If the worst thing that happens this holiday is that Siggy keeps losing her purse underneath all the other stuff in the beach bag then I think we’ll be okay. Today has been officially designated as a ‘beach day’ after all the trotting around we’ve been doing over the last few days.
Although there is a huge spread of breakfast buffet options, I limit myself to rice pudding, peaches in syrup and a kiwi for breakfast. No coffee. I’m going to try and limit my caffeine intake, or I’ll end up one of those jar a day addicts by the time I get back to work.
We went to Vatania for lunch again. The taverna is named after a type of small dish used when serving mezes apparently. I had a Greek omelette which had sausage, onion, olives in it and feta crumbled on top. I also had a ‘superfood’ fruit smoothie in a vague attempt to be healthy. I lost 11 pounds of excess weight before the holiday and I’d hate to put it all back on again. There are some bathroom scales in the room. This evening before dinner I weighed 4 stone more than I did 6 days ago; it’s not an encouraging sign.
Siggy had fruit salad and the owner gave her a big disk of fresh pineapple as a side for free. She does need fattening up. We look like Laurel and Hardy together. We also got some watermelon flavoured raki shots. At lunchtime. I know.
I spent most of afternoon before we wrapped it up for the day under the shade of the umbrella. It’s getting progressively hotter as the days go by and I was already dripping with sweat before lunch – not something I wanted to repeat on a full stomach. I heard a few more English accents on the beach today which is a pity because when it comes to being irritated by your neighbours it’s easier to filter out conversations in a language you don’t understand.
We feel like seasoned beach holidaymakers after all these years spent holidaying in Greece. This year to add to our big towel pegs we have metal vacuum flask drink bottles (for which I thought using Sterident to sterilise would be a good idea after smelling Siggy’s bottle a few days ago) and Siggy chooses a ‘reading stone’ from off the beach which she can rest her book on to avoid getting sand between the pages. We also have little brown flannel for brushing sand off our feet. Life hackers that’s us! There’s some other stuff I thought to write about while I was on the beach but I fell asleep and forgot.
I finished reading the Jon Ronson book – it was hilarious especially the very short anecdote about waving to a cyclist on a tow path accidentally causing her to veer into the canal which had me in stitches. Described by Jon Ronson as ‘A kind of genius… incredibly funny and weirdly moving…’ I move on to reading Bridget Christie For Her which I bought Siggy as a present thinking she’d find it funnier than she did. You’d think I’d have learned my lesson after the Sara Pascoe book.
We went to Irini again for drinks (mojito watermelon and a homemade Radler – lager and sprite) and decided to stay for food. My Jaws movie poster tee-shirt was getting some funny looks. Someone did get killed by some sharks last week, but it wasn’t in Greece. I saw a girl wearing the same tee-shirt the next day, so I’m not the only one with a sense of humour.
Celebrity Lookalike Orson Wells was spotted again and this time confirmed with Siggy – he’s a local taxi driver. We also spotted Tony Robinson aka Baldric from Blackadder.
I had a nice beef stifado with lots of meat and onions, and Siggy had a stuffed burger. Both were huge portions with lots of chips. Before the mains we enjoyed some brown bread with mushed olives and tomato in little ramekins. So much for the diet! Irini have very nice toilets better even than Manilos – by virtue of them sharing with a hotel.
Then we popped in to Iro cocktail bar about 20 min stroll toward town for a Mai Tai and a blue Hawaiian. While we were there we spotted Walter Matteu.
Siggy was desperate for a decent White Russian (the drink) and so we tried the hotel bar. She was satisfied, and I had another Mai Tai.
couchmagpie 