I'm back from hols and itching to blog. We had a great time in Crete but I have to admit I was ready to come home by the Saturday. I just really missed my friends and *hangs head in shame* the internet. If i'd been able to get wi-fi out there and been able to take a few friends then i'd never have wanted to come home!
As always, the residents of Panormo were so welcoming. We arrived to a bottle of wine in our apartment with a note saying 'We are really glad to have you back!'. How sweet is that? Our friend, Likourgos Drandakis, was full of enthusiasm as usual and we were pleased to hear that his Dutch girlfriend, Marissa, is now living with him and works on reception at the Iliana (the apartments where we stay). They both loved Phoebe, especially Likourgos, but his dog, Godzi (short for Godzilla) was so jealous whenever he talked to Phoebe. Likourgos gave Phoebe a beautiful little bracelet as a present too.
At the Fanari taverna, Antonis, Yiannis and their parents didn't seem to have changed at all. Antonis took great pride in telling other diners that we got married in Crete 5 years ago and had now brought our daughter here too. I heard him tell a couple of peeople that he remembered me being pregnant. Hmmm, no Antonis, I was just fat the last time you saw me....
Phoebe charmed everyone in the taverna with her dinner routine of picking things, one by one, off her plate and then lining them up on the table before returning them, one by one, to her plate before deciding which bits to eat (or chuck on the floor). They have swings outside the taverna and some days she wouldn't take her eyes off them until Rich took her on them.
This will be a long blog by the way so if you haven't got a cup of coffee already, you might want to go get one now ;)
There's a saying that goes 'There are two sides to every story'. I found myself thinking how true this is when we attempted a nature walk one day to find some turtles down in the river bed. We'd been given very basic directions and set off with Phoebe in the backpack seat. It was wonderful! We passed giant cacti and pine trees that housed weird stringy nests. We spotted a weasel type creature and saw so many beautiful butterflies. We passed a farm with an orchard in which lived chickens and two gorgeous peacocks as well as two very noisy guard dogs (good job they were behind a fence!). After a while we realised we must've taken a wrong turning and so turned back. We spoke to Antonis who told us where we went wrong and we decided to try again the next day.
On our second attempt we found ourselves going downhill past another farm (and more guard dogs) until we found ourselves at the dried up river bed. As far as the eye could see there was no water in either direction so we chose to turn right and walk along the river bed for a while. Once we'd been walking for 30 minutes altogether I said I didn't think we'd see any turtles and so we turned back to make sure we had Phoebe out of the sun before it reached the hottest part of the day.
Now, that all sounds lovely doesn't it? And, in all honesty, it was like that. But like I said, there are two sides to every story. As we did all the above I found myself thinking how I might describe the experience to someone if I wasn't trying to make it sound perfect. Phrases like 'walked for what felt like bloody miles' and 'sweltering heat' come to mind as well as 'trying to walk on uneven rocky paths in sandals' and 'only to find there were no f*ing turtles anywhere!!'. Rich accused me of having too high expectations and said I was acting like i'd expected an all singing, all dancing Turtle show at the end of it. You know what? Maybe I did...turtles in sequinned waistcoats with top hats and canes ;D
On the way back we took a closer look at the weird pine tree nests. We couldn't work out if they'd been made by birds or maybe hornets. My train of thought went a little something like this...
Hmm, what sort of small birds would nest in a pine tree? House martins make nests on houses so maybe pinemartins make nests in pine trees? Yes that sounds plausible, it must be pinemartins. Oh, hang on. That doesn't sound right. I've made this mistake before haven't I? Pinemartins aren't actually birds are they? Hmm, what are they? Oh I know, I saw one on a wildlife programme, where Bill Oddie lured one out by putting peanut butter on a log. Ahh, yes, they're like stoats or minks! Gosh, I wonder why I managed to get that wrong twice? Hmm, Pinemartins are clever things. They've made me think they were birds. Maybe that's how they get peanut butter without being seen...they convince people that they are birds, so we all look to the skies, then they sneak past and steal all our peanut butter. Tricky beggers!!
I'm sure there's other stuff about the holiday i've forgotten but I want to move onto other stuff so i'll just come back to it if I remember anything.
When we got home my goodies from Wysteria Lane were waiting for me at the post office. The packaging was absolute bliss; all shocking pink tissue paper and black bows. There was even a little hand written card to say who'd packed it and they hoped I liked my goodies. As they'd sold out of the small candle i'd bought, they'd sent one twice the size instead dor no extra cost. Could it be any more perfect? I made sure I e-mailed them to say thank you for such brilliant service.
I looked at the new Jean Paul Gaultier Summer fragrance in the duty free shop by the way. Unfortunately they've changed it. My one is a skin softening oil spray but now it's just an alcohol free EDT. It didn't smell anything like as nice as mine so i'm going to hang onto it instead. If it's worth something now, you never know it might increase in value!
I had another mad hunt through the spare room for my Banksy books but no joy. On the plus side, I did find my Pet Shop Boys fanzines from 1991. I can't believe it, i've got issues 3-6 still in the presentation wallet. The reason i'm so excited is that the ones I saw go for £21 on ebay were from 2003. Another set of 3, issues 5-7, went for £52. Technically mine should go for more than that! Thank god i'm a hoarder eh? I've now listed them with a start price of £20 and got an immediate bid from a guy in Brazil :D
I've still got loads I want to blog about but it's taken me all day just to get this much done (in between bouts of midget wrestling, erm, I mean quality parenting) so i'll leave it there for today ;D
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