I am scared of flying…. Just one of those things. So whilst sitting in the shed that calls itself Crete departures ‘lounge’, I decided to partake in one of my favourite activities - people watching. I glanced around, viewing the typical ‘airport collection’ of interesting people. I saw a couple to our right who had clearly attending the plasma physics conference (I will tell you about Mr Japan later). He was slightly hunched in a geeky manner with greying black hair, glasses, a slim build, beige trousers pulled up a little too high, a light blue shirt (tucked in), a navy jacket which was a little too long and sensible glasses. She was a little more trendy but complemented him exactly. They had to be baptists.

Opposite me were two sunburnt, hungover young lads in sports gear. They were quite unfortunate looking and not especially interesting so my attention was drawn to a long queue of passengers waiting to board a flight to Ireland. I reeled in astonishment upon noticing that ever other person in the line (give or take) had ginger hair!! Now, no offence to gingers, (I am blonde for goodness sake. I know how it feels!) but surely, if you are of the auburn complexion, you would not choose for your holiday, a place where the temperature is well into the 30s because, quite simply, you might just die. I gazed sadly along the line of transparent highly freckled figures and noted that their complexion after a week in the sun resembled a soggy slice of under-cooked eggy bread.

Then I chuckled and noted that there are a number of 50-something ginger women who go into a period of denial and decide to become blonde. Half blonde in fact. They only seem to dye the top of their hair, the result of which resembles something like a creme brrulée! Here I have a classic pair of examples:

We have just returned from a fantastic week in Crete, where the weather was…. HOT! For those of you who don’t believe I can get a tan?

There it is! Make the most of it, it is already starting to peel and I am returning to my ‘belly of fish’ state. We stayed in the village of Piskopiano, about 21KM out of Heraklion. It was a really nice peaceful village up a hill, with lots of character. The hotel made the holiday really, it was very clean, with lots of facilities and a great pool overlooking the sea one way and mountains the other. The village had lots of Greek tavernas, lots of bootleg merchandise (roll up and buy your ‘dodgy and gabanna’ and your ‘oakley dokilies’ etc!) and lots of wild cats (much to my delight!)

We hired a quad bike for three days to explore some of the island. This was a great laugh until I accidentally wove my way onto the Cretan equivalent of a motorway and found myself being overtaken by coaches and lorries at speed whilst pootling along on a 70CC quad! At this point, closing your eyes and clenching your teeth (whilst hoping it will all go away) does not help I found, so I took a deep breath and trundled off at a suitable exit.

We made friends with the waiter of a Greek taverna with a roof garden and sea view. His name was “Babis” (surname too long to be real) and I think he took rather a fancy to JT, much to my constant amusement!! Every time we ate a meal, we’d order a drink and at the end of the meal, he’d appear with a free glass of wine, some free fruit pieces and a free shot! Disaster, but customer service like you’d never get in England. He also made beeswax candles with floral decorations on them and sold handbags…. *gulp*

We spent most of our time doing nothing (apart from reading, swimming, sunbathing, shade bathing etc) which was perfect. We did explore a few beaches and enjoyed bombing round on the quad (the breeze was very cooling). I recommend the Amazones Suites at Piskopiano, they are excellent and the place is ideal if you want some peace and quiet.

Beach and hotel

swimming pool overlooking sea and sunset from taverna roof garden

Two of my favourite activities that we did

The beach and JT drinking beer!

Sums it up really!  In reality it is actually about 32 degrees (according to a shop thermometer!).  Having a great time, thoughts and pics to follow. See you all after Fri!

inexplicable.

This is my Dad practicing on a Casio CT-310!

They always stand in the way for a natter, but somehow these ones amused me…. 

They have arrived…  They are so beautiful!  I have only fitted the front seats so far… Mmmm…..

The birds had it in for this one…

Check it.  When we go on holiday on Friday we are only taking hand luggage.  £6 at Primark bought me a COOL suitcase/handbag/hand luggage type article.  Now to try to fit all of my equipment in it… This is gonna take some serious restraint!!

Well this weekend has been a good one.  After spending the week being ill, I was relieved to be feeling mostly better this weekend.  On Friday night we went to visit the University degree show which was good.  It was entitled ‘Flying High’ and featured a lot of origami birds flying across the atrium.

Origami birds, Annie, Seung-ah and Aarti.

On Saturday we cleaned up the new KA which was nice and then headed out for dinner with Luke and his Dad.  After this we met Dan, Sophie and a couple of their friends for a drink at the Beehive.

Sunday I finished painting the stairwell (shhh don’t tell the letting agents!)  and hung up my sheet music.  I had an idea for some interesting pictures, I purchased some old sheet music from a charity shop (about 20-30p a copy) because I love the old screen print style artwork (bit like old film posters).  I mounted and framed about 7 of them and have hung them up the stairs.  Makes a change to your typical IKEA pebbles picture anyhow!

We went to 5pm church which was really good.  After this we went to Nando’s with Dan and Sophie (socialising twice in one weekend eh?), Pete and Sarah and Luke (also socialising twice in one weekend but that is more normal!)