Sunday 12th October 2008

Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyyyawwwww and NYOM - Sunday 12th October 2008

Today is a very special day, not only did we have many exciting holiday based travel things to be getting on with, it is my birthday. So, in true birthday style, got up, felt like crap, shit, shower and shave and a spot of brekkie. Same as the day before, that lion bar cereal is ace, I must get a packet tomorrow to take home. It has the tendency to be REALLY addictive.

I got two cards, which was great, one was in German and had a picture of a mouse giving a cake to a giraffe. This was from Sean and Laura and the other said 26 ans! on it, this was in French and from Anna. I love her.

We left the house and started to drive. After about an hour and a half of driving through thick fog, we arrived at our first destination. The Nurburgring! It turned lovely and sunny and the car park, overflow field and the surrounding roads were packed with cars. It was nice to see a delegation from the “Pistonheads” forum there. I found it really difficult to get insurance for the trip round the ring. No one in the UK is currently supplying it as far as I can tell. For the money you pay, it is almost worth getting a ‘ring taxi’ as you will get a great drive round the track and there is no risk of you crashing and having to pay out a crap load of money.

I took some photos and got a souvenir sticker for the back of my car.

We then left to go to one of my favourite German cities, Koblenz. The town of Koblenz sits on the confluence of the Rhine and the Mosel rivers. At the join, there is a huge monument to Keiser Wilhelm (the chap that unified Germany in the 1800s). The monument is a stone built ‘temple’ with a giant horse with Keiser Wilhelm riding. The coolest thing about the horse was that, being anatomically correct, it had mahoosive balls. This amazed everyone standing around looking at the thing and taking photos – made me chuckle anyway.

After the monument we went for a spot of lunch. Between us we had Curry-wurst, Bock-wurst and Bratwurst and beer – the four main German food groups.

The rest of the afternoon was walking round Koblenz in the fantastic sunshine, looking at the wonderful architecture. We saw the palace, it was pretty huge, but in true Sweeney style, the thing was covered in scaffold.

We left Koblenz and went to our last destination of the day, this was the quite frankly gorgeous town of Monchau.

Monchau is really lovely. A tiny German town set in a valley, built out of the rock on the sides of a river. We went there last Christmas with Chris and Faith and at that time of year, it is MENTAL because of the Christmas Markets. October is a little different. It is still really cold but a lot less manic. We had a wander round the beautiful medieval town before settling at a riverside restraint for Schnitzel and more meat! NYOM!

Luxemburg, Luxemburg - So great they named it twice - Saturday 11th October 2008

Sean’s alarm woke me up again at about 8am, (LAURA’S ALARM, NUMBNUTS!!!) I think it is the Arctic Monkeys. Its all good though. Got up and had some of the ‘Lion Bar’ cereal. It was totally nummy. (I wanted to mix it with some Smack, but that wasn’t open yet, so I didn’t. I think you should always start your day with Smack.)
The cats were back today, staring in at us expecting food to be delivered and good times to be had. (The cats that you hadn’t mentioned yet? Noob. There are two cats hanging around the cottage which Laura can’t help looking at and thinking that they’re cute, despite the fact that one has clearly been in a fair few fights and seen better days, and the other is a Siamese, which have looked evil to everyone since the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp. Anyway, they’re annoying.) I thought it best to put an end to this before we broke and gave in. I got a small bowl of water and launched the contents at the feline. Direct hit. The cat has not come back since. (Andy’s trying to sound hard – he didn’t want to hit the cat, he wanted to scare it. However, the thing was too stupid to try and move , and so got a little bit wet. Laura was sad.)

Bastogne was the first on our list for the day. A town that was almost completely destroyed during the second world war, it is now a bustling little town. There are loads of bars, restaurants and cafes. (There was also a bear dog. It was massive, ace, and massively ace.)
At the top end of the high street is a lovely church, I think it must have survived the war fairly well as it looked pretty original inside. (Brilliantly, all the churches round here seem to be Catholic, which means that Jebus actually lives in them. That’s nice.)

We went to a little café and had some tea and cake. On the table we had a blackforest gateau, a chocolate and cream cake, apple cake and a raspberry and custard tart. (We shared them all so that we all got a bit of each. They were pretty darned nummy, although a tad pricey – the four bits of cake, with four hot drinks, came to 25€. Also, there is an issue with tea preparation in foreign climes, in that they just don’t understand how it’s done. I got a pot of hot water with a tea bag on the side, meaning that it never properly infused. Still, it was better than no tea. Also, we actually saw a girl carrying a tiny dog in her handbag, totally un-ironically. I didn’t think real people really did that kind of thing, but apparently they do. The dog was cuter than she was though, so maybe it was to draw attention away from her.

On the subject of ladies, the standard of women in Europe is not nearly so high as you have been led to believe. Be warned.

Having finished our elevenses, we took a short stroll down the main street to the cenotaph, which is a beautiful monument. Less attractive is a sculpture imbedded into one of the wall of one of the buildings, depicting some soldiers helping one of their wounded comrades. At first, we thought it was broken, but then we looked closer and realised that, no, that man’s head was meant to be on the floor, and all the other people were meant to look the way they did. It was baffling.)

Moving on from Bastogne we moved on to Luxemburg, Luxemburg (so good they named it twice). (Driving past the football stadium which would, later that day, host the Luxembourg v Israel World Cup Qualifier. It was titchy.)
Luxemburg is a really ace city, I’m sure it would have had beautiful views as well over the valley below the town, but the fog was SO thick. We could make out a shadow of a church on the other side and some huge town houses at the bottom, but not much else.
We had a good look round. One of the things that impressed me greatly was that they city is one giant wifi hot-spot. Wherever you are, you can turn on your mobile of laptop and get an interactive city guide with video and audio commentary, no Facebook though. (This is good if you are a nerd.)
We had a look round the marktplatz, which was nice. There were loads of pretty buildings and we got some souvenirs from one of the many shops pedalling items to the hordes of American tourists, retracing the steps of their fathers and relatives as they defended the area from the German army.

(Luxembourg is really pretty. Parking was strange, as they have bays marked out on the pavement. Essentially, we didn’t really do a great deal, but walk around, but that was all we needed to do. It was enough to soak up the atmosphere, enjoy what is an undeniably attractive city, and search for a birthday card for Andy. Although the only card shop we found had only very lame ones.

We did manage to find a stein for Andy though. He was extremely excited by it, although got yelled at by the woman who told him that a stein is a stone. She was quite strict and not very nice. But we still bought stuff, as we’re extremely pleasant people.

We ended up having a bit of a Chavvy lunch at Quick, a French burger chain. But we told ourselves it was ok as it was a French chain, and therefore part of the local culture. Despite my not actually knowing any French, really, I managed to order and field all the random stream of questions that fell from the assistant’s mouth, mainly by just saying ‘Oui’ to everything. It worked. Laura, on the other hand, who does speak some French, got a bit flustered and the girl talked to her in English. I felt ace.

Outside of quick, we saw a chap doing some ‘Belgian Jumpstyle’ dancing, it was ace, he was dancing to some happy hardcore coming from a beaten up stereo over-modding to hell, but it was great to see.

We got a bit turned around when on our way back to the car, which meant we found some great statues, but eventually got back and set off for Clervaux.)

I’ve been to Clervaux three or four times now and every time it astounds me how beautiful it is. It is greatly understated. It is not a tourist town like Monchau (you will read about this in tomorrow’s blog) and it is still very cute. I think the whole point of the town and its main industry comes from people on a pilgrimage of their relatives in the army and people on walking holidays. It is strange, it is in the middle of nowhere and I cant see how it was of strategic importance but somehow – it was.

(Clervaux is a beautiful little town in the north of Luxembourg, in an area of great strategic importance in World War II, a fact commemorated by a statue donated by American troops to their brave allies in the town of Clervaux; a museum recounting the Ardennes campaign; and a tank and gun mount, both donated, again, by American forces. Quite aside from the town’s strategic importance, it’s clear to see why forces would wish to be stationed there – the area is completely idyllic, surrounded by heavily wooded hills, and with cobbled streets that seem to amble forever.)

Agreed

After looking around the town, and visiting the beautiful old church, we stopped off at one of the many cafes that lined the streets for a little snack of waffles or pancakes and coffees. I, of course, had tea, which was, of course, ridiculous – this time the bag was at least in the cup, but the milk was hot and frothy. Honestly, I ask you…

I would recommend going for crepes, mainly because they are fresh rather than the semi stale waffle I had.

After our break, I finally managed to find a card for Andy, while he bought himself a box of cigars. (And what cigars they are, I got 24 Coronas for 35 euros) We also found some excessively cheap alcohol – Luxembourg benefits from being a tax haven, and thus alcohol, tobacco, and even fuel, are much cheaper than in the surrounding areas – and began planning a beer run at some point…

After Clervaux, we began the journey back home. On the way there, though, we passed what looked like a supermarket, and decided to pop in to see if we could find something for dinner. We actually found an ENORMOUS hypermarket, with an entire downstairs floor devoted to drink. We wandered round for a good 30 minutes or so, picking up a few little bits, before Andy went downstairs to return some bottles. In the Benelux (and Germany) area, there is a scheme whereby you can return your recyclable bottles for cold hard cash. Having not done it myself, I’ll let Msr. Sweeney fill you in…

Not quite cold hard cash, you get a credit note so that you can claim a refund on the bottles you bring in. If you are a drunk, this is good, you can go round collecting bottles, get your credit note and buy some really cheap booze. Luxemburg is one of the cheapest places to kill yourself through alcohol and tobacco addiction (then drink drive because you can do that cheaply as well).

Thanks.

So, we headed back, and settled in for the evening. Dinner was a simple affair of bread, meats and cheese, which, as I remarked at the time, I would never consider a meal, but somehow, while in Europe, this all seems fine. It was the same in Cyprus – a sandwich constituting the main meal of the day. Maybe I should move here, and possibly lose some weight. And I certainly could – so far, I haven’t been anywhere that I couldn’t live. Luxembourg is a wonderful country, and I could so very happily move there, as was Cyprus, as is Belgium. I don’t know if it’s just because we come here and get away from real life or what, but the whole place seems so much more relaxed, the pace of life so much more sedate. It’s certainly a life I could get into. Same here I think, I’m really starting to love western Germany and Belgium. We are really getting into the swing of the slow and peaceful life. Sean, let me know when you want to move here and we’ll elope.

Oh, and even better, no-one seems fully sure what language to speak. Belgium is torn between French, Dutch, German and Flemish, although you can generally figure out which area you are in fairly easily. Luxembourg, however, was an entirely different matter, with shopkeepers speaking French or German depending who they were talking to. It was brilliant, and gives even a spot of shopping a sense of the exotic. I like that. I like the way that you can swap and change between all the languages and if you can’t remember a word in one language, use another or make something up and make the relevant hand gestures.
Anyhoo, we had a quiet night in front of an open fire, before retiring to bed for a relatively early night, in preparation for Andy’s Big Day…)

My Birthday Trip to Belgium - Friday 10th October 2008

And here we go on another road trip of glory. This time we are accompanied by Sean (hello) and Laura, our destination, Vielsalm in the heart of the Ardennes Forest, Belgique.

Laura and I had arrived at the Sweeney’s at around 8:30pm, Thursday evening – this despite leaving Sale, near Manchester, at just before 3 in the afternoon. The excessive delay was mainly due to traffic on the M6, as some considerate soul had decided to hurl himself from a bridge. Thanks, guy. It would probably have been worse had Laura not known about a secret way out of Keele services, which, although not being for official public use, got us moving again. Upon arrival, we were greeted by an excited Mrs Anna (excited mainly because she normally only gets to greet Andy, and we’re infinitely better), who made us tea. This means she wins, in my world. We headed into Hertford to grab some food, got distracted and had a drink, headed to actually get some food, had to wait for my plaice to be cooked, as I refuse to eat cod (go morals!), finally got food, and then went back to the flat, where Andy was waiting for us. After a hearty meal of fish and chips, we got settled and got ourselves some much needed shut-eye, as Friday was going to be an early start…

Our day begins at 05.30 (see? )to the sound of Sean’s alarm, I cant remember what the tune was but it was enough to wake us up in the next room. (My alarm is a soothing Regina Spektor song. I doubt it was that, but Laura’s annoying noise-racket would certainly have done it.)With a groan, Anna and I get up, get some clothes on (its only polite) and got showered (obviously without clothes on). We roused the others and then we packed the car and grabbed some brekkie.

We left the house by about 0615hrs and began our drive. It was a great drive, we got to the M20, driving up and down hills and through the valleys with the sun rising in front of us. It was GLORIOUS! (The roads were unbelievably clear. I wanted to comment on it but thought I’d just jinx us, so didn’t bother. When we got to Tilbury (Dartford), we learnt all about the big gas holder things, or whatever they are, and all the animals that live in them. Anna was worried that one of the Polar Bears had come with us. It hadn’t though. She is clearly a dumb.) What you learned was that there were four gas containers and each one had a different type of animal in them, one had polar bears, the others had Mongooses, Gorillas and Tigers. We worked out that it was a bit like Thunder-dome, two men enter, one man leaves.

We arrived at the shuttle in very good time and boarded on the 0900 shuttle.

I’ll leave Sean to describe the Chunnel trip.

(The annoyingly 9 o’clock-ish Chunnel trip, even though we were there for an earlier one. Grr.)

Anyhoo, having never been on the Chunnel before, I can now officially declare it the single dullest mode of transport ever created. After going through some incredibly lax border controls, (we don’t care if you are leaving the country) you get on a train in your car (which is quite cool, I admit), the doors shut behind you, and then you sit there while a speaker system speaks to you in both English and French. How very continental. Then, as the train begins to move, you look excitedly out of the tiny, and really awkwardly placed, windows, and watch as you go through what looks like an industrial estate, before disappearing into the dark. It is then dark for the next half hour. That’s it. No view, no trolley service, no piped music, no bar, no smoking salon, no escape from the smell of human emissions if you’re by a toilet.

Well, you do have to look at the advantages, its 35 mins, there are no waves, no sea sickness, no kids running round hitting each other and screaming and feeling sick. It is warm and smooth and you get to sit in your car, have a short sleep (not having to worry about being pick pocketed as you sleep in the bar) or grab some grub that you remembered to pack and bring along with you.

Eventually, however, the sunlight breaks through once more, and you emerge into…what looks like another industrial estate. Honestly, for all the money spent on the thing, you would hope that they might have tarted the entrances up a bit. But they haven’t, and so we dutifully waited for the doors to open. Suddenly, and without warning, the cars in front of us began to move, and we emerged from our carrier, blinking in the light of a French morning.

Saying that, you get to drive out of the train (pretty quick really, it is an ordered queue, no one cutting each other up as you all try and leave at once) and once out, you are on the motorway and up to speed in seconds.

On the other side, we went to Auchan, the uber Hypermarket of Glory. After stocking up on goodies, such as SMACK and other cheese based articles we started the drive. (Smack is not a cheese based article. It is a breakfast cereal, and it has been proven that cereal is the only food on earth that does not go with cheese. FACT!

Anyway, Andy seems disinclined to discus the shopping Mecca that is Auchan. Ere, you can buy pretty much anything. Laura and I got ourselves 4GB memory sticks for 9€, and we are already planning our purchases for on the way home. These are guaranteed to include alcohol and interesting meats – I am definitely getting some snails and horse meat. The horse steaks look unbelievably good, and Laura has said she doesn’t want to try them, so I won’t even have to share. Result. I am tempted to get Jamie and Amanda down for dinner and not tell them what the meat is, although Laura thinks Amanda may cry if she knew she’d eaten Shergar. Meat aside, there is a massive selection of goods to buy, and all at relatively low prices – definitely worth a day trip.)

We drove and drove and drove until we reached the Spa Francorchamps race track. Amazingly there were cars going round the track and it looked like a Citroen 2cv racing day. (I was lucky enough to sleep much of the way, as I was tired from all the doing nothing. It’s a hard life being me. Cars racing don’t massively excite me, although they were quite cool screeching round the track. We also saw some mushrooms which proved beyond doubt the existence of gnomes. Look at that picture and call me a liar.)

Upon arrival at Sun Parcs, our home away from home for the weekend, we went to reception to book in and get our keys. We then went up to our little house to unpack.

The houses are all very similar. The one we had was classified as a cottage, not much in it between them all really. It has a large living and dining space downstairs with a toilet and bathroom. Upstairs it has two double bedrooms.
Things to remember for the future:

1. bring tea mugs, they only have small espresso coffee cups.
2. bring a kettle, no kettle, no tea,
3. bring towels and bedding, we have sleeping bags but would be nice to have sheets.
4. Tea towels and washing up liquid are not provided.
5. To ensure that you don’t sleep in a position where your knee will knock against the ridiculously placed and ridiculously easy to switch on, light switch three times in the night, waking you up.

Sean, Anna and I went for a trip to the pool down the road. I’ve been here so many times now I kinda take most of this stuff for granted, so once again, I’ll let Sean describe the pool and the fun we had there.

(You cannot swim in the pool. It is too shallow and neither the right shape nor boringness to allow for swimming. This is due mainly to the fact that it is chock-full of fun things, up to and including three slides! (one massive twisty one, one tiny baby one, and one where they spray water at your back as you go down a slope) A wave pool! A Magic River! (a circular pool with a strong current running around the outside that just pushes you round without your doing anything) An outdoor section! A Jacuzzi! And much, much more!

We dossed about for about an hour, just playing like kids. There was a disturbing incident when we sat in the Jacuzzi, however. When we tree climbed in, there were three girls of around 15 in there, chatting away in some form of foreign and we sat quietly at the other end. Then a man came to join us who, and this is the disturbing part, had nipples that were about an inch long. Seriously, they were longer than any man’s nipples should ever be. We scarpered fairly shortly afterwards, and continued our fun-time.

Fun-time almost came to an abrupt end after we had left the pool, however, when Andy almost killed himself slipping on the wet floor. Sadly, he stayed on his feet, and hilarity was averted.)

After about an hour, we came back to the house, collected Laura and we drove to Prüm, a lovely town in Germany. We went there last Christmas with Chris and Faith and we went back to the same restaurant.

Now I have to say, as little places to eat go, we can really pick them. This place is fantastic. It mainly sells meat in various forms, with loads of veg and in a really tasty way. I’ll let Anna describe the food as she is my resident expert! The restaurant was called the Posthotel.

NYOM NYOM NYOM

Not as descriptive as i would have hoped but accurate! Snitzel and Steak, was yummy indeed.

Mohne Dam and Bad Sassendorf - Sunday 13th July 2008

I was awoken quite rudely by my mobile today. It had turned itself off in the night because I had forgotten my charger and the battery had gone completely dead.

Even though it was light outside and it was about 9am my body just didn’t really want to work. I managed to sit myself up and the moment I swung my legs out of bed I felt that “WHY!” creaking cracking noise from most of my joints after the total punishment from day before.

I struggled to the shower and stood under the running water for ages, it was nice.

The thought of the long drive home was not one of excitement but there were a couple of things that we had to do before we left.

We met up with Chris and Faith outside the room. Gathered our things and loaded the car. We met the girls who had checked out already in the Kamps on the ground floor for a bit of food. I had the strongest coffee I could find and a Nussecke.

Our first destination was the Mohne Dam. This Dam generates power and holds back the Mohnesee. It was built in 1913. It is 36m high and 777m wide. It was destroyed in 1940 by the RAF – documented quite well in the film Dam-busters with the legendary bouncing bomb.

Now I haven’t been to the Dam since I was about 8 years old. We found parking and walked out onto the dam. To our left was the Mohnesee and to our left was the small town of Gunne. After the lessons learned in 1940, the town now resides on the side of the hill, almost out of reach of the torrents of water held back by only a few meters of stone.
The sun was out, the sky was blue and it was the first really relaxing moment of the whole holiday. The stroll over the dam was warm and there were only a few people about. I think on our return next time, we might have to do one of the countryside walks. It is a contrast to the rest of the region (which is predominantly industrial). There are loads of evergreen trees, and plants and general greenness.

We were there for about an hour, taking in the sight and wishing we had time to have a boat trip.

Our final stop off before the journey home was a small spa town near to the Dam called Bad Sassendorf. Sassendorf is a salt mining town and is locally famous for its salt water baths and ‘Wellness’ treatments.
Parking is not stress free in this town, a place dedicated to relaxing people and keeping people alive, it has the worst parking in the whole of Germany. We spent quite a lot of time gridlocked, waiting for the aged drivers of the town work their way in and out of parking spaces.

After about 30 mins we managed to get parked and strolled into town. The first thing I notice, as I’m sure my companions did as well, was that we were by far the youngest people in the town. There was an organic, natural produce, hippy style market on in the town and the main streets were packed with bumbling elderly people, all looking for tat to buy and offload onto unfortunate relatives……..
We eventually found some Curry-wurst and chips to chow down on and made our way to the Thermal Salt Baths. We paid, changed and got into the salt water pool, it was lovely and warm and felt strangely ‘silky’ and we swam about. Once again, we were by far the best looking and youngest people there, so I suppose, in a way, it worked – we looked and felt fantastic, especially after the stressful day before.

An hour later we were shrivelled up like prunes, changed and ready to roll. We got in the car, got out of town and onto the Autobahn for our trip home.

We did the journey pretty much all in one to be honest and made good time. We stopped for a breather a couple of times just so that I could wake up a bit and get some blood flowing.

The Chunnel was reached in about 5 hours and we were on time for our shuttle so went straight through.

It was an excellent weekend away, the company was ace and we managed to pack loads into a short space of time. At £50 for fuel each way, it certainly beats flying

Koln - Saturday 12th July 2008

Köln, or Cologne as we brits spell it, is to the south west of Dortmund and was our days adventure. When I say Day, I really mean day, we aimed to get into Köln at about noon so we thought, we’ll get up and about for 9, grab some lunch at the Backeri downstairs then be off. Due to our own German style efficiency, we were all in the bakery and eating our various pastries in no time.

We saw a tramp, he had his willy out. Chris and I were transfixed so told the girls not to look, under any circumstances,.. it was really not nice but I wont go into any more detail for fear of hurting Sean’s delicate mental state.
After food, we headed out in the car onto the Autobahns and drove to Köln. I have to say at this point, the roads were clear except for a few German BMW and Merc drivers trying to set a new land speed record.
It was a perfect day, open roads, clear skies, warm weather, could not really be a better day for it.
The journey took us no time at all really. Chris managed to get some more sleep and missed the beautiful Ruhr and the entrance to Koln over the Rhine.
We parked in the Altestadt (old town) near to the cathedral and the riverfront.
There were a couple of objectives for the day, Meet “Swiss Joinee Carla” and see the Kölner Lichter (lights of Köln).
Arriving just in time for lunch we were surprised that there was very little traffic, pedestrian and auto. It was nice. We wandered over to our first stop of the day.

Köln, used to be a Roman city and dates back to 38BC. It would not be a Sweeney family holiday without seeing some ruins – so we did!
The Roman Praetorium is next to the town hall, and underground. The Praetorium would have been the ‘Governor’s Palace’. Excavated in the 50s, it was covered over to make way for buildings. They did however make it accessible via a large underground cavern. As with the Cyprus blog, ruins are ruins, but this was different. Because it was underground and very well lit, it added to the mystery. All that are really recognisable of the old building are the foundations and lower parts of the walls.
There was also a Roman Sewer tunnel (it didn’t smell anymore!) that ran off the complex that could be walked along. This at the time would have been used to carry away waste from the palace towards the river and also would be a secluded place for shady dealing and murders. In later life, during World War 2, the tunnels were used as a bomb shelter to protect some of the locals from allied attack. Shhhh! Don’t mention the war!

Leaving the Praetorium behind we continued on over to the Cathedral. This GIANT cathedral was built between 1248 and 1880 and it is just HUGE, I can not emphasise how big that bastard actually is. It is so big in fact that since 1880 (when they started renovation work) it is still going on. There is a running joke with the locals that when the work finishes, the end of the world will be upon us.
The Gothic Cathedral is 157m tall, and up until the Washington monument, then the Eiffel tower, was the tallest building in the world.
It was filled with milling thoughtless, bumbling tourists that wandered around aimlessly without objective. We went inside and soon left as my rage levels grew. It’s big inside, real big, just like the outside.

Next, a bit of shopping, a trip to the Lego shop and off for lunch in Heumarkt, near to the Rhine. I had a giant Calzone, Anna had Schnitzel and the kids had pizzas. Was nice, the sun came out and we steadily baked in the sunshine.

After grub, the heavens opened and we met with Carla next to one of the riverboats. After a bit of searching we went to a Löwenbrow pub for some coffee, beer, tea and apfel strudel.

Time was killed for a substantial amount of time (about 6 or 7 hours) by sitting around on the grass, sleeping and eating bratwurst and Nutella crepes.

The crowds started descending on the riverfront and soon there was no space at all. The chilled out waiting turned into stressful packed in standing waiting for a couple more hours until the sun set behind us, spilling golden light over Rhine to the bank opposite.

Amplified Schlager music was being played from a concert on the opposite bank, I used to find this very painful to listen to when I was younger but it kinda fitted the situation.

At about 2230 all the lights went out from the banks and the show began, close to 50 ships must have gone by north on the Rhine. Each one displaying strings of the lights down their lengths and atop their masts. They played loud haunting music and most of the people on the riverbanks, thousands of them, lit sparklers as they passed. It was REALLY good.

After the boats passed, they re-positioned themselves and allowed a huge coal barge pass between them into the river in front of us. This barge, usually a cargo barge, was carrying a special load this evening. At 2330hrs the fireworks began. 30 minutes of explosions from the barge and the railway bridge. It was by far the biggest one I have ever seen. (Fireworks display, not bridge).

At midnight, after the festivities had concluded, everyone tried to leave all at once. We managed to get to our car unharmed and began the 1 hour trip out of town, then the trip back to Dortmund.

We were all VERY tired and achy and bed was welcomed. I think next year, different tactics need to be employed.

Dortmund - Friday 11th July 2008

Right, 6am, a good healthy start to the day, well, for real people who are able to get up in the morning,… well, me. The sun was out, shining brightly and a great day was waiting, just in front of us. We were off to DORTMUND for a long weekend break.
My alarm woke me with a start and the first thing I thought as I woke up was “AHH CRAP, I’VE ONLY HAD 5 HOURS SLEEP!” I nudged Anna (NEVER a good thing) but it had to be done as we would never have got going! I left the bedroom making sure I at least had some shorts on for in the living-room- our travelling companions awaited us. By waiting, I don’t mean they were doing it awake, Faith was awake, just,… I think that the thin curtains and the bright sunshine might have destroyed any chance of her getting any decent sleep from about 4am onwards…. Chris on the other-hand was totally sparko.

I grabbed a quick shower and by the time I was out, Anna was up and dressed,… I was shocked, well, pleasantly surprised! Chris was still out for the count.
Anna and Faith both had turns in the bathroom,…. And after about 30 minutes, Chris was still asleep.
A vigorous shaking was in order and in minutes he was in the shower and getting ready. He took forever though – worse than both us girls!
After a quick round of toast and some last minute emailing we packed the car and were on our way!

Traffic was fairly heavy, leaving at about 0710 is generally not a good plan, we might have to make it a little earlier next time.

We got to the shuttle terminal in just over an hour. Chris and Faith slept most of the way… this was the start of a general theme for Chris’s weekend

The thirty minutes on the shuttle was passed by eating bite sized scotch eggs and wiener sausages that we had pre packed (from M&S don’t you know!) This was a handy breakfast as we had pretty much no time in the Terminal to score some cheap foods for brekkie.
There was a really cute small child that touched Anna up and almost damaged his face on my car, but ill let Anna tell you about that later.

Ah yes the child! He was really lovely, all ears and face and stuff. He’d spent quite a lot of the journey waving to us whilst “driving” and then on one of his little walks about the train, he missed the edge of the walkway and smacked face first into the back of the car. Thankfully he just looked a little confused and got straight back up and carried on. On his way back I was leaning against the car and made sure I pressed up to the car out of his way at which point he decided to pat me on the bum, much in the way you would pat someone on the back! It was cute and I thought he was funny :)

Unloading of the shuttle took very little time and we were soon cruising along the roads around CALAIS. We had to make a short stop off at Auchan to fuel and then we headed out onto the open road.

Our route saw us drive out of CALAIS on the northern roads to the west, on the motorway, through France and into Belgium. It always makes me laugh. The road goes from shiny blacktop to rough and bumpy concrete. The streetlamps vanish and the road markings fade. For the trip to GENT, then on to ANTWERP, round the ring-road and out the other side, nothing much happened. It was the same from Antwerp to the border of the Netherlands where the sexy smooth blacktop returned and the roads became quieter. We made a quick stop for a leg stretch and some food at a picnic site and chowed down on some rolls and potato salad.
The rest of the journey was uneventful, Anna found some cool place names that we passed and the usual game of I SPY was won I think by her as well. Wankum, Wickede and Asseln. Some of the best names we’ve seen on signs so far. Not forgetting Koksijde and Dijksmuide (the “j” is silent in both. Snigger). Already looking forward to going to Titisee in May next year!

I was getting really tired by the time we hit Germany and DUISBURG. I checked the Satnav and it said that there was only about 50 miles to go so I stuck it out and we arrived at our first destination at about 1600 local time.

TRINKGUT is by far the greatest and best shop in the whole of Europe. It is floor to ceiling with beer, wine and other beverages and snacks. If you own a bar, or just like to drink, this is the place to be.
I bought a crate of 24 BITBURGER Alcohol Free beers for about 12 Euros and some more local beer for about 7 Euros for 25 1/2L Bottles. They also had three varieties of the peanut crisps that I have a severe addiction to. I restricted my self to just 2 bags, and as we speak I even have half a bag left! Go me! Faith has also been introduced to their wonderment and even Chris liked them. Andy is still rubbish and doesn’t eat them. More for me!
I love Germany, if you take back your empties, they give you a rebate voucher for the crate and bottles, knocking 3 Euros of you price, EVEN BETTER!

Once this was all packed away, we slowly made our way through the traffic to our home for the next two nights.
The City Centre MERCURE HOTEL is pretty much like most other basic hotels. The room is a good size for the two of us and has all the usual expensive drinks and sweets in the mini-bar. And not forgetting the contact card for “Club Amore” – they provide home visits, hotel visits or escort services! Bunch of mingers in the pictures though…

We are out tonight for dinner so will report in later!

That was a lovely night! We had a wander round DORTMUND, which is pretty much a generic German shopping town. It has all of the post war style concrete developments and the shops are similar to those all over Germany. They have Kaufhof, H&M and C&A. All good though, we saw some lovely churches and at the moment they have winged rhinoceros scattered round the city that look like they have been paid for and pained by local businesses. I think they’re related to the Superlambanana from Liverpool.

Dinner was at a restaurant called “Der Thuringer” near to the Hansaplatz. It was definitely ‘SnitzelUhr’ so we all had supersexy meat that was beaten to within an inch of its structural integrity before being covered in breadcrumbs,…. OM, NYOM, NYOM. Salad was a bit weird though, the carrots were cooked and in orange juice, there was an onion and celery soup which smelt like feet. Garlicky mushrooms were yummy, so that helped.

After grub, back to the room for munchies and some German TV.

Night all.

Orford and Aldeburgh - Tuesday 24th June 2008

Ahhh, my first blog since the infamous Cyprus Holiday. After what seems like ages of hanging around working and doing other boring things, i decided that it was time to jump in the car with Ian from work and head out to the seaside for the day.

Anna is away in Leeds at the moment with work so amongst other things it was a welcome trip out to relieve the daily tedium.

Our day began at about 10am when i drove to Stortford to pick Ian up. The weather was beautiful and there was harldy a cloud in the sky.

Quite frankly, the drive over was amazing. I great mix of country roads and motorway that carve their way through the Suffolk countryside edging its way further and further towards the coast.

After about an hour of driving, Ian's ADHD was beginning to surface and none too soon we arrived at our destination.

The small town of ORFORD is just up the coast from Felixstowe. It is a small harbour town that has an average age of about 70. Arriving at just after noon we parked at the lovely ORFORD CASTLE and went to forage for some food. The first place we came across was called the CROWN AND CASTLE. I remember this place from a Jamie Oliver program about teaching bad kids to cook and it seemed really nice.... the menu was not as cheap as we both would like so we continued in to the market square and to a pub called the KINGS HEAD. Stubbers had Scampi (if it was local or not i dont know) with chips and i managed to find a ploughmans. This was not the best one i have ever had but pretty good really. It came with bar far the biggest block of cheese i have ever had in one sitting.

After lunch we headed down to the harbour. We walked through the town, past cottages and small holiday homes to the coast. It would have been really interesting to see ORFORD as a bustling fishing port. It must have been really busy. The harbour (although still used for a small amount of fishing) is now home to the sailing club and a couple of boat tours.

In the distance, just out of the harbour, can be seen ORFORD NESS. This is a spit that extends along the coast over the mouth of the river ORE. ORFORD NESS Was used during the both wars as an airfield, radar and communications centre and secret / atomic weapons development labs. Now it is an English Heritage site and protected as a site of special scientific interest. On the spit there are a number of buildings including a lighthouse and a couple of "PAGODAS". These housed the weapons testing stations. They similar to a greek temple with columns holding in place a large concrete roof. The design was such that if there was an explosion or some other 'leak', then the roofs would collapse and seal in any contaminants.

There were no tours operating to the Ness which was a shame so i think in a couple of months time when the summer really heats up then i'll have to go back to explore.

We walked back to the town and went off to the castle to have a look.

The castle is of cylindrical (hexaganal) design with three corner turrets. It stands atop a small hill overlooking the coast and is surrounded by pits and dips that would not have looked out of place in tellytubby land. The castle was built in 1165 by Henry II to 'Consolidate Royal Power' in the region. It cost at the time £1413 to build and made about £10,000 per year in revenue for the crown.

It seems to be making more than that for English Heritage at the moment so we decided that the benefits of going in did not outweigh the costs at all.

Had it been after pay day, we would not have sounded so tight but hey, maybe next time.

We left Orford following a very old open top Jaguar along more country lanes. At one moment, whilst driving past a field, a spray cannon was pumping out water over the road. The Jaguar couple really had to think twice as they drove very quickly through the spray.

Next on our stop was the town of ALDEBURGH. This is a very quaint seaside town just to the north of ORFORD.

Now, i really love and somehow respect ALDEBURGH, there is one thing that stood out more than anything else. There is no Tesco. We walked from one end of town to the other. They have local greengrocers, butchers, fishmongers, small independant tea shops. The only chain supermarket was a Co-op. Even this looked as if it was in place and was meant to be there.

It was nice to see that there were also book shops and toy shops that sold small wooden boats. I think that it is a classical British seaside holiday town, there are very few of them left that are as unspoilt by 'Cafe Nero', 'Butlins' and 'Tesco'.

ALDEBURGH has a very small, single screen cinema that also has an art exhibition centre as well. Every one of the seats has been sold to a member and it has a plague with their name on the back. Last time i was there i saw Moulin Rouge, and let me tell you, it fitted perfectly with the style of the place. Leather clad, brass rivited seats in and art deco surrounding,... lovely.

We took a small walk along the beach, found a nice pub and sat for a while enjoying the day.

At around 4pm we decided to head back. The journey home was fine. The sun broke through the overcast clouds that had formed throughout the day and we made good time home.

All in all, a very nice day.

Cyprus - Wednesday 21st May 2008

Righto, not a great start to a day that has just turned into the ‘Day of Hell’.
After getting to bed at near on 0330hrs in the morning, the 0745 start was not at all welcome. It would have been better if not for the excessive overnight heat, the chickens at the end of the road shouting at the full moon and the dog barking loudly for what seemed to be no real reason at all. (I slept as well as normally. That is to say, ok. But very hotly.)

I got up, tidied up and thanks to Sean, downed two hot steaming cups of black coffee. This set me up for the morning at least. (Cos I’m lovely, and feel compelled to offer drinks around whenever I have tea. This results in people being offered lots of drinks.)

We hung around at the house until about 10am and then departed in search of breakfast. This was inevitably going to be at fortnights the pub of choice, The Kings Road.

We loaded the cars and left for the pub. When we got there we all sat and ordered. We all had cooked breakfasts except for Laura, who deciding (in her still pissed from the night before state) that a Pepperoni Pizza would be a good plan. We did realise soon after that this would be the first bad idea in a serious of what turned out to be near fatal mistakes for Laura P.

We all tucked into our grub, wharfing down the lush tasty pieces of bacon, sausages and round after round of toast.
Laura began to eat her first slice of pizza…. Over to you Sean….

(The first slice was scarfed down in double-quick time. ‘Mmm,’ said Laura, ‘What a nummy, tasty treat this is! What a delectable specimen of pizza-kind. Nyom nyom nyom.’ With the first slice practically inhaled, Laura then set about her second, while the rest of us looked on amazed, scarcely having tackled our baked beans yet. ‘My word! This slice is just as perfect as the last, if not better!’ she exclaimed, ‘The pepperoni is divine, the cheesy goodness just remarkable, and the…well, hold on just one minute! What on Earth is this?’ At that, she held aloft a tiny sliver of glass. ‘Why,’ she proclaimed, ‘This is glass! I knew I crunched on something just a moment ago, and now I know what it was!’ She then proceeded to turn white as a sheet, imagining the slice and dice job that the innocent silica compound could be doing to her innards at that precise moment. All yours again, Mr Sweeney…)

Thanks Sean, elegantly put there, very Famous Five!

(Thanks. Our breakfasts were pretty good though. I’m a fan of the full English, and the foreign pig-dogs did it fairly well. Andy enjoyed it so much he was going to have two, but we convinced him to hold off a bit, lest he come across as a fat git.)

After having that knocked off the bill and a round of drinks later, Rich and Laura went off for a small constitutional to the Tombs of the Kings.
We sat around in the shade as we knew what was good for us. Time passed and we became evermore sleepy as mid-day came and went. After what seemed like hours of watching VH1 ‘Then and now’, Rich and Laura returned, with ice cream! Laura looked a little pink (probably from the sun rather than the piece of glass firmly wedged in her oesophagus).
We decided that we would move on from the Kings Road as, as they had officially declared war on one of our party, we had to stop Rich from sparking off another International Incident.
We drove through Pafos and out towards the airport to a lovely Taverna that Rich had seen when taking Donna back and we had visited on our last day a couple of years ago.
We found a nice spot on the front near to the road and ordered some beverages. This was Laura’s second near fatal mistake of the day…. Sean, back to you…..

(Plumb’s prandial predicament persisted ‘pon perusing the remnants of her pressed pulp. So let us hie us back to the beginning of the scene, and see what led our heroine to her distressing discovery…

We’d arrived at the Taverna and taken our seats. The waitress was swift to arrive and take our drinks orders, followed just as swiftly by our food orders (All delivered and received, I might add, in near flawless Greek. We really do rock that muchly.) Our drinks arrived soon after, soft drinks and waters, mainly, with a couple of freshly squeezed orange juices, and a beer for (take a guess…) Richard. We sat amiably chatting, as is our wont, eating the toasted bread provided, and partaking of our chilled beverages. When the food arrived, we were all mightily impressed – everything looked superb, and tasted just as good. Laura managed to steal a massive amount of my Carbonara, because she’s a bad ‘un, but given what was about to come, I can forgive that now.

After our hungers had all been sated, we settled back to enjoy the remains of our drinks. Just then, a cry went up to my right: ‘What is that? Ugh! Maggots in my drink!’ We looked at Laura’s drink, and sure enough, the bottom of her glass was a writhing mass of tiny larvae. Laura immediately went a remarkable shade of puce, clasping her hand to her mouth and trying not to reintroduce any of the friendly little critters that may have escaped the glass’ watery clutches back to the receptacle, while Andy went to inform the proprietor. Richard then realised that, in his haste to drink his juice and move onto his beer, he had not paid any attention to the thicker, less juicy part of his drink, believing them only to be pith. Imagine his surprise, then, when a cursory inspection of his glass revealed yet more of our wriggly little friends.

By this stage, Laura had tears in her eyes, and was trying hard (although not quite hard enough) not to imagine what she had swallowed. Our advice, that they were good protein, not at all dangerous to swallow, and that they would only eat dead flesh anyway, fell on less than happy ears, and she continued to have to try hard to control her gag reflex. Andy returned with the owner, who apologised profusely for the problem, and brought us out free desserts and water in an attempt to make up for the trauma caused – which went down fine with us, although I think Laura was probably less appeased. She was a bit happier, though, when the bill came, and she realised that none of her drinks were on it, meaning that, for the entire day, she’s only had to pay for one thing. Result.)

Thanks Sean. So, two culinary near death experiences in less than two hours, the question is, “What is in store for Laura next!”

2216hrs: Here is a first for me, I’m blogging on a plane.
On arrival at Pafos International Airport we dropped the car off near to the front of the airport and checked in. It was something like 11 Euros to upgrade to ‘Speedy Boarding’ so we did that with the view that I would get on board, get a legroom seat and reserve some for Spanna and Goldy.
We waited in the airport for about an hour. Goldy and Myself managed to wangle some free broadband Wi-Fi so I checked the 50 emails I had waiting for me and had a sneaky look at the Facebook.
Our flight was soon called and I got through the gate. I looked back to see a complete maelstrom of writhing bodies as the ‘A’ and ‘B’ passengers crammed themselves into the gate not letting the disabled adults and parents with young kids (special assistance) anywhere near. Sleazyjet need to do something to sort this out. Its not as if it makes the whole thing any quicker, it just promotes Spanna rage. I caught her eye as she was sitting with Goldy through the plastic screen that separated the “EasyJet Elite” from the rest of the plebs. She was not happy, I made a mental note to book us both as Speedy Boarding every time we fly.
I was soon on board our Airbus A321 plane. I had a nice chat with the hostess regarding her current state of employ with GB Airways and her possible moves to either EasyJet or BA. She was not happy with the whole situation and is under the impression that the current staff are being made ‘uncomfortable’ so that they either take the pay cut to work for EasyJet or go somewhere else. It is a sad business to be sure but I suppose that is just the way of things, Shit happens and it rolls down hill.
I reserved seats for G and Anna and they came aboard a few moments later and we set off on our return trip home.

I have learned a number of lessons from this holiday.
1. The human race will die out from either stupidity or laziness (i.e. forgetting or not being bothered about eating).
2. I am a terrible passenger in a car, I cry like a girl if I am not in control.
3. The dishwashing fairy is a hard one to catch on film, it remains outstanding to this day.
4. Strain your freshly pressed fruit juice.
5. Don’t let Richard Bennett anywhere near to any tense diplomatic situation.


Epilogue

Despite our last day being almightily awful for Laura and the transit through the airport being somewhat tense and annoying, the flight went well and touched down on time. Sadly we were not in for a repeat of the speedy exit we managed through baggage collection in Pafos, as we spent a good 20 minutes for the belt for our flight to be announced and this was after having walked the mile or so from the gate to the arrivals hall. Thankfully, once it got going, we were out and on our way back to the car without much delay. The drive home was tiring and involved only one scary drop in concentration from Andy where we veered slightly onto the rumblestrips. It seems as well that the conversion back to a manual car with the indicator and windscreen wiper sticks the right way round again caused a little confusion at times!
When we finally got home, I remembered to check my phone and had a text from Sean to say that they’d had the fire engines and police following them upon landing in Manchester as their plane’s braking system had failed. I can let him explain this fully I’m sure, but no doubt it helped cement the day as one of the worst of Laura Plumb’s life.

Goldy and the Sweeney’s left the tavern about a half hour before us, as their flight was earlier, although we fully expected to see them again through passport control. Our journey to the airport was uneventful, and, as we arrived and parked up, I was surprised to find that we were just leaving our hire car in the car park, without a pay and display ticket or anything of the like. Apparently this is standard procedure, although, of course, I wouldn’t know that. As we bade farewell to our trusty motorised steed and started the short walk to the airport, I could feel the weight of real life coming back onto my shoulders. Bills, jobs, all the baggage of modern life would be picked up at the carousel in Manchester, but they were already starting to settle on me with just the knowledge that I was soon to be leaving my island idyll behind me.

We settled in a cafe (well, tiny snack bar type thing) outside the airport. Richard discovered that by walking just inside the building, he saved about a quid on a drink, then brought it back outside. We discussed the holiday, and what each of our favourite parts were. Laura and Rich came up with one moment, before I reeled off a list of about fifty things. Eventually, it was time for us to join the throng of people at the check-in desk, and wait for our bags to begin the perilous journey to the undercarriage of the aircraft. After a hefty wait, which wasn’t without it’s complaints (from Richard, mostly), Laura’s bag was passed straight through, while Rich’s and mine were subjected to extra scanning and things. We obviously look dodgy as sin. There were no problems getting through though, and we made our way to the departure lounge.

We made a swift move to the gates, where Goldy and Spanna were waiting to be called for boarding. Andy, due to his ‘special needs’ (‘Oh, I’m so tall, let me on first, I’m technically disabled you know...’) had already gone through, but we were able to say our goodbyes to the other two, before going back through to the food and shopping bits. Laura had promised to buy me a present, because I had no souvenir for myself from the holiday, despite having plenty for other people, and we then went to get ourselves a pre-flight snack. One of the biggest slices of pizza in the world later, and we were ready for the off.

The flight was called much earlier than we expected, and we hurried to the gate, only to end up stood there, with a mass of tired holidaymakers, for about half an hour, before eventually being called for boarding. Honestly, Andy was right about EasyJet’s procedures – they really need to get their boarding organised, as it was just a mess. There were all kinds of people complaining that they should have been in a different boarding group, and the lady at the desk, helpful as she was trying to be, seemed to be at the end of her tether. In the end, though, we made it to the bus, and then onto the plane.

Where, for some unknown reason, the couple who had already got the seats by the wing, with the massive legroom, decided to give them up, allowing us to take them, and be able to stretch out for the duration of the flight. This pleased Richard greatly, and he and Laura were able to sleep pretty much straight away. I attempted to watch the film (Mr and Mrs Smith, a great improvement on the tosh served up on the way out), but even I eventually succumbed, and got an hour’s shut-eye. I awoke in time to see us begin our descent while over London. Take off and landing have always been my favourite part of any flight, and I was looking forward to this one. Before long, we were over Manchester, and coming in for landing, when suddenly, I felt the plan angle upwards again, and accelerate noticeably. I thought this was a tad unusual, although assumed that maybe we were having to circle a bit due to congestion or something, until, that is, the pilot came over the intercom to inform us that one of the braking systems had failed. Cue massive eyes from Laura. He went on to let us know that they had a back-up system which they were just checking, and we would be landing shortly. What? You’re checking the back-up systems in flight? I honestly thought all that would have been sorted out before flights began, just in case, but there you go – that’s budget airlines for you.

Well, apparently they were up to scratch, as we once again began our descent into Manchester, and finally touched down with a convoy of fire engines and police attending. We were then held on the plane until they’d ascertained that there were no problems, and the plane wasn’t going to explode, or something (although if it was, I’d rather have been off it and far away when it did), before finally being allowed back onto British soil. As we approached the terminal building, I switched on my phone, and was greeted with a text from a friend of mine rejoicing over the fact that Manchester United had won the Champions League. Oh, brilliant. Thanks for that, mate.

Laura’s dad was waiting for us as we left the baggage reclaim, and we made our way out to the car, and the final leg of our journey home. I quickly fell asleep (there’s me and car-napping again!), and woke up as we arrived at my flat, where Richard and I were disgorged from the vehicle. After a quick goodbye to Laura, and thanks to her dad for staying up late to help us out again, we fell into the flat, and dumped our bags. I made a cup of tea (which would go undrunk), and flopped onto the bed, exhausted. It was 2am BST, 4am to my weary body clock, and I allowed sleep to quickly envelop me, with no thoughts for the worries I would have in the morning, but just happy memories of the fortnight I’d had dancing through my mind.

Some more thoughts, in bullet point form:

· I can’t think of many better people I could have gone away with. There was space for both mental going out-ness, and lovely staying in-ness.
· I can survive in the sun without all my skin melting off, so long as I’m careful.
· I think Greek looks prettier than English. And is probably a damn sight easier to learn.
· The rules of shotgun are immutable. Always look out for reloads.
· Fish are friends. And food.

Cyprus - Tuesday 20th May 2008

Well today was great. I got up just before noon, so I obviously needed the sleep.
Upon waking, something felt very odd indeed. It felt as though I had been run over by a train. My shoulders and chest ached and I felt really hot. It was when I looked in the mirror that I saw the whole of my situation. My knees and shoulders were bright red with sunburn and I have a number of mosquito bites on my back and shoulders. I headed straight into the bathroom and applied copious amounts of after-sun lotion. (I also had a spot of sunburn, in weird patterns on my arms. However, as I’m not a giant pussy, I didn’t bitch about it. I just got on with it, layered on the sun cream, and went about my day.)
Sean and Laura were already up and had been to the shop. (No, I had been to the shop. Laura had sat around, and had even offered to drive me the five minute walk, lazy as she is, and assumes everyone else to be. I opted for the more refreshing stroll. It was lovely. I bought eggs, bread and presents for people. I have all kinds of presents for people, and no presents at all for myself. That is lame.)
I decided to have a day in and away from the sun. Photos and Command and Conquer, ace!

Sean, over to you!

(While Andy girled out at the villa, we headed off on adventures. First up, we went to the Prehistoric Village, just past Stavros’ restaurant. Now, on the interest scale, this didn’t rank highly. It was basically just a reconstruction of a settlement they had found there that date back to circa 3,500BC, with, unfortunately, very little information to tell you what was going on. There was a board detailing some of the finds that had been made there, most of which were highly important, and had, therefore, been moved to the Museum of Cyprus in Nicosia. These included statues such as the Lempa Lady, a representation of a fertility Goddess, which is thought to have been a possible inspiration for the Goddess Aphrodite, so that was interesting. Unfortunately, some of the others found it, shall we say, dull, and we shifted out pretty sharpish.

The next stop on our Andy-less odyssey was Pafos Bird and Animal Park. Now, this was by far the most expensive thing we have done so far on the holiday, at a whopping €15.50 each, and we were sorely tempted to turn around and walk away. However, we decided to go ahead (mainly because Anna had already asked for six tickets), and entered the park.

My first impression was that it was bigger than I had expected. It seemed strange that something that size could be so well hidden away, but so it was. We followed the directions given by the surly ticket collector, and headed down our first path. It led, as most paths did, to some bird cages. There were a hell of a lot of birds in the place, and most of them were pretty much of a muchness, but the first section did contain some cool ones – buzzards and eagles (and bears, oh my!) Anna found a massive feather which one of the birds had dropped, which she stole. The buzzards were flying around like mentals, but they had fairly big enclosures, so that was ok.

While we moved on to the petting zoo section (rabbits and goats, essentially), Goldy went to the kiosk for a cool, refreshing drink. I think he was unaware at the time that right next to the kiosk was a cage containing a 4 metre long albino python. When he did find out, however, we rushed over to look. The young lady manning the kiosk was more than happy to get it out for us to touch, which was cool. Snakes aren’t at all slimy, and the feel of the muscles underneath the scaly skin was awesome. After playing with it for a while, Rich, Donna, Anna and I had our picture taken with it (Goldy and Laura kept well away), before it was put back in its cage. Goldy was mighty brave to stand so close to the thing, and didn’t really freak out at all (except when we asked how fast it could move, and after being told, ‘Quite fast,’ it was put on the floor about ten feet from him. He scarpered a bit then.

We carried on meandering around the park, taking in horses, deer, gazelle, and all manner of exotic birds. Laura kept trying to get a peacock to open up to her, but as she didn’t seem to turn the birds on, it didn’t really happen. We also saw a mouflon, which is a type of sheep indigenous to Cyprus, and found nowhere else on earth. They’re extremely rare, with only around 2000 in the world, so I wasn’t allowed to eat it, more’s the pity. By this time, it was almost the hour of the parrot show, so we headed in the direction of the show hall. Right next to it was the best animal of the day – a red squirrel. Absolutely brilliant. It seemed strange to us, but then I do suppose that we keep lots of little lizards in British zoos, which are abundant here. Anyway, he didn’t look to have any fun things in his little cage, so Anna and I gave him a bit of grass to play with. He had an absolute ball with that thing.

We got into the parrot theatre and waited for the show to start, as 5 parrots were placed on perches at the back of the room. The show began with the raising of the flag (by a parrot), and comprised of all manner of exciting and funny tricks, including roller skating parrots, bike riding parrots, car driving parrots, parrots in pushchairs, parrots that could count, parrots that saved their money in a piggy bank, and, as they say, much, much more. The snake lady (for she was also running the show) asked if anyone wanted to have one of the birds fly to them, and, being the noble gentleman that I am, I let Laura do it instead of me. I would have liked to have touched a parrot.

Anyway, after the parrots, some owls were brought in. They didn’t do any tricks though, beyond flying backwards and forwards (and eating dead baby chicken heads and feet), although one of them did twist its head right round, which was cool. Anna and I had our photo taken with one, and stroked it. It was very soft, and tried to fly into Laura’s face.

After the parrot show, we wandered back into the park, seeing yet more wondrous animals – zebras, giraffes, giant tortoises, camels and emus amongst them. The ostrich pen had two newly laid eggs within it, and the ostriches were making a good job of keeping us away from them (wire notwithstanding) with an aggressive display on the edge of their territory. Ostrich eggs are massive. Then again, so are ostriches. I always forget just how big they are – essentially, 6 foot plus chickens, with bad tempers. After Rich had decided to taunt them some more, we moved onto the reptile house, wherein Goldy displayed yet more courage by, firstly, actually entering, and secondly, looking at snakes and not running away. They had some nasty little buggers in there too, horned vipers and the like, although there was a snake that is immune to rattlesnake venom, and sometimes eats them, so Goldy was happy to know that at least one of the species is on his side. They also had one of the ones that lives in the garden of the villa, so now I have definitely seen one.

The sun, incidentally, was almost unbearable at times, so by around half four, we decided that we’d had enough and headed back to our invalided travel-mate. The rest of the afternoon was spent lounging, although I didn’t dare go in the sun anymore, fearing that, as the spell which had prevented me burning at all had now been broken, I might just end up doing two weeks’ worth in one day. Instead, I packed in preparation for tomorrow’s departure, and relaxed around the villa.)

Later on. Donna has departed to the airport with Rich and we went down to the Kings Road Bar for ANOTHER evening of Karaoke. We sang some songs, I failed a Knocking on Heavens Door (but did a great Axel) and Goldy had no balls when I came to asking out a chick.

(Dude, as the holiday has gone on, you’ve gotten totally lame at filling in details. After Donna’s departure, we carried on with our ‘doing nothing’ for a little while before heading down to the pub. Thankfully, there was a much larger crowd in tonight, so we had a little respite between songs, although it was a little annoying that all of us got called up while eating our dinner! Andy didn’t suck at Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, in fact, but he was annoyed that he only fitted in one bit of Axel business. I underestimated how high November Rain is, though, and felt like a noob. I made it up by totally owning Ace of Spades, which was cool.

The final act of the night, however, was surely the gayest moment of the entire holiday, as Goldy put us all down to sing Perfect Day. It was dreadful. And, even worse, prevented me getting a chance to do a bit of Goldie Looking Chain. I think the aged audience would have gone for it in a big way, as well.

Anna, Andy and I headed back first (as has become usual), at about 1:30, with the others about half an hour behind. Goldy went to bed first, and the other five of us sat around talking outside. Despite the fact that we had an early start on Wednesday morning, no-one seemed inclined to go to bed until they absolutely could stay up no longer, and the final night of our holiday dwindled out in a whirl of circular arguments between the drunkards (AKA Rich and Laura), and a general rundown of the time we’d spent together. Andy, Anna and I sloped off at around 3:30, leaving the other two chewing the fat, hoping to God that they wouldn’t leave the table outside in the same state as they had last time! Laura eventually came to bed about 5, and was very cute, but, to be fair, at that time, I didn’t really have the energy to say anything above a mumble. We slept for a little while in preparation for our final day…)

So, Tuesday for me, DONE!

Cyprus - Monday 19th May 2008

BOAT DAY!

I got up with a spring in my step this morning, today was BOAT DAY!
We were all up pretty early and were out of the door by 0930. (Which is impressive, until you realise that we were meant to get off at 8:30, and the rule was supposed to be that if you weren’t ready to go at that time, you would be left behind. Unfortunately, that would’ve meant only half of us going. As it was, Goldy didn’t come along anyway, because he was feeling ill, so he stayed at the villa and played Zelda. He did get it finished though, so that’s ok.) We drove over to Latchi were we picked up our vessel for the day, aptly named ‘Monkey Boy’. This 80 BHP monster was brand new and still had the cellophane on the seats.

We boarded the ship and assumed our positions, Rich as Captain, Sean as ‘Rear Admiral’ and Laura as the ‘Buxom Wench’. (Andy was First Mate, and Anna was Cabin Boy. These titles are not as cool, so Andy decided not to add them, obviously.)

We were soon on our way out of the port and heading out to sea.
It wasn’t long before Rich decided to ‘open her up’ and we raced along the coastline leaving a massive wave behind us!
It felt great, bouncing over the waves and feeling the spray from the sea coming up from the bow wave soaking us in the ever increasing heat.

Our first port of call was a reef that had formed just along the coastline from where we started. At full power it took us only about 30 minutes to get there.
Upon arrival we weighed anchor and Sean and I were first overboard.
Wearing our life vests, flippers and snorkels we swam the 300m to the reef. (Incidentally, I discovered here that it is actually incredibly difficult to swim in flippers, unless you’re totally submerged. On the surface, they’re just awkward and tiring.) At first, the sea bed seemed completely desolate, with the occasional rock protruding from the sand, then, as we approached the reef, weed appeared followed by some coral type stuff. Below I could only see a few fish. Most were small black and grey fish but there were a couple that were about 5 inches long with a green body and a white back with what looked like a ‘snouty’ face.
We swam over to the rocky outcrop rising from the sea like a small island, then like a couple of penguins, we clambered up onto the rocks and almost completely stacked it because of our flippers. Not wanting to take them off because the rocks were sharp, pointed and would easily have torn our feet to pieces, we had to walk backwards until we found a nice place to sit down and wait for the others. The only thing missing during our stay on what I now christen “Sweeney’s Island” was a thermos of tea and a packet of Hob Nobs. (We must have looked a couple of right plums, walking so very awkwardly and gingerly, attempting not to fall onto the very jagged rocks. It looked like it may have been volcanic, although as far as I know, there are no volcanic outcrops in that area. It was definitely metamorphic though. As it was, I still ended up getting grazed, and also sustaining a small cut to my right shin. I still don’t know how I did that, it didn’t even hurt till I’d seen it. Of course, having seen it, I then had a vague panic about the fact that sharks can smell one part blood in about 8 billion parts water, and would obviously come running (well, swimming) from however many miles away they might be, and try to eat me. Couple that with the fact that we were further out to sea at this point than I’d been before, and it was a little weird.

So, we sat and waited for the others. By wait, of course, I mean ‘watched them fanny about with the boat, while wondering aloud exactly why they were fannying about with the boat, and questioning whether or not they were ever going to bother coming out to the reef, which was the reason we had stopped where we had.’ While we waited, we discussed all the cool stuff we were going to tell them we’d seen, up to and including lobsters, whales and dolphins. We actually did see some limpets and barnacles, and other sticking-to-the-rocks-type creatures, which was pretty good. Andy prised one off of the rock, so we got to see what they looked like in their shells while alive. It wasn’t any different to how they looked dead, to be honest.

After about fifteen minutes of sitting on the rock, there’d still been no movement from the boat. Richard was messing about in the water (apparently doing something with the anchor) but the girls weren’t, it appeared, doing anything, although we now know that, in fact, Anna was being sick. So Andy and I chatted some more, and enjoyed the beautiful surroundings. The tide was coming in, so the little rock pools were being swallowed up by the rising water, and we eventually decided it was time to head back – just at the point Richard and Donna turned up. We swam back to the boat, keeping an eye out for any interesting sea life, but unfortunately there wasn’t too much around.

Still, could have been worse. I could have had my leg bitten off by a shark.)

Sadly, not all of us had this much fun. Rich and Donna kept wittering on about the anchor and shouldn’t we get closer to the reef so it’s not so far to swim etc, which meant Laura and I pulling the anchor up, repositioning the boat, dropping anchor again and realising that during the whole dragging it up and learning how to use the boat, the forward distance we then made barely countered the current pushing us back the other way. Due to me generally being a little rubbish with small boats, it was at this time that I threw up. (Told you.)
I can manage ok when we’re moving, it’s the rocking and bobbing I can’t deal with, especially if my head is over the side of the boat trying to see where the anchor is.

After about half an hour of basking in the sunlight we decided that we would swim back to the boat. We clambered back aboard and piloted our boat to a place called the blue lagoon. On arrival we saw it, exactly as described, blue. The water was a really light aqua blue and stretched off in every direction towards the open sea and into the shore of the small cove.
There was a small fishing boat that had been converted to carry passengers already there. It looked like the passengers were all 40+ and they were enjoying a spot of lunch, so we decided to do the same.
Sammiches had been packed before we left so we broke them out and chowed down. I couldn’t even face mine. Stupid boat sickness. (The fact that lunch had been prepared showed a remarkable amount of foresight, as I would normally have expected some people to have just completely forgotten. Of course, I had to make Laura’s, but I did it out of love and with a happy heart, naturally. We had lovely pitta sammiches. I really must find some of those pittas at home.)

The start of the afternoon brought about probably the most exciting and fantastic part of the holiday for me. A short swim away from the boat towards the shore we found a huge shoal of fish. They were dark brown or black and about an inch long. There were hundreds of them! We had some stale bread in the boat so we broke it up and put it in the water and the fish all swam around.(Stupidly, we used up the stale pitta, and completely forgot that we had about 8 bread rolls which we’d had for about a week and saved for this very purpose.) A short while later, a small shoal of about 10 bigger fish entered the area. These were much larger, ranging from about 3 to 10 inches long. I have seen these before but none as big as the one I saw today. They were grey and silver with a black spot on their sides where their back meets their tail fin.
I have to say at this point that the goggles we bought two years ago are superb and were totally worth the money! (The best fish I saw were in this area. The seabed was only about 3 or 4 metres below us, and the water was as clear as a bath, so everything was easy to see. The first thing Andy saw, and yelled me into the water to see, was a white fish, on the bed, swimming towards some of the bread which had inexplicably sunk (which was worrying, considering I’d eaten it when fresh, and I thought bread was supposed to float.) Anyway, as it nibbled at the tasty morsel, a flatfish hovered into view. I was really excited, as I’d never seen a flatfish before. Unfortunately, it was so well camouflaged that, after I moved away to tell the others, I couldn’t find it again. Still, it was brilliant.

The shoals were incredible – everywhere you looked were more fish. At first, the lagoon had seemed so empty, but then, to find it teeming with life, and such varied life as well, was just amazing. I will truly never get bored of snorkelling, and seeing these other worlds.)

After the snorkelling came the fun with the giant rubber ring. Towed behind the boat and manned by one of the crew, it was the job of said crew member to hang on as tight as possible while the driver had to drive them as fast as possible round in circles and try to shake them off. CHAVTASTIC!

I was a little poor at it and Donna seemed to be fairly at home grasping her ring,… fnar.
There were only minor injuries, a bit of rope burn and some aching muscles. (Is that it? We spent ages on that bloody thing, and that’s all you’ve got? That’s fine, just leave it to me...again.

The giant rubber ring was uber-fun. Now, the reason Andy was crap on his first go was because he sat in the thing, rather than lying across the top of it, which lent greater grip and control. After seeing his mistake, Donna fared slightly better. Then I got on the thing, and bitch slapped it into submission. I think I lasted about an hour before finally getting bored and letting go, just so that someone else could have a play. Rich and Laura both had a turn (we made it go fairly gently for Laura, because she was a bit wary, and, as I’m adorable, I even got Rich to slow right down and pull her in before she fell off.) The weirdest thing about the ring was waiting to be picked up after you’d come off. Essentially, you had to float about in the open sea until the boat could circle round and get you. I have no idea how deep it was out here, but, because the water had been churned up, you could see nothing at all beneath the waves. We were about a mile out, so I imagine it was fairly deep though. It would have been nice to be able to see a few fish, but no such luck.

Anyway, when everyone had had their turn (except Anna, who didn’t fancy it), we all went again, but this time against the clock. Richard claimed that he would drive exactly the same way for everyone, and so Donna went first, clocking up 1.50. Andy’s turn came, and, with the more sensible lying-on-top method, looked pretty good, till coming off at the 1.46 mark. Actually, he looked pretty good when he came off too, but that’s just his innate hotness.

Anyhoo, I then climbed aboard. I was looking to rip it up the way I did in my first attempt, and started superbly, riding the waves like a pro. I kept in the wake of the boat, and had no problems whatsoever until late on in my second minute when, at full speed, Rich somehow managed to cause the boat to cross its own wake, with me attached to the back. All I remember is suddenly being upside down with the water beneath me, and my shoulders wrenching from their sockets, before hitting the sea again, managing to hold on for one more second before feeling as if my arms really were going to be wrenched out, and having to relinquish my grip. From what I was told after I got back in the boat, I was actually about 6 foot in the air, clinging to the inflatable with my boat mates looking on aghast. Apparently, I only lasted 1.48 (hmm...) but I clearly won by being so damn ace.

Laura had another slow go. It wasn’t nearly so spectacular.

Before heading back to land, we drove a little way back down the coast to find an underwater cave we’d been told about. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find it, but we still got to have another little play, and another peek at some lovely little fishies. They were to be my last of the holiday, but they didn’t seem to appreciate the significance. They’re really not that bright, fish.)

We then headed back into port. The trip back was fast and we got REALLY wet, spray went everywhere.

(We had a late lunch in a bar by the marina, where there was free Wi-Fi. Believe it or not, none of us used it, except to check banks, and, in my case, to delete about a hundred pointless e-mails. We then headed back to the villa.)


On returning home I found that I had burned, and had been bitten, (as had I, for the first time in the holiday. It was weird burning, too, because of where my life-vest had been. However, it was not nearly as severe as I had thought it would be at the start of the trip, and I couldn’t, really, be more pleased with the way the sojourn had gone, sun-wise.) I was not a happy chappy and after a lovely dinner that Rich made of Goat Casserole with a bit of rice, I decided to head off to bed for some blissful sleep. My head hit the pillow and darkness engulfed me for the next 12 hours. Sweet! (Not a late night for anyone, really. Everyone was worn out. To paraphrase a parent saying, ‘We slept that night.’)

Cyprus - Sunday 18th May 2008

We got up relatively early today, I then spent about two hours cleaning up the kitchen and loading the dish washer.

We drove over to Kaledoni Falls, near to Platres in the Troodos Mountains. The journey took us over on the new EU funded piece of dual carriage way to the east then north along winding roads that had been partially converted into Tarmac. The only real rule on these roads seems to be, if you have a big car you get to stay on the road and force anything smaller off to the hard-core at the side. (I slept pretty much the entire way there. I woke briefly when we stopped at a dam, and also at a bluff that overlooked a lovely valley. I was too groggy to appreciate them really, but apparently, they were lovely. I have no idea why I fall asleep almost the instant that I get into a warm, moving vehicle.)


In spite of the local farmers trying to kill us we arrived in Platres.
Platres is I lovely little town in the middle of the mountains. It has beautiful views over the valley. They also have one of the smallest police stations I have ever seen. It looked about the size of a small village hall. Occasionally a local copper would come out the front of the nick and sit on a chair that he had situated by the door giving him a view over his domain.
I can imagine it being the most boring job in HISTORY. (Doing nothing all day, in beautiful surroundings, with seemingly friendly locals, and very occasional bursts of activity, probably involving a tourist who’s parked outside the lines? Sounds grand to me.)

At the foot of the ravine there was a small Trout Farm. This was really odd to see actually half way up a mountain. I suppose that it’s because there is an abundance of fresh spring water. In the pools the trout seemed to circle ominously. (Ominously if you’re in some way scared of fish. Or circles. Just circley to normal people. And let’s be honest, with the size of the pens, they would have got really bored going backwards and forwards. I suppose it takes less effort just to go round and round rather than having to constantly do turns at either end.)I don’t know if this is because they thought that as a group they would be stronger and no one would fish them out or if it was some kind of fishy dance.

We had lunch at the trout farm and surprisingly I had trout, it tasted NICE! It was simply grilled and came with boiled potatoes. (I also had trout. It tasted of trout, I guess, which is ok. It was a little more flavoursome than any trout I’ve had at home, although I don’t know whether this has to do with the freshness, or if it is a slightly different breed. Lunch at the farm was like being in a large, sun-filled school cafeteria, as the waitresses were, without fail, ‘older’ ladies wearing tabards (the one who served us was actually Northern of some description!). That was great. It also led to the second best ‘D’oh!’ comment of the holiday. Falling in neatly behind the Richard/Turkey debacle, comes Donna with, to the waitress on the trout farm, ‘Where are your trout from?’ Genius. Of a sort.) I did not have trout, I had chicken. There was loads of it and it was immensely yummy.

After lunch we decided to have a walk up to the falls. (Goldy headed back down to the car park to put more time on our car. Unfortunately for him, we didn’t want to wait, so he had to go off and play in an arcade while we climbed rocks and hills. He was, naturally, gutted.)
After the 1 km walk past loads of little pools, falls and clambering over rocks, we reached the main water fall. It was LOVELY, but very cold. The plunge pool was not very deep but nice enough to paddle in and was pretty cold. (The waterfall was pretty nice. We hadn’t been sure if all the little falls we’d seen were what were referred to, as it seemed like we had gone much further than 1km by the time we got there, but it was worth the walk. Anna and Laura seemed most excited by a mangy cat that was there. Laura was not happy at all with the nature ramble, and I think that, had she known exactly what it would have been like, she would probably have stayed with Goldy. She doesn’t really do nature. I think it might be difficult to convince her to go camping.)
I got us a bit lost on the way home as I wasn’t paying attention to the map when we left Platres. We were singing 99 green bottles and I got a bit carried away getting us down to about 65 on my own, but then when we got to a junction (around 45 bottles) I realised we were on the main road to Limassol with no way of getting back to the road we should have been on. This led to us taking about 40 minutes and 50km more to get home than we should have done.
I hate getting lost so I was quite upset, but no one else cared so I felt like an idiot as well.

Tonight, we take Donna to Stavros’s place for dinner. Going to be so ace. (It sounds like we’re popping round to one of the neighbours’ or something! (Technically he is kind of our neighbour – you can see his place from the villa))

Later on….. Dinner was once again a miracle given form. The food was excellent and a great time was had by all. We even had a visit from a small “Bork Bork” frog. He was about an inch long and bright green. (I didn’t think that the food was as good as the first time, unfortunately. There were some differences than last time, such as the fish being far bonier, and the steak having mustard on it, which might not sound like much, but prevented the overall experience being as good as it was the first time we went. Due to the fact that there were only customers in, rather than friends and family of the proprietor, the atmosphere was also not as good. Now, I’m not saying it wasn’t a good night, but it wasn’t quite the same as it was. And I suppose that’s why you should only visit places once. Oh, the frog was cool though.

When we got back, we sat and had a quiet drink (by which I mean, I had tea.) The frog must’ve followed us, as there was one on the back of Anna’s chair. It seemed quite happy to hop onto her arm while she threw it into the bushes. I think she probably killed it by doing so (I did not! He was fine!). We all went to bed soon after that, in preparation for an early start to Latchi.)