Last night I went to a talk given by Salley Vickers, and she read a few lines from a short story, about taking a bus to from Penzance to St Ives to see the Barbara Hepworth exhibition. She and her friend were alarmed at the speed the driver went at and arrived in a quivering state. She used this experience in a short story, but had a lone man take the bus and use the turns of the run away bus to lurch towards the body of a girl seated next to him, who then accepted a drink from him at his hotel - at which point Salley Vickers stopped her reading.
This brought back good memories of Thessaloniki, Greece. I was on a mission to introduce Greek writers to UK publishers, which resulted in our publishing Vangelis Hatzyiannidis' books, Stolen Time and Four Walls. We had a spare hour between seminars and meeetings so I went into the hotel spa pool for a swim in salt water (it was a tiny pool but the spa was warm, the water salty and very good for mind and soul). I emerged, and a well known female scout invited me to the top floor panoramic bar for a drink. We took our seats at a table with bar stools, and were surrounded on four sides by glass, a view of the port and city, and then there was an almighty thunderstorm with lightning. The skies went dark, then lit up, and opened with torrents of rain. Next, a waiter came over with two tall glasses of white wine, which we had not ordered, and a man on the other side of the bar nodded at us. We could not work out which of us he had decided to honour with a free drink... A highlight, so to speak, of our trip, and a definite pick me up.
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