Ithaca holiday – additional bits

Posted on July 23, 2013 by thepogblog

I came home in the end rather than hiding out in the big villa I mentioned in my last post.  I think I’d rather still be perfecting my snorkeling (who am I kidding? – getting to grips with a leaky mask and a continuous sense of slight panic), but it’s been great to see Norman, Sisters 1 and 2 and Little Pea.  Apologies for the state of the posts while I was on holiday.  My phone didn’t seem to like the heat, I have fat fingers which not designed for a keyboard that size and I was also sitting on a door step in near dark each time I wrote a post (I didn’t want the light on to attract the bugs).  But I rather liked the fact that I could hear the sea lapping on the beach as I typed.  Even if it meant I typed badly.

I thought I’d round up the holiday posts with a few bits that didn’t make it into the badly written posts.  It might also demonstrate where I get some of my Pogness from.  First though, I just want to mention that even though I went on holiday with my parents, I paid my way.  Almost everyone we met commented on the fact that ‘of course you’re here with your parents, with them paying for the whole thing.’  They didn’t and I wouldn’t – end of small rant.  So, back to the additional bits:

  • People pack weird things when they go on holiday.  Dad took a thermometer. I took a bag of assorted wool and my crochet hooks.  We all took a block of cheddar cheese.
  • Having a thermometer on holiday can make you more than a little obsessive about the temperature, but it’s useful when you come back from a long walk as it can explain why your insides feel like they are melting and why your finger tips feel like they might explode:

pic 4It was 53 degrees but I fumbled with the camera and missed that.

  • Wool can be useful on holiday.  Courtesy of a lovely blogger called Janette at the Green Dragonfly I made myself a pair of crochet slippers.  Somehow I made one wider than the other, but it turned out to be good practice as I really wanted to get Little Pea some Greek slipper things, but there were no teeny tiny ones on the teeny tiny island…. Instead, I adjusted Janette’s pattern and made him some.  Mum and dad made the pom poms :o)

pic 2

  • Three blocks of cheddar cheese is too much for two weeks.  (Dad doesn’t like feta so he has that while mum and I concentrate on feta with the lovely tomatoes you only get abroad).  The four packets of crackers we took between us were not quite enough though…
  • My mum does a great owl impression.
  • My mum does a not quite so good moth impression.
  • My dad will never let me drive a hire car again.  I drove him to the shops to prove I could be trusted.  Apparently reversing the car a considerable distance to avoid having to pass another driver was proof I was incompetent (I admit, it was a bit rubbish, but better safe than sorry).  In fact, after this episode, I wasn’t even allowed to hold the torch we needed to get from the taverna to the villa at night!
  • Getting up at 5.15am to walk up a mountain and watch the sunrise is not necessary when the sun doesn’t rise until about 6.45am.  Sitting on the side of a mountain with your mum in the dark for around 45 minutes can be fun though.

pic 6

  • Crickets bite.
  • My dad really does take a fly swat everywhere…although I am now almost immune to him waving it around in tavernas.
  • I am now an international mad cat woman – when I saw a group of (English) kids throwing stones and firing a huge water pistol at the local cats I stood up and shouted at them despite being part way through dinner in a busy taverna.  They tried to out stare me.  They lost. :o)
  • Costas won my heart with his home made cake I had on my last visit to see him (along with more kitchen roll provided to wide up my sweat!).

pic 3

  • The lovely waitress  – who cleans four villas every morning and waitresses every night with no day off over the entire summer so she can spend the winter with her daughter and husband in Romania – gave me this card on my last night.  I was really touched – not to mention really impressed with her writing in English!

pic1

And now I am home…and Norman seems happy.  Due to an amazing Sister 2 , he was well looked after while I was away.  She even had dinner at my house a few times so he didn’t get lonely.  What a star! :o)

pic 5

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Ithaca post 7 – goodbye

Posted on July 19, 2013 by thepogblog

Tomorrow morning we leave :( Well, we should. As you would expect with me, not everything has gone to plan and this evening i discovered,as i attempted a shower that we only had a teeny dribble of water from the shower and that was at boiling point. Cue dad attempting to fix it, then texts to rep (ignored) and finally call to the lovely German cleaning lady. To cut a long story short, the fantabulous cleaning lady zoomed down on her moped and may have fixed it…we won’t find out until we try in the morning. Just in case we still have a problem though, she has given me the key for the huge empty villa next door. The villa that will be empty for a while. The villa that nobody would be aware of having a squatter for a while. Possibly with a few cats for company…

So it maybe goodbye in the morning…but maybe not :o)

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Ithaca post 6 – Greek men

Posted on July 16, 2013 by thepogblog

Before I came on holiday someone suggested I find myself a Greek man while I was here. I am happy to report I have found three. Their combined age is around 190.
We have Costas who I mentioned the other night. He owns my favourite place in the world and clearly has an obsession with kitchen roll.
There is Panos who runs the cigarette-and -everything-else-you-can-think-of shop in this village. Every night he teaches me a bit of Greek, I memorise it til I get to the taverna, scribble it phonetically on the table cloth, rip the piece off and stuff it in my purse so I can remind myself before he tests me the next night. My purse is now full of scraps of table cloth.
And finally there is the lovely Nico. He has the only bar /shop in a mountain village almost wiped out by an earthquake in the 50’s. It contains a live parrot, a huge stuffed vulture and for sale, a lot of tinned luncheon meat and air fresheners. He makes a damn good Greek coffee too.
So, that’s the pick of the buch. All so lovely that i couldn’t choose between them if i tried :o)
And here is Nico:

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Ithaca post 5 – triathlon and a donkey

Posted on July 14, 2013 by thepogblog

Today I did a triathlon. Pog style.
First, I climbed up a mountain to a beautiful church (ok, we drove part way but mum and I climbed the last, hardest part).
Second, I swum and snorkelled with the fishies (not too taxing, but I did have a leaky mask).
And third, I cycled with some courgettes and peppers in my ruck sack to, what I thought was, a hungry donkey I had spotted on my travels yesterday and promised I would return to with nice food. It turns out donkeys don’t like courgettes. Or peppers. So much for being hungry. I have bought him an apple tonight and will go back tomorrow to see if that is more to his taste… Only first I will be climbing over a small mountain at 5.30am with mum as she wants to watch the sun rise and then go to her favourite beach before it gets too hot. Still, it will be a nice change from my usual Monday morning commute :o)

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Ithaca post 4 – creatures of sea and land

Posted on July 12, 2013 by thepogblog

On our first day here I did a rather daft thing. I booked myself on a day out on a boat involving lots of swimming and snorkeling. This was daft as I:
1 – get sea sick
2 – HATE being covered in dry salt for more than 2 minutes (I have been known to take 6 bottles of tap water to the beach if a shower is not available)
3 – am scared of putting my head in the water so have never tried to snorkel with any success.

Today was a revelation though…with the help of sea sickness tablets I conquered all three and have swum with fishies, starfish and an octopus! It was amazing and I just wish I had tried harder before.

I decided I could never eat fish again, but found myself ordering them for dinner. I made myself feel better by sharing what I had with the local cats. But it seems that whatever god of animals there might be was not pleased…and a cat peed in my bag at the taverna :(

It serves me right – I probably ate the cousin of one the fish I swam with earlier. I will have to have another go at snorkelling tomorrow and go and apologise to the remaining fish. And hope like hell I have managed to wash the smell of cat pee from my bag, purse, camera case and cardigan! :o)

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Ithaca post 3 – loveliness

Posted on July 10, 2013 by thepogblog

Today I cycled to my most favourite place in the world. Three people slow clapped and cheered as I made it up the final hill (embarrassing, but the closest I will ever get to the tour de France!).
It was worth it to step inside the unique mini market / bar run by Costas – who must be about 208 – and who kindly gave me most of a kitchen roll to mop up my sweat. The only things he seems to sell are kitchen roll and around 37 different varieties of spam. As usual, the local shepherd and a few others were drinking their beers crowded around a small tv and Costas I i talked to each other I our respective languages, neither understanding the other, but both doing a lot of smiling and waving of arms.
I had the most peaceful lemonade outside on a brand new plastic chair he seemed very proud of, watching the boats on the sea through the olive groves. Then another, just so it lasted longer.
I wish you could bottle times like that, and take them out to taste in winter :o)
(the picture is of costas bar/shop)

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Ithaca post 2 – useful things

Posted on July 9, 2013 by thepogblog

I have learned 2 useful things today:
1: a tip from the lovely cleaner here. A really nice refreshing drink is 2/3 black tea, 1/3 orange juice. Chill in the fridge and serve with ice cubes. Delicious (and if you make a big bottle it stops the headaches caused by lack of caffeine when you usually drink gallons of black coffee…)
2: If you have not ridden a bike in months, attempting to do so in 50 degrees, uphill, is not clever. The return journey is great though :o)
And here is our friendly gecko…

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Ithaca post 1

Posted on July 7, 2013 by thepogblog

Not quite in relaxed holiday mode, I was bright eyes and bushy tailed at 5.30am today. I got to see sunrise though :)
I may be coming home paler than arrives though as by 8.30 it was 32 degrees (yes, Dad brought a digital thermometer with him…) and when it hit 52 degrees we put it inside in case it blew up! Way to hot to actually sit in the sun, but so peaceful and beautiful here, that is ok with me…at the moment :)

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Hooray for holidays!

Posted on July 5, 2013 by thepogblog

Finally, FINALLY I am packed and ready for my holiday!  I’ll be going to my favourite place in the world – Ithaca – a tiny Greek island.

For the lovely colleague I said I’d post about my single-independent-woman holiday, I realised I already had – you can ready it here.

So after the last few months of utter chaos at work I’ll soon be in the Greek sun with no sign of a laptop.  I’m going with my parents again which means that along with my crochet hooks and a carrier bag of wool in my suitcase, I have a packet of crackers and a block of cheddar cheese (Dad prefers an English lunch).  I’ve also called to remind him to bring his walking stick.  He forgot it last year and we had to take the villa mop apart so he could use that.  As you can see, it’s unlikely to be an average holiday.  I’m going to try to post while I am there from my phone so you get to see a bit of the island too (they will probably be short posts as I am rubbish at typing on my phone!)

And now I am off to bed.  The taxi arrives at 3am :o)

ithaca

 

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Perplexing Perceptions

Posted on July 2, 2013 by thepogblog

I’ve been feeling perplexed.

Last week I was having a conversation with a colleague and she slipped in

‘you’re in your 40’s aren’t you?’

As it’s another few years before I even reach 40, let alone settle comfortably ‘in my 40’s’ I fought the urge to thump her and just smiled sweetly, wondering how haggard I’m looking these days. (Not that you look haggard in your 40’s you understand, it’s just a few years away and I am in denial about where in my 30’s I am!)

The next day I had to fill in some official forms with a bored man on the phone so he could then send them to someone I’ve met a couple of times.  She emailed me as soon as she received them to tell me there had been a mistake.

‘what mistake?’ I asked

‘it says here you’re 37’

Gritting my teeth a little I said ‘if you say you thought I was in my 40’s, we will fall out’

‘No, no’ she said ‘you’re close to my age aren’t you?’

‘How old would that be?’ I asked as I did a few calculations based on what I knew about her.

‘22’!!!!

I swear, I would have kissed the girl if she’d been standing in front of me!

I was sitting on my back door step with a cup of coffee first thing this morning, pondering how it is that people can see the same thing so differently while I stared into space and I noticed this:

Can you see it?

It’s been in my garden for about 5 years and it has always just been a rock.  At a push, Norman Cat’s rock.  But today I noticed it has a face.  (Tell me you see it too, or I really have lost the plot).

I am still as perplexed as I was this morning – more so possibly.  But I think I am going to make more of an effort to notice things (and when estimating anyone’s age, I’ll be knocking off a decade, just in case!) :o)

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