This isn’t easy, but my mind’s made up. I’ve decided to knock it on the head, pack it in, call it a day, as regards the blog. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this past decade and half, during which I’ve been posting first on my ‘Ramblings from Rhodes’ blog, and more recently, as in from late 2019, here on my Cretan blog, but in all honesty I don’t have the appetite for it any more. I’m more than grateful for my modest but loyal readership out there, some of whom I know have been reading my drivel almost since the very start back around 2009-2010 when we lived on Rhodes and my writing ‘career’ was still very much in its infancy.

Looking around on line, it’s clear that my absence will not cause much of a vacuum, since it seems to me that over the years that I’ve been doing this the internet has almost become crowded with others doing something similar. I shouldn’t be surprised really, because Greece is such a wonderful country (warts and all) that it’s no surprise that among the ex-pats moving here there will surely be a lot of people who simply want to share their own personal experience of this extraordinary part of our planet with anyone who’ll listen, even if it’s with their eyes rather than their ears.

Of course, I won’t be taking the blog down as such, it’ll still be here for reference, but, as from this post onwards, I’ll in all probability not be adding any more for an indefinite period. I remember an old friend back on Rhodes who used to run a taverna on Stegna Beach, and she used to refer to ‘την παύση μου’ when she talked about the business being wound up. It always struck me as one of those expressions that doesn’t translate all that well, since the literal translation of ‘μια παύση’ means ‘a pause,’ when in actuality it was a finish, a winding up, a termination of the business. Sometimes locals here will say ‘I took a pause’ when they mean they stopped, as in – for example – working for a living, when they retired.

So here I am folks, and I’m ‘pausing,’ only most likely in a permanent sense. If you’ve enjoyed my writing over the years, then I thank you sincerely from the bottom of my heart for taking the time in your precious lives to do so. Every second is a valuable commodity, and to think that you may have spent untold seconds, minutes and – in the case of my books – hours reading what I’ve written is, to me, an inestimable privilege. 

The books, all seventeen of them, plus my one short story, ‘Outage’ will all remain on Amazon and available (with the sole exception of the short story), both as paperbacks as well as Kindle downloads, indefinitely. If you haven’t yet read all of them (or indeed any of them!) I can only invite you to do so, since they don’t cost much more than a cup of coffee in the case of the downloads, and you’ll be making an aging would-be writer very happy if you do.

I’ll also keep the facebook page ‘John Manuel – the Books’ going for a while yet too. There I shall announce it as soon as the latest book ‘Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Greece’ etc finally comes out as a paperback, plus I’ll probably still post the odd link to other Greek info that may be of interest to those who follow it. I’ll also post photos there from time to time, new as well as old, as they take my fancy, or I think that you might just like to see them. 

Right now I don’t see myself writing another book but, never say never, as the saying goes. When I first sat down to write ‘Feta Compli!’ all those years ago, I thought that I probably only had the one book in me. I ended up writing eight non-fiction works, so I was a bit out with that prediction, wasn’t I? Also, when I wrote the first novel, ‘The View From Kleoboulos’ I never dreamed that I’d ever write another, and I ended up writing nine. I have to admit though, that as regards any ideas for a new plot, I’m currently experiencing a monumental writer’s block, so no use holding your breath there either. 

Once again, thank you so, so much for granting me the time to become a small part of your life, if only for a few minutes. It’s a privilege I shall never, ever take for granted, I assure you. I wish you all the best, and do please carry on reading about all things Greek. In this currently extremely volatile world, we need places like Greece and her islands to bring us a little respite, a little sanity, even if the Greeks themselves can appear a little mad now and then. Oh, and I have no intention of retiring from being an Admin on the Facebook group ‘A Good Greek Read,’ either. There’ll be no ‘pause’ where that’s concerned. 

But right now, well, it’s time I took a pause. Thank you, thank you for having been there. I hope that whatever you may have read of my writings, either here or in the books, has brought you some small enjoyment and that you’ll always think well of me.

John Manuel

Lasithi, Crete,

February 24th 2026

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Thank you.