The widespread use of blue paint emanates from an ancient belief that the colour has the power to keep evil away. It is believed that the radiation of the colour composes a sort of invisible shield, which prevents the approach of bad spirits.
The hardest crusts always fall to the toothless” – Cypriot proverb
Last year we went to Portugal with holiday company TUI and they inconvenienced us by making several changes to the flight schedules which resulted in the loss of a complete day of the trip. We said that we would never go on holiday with TUI again.
Six months later we broke that vow and booked a holiday to the Greek island of Skiathos in the TUI January sale. A noisy fun island which attracts young high spirited people in high Summer but we gambled that it would be less frantic in early May.
After breezing through the check in and the security processes we settled in to wait for the call to the departure desk. Once on board we waited in eager anticipation for the pilot to confirm take off. Suddenly there was a crackle of intercom and the introduction from the pilot and then some unwelcome news.
It was raining in Skiathos, the short runway, which is apparently notoriously difficult, was wet and the plane was too heavy to land safely. The TUI solution was to offload half of the suitcases from the hold and promise that they would follow on tomorrow. I had some medication in my bag ( a couple of epi-pens in case of an allergy emergency) and was allowed off the plane to retrieve them so grabbed a few items that I thought might be useful such as phone chargers and sun lotion and returned to my seat in the certain knowledge that mine was one of the one hundred. We hoped that Kim’s might still be on board.
Half way into the flight more news and an apology and a caveat to the earlier promise, this time the pilot said that they would do all they could to get our luggage to us as soon as possible and later still this was watered down again to the company hopes to get our bags to us some time next week.
This has happened to us before when we flew to Reykjavik with British Airways and Kim’s luggage went missing for five days so our optimism was beginning to sink to our boots.
The aircraft landed at Alexandros Papadiamantis Airport, named after one of the most famous writers in all of Greece who was born and lived on the island of Skiathos. Later in the week I visited his house, a museum now and purchased a translation of one of his short story novels.
At the baggage reclaim we optimistically watched the conveyor belt complete about five full cycles, maybe six, maybe seven, and a forlorn pink suitcase go round at least four times, when it slowly began to dawn on us that the bag probably wasn’t going to come through the little hole in the wall where the luggage came from. I had a last look through the heavy plastic flaps to see if maybe it had fallen off the belt before coming through but it was hopeless. We had to concede the inevitability of our predicament that we were completely without luggage except for my epi-pens and the phone chargers.
It was nine o’clock in the evening, the supermarkets were shut so we were forced to take a taxi (I hate taking taxis) and ask the driver to find us somewhere where we might be able to purchase essentials. He took us to a mini-market where Kim concentrated on shampoo, deodorant and soap and I looked for a couple of bottles of wine. We continued to the hotel in stunned silence.
At the Agnadi hotel and studios there was happily something to smile about, the location was excellent, the rooms were very good in that very simple Greek style and after we had settled in (quite a short process of course with no luggage to unpack) we returned to the hotel bar and small restaurant and enjoyed a really rather fine Greek meal. We looked forward to a confirmation e-mail that the luggage would be delivered the following day. I confess that I didn’t go to bed in an especially optimistic mood.
Sometime during the night I received an e-mail apologising for the problem with the luggage and explaining that due to logistical issues the bags wouldn’t be arriving today after all. Apparently they were being taken from East Midlands airport to Birmingham. I wasn’t especially surprised about that I have to say. It thanked me for my understanding and patience which I thought was rather presumptuous because I was neither. It was a no-reply email so I was unable to tell them that. On the positive side it offered financial compensation 0f £50 for each bag on production of receipts for essential items. As far as I was concerned everything in my bag was essential so £50 wasn’t going to adequately cover it.
My heart sank for a moment but it lifted immediately when I opened the door of the room and I was rewarded with a most wonderful view.
Posted in backpacking, Beaches, Estonia, Greece, Greek islands, Greek Taverna, Literature, Postcards, Travel
Tagged Agnadi Hotel Skiathos, Culture, Cyclades, Life, Lost Luggage, Skiathos, Sporades Islands Greece, TUI, World Heritage
It is a busy time in the garden right now as the May weather has provided perfect growing conditions.
Kim is busy looking after the perennial and shrub beds and preparing summer bedding for later displays…
My job is the vegetable plot where I am growing potatoes, beans and peas, tomatoes, onions and courgettes. All coming along very nicely indeed.
After a couple of hours labour each day, it is time to sit back and enjoy…
I begin with a question. What is the longest uninterrupted stretch of beach in the UK? I mean the longest stretch that can be walked end to end without having to leave it at any point to get around estuaries, rivers, cliffs, ports or towns?
To be honest I don’t have the answer, I have Googled it and there is no help but I am willing to wager that it is the Holderness coast in East Yorkshire. It stretches all the way from Bridlington harbour to Spun Head at the mouth of the Humber estuary and it is possible to walk the entire distance without ever leaving the sand. Few people know this because it isn’t in Cornwall or on the South coast and celebrities don’t make TV programmes about it. Is it just me but does anyone else get fed up with programmes about bloody Cornwall.
It stretches for a distance of thirty-seven miles.
I am more than happy to consider alternative suggestions of course.
I couldn’t manage the full thirty-seven miles in one day but today we planned to walk a seven mile stretch from the caravan park at Brampton Sands to Bridlington, a distance of about seven miles or so, give or take a yard or so.
We set off just after high tide. The weather was wild but not cold, big seas, a blustery wind that tugged at our shirt buttons and the occasional threat from a rogue wave that was in apparent denial that the tide was going out and not coming in as it swept in and rearranged the pebbles with a clattering sound like the percussion section of an orchestra.
For a mile or so there was no one else sharing our beach, deserted sands, pill-box remains fallen into the sea, a splendid lonely isolation as we walked on between the rapidly eroding cliffs on one side and the wild angry sea on the other.
Along the way we came across a colony of Swifts who had build nests in the cliff face. I say cliffs but this is soft mud not solid rock. Anyway they were going and coming at great speed and you will have to take my word for this because they are so fast that I was quite unable to catch a single picture of just one of them. They are the fastest land bird of all, flying at a speed of seventy miles an hour in level flight.
After leaving the nest a young bird spends up to four years in the air without coming down, they eat and sleep on the wing, they fly five hundred miles a day and most impressive of all they also mate in the air. To put that into perspective the only way a human can get a shag while flying is to join the mile high club on a Boeing 737.
A little further on we chanced upon some Oyster Catchers busy dining among the pebbles, they let us approach but not get too close before taking to flight but thankfully they were not as quick as the Swifts.
And then there was a problem. We came to a field drainage outfall that due to the recent heavy rains was in full flow, maybe two or three inches deep and about five yards wide. Maybe this was a turning back point? No, surely not!
I ventured forth and attempted to jump the fast flowing watery streams, I made the first and the second but then got carried away and quite forgot that what I could manage forty years ago I cannot manage now and took one optimistic jump too many and landed ankle deep in ice cold water with a resulting wet boot.
Kim was a lot more sensible and took time to collect rocks to make a stepping stone path and fifteen minutes later when she was eventually satisfied with her construction efforts daintily crossed over and we carried on. I manfully kept quiet about my wet foot and soggy sock.
After an hour or so we arrived at Bridlington South Beach, as good as any beach in England in my opinion, a fabulous stretch of golden sand, busy I guess in the Summer months but quite deserted today. Just a few dog walkers. I really liked it. I didn’t like the dog walkers.
From there we passed to the harbour, I was hoping to buy some Bridlington Bay lobster. I told you about that in a previous post.
In my previous post I talked about the Spalding Tulip Festival and it reminded me of one of my favourite Tulip stories…
… This is not a botanical story but one of linguistic misunderstanding…
The name Tulip was first applied to the plant by a man called Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq who was a Dutch ambassador in Turkey in the sixteenth century and was also a great floral enthusiast. One day he was talking to a sultan and he noticed that he was wearing an attractive flower in his head wear.
When I say talking what I mean is that they were communicating with each other in the way that people do when they can’t speak each other’s language with lots of funny faces and wild gesticulations and misunderstandings.
I digress here and give an example from my own experience…
Now, I know that like most English people my grasp of foreign languages is not that good but this experience in the Spanish city of Palencia was quite bizarre.
“Catedral?” I enquired and the poor man (victim) that I had selected just stared back at me with an expressionless face as though I was a visitor from another planet. So I tried again but this time, remembering that upside down question mark thing at the beginning of the sentence I tried to sound a bit more Spanish, “¿Catedral?” but his face went so blank that I though rigor mortis had set in. I have to say that Catedral sounds a bit like Cathedral to me so I don’t know why this was so difficult but his solution was to call someone else over who was an obviously educated man who spoke excellent English and with optimism I tried again “¿Catedral?”
To my astonishment he immediately adopted exactly the same blank face as the first man so I tried again in various different accents and voice inflections. “¿Catedral?” “¿Catedral?” “¿Catedral?” Nothing, Nothing, Nothing. I really cannot understand why this should be so difficult. If a Spanish man came up to me in Lincoln and asked for directions to the Cathedral – however he might pronounce it, I am fairly sure that I could make out what he was asking for. Eventually I gave up, added the h sound and just asked in English for directions to the Cathedral and amazingly I immediately made myself understood and the man smiled and said “Ah, Catedral!” which, I am fairly certain is exactly what I said in the first place.
To continue…
Busbecq was curious about the flower and pointed to it and enquired its name. In Turkey the name of the flower was a Lale (prounced lalay) but the Sultan thought he meant what is the name of his hat so he told him it was a Tulipan or turban and Busbeqc, who completely misunderstood, acquired some bulbs and sent them back to Europe with the information that they were called Tulipa.
A good job that he wasn’t wearing a pork pie hat or tulips would be porkies!
Now, this is important information in case we have another vegetable supply crisis.
All parts of tulips are edible and the bulb can be substituted for onions (although they are a little more expensive and less flavourful). The Dutch ate tulip bulbs in the hard times of World War Two even though the petals have little taste but could be used to garnish a dish, chop a few petals and throw them in a salad, sugar them to decorate a cake or use the entire flower for a fruit bowl, pinching out the pistil and stamen in the middle.
Incidentally the tulip is the national flower of Iran and Turkey where it is still called the Lale.
The history of the Spalding Flower Parade stretches back to the 1920s when the sheer number and variety of tulip bulbs grown throughout the area surrounding the market town became an annual feast of colour.
The crowds that came in created many problems for the town and coaches and cars caused chaos on the narrow lanes around the fields and this continued to happen until in 1948, the Growers’ Association became involved in organising a Tulip Week. With the help of the Royal Automobile Club, a twenty-five mile tour through villages and country lanes was planned to show the best fields.
Posted in Arts and Crafts, Europe, History, Holland, Literature, Natural Environment, Postcards, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Amsterdam, Life, Photography, Spalding, Spalding Flower Parade, Travel, Tulip Fields, Tulip Summit.
The island of Rhodes is one of the most interesting and has been inhabited for six thousand years and due to its geographical position on the major Mediterranean Sea trade routes is situated at a natural crossroads between Europe, the Middle East, and Africa and this has given the city and the island many different identities, cultures, architectures, and languages over its long and varied history.
Posted in Arts and Crafts, Beaches, Cathedrals, Europe, Food, Greece, Greek islands, Greek Taverna, History, Knights of St John, Literature, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Culture, Dodecanese Islands, Holidays, Knights of St John, Lindos, Photography, rhodes, Travel
The Talyllyn Railway is a narrow-gauge preserved railway in Wales that runs for nearly sixteen miles from the town of Tywyn on the Mid-Wales coast to Nant Gwernol near the village of Abergynolwyn. The line was opened in 1866 to carry slate from the quarries at Bryn Eglwys to Tywyn, and was the first narrow gauge railway in Britain authorised by Act of Parliament to carry passengers using steam haulage.
Posted in Beaches, Childhood, Europe, Food, History, Literature, Natural Environment, Postcards, Travel, Wales
Tagged Catell y Bere Wales, Little Railways, Llanuwchllyn, postacrds, Talyllyn Railway, Towyn Wales, Welsh weather
Ouzo is an anise-flavoured liquor produced from grape must (the remnants of wine-making) and it can only be made in Greece and Cyprus . No other beverage is as uniquely Greek or as closely linked to a culture as ouzo is to Greece. Greeks drink the most ouzo and ouzeries serve it alongside appetisers called meze. Often drunk on its own or gently diluted, ouzo has a very strong anise flavour that takes some getting used to.
The ‘Boss Bar’ really had been an excellent place, the staff were attentive and friendly, the food was good, the beer was cold and the prices were reasonable. It has taken me a while to get to the point of this story but there was always complimentary ouzo to finish the evening (except when there was complimentary melon which quite frankly wasn’t so good) but the place had my fullest recommendation.
Posted in Athens, backpacking, Beaches, Europe, Food, Greece, Greek islands, Greek Taverna, History, Literature, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Greek Food, Greek islands, Life, Ouzo, Photography, Santorini, Travel
Today we were heading west, to Mizen Head, the most south-westerly point in mainland Ireland and the location of a lighthouse station and a rocky cliff top terminus and after only a short drive along a spectacular coast road overlooking sandy beaches and the Atlantic Ocean we arrived at the visitor centre and bought our entrance tickets.
Have Bag, Will Travel 