Escape to the Tatras
At the beginning of the month, I finished the second book in the Kismet series. I have sent it to some readers for their ideas and after a final read through, will send it to the editor. I have also started two new books. One is another novel, with a main character who is English, comes to Turkey on holiday and ends up staying. Sounds a little familiar! The other is something that people have been urging me to do for many years: a book of anecdotes from twenty-five years of running a hotel. It is quite different from writing fiction in that there is no need to plot and develop characters but I have to delve through my memory and some notes I have made over the years. This makes it good as a second project that I can do in the afternoons whilst getting on with a novel in the morning. I imagine it as an entertaining, light-hearted book that people can dip into to get a taste of the not-so-glamorous life of running a hotel!
At the beginning of the month, my eldest son turned 30. It seems hard to believe that 30 years have gone by since I became a mother! Our little town has grown so much since then, but at the time, the maternity hospital where I had him was an old villa that had been donated to the health department. I spent 2 days in the only ‘private’ room (there was a small ward upstairs) before he was born. It was on the ground floor and I was only supposed to have one visitor at a time but the nurse kept coming in and catching 3 or 4 extras who had climbed through the window. They put bars on that window shortly afterwards!
For my son’s birthday, I wanted to put together an album with one photo for every year of his life and found that while I had plenty to choose from for the early years, and enough from holidays during his teens, since he turned twenty, I seem to have remarkably few good pictures of him. Note to self: take fewer photos of dogs and cats and more of sons!
I was happy to escape the heat of August for 10 days in Poland and Slovakia with a couple of friends. We started in Krakow, which is a beautiful city that I would definitely return to. Then we went to the Tatra Mountains and had a few days hiking around Zakopane, before travelling over the border to Slovakia for more mountain walks. The trails are well-marked and there is an electric railway which runs through the mountain villages and makes it easy to get to the trail heads. It was not quite so crowded as the Polish routes, but still it seemed as though everyone in Slovakia hikes and the popular trails were crowded.
In Fethiye, we often walk for hours without seeing anyone, except perhaps a local farmer. In a way it’s nice to get away and enjoy the peace, but it also feels as though we are missing a trick. The Lycian Way (and other long distance hiking routes in Turkey) have had plenty of publicity, but there are also many day hikes of varying lengths and difficulty levels. With small improvements and a bit of marketing, I think it could bring more tourists to the area.
We ended our holiday in Bratislava, which is a tiny capital city of half a million people. It has an involved history, a very small part of which we learned on a walking tour which was a great way to see the most important sites.
Other than that, August is not a month for doing a great deal as it is so hot. Staying in, where at least you can sit in front of a fan or turn on the a/c becomes very attractive and it also means I have done more writing – and more reading. Here are some of the things I have read:
Apple Tree Yard – Louise Doughty
A dark psychological thriller, this book tells the story of a successful woman whose life falls apart after she has an affair – but not for the reasons you might expect. One of the interesting things is the timeline, which starts with the main character sitting in court facing a charge of murder alongside her lover and then jumps back and forth to tell the story of how they got there. Clever and intriguing! Now I want to watch the television mini series.
A Mumbai Murder Mystery – Meeti Shroff-Shah
This one is quite different in tone from the above – a cosy crime novel set in India, but in this case a very rich suburb of Mumbai. The obsessions and affectations of the residents are fascinating and the food that is described (a lot of it!) all sounds delicious! For me, the mystery came secondary to the characters and the glimpse of another lifestyle.
Happy reading!
Melanie