Heatwave

Greece is having quite a significant heatwave with the temperature officially feeling about 5 degrees above the actual temps (29-35 degrees). Fires are starting to break out again sadly.

This holiday has been very different but good. I’ve seen flying fish, swans swimming in the sea with somewhat wary people, I’ve become a little addicted to Greek late night news programmes and I’ve enjoyed reading and listening to audio books, something I’ve greatly neglected the last few years.

I’m reading a very neon coloured, hard copy of one of Phillipa Perry’s books which I’m very much enjoying and I’ve managed to complete David Niven’s earlier, less famous autobiography which he reads himself. Something wonderfully humble about him and I was lying on the beach chuckling to myself as he re-told several stories from the 1940s-40s. Seems like Cary Grant owned one of the first computers, juicing machines (massive) and fly extermination machines - who knew!

This is my friend’s plane landing in Skiathos. The plane spotting crowd were in good cheer but I couldn’t hang around long as my temperature regulation went a bit odd and I had sweat pouring out of my face and forearms in excess. It took me about 45 mins sitting in shade to recover. I had a similar episode on my first day when my head got overheated as the hot air trapped between my head and my wide brimmed hat caused a problem.

My friend isn’t in this pic but was standing next to me and managed to get on the plane and take off to Nottingham not long after this shot was taken. I was quite sad at the farewell but I now have 3 days to myself to
Do things a bit differently.

In the afternoon I returned to my lodgings and everyone had their air conditioning on maximum, it was quite noisy! Bearing in mind I’ve been here over a week I’ve never heard anything like it. I’m having to handwash my clothing as it’s that sweaty. I’m using gentle camomile dish soap as it’s soo much cheaper than clothes wash, gentle and smells divine !

I had a late evening walk to the beach and grabbed a large bottle of fruit juice and some lime colas. I then walked to a bakery and bought Greek Cheese Pie! Very nice but I couldn’t finish a single portion, too filling.

Tomorrow may be a half pool day and half beach day. I’ve found a nice pool locally and the people staying at that hotel are from the North West of England (generally) and very lovely from what I’ve seen plus (offered to help me out my umbrella up when I was just looking at the shadow footprint), the food is fab and reasonably priced.

The preferred small but ‘wild’ beach is a 15 minute bus ride from there, maybe 20 mins and I’m hopeful I’ll see some familiar faces at my end of the beach so won’t need to worry about my bag too much if I go for a swim. Not sure I’ll go on Saturday as the beach seems much busier at the weekend. I had to buy some flip flops as the sand is actually dangerously hot to walk on. I’ll see how tomorrow feels :-)