Cyprus - Wednesday 5th May 2010

Today is the start of our holiday to Cyprus, at 0250hrs my alarm goes and I head to the bathroom in a daze.

The last few months have been pretty manic what with moving from our pokey little flat to a house just up the road. With work, DIY and other things on the horizon I didn’t feel very well prepared, but longing for, this holiday. It has been a cold and snowy winter and I think two weeks in the blazing heat is very much in order.

The was a slight panic yesterday when the Icelandic version of Mount Doom decided to spew another few hundred tons of ash into the air closing Scotland and Ireland’s air space.

After getting washed and changed, I pack up the last of the things while Anna dragged herself out of bed and gets ready.

It all seems like a bit of a dream and an eternity ago now, but we left, locked up tight and got in the car.

The trip to Gatwick was dark, and pretty quick. It was at least 15 minutes into the journey before we actually saw another car on the road.

We got to the car park and the bus took us to the North Terminal as soon as we were aboard.

Check in was pretty empty, security the same and everything was going without a hitch.

We found Goldy OHH Lies, I found you… (whose long suffering other half had given him a lift to the airport) and we went to grab a bite to eat at one of the many overly expensive ‘restaurants’ on the gallery. Well you did, I went and got my lovely “Eat” big breakfast bun that I’d been salivating over for a week.

We got called to our gate and a bus took us to a white, suspiciously unmarked small jet on the runway.

Once on board I was very surprised to see that it looked like an old GB Airways plane with blue leather seats and where we sat, on the bulkhead, I can safely say I had about 6ft of leg room. And 20ft for the mortals among us…..

We were delayed ½ an hour on the runway but we were soon in the air and jetting our way to Cyprus. Interesting note about the plane though, I think it needs a bit of a rest – as we took off, one of the oxygen mask panels a few rows from us came open, prompting a panicked shuffle around of the 3 people on that row to some other seats, all mid climb and a hasty announcement to the rest of us that everything was really ok. I’m quite glad we came prepared with our own food and drink as it turned out that the water on board for tea and coffee was heavily chlorinated and most people who bought one ended up getting a refund. I was either sleeping or really not paying attention at this point probably watching 24 or House J

The journey, of four hours, was spent swooning over the tiny babies on the plane, listening to sewer mouth gangster rap (and a bit of Glee) and eating our slightly overpriced Boots meal deal. Or as I said not paying attention to any of this, and eating my rather well priced boots meal deal and sipping my new tropical variety Berocca which in hindsight I should have put in two into a litre of water because it tasted and looked like weak piss, more on this later.

The four hours seemed a lot less when the tiredness crept in and sleep overcame us.

Also it’s worth pointing out that Simon is a naughty boy who didn’t keep hold of his drink bottle which, during landing and a bit of airbreaking about 5 mins out, flew straight off his armrest and under the seats in front of us and proceeded to dribble slowly out all over the floor, mmmm Berocca stains…

Well it’s better it did that than explode “piss” all over us J

We eventually landed at Paphos Airport and met with the first real frustration, getting our bags back. This was SO your fault, after jinxing us on the way going “it’s been a really smooth trip so far” yeah that was cosmic karma kicking us up the arse, so much so I swear my bag was put on the conveyor last….. For me, the frustration was slightly lessened by a large contingent of Canadian soldiers carrying their heavy metal flight cases through the arrivals hall with their big, tight t-shirt covered muscles, rippling alluringly in close proximity….oh I’m sorry, got a bit carried away there, carry on! It was a short wait but we soon got them and headed into arrivals to get our new ‘motor’.

In the lobby we met with a small Greek man who showed us to a lady who took us to a bronze Nissan Micra. Excellent I thought, we paid for this exact car. We had one in Crete a couple of years ago and it was perfect for us. Well, Goldy, Anna and I crammed our sorry assess into the car and the lady whisked us away from the airport along the access road. About half way along I could feel the mental local driver slowing and pulling over to the right. We shot onto a gravel path and sped along it for a couple of hundred meters towards a small hut. To be honest, a lot went through my mind in a short space of time. Where were we going, what would happen when we got there, do I need to ready myself for a back country shafting or would Goldy take one for the team first? Thank Christ Andy took the shot in the mouth, I certainly didn’t like the idea of it…..

We pulled up outside a small hut and the lady said in broken English “paperwork”. Right, we all got out and followed her to a cabin which from the outside was just a porta-cabin. Inside, thank God, were Budget signs, filing cabinets and other rental papers. PHEW! Goldy’s ass was saved, at least for the time being. Cheers dude, I owe you one J

We were sat with a middle aged cheeky Greek man as we filled in the papers, added Goldy to the policy and then he asked us “did we want to upgrade our car?”

After discovering we could get a Chevrolet Lacette or a Honda HRV for an extra €2 a day we soon said yes. After the Chevrolet appeared on BBC’S Top Gear we decided that it would be an AWESOME car to have for two weeks, the lure of a high wheel base HRV though was too much to overcome. We booked it.

The car (which from now on shall be referred to as the Pimp-Mobile) rolled up with a small rugged looking man driving blaring out JLS from the stereo. Okay, JLS slightly ruined the drug dealer image but the white paint job and blacked out windows made this motor a force to be reckoned with.

I was given a quick instruction as to the controls of the Pimp-Mobile and we packed out shiz into it and set off into the countryside.

The drive to Stavroulla took about an hour as we drove up to Polis and then across to Argaka. We stopped off for emergency noms too, just for bread and basic whatnots. Anyway I’m quite glad we got here mid afternoon, as if we’d had to find this villa in the dark at 2am or something, I don’t think we would have found it – not saying their instructions are a bit flaky, but they’re not a clear as perhaps they could be. Ah well, we found it after only a couple of missed turns! Flaky doesn’t do it justice, Anneka Rice would have had issues with this one and that’s WITH her chopper !!

The villa is FANTASTIC, 3 double rooms and a twin, massive living space, kidney shaped infinity pool and a great looking outdoor entertainment area. The place is quite awesome, pool looks awesome car is great, but by this time my body was going YOU’VE BEEN UP SINCE FOUR YOU NEED SLEEP !!! so with a bit of music on I lay upon the sofa and apparently snored, (see below) I think they’re just saying it to make me paranoid J

I’m sitting at the dining table, writing this looking at the sun slowly setting over the sea, waiting for the rest of the tribe to arrive.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand REST.

Goldy is snoring. Loudly. Yeah yeah, prove it

I would like to state at this point that Andrew Sweeney fully intends on showing me his cock on this holiday, I’m wondering if Gaz and Jane are aware of this *cough* “Tradition” or are they walking into this hell of terror, I’m wondering if it’s more supportive to tell them and let them fear the moment like I am or just let them walk into it… oh no hang on, they know of it already, the poor souls…….

It’s now like 10:30pm, which whilst it’s 8:30 in “real” time I’ve been up since 4 so leave me alone….. Signing off for day one J

2245hrs,… ooooooooooooooh Arab porn channels!,.. and what is this THE PENTAGON CHANNEL! I can’t wait for another episode of the Grill Sargeant!

Day one for myself and Janey was somewhat more relaxed. We were flying from the undelightful hangar stroke coffee shop that is Luton airport, ludicrously described as “London Luton” in the same geographical sense of proximity as Edinburgh is in Dorset, but as our flight was only leaving at 11.30 we had a reasonably pleasant 9 am start. In fact, things were entirely uneventful (aside from the torrent emerging from my nose as a result of hayfever, which I will spare you any further details of) until we arrived and attempted to locate the pickup point for our hire car. Turns out the chap we were supposed to meet had already met someone else and buggered off, so we were left hanging around and somewhat bewildered. Eventually we did locate the correct bloke, who drove us off to a shed in the middle of a wheat field whilst complaining about airport taxes for having an office on site. While initially alarming, as it appeared we might have accidentally hired a tractor, this turned out to be the same entirely legit rental gaff everyone else had been at earlier on. Unfortunately at this point though they were running out of cars, so we ended up with a Nissan Note with a large dent in the door rather than an SUV. Still, better than a Kia Piccanto, but then again a skateboard would have been better than a Kia Piccanto.

Once we’d had everything on the car explained to us (which I promptly forgot – the guy had said something about either turning the air conditioning on or off before starting the engine. Unfortunately I can’t recall which so I’ve just been alternating in the hope this will only half break things at worst) we headed off to the villa. This all went well until it started to get dark, as this meant that in the gloom we missed the fact that the slightly overgrown sign saying “Liza’s Tavern”, which was our clue for overshooting the villa turning, actually said “Liza’s Tavern, 3km”, meaning we still had a fair way to go. Some off-roading down entirely wrong turns and a few mildly panicky phone calls later and we finally located Andy and Goldy and followed them to the villa. At this point I was obviously too knackered to remember anything else, seeing as I can’t remember anything else. Either that or someone drugged me. I’ll assume the former though as I don’t seem to have had any organs removed for sale on the black market. Anyway, on to day two.