Apologies if this set of posts has been a bit dull and thanks for bearing with me and reading to the end. I hope it gave you some insights into a simple two week break without a hire car in Kos and if you want take a look at my other holiday posts by clicking on ‘holiday’ tag below. You will have noticed by now that we didn’t go to Kos Town this year – it might be nice to visit in the evening but we’ve done everything we wanted to do as far as daytime japes are concerned last year.
I had a peculiar breakfast of cherry yoghurt and left over paprika crisps for breakfast today, our last day in Tigaki. It wasn’t a great combination and I worried about the rumblings coming from my stomach.
Hope springs eternal but eventually my guts reacted to the mixed fish last night – luckily it was before we got on the transfer bus to to the airport and I had come armed with some Imodium capsules. They bunged me up good and proper with no other adverse effects once the world had dropped out of my arse. You think that’s TMI? You don’t come here regularly I guess?
Before all that happened, we packed and did a stint by the pool, among a bunch of unfamiliar faces who had settled in while we’ve been enjoying the beach and our trips out and about, giving fate and ultraviolet radiation time to decide whether skin cancer would strike. Someone told me recently that no amount of sun cream is adequate protection from the big fiery ball of doom, so you have to wonder why we bother – stops you going red and blistered I guess.
For lunch I had a good full English breakfast from the hotel kitchen with jam, toast and Tetley tea. Siggy had a cheese and ham pitta. Then we used the shower room, had a quick drink, said ttfn to Kristos, his mum and Debbie and hopped on an almost empty coach to the airport. The coach came bang on time – which is just typical – they’ve all been late when we’ve gone on trips but of course the one bus you don’t want to get on arrives on schedule. To begin with there was only one other couple on board and then we picked a few others up from the hotel complexes in Marmari.
The airport was more or less empty when we arrived. We were flabbergasted – last year the airport was total chaos – a sea of people and unruly queues for check-in, baggage security and passport control. This time we checked in and had deposited our bags within 5 minutes with no-one queuing in front of us. It was bizarre. My post from last year doesn’t do justice to the carnage we experienced previously.
I wrote most of the notes for this post at an outside table belonging to the taverna directly opposite the airport. We sat in the dappled shade of a palm tree and listened to tweeting birds and the occasional take-off. We shared a chocolate croissant, I had a very nice glass of melon juice and Siggy had an ice-cream coffee.
Passport control was a doddle and the waiting area beyond was far saner than last time. Our flight was on time and was pretty uneventful. There were the usual rowdy kids playing up and their tired parents trying there best to keep them under some semblance of control. I had a small child kicking me in the back at the start of the flight but luckily we had the only empty seat on the flight right beside us, so I moved over. Over the aisle was a small baby who might have exploded into a cacophony of crying but as it was he stayed asleep for pretty much the whole flight.
Siggy and I shared a grab bag of cheese and onion Lays we had bought in the airport and then we also purchased a surprisingly nice bacon ciabatta each. I wanted a bag of peanut M&M’s also (I was getting cold sweats of withdrawal from not getting my daily quota of nuttage) but there was someone on board the plane who had a peanut allergy so they were off the menu. Instead we had a bag of Cadbury mini-fingers. Maybe the cold sweats were more to do with the lack of alcohol – this being the first day in two weeks in which no alcohol had passed my lips.
I read a lot of Sharpe’s Gold and even managed to get forty winks in.
Last year we got home to a heatwave, this year it was cold and wet. The temperature was a paltry 18C and the house felt damp when we got home. The silence when we went to bed was deafening and I found it hard to sleep. I miss the sound of crickets (but not the rest of the animals).
The shock news from today was that Siggy had accidentally bought exactly the same fridge magnet from Kos as last year. I suppose it’s fitting in a way, given that we went back to the same island, the same resort, the same hotel and stayed in the same room.
By the way here are a few choice identifications that we agreed upon during or two week’s of playing celebrity lookalike:
- Ron Perlman (actually uncorroborated but identified by Siggy prior to the Madonna ruling)
- Nicole Kidman (I wasn’t allowed to stare)
- Vince Clarke (from Depeche Mode)
- Jonathan Banks (Mike from Better Call Saul)
- Aamon Holmes (tv presenter on UK TV)
- David Gest’s brother (you know, the thin one that works behind the bar at Rooster’s bar)
- Jack Nicholson
- Alfred Molina
- Jimmy Carter (the fat ex-President version always seen with his belly out at The Bar or The Kitchen)
- Dynamo (street / tv magician)
- Cathrine Tate
- Sean Walsh (hairy UK comedian)
- Dan Akroyd
- Emma Willis (working in a bakery of all places)
- Rosamund Hansen (Smell from This is England)
I’d like to think that at least one of these people was the real celebrity in disguise…
couchmagpie 