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Holiday post mortem

September 29th, 2019 · Posted by Skuds in Life/Technology · No Comments · Life, Technology

This week we returned from a 10-day visit to Crete. It was the most boring holiday Jayne and I have ever had, but that is not a bad thing. In the past we have rented a car or quad and gone out around the island, visiting the many and varied archaeological sites, but this time we deliberately opted to just stay at the hotel and do nothing, as part of my slow recovery from that big get-rid-of-the-cancer operation. It was so tempting to just get a pair of scooters and hit the road and it took a lot of willpower to not do that.

For all that, it very much was a relaxing time and not too much hassle with the actual travelling either. We came home at a stupid time on a late evening flight but I think that most of the earlier options were on Thomas Cook flights and even at the time of booking I didn’t fancy that, having seen stories about their finances. That turned out to be a good choice in the end.

I can’t help thinking how different it all is to when we first went to Greece together about 20 years ago. Back then you really were getting away from it, but now with mobile phones you tend to take it all with you. Thanks to the EU there are no roaming charges so you can leave the phone on without worrying about a massive bill next month, although we could get WiFi in the hotel room and by the pool anyway. There was also free WiFi on the coaches from the airport and even on the bus into Heraklion. So I could continue doing the puzzles in the Times, keep up with the news, and keep up with Twitter and email. Jayne could keep in touch via Facebook and WhatsApp. I could even listen to Radio 6 on the BBC Sounds app.

All that is well and good, but part of me wishes we had the willpower to reist the Internet as well.

The Internet access was handy though. When we turned up and went down to the pool there was a disco version of Metallica’s song The Unforgiven playing on the radio and I was able to Shazam it and discover that it was by somebody called Stefanie Heinzmann. It also meant that I could listen to Spotify, but I decided to go a bit old school and stick to my own record collection on my old mp3 player, which I dug out for the trip. That was a bit freaky because there are about 11,000 tracks on it and I just put it on random shuffle of the whole database. It started by playing Iron Maiden but after that it went on to play 5 tracks by artists I have seen live which is pretty statistically unlikely. For the record, the artists were Kraftwerk, Santana, Bow Wow Wow, Heaven 17 and Yes.

That just goes to show how uneventful the holiday was, when the selection of tracks on my shuffle was a major event.

Apart from that I read three books and we made two trips into Heraklion for the jewellers. The main reason for the trip (apart from recuperation) was to replace Jayne’s wedding ring. We bought her original one in Greece but it had to be cut off her when she had wrist surgery a few years ago and wanted to get something similar and in the same type of gold as her engagement ring and eternity ring which were all bought in Greece. Something to do with Greek gold being of a different hardness to what we have in the UK, that I don’t really understand. We also had to get her engagement and eternity rings resized, hence the two trips.

The long walk to the bus stop, followed by walking round the shops, left me quite wiped out and was a good reminder of just why we otherwise spent the time doing very little. I think our normal holiday of exploring and playing sports would have done me in. As it is I had have a lie down after each meal. It left us determined to go back soon and rent bikes.

Talking of meals, obviously I can’t eat and drink to the extent I used to. I could only have quite small meals, and had to go easy on fizzy drinks, all of which meant that I actually lost a little weight on an all-inclusive holiday! Fortunately I realised that Pina Coladas are unfizzy enough for me to manage so we went out a few times to enjoy cocktails. Jayne discovered a taste for Mojitos and I got quite pissed after three Pina Coladas.

So it may have been boring, but that was what we were aiming for so it was very successful. Even the travelling itself was not too bad even though the seats on an Easyjet plane are small and I had a giant man sitting next to me. Some things never change though; I still spent all my time in the airport muttering to myself “if it needs wheels its not bloody hand luggage”

I hope it has done the job and rested me up because I am now ramping up the hours at work. I’ll be up to three half-days this week and if that goes well it will be four half-days the week after and then increasing so that I should be completely full-time by the end of November. As the surgeon kept pointing out, I will never be completely normal again, but once I am at work full-time I will feel close to it.

But before that, I have to catch up with all the programmes the Tivo recorded for me. So much Pointless to get through!

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