at the bank, but then I learned that taxes were also owing for Caroline as joint owner. This needed to be sorted. My shlep through Greek bureaucracy began.

First I needed to get Caroline’s tax number and details cancelled and ownership of the house passed to me. I needed her death certificate for this. I was sure I had a copy in the house but no. I got onto my neighbour in the UK who is looking after my house there. Heidi kindly searched my office to find a copy and posted it to me (it took 3 weeks to arrive). I also had to see a notary, apparently, to obtain a document saying Caroline had not registered a will on Crete. I went to see a notary, sat in the office for half an hour only to be told the notary would not come in today. I returned another day, waited half an hour while crowds of Greeks entered, left, argued and waved wads of paper at the secretary. Finally, I suggested I come back another day when it was less busy, only then to be told I must apply to the local court for this document. When I asked her where this was she didn’t know. In Makrigialos I learned that it was the Demos – a particular building that sits behind a coffee bar where I enjoy a frappe in Sitia. I went there and saw the building approaching dereliction. A few enquiries later put me in new government offices were a lady produced a form I needed to fill in. They were very helpful there but still the strange wrinkles of Greek bureaucracy impinged. To submit this request form I had first to venture off to a bookshop in Sitia to buy €5 of stamps. I returned with these, and after a struggle filled in the form and submitted it. The next day I collected two copies of the form saying there is no will. Victory!

Not so fast Neal. On returning to Stelios the accountant I learn that our taxes, because the lawyer we used when buying the house is located there, were in Heraklion. I must go there to cancel Caroline’s tax stuff. But of course it is now not so simple. The taxes are tangled up with ownership of the house, with the bank too (I cannot even get a cash card until this is sorted). ‘Proof of no will’ and a death certificate are not enough on Crete because unlike the UK, without a will the sole inheritor is NOT the spouse. It’s a tangle, it’s confusing. I finally asked Stelios to act as my agent in this (he will go to Heraklion for me) and he is now steadily grinding his way through it.

One upside is the house registration. I had heard that if you don’t get your house registered on time the government will seize it. This is all rather unlikely but still worrying. Registration had an end date just within the next few months. However, I have learned that this has to be extended because just here, in the Lasithi region, only 20% of houses have been registered and of them only 50% of the registrations have gone through. Another likelihood is that this whole registration process will fall apart over the next year. They’ve done stuff like this before and it has gone the same route.

So there we are – more or less up to date. I am sitting in a clean and tidy house as I type this. My front garden is neat, and only requires watering while I wait for some plants to get big enough to transplant. Another victory has been the chillies. I had no seeds stored and wanted to grow the multicoloured chillies here but could find none. I then remembered a long-time expat called Peter had them growing in his garden and he came up with about 30 of the buggers. The back garden and side border need some work, but I’m reluctant to set about it with my back still aching. The only jobs I have done there is clearance of the weeds and fitting a steel lid to a cess pit back there since, while I was weeding, the concrete block in the hole fell through when I stood on it. Fortunately the hole is not big and I only went up to my knee. No possibility of me drowning in shit – the pit was dry anyway.

Anything else? Well, today my aim was to write 2,000 words to get back into that groove. I’ve written a further 1,700 for this post and now it is time for me to open another file and make a start on a short story. I’ll then sort out photographs for this post, maybe do a few jobs outside, then, because the wind has died off now, head off for some kayaking.

Ciao for now!       

Children of Ruin - Adrian Tchaikovsky

I thoroughly enjoyed Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky and (perks of the job) had an ARC of Children of Ruin to read. I dived straight in. The book starts with an Old Empire terraforming project in the past. For a while there I thought we were about to get a replay of the previous book and again looked at the brick of the thing and wondered if I might give up. I should have had more trust in the writer.


The ‘present’ timeline is set a couple of Human generations after the previous book with characters voyaging to a signal they had detected at the end of that book. The only remaining character is Kern – a human amalgamated with AI and subsequently copied to organic technology. But the portiids are there with all their enjoyable interplay, as are the humans.
Again I’m struggling here to review this without giving too much away, so I’ll get a bit general. It’s packed with excellent technology well-imagined from its sources, be they portiids, humans and some other creatures they find. The world-building is sometimes gobsmacking in that respect, but what is especially good is the detail of the thinking and communication of nominally alien creatures. The writing is easy and drags you in, and you know you’re in for a ride. About a third of the way in, however, I began to wonder how the narrative, enjoyable as it was, could be sustained with the story thus far. Adrian didn’t let me down, switching gear at about this point and accelerating with a plot twist (lightly signalled beforehand) that was horrifying, fascinating and truly alien. And this all slots neatly together for a suitably stonking ending. Reading the final section and epilogue was needed as a cool down.
I’ve had some trouble over recent years finding SF books that fully engage me and have often wondered if I’m just a bit jaded by it all. A problem with being a writer is reading something that doesn’t switch the editing head on and thus expel one from a book. This book thoroughly engaged me. Children of Ruin is a humdinger of a book I enjoyed immensely.
Recommended.     

Return to Crete (Part Two)

Continued from previous post:

Also while treating the woodwork I had noticed that the rough beams above two of the windows were so rotten and eaten away a screwdriver went straight through them. I tore them out, measured up, then went to visit two expats here called Tim and Helen. I’d already seen these two while walking (they live in Armeni). They collect up wood all over the place to burn in their stove during the winter and I had noticed some long logs in the woodpile at the bottom of their garden. Tim kindly let me have two of them. I treated and stained these ready to fit them in the holes above the windows. In the UK this would require sand and cement. Cement is no problem here but for sand the rougher version is crushed rock while the equivalent of soft sand is Marmora – crushed marble. I fitted the logs/beams and am very pleased with the result.



The Greeks have been amazed by all this. Woodworking requires a carpenter, painting requires a painter, electrics an electrician and so on. The divisions of labour here are quite distinct. They cannot quite fathom how one man can do all these different jobs, which is sad really.

I’ve only gone through the main jobs above (like the garden). All the time there were other things I needed to do: emptying out plant pots and cleaning out the weed roots and bulbs (I made a riddle out of chicken wire), frequent cleaning because Sahara dust was getting everywhere, setting cuttings of geraniums and other plants, sowing seeds of radish and like, and burning up garden rubbish in the stove (when it was still cool here).



 A few weeks back the essential jobs were winding down and it had become more a case of what an old friend and workmate called ekeing about. Also the weather had warmed up some and I decided it was time to start kayaking. I let Yorgos know by text but the kayak took a few days to arrive. He hadn’t stored it by his house nearby as I had thought but in storage he uses in Ierapetra. Thank you Yorgos.


Despite my hiding in the Cretan mountains my day job began to catch up with me. Bella Pagan – my editor at Macmillan – wanted a synopsis of The Human. I also worked on turning the three Mason’s Rats stories into two stories with a view, hopefully, of them being used in the next two seasons of Tim Miller’s ‘Love, Death and Robots’. Of course all of this doesn’t sound like a day job at all.


While I interspersed my days with kayaking or walking and at other times reluctantly opened up the laptop, I continued with something I had started last time I was here. Behind the house, in the area beside the ‘ruin’ (a little self-contained apartment), I had collected a great load of knackered old chairs. Those reading previous blog posts of mine will know I picked up a strange habit of renovating chairs here. Most of these I decided weren’t worth my efforts because even once renovated there would be nothing special about them. I chopped them into pieces and piled them on a pallet on the roof for later use in the stove. However, one bamboo chair I did think worth the effort and was one I had started on when last here. This I had spotted four years ago while out on the kayak – it had been washed up on the rocks of the coast. Once I returned to Revans in the kayak I headed out in my car and collected it. I had started replacing the binding on the joints but they had fallen apart in the intervening time.

I stripped those off, pulled out nails and repaired broken joints – in one case with an aluminium plate folded round and screwed in place. I treated the wood and set to work on new bindings made out of lengths of the plant broom. The chair once had a woven back and I replaced this with bamboo collected locally. Then stained and varnished the thing with another pleasing final result.






Meanwhile, after seeing a picture of me in Revans Bar and not liking the gut evident under my T-shirt, I had decided to push myself. Instead of doing the Voila walk or kayaking, I decided to do both. In the morning I walked to Voila, I then worked at some other things, then in the afternoon I kayaked. That’s 12k mountain walking and 10k kayaking. Damn I would soon remove the flab! I did do one week of this and in that time dropped 6lbs. However, I’m not 30 anymore and midday jobs usually meandered in a desultory manner until I crashed on the sofa, while my evenings struggled to reach 10pm again. This also started to exacerbate lower back ‘discomfort’ I had been experiencing for a month and which I’d put down to overdoing it in the gym back in the UK. This expanded to bladder pains and the need to urinate and, at the time, I thought I’d not kept myself hydrated enough and my internet diagnosis was that I’d got a bladder infection. I rested, ate more, took antibiotics that seemed to help but their effect might well have been in my mind.

Over time the pains drew back from my bladder and into my back, with occasional shooting pains down my legs. I now suspect the antibiotics were not needed (could be wrong) and that this 58-year-old simply overdid it. I decided to take it easy for a while and stayed in the house just carrying out some light chores. But of course the fact that I hadn’t painted inside nagged at me, and light chores turned into about 30 hours over two days of house painting and cleaning. I also found that the tile glue I had used as plaster in the hall to try and block the damp there had blown and had to chisel it away. I do have an off button, I just haven’t found it yet. Then, with a resurgence of all the symptoms, despite the antibiotics, I really did rest.

Since then, taking it easy, eating better and keeping hydrated, it seems my body has started to catch up with the exercise (the changes do occur during rest). Of course I’ve needed to urinate more, because the volume occupied by my bladder has shrunk (probably exacerbating the effects of an expanded prostate) – muscles have tightened there and grown elsewhere. I can even see muscles on my bloody shins while a couple of leather bracelets I wear have grown noticeably tight. Also (another internet diagnosis) maybe I had 'radiating pain' - back pain that moves about, like into the groin and down the fronts of the legs. Anyway, I’m doing only one exercise session a day now, with breaks whenever required.

Recently the exercise has included swimming because the Cretan winds have hit. One day I headed towards Kalo Nero (clean water is the translation and ‘not now’ was the comment many years ago from the Stelios who sold me my house). When I set out the wind was light and the waves not too bad. During this two and a half hour trip it cut up rough with a combination of waves from the South and wind from the North. I found myself out at sea fighting to get in and at one point wondering if I was going to make it. Another day I headed to Koutsouras. The North wind blew but I stayed close to the coast on the way there – the blasts diverted by mountain valleys and buildings on the coast mostly behind me. Upon my return I rounded the point at the end of a beach called Kalamakinyah straight into the blast and had to push myself to the limit – the kayak travelling at walking pace. When I rounded the next point in towards Makrigialos harbour I thought the ‘pirate ship’ moored there (a tour boat) would shelter me. It didn’t. Sometimes I was travelling backwards, sometimes driven into the rocks. Absolutely knackered I finally grabbed hold of the boat’s mooring rope and hung on. At this point a motor kicked in to tighten the rope and it rose out of my grasp. I then had to paddle like crazy to get in to the beach. I’m now going to be a lot more careful about the damned wind and waves here. I don’t want any more episodes like I’ve had before: abandoning my kayak on a beach and having to walk back in my swimming trunks and ask Kostis in Revans to fetch the thing in his truck or, due to lack of attention seeing at the last moment a big wave heading towards me and surfing me in backwards onto the rocks or, as on a couple of occasions, simply flipping the kayak over.

to be continued. . . 

Return to Crete (Part One)

Here I am again on Crete after two years and nine months. I initially left for two reasons – one is under a NDA and the other personal – and I stayed away for personal reasons too. I have already detailed all this, but in my journal. I won’t be writing about it here because I don’t know you well enough!


Knowing I was returning, I kept an eye on Facebook posts from people I know here and from some other local feeds. This last winter here has been one of the worst for a long time. They had so much rain even the Greeks were saying, ‘Enough now,’ and they usually wish for it to top up the ground water supply and because, well, it’s not that common and they haven’t acquired the English detestation of it. I heard about floods, roads washed away and landslides and watched videos of these. Riverbeds, which had been dry for a long time, abruptly ceased to be, washing down masses of bamboo and sweeping it out to sea, which then kindly heaped it up on the beaches and all along the coast. A hotel here called Villea Village was devastated with rooms filled with mud. I noted the usual cries of, ‘This has never happened before!’ and, ‘Oh my god the climate!’ Complete nonsense of course. That there are riverbeds here kinda indicates that they have in the past had rivers. Also, the hotel I mentioned was built right next to one of these whose local village behind by the same bed is called Aspro Potamus, which translates as White River. There’s a clue there. . .
Makrigialos where I go to swim and kayak had a couple of roads taken out, many properties flooded and that bamboo heaped on the beaches. Sitia, on the other side of the island, where I go shopping, was seriously flooded and pictures of it looked like those you see from third world countries in the monsoons. I heard that my village up in the mountains, between these two, was inaccessible due to landslides. I half expected to return to find my house in a pile of rubble at the bottom of the village or to open the door and have to wade inside, or shovel out mud.
During the drive from the airport I saw signs of the damage in Makrigialos, but the roads had been repaired and the beaches cleared of bamboo. When I finally arrived at my house and walked inside my fears proved groundless. Water, of course, runs downhill and my house is 700 metres above sea level. The only evidence of the heavy rain was in my bedroom. When Caroline and I first came here, we stayed one winter and, on New Year’s Eve, it rained for 10 hours straight. We were away celebrating and when we returned it was to find water pouring through at the base of the back wall and making a small waterfall over the step into the kitchen. This is because that wall is underground. I sealed it all as best I could and now there’s a patio area on the ground up there, but the water did get through this winter. However, all I needed to do was put a couple of wet mats outside to dry and later repaint the wall. This house was initially built of stone cemented together with mud and still has mud in the walls. This had soaked through and stained the paintwork.


 

The most damage I found inside was from local wildlife. Rats had got into the wastewater pipe, flipped up the little chrome drain cover in the bathroom, and come to stay. Their dry shits were everywhere with patches of dried out pee scattered throughout, but the most damage they had done was to chew a duvet cover and a few other items. Their other leavings weren’t really much of a problem since I needed to clean every surface anyway and launder every fabric I could.


I spent the first evening after travel just cleaning and running the washing machine. I slept in a mould smelling bed (no choice – no bedding clean or dry yet) and woke up with my eyes streaming and swelling from an allergic reaction – soon dispensed with using eye drops and an antihistamine. Over the next two days I cleaned throughout while running the washing machine perpetually. I didn’t bother getting any food in and instead headed down to the Gabbiano Restaurant and filled up there. Other snacks included packets of Cheetohs that were three years old, sardines and friganes (dry toasts also three years old). With everything bar the painting done inside I turned to attention outside.





Everything in pots was dead, the garden overgrown, while a structure I had built out of metal rose arches from Lidl bound together with bamboo and wire and up which I had been growing rosemary, had been taken by the wind a year before and deposited across the garden. Weeding therefore involved dismantling this thing as I went along. I cleaned up the garden and surrounding area and dug it over (with a mattock since impossible with a fork here). I then repaired a trellis that had been ripped from the side of the pergola and set about treating all the woodwork of the windows, doors and shutters. While doing this I found the ‘skolichi’ or woodworm had been busy. I had to cut out and replace a chunk at the bottom of one shutter and inset a piece of wood in one leg of the pergola.



Shopping next. I finally got some food and other needed items into the house. I also bought young lettuce plants and seed onions that I put in immediately. I ventured down to my favoured bar and was happy to see Yorgos and Kostis, had a coffee and headed away again. Still too cold for swimming and my kayak wasn’t there. I learned that Yorgos had put it in storage and would bring it out again once I was ready. But I still had work to do at the house and first I wanted to get back to walking in the mountains.


My first walk was hard. The seven mile walks I was doing occasionally in Essex simply do not compare. In fact, physically, I am much more active here in every way. There are more steps and slopes, and all the jobs outside. The rubbish here is not collected from the house but goes in a bin that is some way down the road beside the village. If I only shop at Lidl that’s similar to a shlep to the supermarket in the UK, but often I have to go into the town for things, and for a frappe, and for the joy of walking around in the sunshine. Already, with all this and the work I was doing, I was experiencing all sorts of aches and pains and finding it difficult to stay awake beyond 10 in the evening.


I decided right away to go on the long walk: to Voila (pronounced Voyla). One day I am going to write a book called ‘Walking to Voila’ covering my experiences here, the death of Caroline, the after-effects of that and much else beside. One day. Voila is a place I first walked to when fighting depression here. I felt pretty crappy one day and decided to walk until I felt better or dropped. Now I don’t believe in supernatural stuff, however, after crossing the mountains and heading out on some roads, the walking had its positive effect on me and reaching a junction I stopped and decided it time to head back. There I looked down and in the white line at the side of the road, in black lettering, were the words ‘Never Stop writing’. I think they were done with a stencil and had something to do with those who paint the lines? I don’t know. But those were some of the last words Caroline spoke to me before she died.


This walk entails a track with one steep slope and I felt that in my calves immediately. Next comes a slope up to the top of a mountain where wind turbines stand. This slope is over 45 degrees in places – the track concreted to stop it sliding away. It pleased me that though walking slowly I didn’t stop. I would put it as akin to walking up about twenty staircases. Euphoria hit after that on the top of the mountain and I shouted something about being ‘Back in Kriti!’ I completed the walk – past the ruins of Voila (a Turkish settlement with its ‘Tower of Tzen Ali), through the village of Handras, round a track to the village of Armeni, through that then back across the mountains past Agios Georgos to home. In all about 8 miles. Midday I slept for about three hours. I then went to bed at about 9PM and slept for a further nine hours. But thereafter I walked to Voila just about every day. 

To be continued.    

Book Signing

I will be signing copies of The Warship at Forbidden Planet London on Wednesday 1st May from 18.00 till 19.00. The link is here.


Their nemesis lies in wait . . .
Orlandine has destroyed the alien Jain super-soldier by deploying an actual black hole. And now that same weapon hoovers up clouds of lethal Jain technology, swarming within the deadly accretion disc’s event horizon. All seems just as she planned. Yet behind her back, forces incite rebellion on her home world, planning her assassination.
Neal Asher was born 1961 in Billericay, Essex, the son of a school teacher and a lecturer in applied mathematics who were also SF aficionados.
Prior to 2000 the Asher had stories accepted by British small press SF and fantasy magazines but post 2000 his writing career took flight. The majority of his novels are set within one future history, known as the Polity universe. The Polity encompasses many classic science fiction tropes including world-ruling artificial intelligences, androids, hive minds and aliens.