Before we begin, the writers have chosen different colours to comment on the events.
Black: Andrew Sweeney
Red: Anna Sweeney
Blue: Sean Gleeson
Purple Laura Plumb
3am... Christ, its 3am, I’ve woken up before my alarm by about 15 minutes after a poor nights sleep on Goldy’s living-room floor. My head aches and my back feels like I have been twisted up and thrown off a tall building. To add to my morning’s mingingness, my breath smells like a small rodent has crawled into my throat and died...
I look over and see Anna lying next to me. She does not look happy; in fact, grumpy might possibly be the best (most politic) way of putting it.
I get up and hear that G is upstairs in the shower. We pack up our things and ease ourselves into the life of the living once again for a really long day of travelling.
We get ourselves sorted and get out to the car for about 3.45am. The drive to Gatwick is really quite easy but the happy hardcore CD did not go down too well so I switched to a bit of country and western.
Surprisingly we get through Gatwick with no hassle and I manage to get onto a special assistance seat for ‘sleazyjet’, this meant I had less of a dash to get to a legroom seat. Anna and G were not so lucky… a nasty middle aged couple stole the seats next to me, after asking if I could sit next to my wife, they told me that they had got up early to get good seats. I thought it best not to get into an argument so Anna and G sat in front.
The four hour plane journey was broken up into patches of semi sleep, reading “FOXTROT OSCAR”, a book about work in the 1970s, and catching up with some TV on the laptop. By the end of the trip, my head felt like it was recovering from a 3 weekend bender… Holiday can not come soon enough for me!
Amazingly, at 2pm, we land and get through the airport in less than 30 minutes... I was wondering to myself, “What is wrong?” and “Surely something has to happen now to hold us up”. Last time we went through PAFOS, it took us a good two hours to get from the plane, through customs and to pick up the bags… we were expecting more of the same.
We get to the exit and speak with our car hire man, he gave us our car, a smart metallic white hatch with an auto gear box… hang on, auto, but we booked a manual! I have given up now, I have never driven an auto before so I suppose now is the time to start and learn quickly.
We drive from the airport, through town seeing the all too familiar sights from our last trip such as the Tombs of the Kings and the strip club proudly displaying a neon sign saying “GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS, LIVE, TOPLESS”. The road winds its way past numerous bars and pubs that you can imagine hordes of bald headed Brits with a lobster red tan drinking, watching football and spewing in.
Finally we hit the next town along the coast, Chlorakas containing the wonderful ‘Villa Klouni’,
which is to be our home for the next couple of weeks.It’s good to see that the place is still in the same state as it was last time. We have yet to tell Goldy about the snake that inhabits the garden and has shed its skin a couple of times leaving its former self as a delicate reminder that he is still about.
Discovered that the banana tree closest to the kitchen window has a couple of fruits at edible stage, last time they all stayed resolutely green and hard, but the one I managed the find was really sweet and there should be three or four more ready during the fortnight. It looks like the weird clicking chair leg bug has gone, but much to my delight the “borkborks” are still in residence but a little further away from the villa. Hope we get to see some of the little green guys. The swallows were dipping the pool again this afternoon, Andy got some lovely shots and even managed to “lol” one of them. (Anna)
After a bit of shopping and relaxing, the sunset was amazing. All we need to do now is wait for the other half of our party to arrive from ‘the north’. We are meeting them at “Angelika’s”, the local watering hole down the road, for some dinner. Going to be totally ace to see them again and get stuck into a meze!
2326hrs… sweet, back at the house. We have the northern skummers with us now and they are eating us out of house and home,.. which is fair enough really! Goldy found out about the snake, I’m not sure how he has taken it but I’m sure he will be fine.We had a massive Meze from Angelika’s, was incredible, not as good as we have had but was a nice re-introduction to Cypriot cooking.
OK, I’m playing catch up now. It’s currently Monday 12th, so I might be a bit hazy on some of the details, but screw it. After all, it shouldn’t be too bad – I’m not one of the drunken reprobates, after all…
So, swanky style writing…
Wednesday dawned bright and shining, the sun, beating down upon tropical Liverpool. I was up at the crack of dawn as there were tons of things to be done, and the rubbish boys just kept on snoozing. We were packed and ready for the off. Well, I say ‘we,’ I mean, of course, Richard and I – it’s officially not possible for Laura to be ready until ten minutes after we should have set off. We’d planned to get up early doors and do a few last minute things before heading over to the Wirral where Laura’s dad was going to take us to Manchester (*spit*) airport. So, with a spanking new haircut, spare keys for various people, and new clothes for Rich, we piled in to the car and went over the water.
As we’d not got up quite as early as we intended, we got food at Laura’s parents’. It was going to be a bacon sandwich, but turned into Laura’s mum doing us a fry-up. Laura got annoyed ‘cos we didn’t put her pasta on while she was finishing her packing. (Really, all of this is just extraneous detail, completely unnecessary to anyone, but I’m doing this big and pointless-stylee.) We headed off with time to spare, and, after waving goodbye to Laura’s dad, got checked in with ease. To be honest though, I really don’t think it’s too much to ask that when you say to your own mother “I’ve boiled the kettle, can you just put my pasta on while I pack” that she might do it especially when it took faaaaar more effort to make a full breakfast for three hungry men. But all credit to her for making sure we went off to the airport with food in our bellies.
I always feel like I’m in international ‘waters’ as soon as I hit the airport, so that was exciting. We had a quick drink at the bar (well, I had A drink – the other two had decidedly more than that) (It wasn’t really that much at all! Honest Guv), and I danced a round like a child while I waited to board. I even made up a stupid song. I like making up stupid songs. That will, doubtless, be a feature of the holiday. The gate was announced, and we made our way through. Rich and Laura royally pissed me off by not caring about getting on the plane, and instead decided to go back through to the bar for a shot. For Christ’s sake. I was annoyed with them for ages, till my over-excitement got the better of me. It’s not out fault that Sean didn’t understand the Easyjet boarding policy, and that standing there waiting just made you a bit more uncomfortable and crowded than sitting on the ‘comfy’ seats. But once they called for boarding, we demonstrated the ‘slip round the side’ technique which meant we were on the plane before the majority of the people who’d stood queuing. Much more sensible!
Laura wasn’t happy on the plane, obviously, and I suppose me being all happy didn’t help, but I couldn’t help it – it’s over five years since I’ve been on a plane anywhere, so I kept telling her how high we were and stuff. I eventually shut up.
Plane travel is exciting – well, the taking off and landing bits are, and I managed to stay hyper until we left the British Isles. I liked that you can see England and France at once – the English Channel is like a puddle or something. Eventually, though, even I got fed up with watching fields from 60’000 feet, and ended up watching a crap film. Seriously. A CRAP film. Then it was too dark to see out of the window anyway, so I just sat watching the little map on the TV screens. EasyJet is a lame company, but I liked the little TV screens.
We landed at about 10.55pm local time. Due to communication cock-ups, our hire car was already there. But Rich and Laura had been drinking, so couldn’t drive, so…well, you know all that already. It’s up there ^^^ in case you missed it. Go back and read Andy’s bit better, you skim reading fool.
We arrived at St George’s hotel, not Angelika’s, because the taxi driver didn’t speak too much English, but it was all good. Anna told me about the snake skins, and promised to show me them, which, incidentally, she still hasn’t, but there you go – never believe a Southerner. We had a little arrival food, a bit of a celebratory drink, and then headed to bed. I unpacked as well, which is entirely unusual and slept well.
So, swanky style writing…
Wednesday dawned bright and shining, the sun, beating down upon tropical Liverpool. I was up at the crack of dawn as there were tons of things to be done, and the rubbish boys just kept on snoozing. We were packed and ready for the off. Well, I say ‘we,’ I mean, of course, Richard and I – it’s officially not possible for Laura to be ready until ten minutes after we should have set off. We’d planned to get up early doors and do a few last minute things before heading over to the Wirral where Laura’s dad was going to take us to Manchester (*spit*) airport. So, with a spanking new haircut, spare keys for various people, and new clothes for Rich, we piled in to the car and went over the water.
As we’d not got up quite as early as we intended, we got food at Laura’s parents’. It was going to be a bacon sandwich, but turned into Laura’s mum doing us a fry-up. Laura got annoyed ‘cos we didn’t put her pasta on while she was finishing her packing. (Really, all of this is just extraneous detail, completely unnecessary to anyone, but I’m doing this big and pointless-stylee.) We headed off with time to spare, and, after waving goodbye to Laura’s dad, got checked in with ease. To be honest though, I really don’t think it’s too much to ask that when you say to your own mother “I’ve boiled the kettle, can you just put my pasta on while I pack” that she might do it especially when it took faaaaar more effort to make a full breakfast for three hungry men. But all credit to her for making sure we went off to the airport with food in our bellies.
I always feel like I’m in international ‘waters’ as soon as I hit the airport, so that was exciting. We had a quick drink at the bar (well, I had A drink – the other two had decidedly more than that) (It wasn’t really that much at all! Honest Guv), and I danced a round like a child while I waited to board. I even made up a stupid song. I like making up stupid songs. That will, doubtless, be a feature of the holiday. The gate was announced, and we made our way through. Rich and Laura royally pissed me off by not caring about getting on the plane, and instead decided to go back through to the bar for a shot. For Christ’s sake. I was annoyed with them for ages, till my over-excitement got the better of me. It’s not out fault that Sean didn’t understand the Easyjet boarding policy, and that standing there waiting just made you a bit more uncomfortable and crowded than sitting on the ‘comfy’ seats. But once they called for boarding, we demonstrated the ‘slip round the side’ technique which meant we were on the plane before the majority of the people who’d stood queuing. Much more sensible!
Laura wasn’t happy on the plane, obviously, and I suppose me being all happy didn’t help, but I couldn’t help it – it’s over five years since I’ve been on a plane anywhere, so I kept telling her how high we were and stuff. I eventually shut up.
Plane travel is exciting – well, the taking off and landing bits are, and I managed to stay hyper until we left the British Isles. I liked that you can see England and France at once – the English Channel is like a puddle or something. Eventually, though, even I got fed up with watching fields from 60’000 feet, and ended up watching a crap film. Seriously. A CRAP film. Then it was too dark to see out of the window anyway, so I just sat watching the little map on the TV screens. EasyJet is a lame company, but I liked the little TV screens.
We landed at about 10.55pm local time. Due to communication cock-ups, our hire car was already there. But Rich and Laura had been drinking, so couldn’t drive, so…well, you know all that already. It’s up there ^^^ in case you missed it. Go back and read Andy’s bit better, you skim reading fool.
We arrived at St George’s hotel, not Angelika’s, because the taxi driver didn’t speak too much English, but it was all good. Anna told me about the snake skins, and promised to show me them, which, incidentally, she still hasn’t, but there you go – never believe a Southerner. We had a little arrival food, a bit of a celebratory drink, and then headed to bed. I unpacked as well, which is entirely unusual and slept well.
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