I woke up with a sore shoulder from too much swimming and a mosquito bite on the same arm acquired at some point in the night. I don’t react all that much to them so it wasn’t a big deal and I certainly wasn’t going to rub banana peel on it like Siggy suggested. Some people suggest drinking gin, but that makes me maudlin the next day. I have been taking antihistamines because I get hay-fever (see previous post for a rant about the price of tablets).
It was quite windy today, not particularly great for sunbathing, but good for walking about so we got the bus to stop number 15 and walked down to Agia Paraskevi beach. I wanted to find the steps featured in Broken (in the scene where he watches as people crowd round a dead body that has washed up on the beach). Again I found that I had taken gross liberties with the local geography, but at least the steps are as imagined.
We then found a quick shortcut onto the sandy road down to the neighbouring beach Vromolimnos which was a lot nicer and busier than I remember from our last visit. Two cows have replaced a field of chickens that was nearby and they seemed happy to lie in the shade of the olive trees rather than explore the world beyond the open gate. There is a metaphor hiding in there somewhere. I will let you discover it.
We walked to bus stop 16 and had a quick neb at Poros beach – this was crowded with people from the surrounding hotels so we left them to it and went to the strangely named Iguana Pool Bar for a couple of frappes. The bar was decorated in a variety of odd styles and had sails tied up to act as shades for the patio and pool area. The sails looked like they were going to take off in the wind. The bar looks like a place that could get lively at night, but it was dead during the day with just myself and Siggy in the bar area and a handful of people around the pool.
Rather than get the bus back to Troulos we decided to walk because I wanted to take a snap of the view of Poros beach we often see as the bus swings around the corner where the road has been cut into the rock of a small promontory near stop 17.
As we got back to the hotel we witnessed the sound and outcome of a collision between a taxi and a quad bike. A flip-flop was spiralling through the air while a man (without helmet) was performing a forward roll along the tarmac, the taxi had slammed its brakes on and the quad bike was stalled in the middle of the road. Miraculously despite the quad bike caving in the taxi’s door and wing, the rider appeared totally unharmed and quickly stood up and put his flip-flop back on. White boards with numbers on were held up in our imaginations and I have to assume that the rider jumped off his bike before the impact – either that or he went over the taxi’s bonnet. Fun fun fun, and another demonstration of why we choose to walk or take the bus places rather than hire a road vehicle. Siggy has an idea for a tuk-tuk style taxi service for the Skiathos dragons, but it just sounds too dangerous for me, and I’m not sure they could tackle some of the steep roads. I’m out.
We assessed newbies at the pool hotel while they fought flapping towels, tipping sun umbrellas and page shedding books in the wind. I finished Death of Kings and moved onto The High Lord without losing any pages. I remember reading a single page of 50 Shades of Grey last year that I found lodged against my lounger. I cast my eye about to see who might be missing it, but no-one around seemed to be reading it (on paper at least). It was bloody awful.
We had a late tea at Sunrise Taverna which had one free table left when we arrived and was half empty by the time we left. Siggy pointed out the barbecue spare ribs on the menu which I thanked her profusely for. If you get a chance, get some, you won’t be disappointed. On the flip side I had their cheese stuffed burger last year (after having the ribs on a previous visit) expecting the same level of quality only to find it was not homemade and resembled something you would find in Farm Foods in a pack of four for 99p.
Wimbledon was on at Chris’s and the guy with the guitar and the Queen songs was playing outside. Roger Federer got knocked out and Brazil beat Uruguay in another scrappy game of football. The guy with the guitar was excellent without all the other singers messing the night up and seemed to be on much better form than last week.
couchmagpie 