under another sun

Monday and news of another effective vaccine from AstraZenica and Oxford University. This one also reaches 90% effectiveness if given in two doses. Being manufactured here, this is likely to be the one we'll get. Otherwise a fairly cheery day, I continued on with my new Diabolus in Musica story. Just need a nastier twist in it. I shall come up with something. Received a rejection (although polite and encouraging me to send more) for Doctor Spotlight. Gah. I think it is a good story, but Black Static seem to go for the more overt and gory. I already have somewhere else to send it in mind. Went for three walks today, and smashed my 10k paces for the first time in over a week. Felt much better for it too. Watched lots of episodes of the WW2 week by week You Tube series that Anton talked about. Very good, and now Operation Barbarossa has started, pretty dreadful. It does give you the picture that half of the major events in warfare seems to pivot on human error, pigheadedness and co...

Paleochora Home from Crete this afternoon, and feeling really relaxed. A week's escape in the southern Cretan village of Paleochora - a population of about 2000 swollen by visitors in the summer from all parts of Europe and beyond was just what the doctor ordered. Spent days sitting on the beach in the shadows of the umbrellas, and reading the surprisingly good Watchmen, and listening to audiobooks. The sun was incredibly hot, and the stones and sand were painful to walk on as they were so hot. Broke off from this periodically to swim over the rocks of the eastern pebbly beach. There was beautiful snorkeling to be had. The shallow sea floor was boulder strewn, at first glance looked like some kind of lunar landscape. But they when you looked it was full of life: old gold coloured anemones with libidinous pink tips waving in the current, and spiky dark stars of sea urchins wedged in between the rocks. And at least a dozen species of fish, gorgeous brightly coloured wrasse,...