Well, we’ve had our rain, two days of intermittent drizzle, not the tropical downpours we can expect in deepest winter that create floods in a number of Cretan towns such as Kalyves and Souda so I doubt what we’ve had will have done much for the olive crop. The last two days though have been sunny and it has been back into the garden time. The only trouble is the amount of work now required is thoroughly daunting. Where does one start? It’s Hercules and the Augean stables but it’s going to be a very long day. Money money money: if only one could afford a gardener. Money money money: Douglas wants to buy an Adobe Master Suite – it costs well over £2000 which evidently is twice the American price, where to find the money? Money money money: fortunately we’re not in the position of negative equity or quids in to a bank but do have our heads above water, just, so long as nothing untoward makes waves.
He who I thought all along to be the murderer was sentenced to life imprisonment for the crime so clever clever author to lead me up the garden path, but wait – here comes the twist – he was actually innocent of the crime though still condemned and doomed to suffer his term in gaol. Unfortunately when it came to the denouement the name of the character who did commit the murder was a complete mystery to me so the moment of gasp passed without the gasp. I guess this character must have been mentioned earlier in the book but, if so, it was so far back, he was by now totally out of mind and all the justification that came after didn’t matter a diddlysquat.
So now I have to find something else to read. I’ve given up on the book Beryl left. Won’t mention it by name but the daily minutiae of Nigerian life has become tedious. How this has won prizes is beyond me but everyone to his or her own taste. In the meantime you would think with more than 5000 books in the house my chubby fingers would search out something to occupy me but it isn’t that easy. You have to find the exact volume to capture your imagination at a particular time even if it is something you’ve read before. Maybe I ought to go back to Dickens. There are some of his novels I’ve never read. And talking of reading, I don’t think people do read these days and I am not just talking of the submissions to Ealing Studios that were returned unread. Douglas as a literary agent sent an e-mail today to Harper Perennial asking for the name of an editor to whom he should submit a manuscript and received a reply saying he should (a) find a literary agent and (b) get the Writers’ Yearbook to which he has replied saying (a) He is a literary agent and (b) Thank you he already has the Writers’ Yearbook. So far no reply to that.
Chris is worried about his prostate and has an appointment for a scan but not until late in December. He feels he cannot wait that long so intends to go private. Fortunately medical expenses here are nothing like they are in the UK so it is not a case of money money money because it is hardly likely to break the bank and, if it puts his mind at rest, that’s how it should be.