It’s coming up for a quarter past eleven and there is no point in going to bed, not to sleep anyway as a trio is playing traditional Cretan music up at the village square which is some distance away. It’s amazing how sound travels here. It’s amazing how the Greeks have taken to amplification like it’s a gift from the gods. The motto is obviously the louder the better. Like mobile phones it’s everywhere. Crete has so many wonderful musicians available for all social functions and they all believe in multiple decibels. Once a year we go to a celebration at the village of Litsarda which is three kilometres away and, on arriving back in Vamos we can still hear the musicians playing. I have no doubt tonight’s music will continue till the early hours And what I wonder did the priests do in church before they were given the use of the microphone? So, if I’m to listen to music for the next hour or so I could always carry on reading, my bedside book at the moment being A World To Build by David Kynaston, subtitles, no surtitled rather, Austerity Britain 1945-48. I usually have at least three books on the go: a bedside book, a loo book, usually a thriller or novel, and another for the avli or breakfast room. Don’t really now what to call that part of the house. Breakfast room is wrong because it’s also lunch and dining room. Originally the property consisted of two separate buildings and Douglas joined them up with what we refer to as the avli, or courtyard, even though it’s roofed, with plastic and is full of exotic plants including an enormous weeping fig that has grown out of all proportion so it’s really a conservatory of a kind I suppose. A recent loo book was Beloved Boy by Henry James, his letters to the Norwegian/American sculptor Hendrik Anderson. I got it because somebody lent me a novel The Master which was based on James’s life so, when I saw Beloved Boy was published I got that. I also only got halfway through it when I gave up as all the letters carry virtually the same message and it got a bit boring. I could of course carry on rereading my autobiography for any corrections as hopefully it will be published later this year. It already has an IBSN number so I had better get on with. It is of course, wouldn’t you know, titled No Official Umbrella.