Falling monks and landing aliens!

The Accursed Mountains, Albania

It took me, once again, rather longer than expected to secure the ISBN numbers for my next book, Precious Things. This actually turned out to be a good thing! I had decided to format the book myself, and thought I had done the majority of the work a couple of months ago, but when I went back to it, I didn’t feel it looked professional enough. Word, wonderful as it is, was not designed for book formatting, which means to achieve some features of layout, you have to go a rather roundabout way. It also means there are fewer safeguards against putting something out that has a glaring mistake (chapter header missing, margins not set correctly), so I bit the bullet and bought a programme designed for book formatting. Even with that, it has been quite a challenge, but I feel as though I have done the book justice now—and learned my way around the programme so it will be easier next time! I’m waiting until mid-September to publish when, hopefully, most people are back in their usual routines and looking for something new to read.

 

In the meantime, I have been working on the book about the hotel. I find it easier to do if I have only a limitied amount of time to write, since it takes the form of a series of anecdotes and doesn’t need to all tie together. Nor does it require my powers of imagination/creation. Instead, I’m remembering things that have happened over the almost thirty years since we opened—good and bad—and it’s rather nice to look back and reflect, especially on some of the lovely people we’ve met over the years.

Gjirokaster, Albania
Rijika Crnojevika, Montenegro
Ohrid, North Macedonia

But I can’t claim to have spent the whole of July and August working. I also had another, amazing holiday! This time, I was hiking and sight-seeing with friends in the Balkans. I learned several things on this trip:

  1. The legacy of the Ottoman Empire is evident in all these countries (Albania, Montenegro, Kosovo, North Macedonia) in the form of old buildings, mosques, foods (especially variations on ‘borek’ or pastries) and language; there are whole areas where they speak a dialect of Turkish.
  2. The Accursed Mountains are actually very beautiful, though you might be forgiven for letting out the odd curse if you try to climb them in the heat of the day as we did!
  3. Some of these countries have tiny populations (Albania 2.8mill, Montenegro 0.6mill); it made me think about the advantages and disadvantages of living in a country with a couple of million citizens, as opposed to, around 87 million (Türkiye) or 70 million (UK).
  4. Mother Teresa, Rita Ora and Dua Lipa are all ethnic Albanians, as was the blind mystic, Baba Vanga, whose predictions for 2026 (purportedly) included another world war, major natural disasters, large scale disruption due to AI, and the arrival on earth of extraterrestrials!
Meteora, Greece
Princess Xenia, Montenegro
Albania

Apart from the beautiful mountain scenery, here are a few of the interesting places we got to see:

Meteora in Greece, where six monasteries perched atop pinacles of rock are still in use; before they built a path/steps up there, the monks used to be hauled up in nets, and occasionally the ropes broke!

Ohrid in North Macedonia, a beautiful town with lots of old Ottoman buildings, set on a hill beside Lake Ohrid, and a popular holiday resort.

Cetinje, the Old Royal Capital of Montenegro, a beautifully-preserved, historic town full of grand buildings that used to be embassies, that feels like it was left behind in another age. The statue below is of Princess Xenia, a multi-talented and pioneering woman (first female driver in the Balkans, passionate photographer, political and scientific adviser to her father, King Nicholas I), who was exiled with her family in 1916 and never got to return to her homeland.

I read lots of wonderful books over the summer; here are just two of them!

 

The Lady in the Lake – Laura Lippman

This book tells two stories: that of Maddie, whose life is limited by her marriage and the conventions of ‘polite’ society, and Cleo, whose life is controlled by her class and colour. Both find a way to escape, and their stories come together in a way that makes both their lives matter. They are wonderful characters and it is an interesting reflection of life in 1960s America.

Speak to me of Home – Jeanine Cummins

I loved this book, even if I did have to concentrate as it jumps back and forth in time, telling the story of three generations of women. Rafaela is Puerto Rican but she marries an American and their children grow up in the USA. Her daughter, Ruth, turns her back on Puerto Rican culture in an attempt to fit in, but her granddaughter, Daisy, moves to live in Puerto Rico. When Daisy has an accident, they are all made to confront their feelings about their identity. I read it while I was in Albania, and could see first hand the way the Albanian disapora maintain ties with the ‘motherland’ by spending holidays there, and sending children to stay with family members who stayed behind.

I hope you have all had a good summer—and are looking forward, like me, to getting back to some sort of routine!


Melanie