Right on cue, Jess Glynn woke me at three this morning with her ‘I wanna hold your hand’ song. To be honest a freezing cold flannel to cool my legs down would have been preferable, but I suppose she did her job and woke me from my two hours of slumber. I arrived at Maice’s house at the allotted time of four a.m. to find her sat on the sofa trying to remember the combination number for her suitcase. Nothing was forthcoming so after searching for a padlock and key we sat in the car, took the obligatory ‘selfie’ and off we went. We hadn’t been on holiday with Sat Nav Steve for a while and it took a while for him to wake up, just as well we know the way from Maice’s house to the Ridgeway! You’re probably wondering why we still need SatNav Steve considering the number of journeys we’ve made to Bristol Airport but the truth is we still get lost, particularly in the dark. He guided us beautifully to the Silver Zone parking, we said our goodbyes and soon found ourselves breakfasting in the departure lounge.
We decided on the small veggie breakfast with avocado on toast which came with a heap of extremely hot chillies on top. A very strange combination for breakfast we thought. As a lover of chillies, and the hotter the better, even I was defeated by their fiery heat......my cheeks were soon as red as the rash on my legs!
It was a full flight but gosh, it was hot and stuffy which was playing havoc with my skin. We enjoyed our usual mini bottle of Prosecco and then Maice dozed off. Next thing I know her arm veers unsteadily towards me across the aisle and she looks at me with this very peculiar expression on her face and says ‘I’m going to faint’. I have to say she wasn’t looking great and asked if she wanted some cold water and maybe to put her head between her legs. Next thing we know, the woman in the seat behind Maice, who had been listening to us sprang out of her seat yelling to cabin crew to turn the heat down and to the rest of the plane to open the airways above their seats and aim them towards Maice. Suddenly Maice is surrounded by passengers using menu cards, magazines and newspapers, anything they could find to fan her face and then copious amounts of sickbags appeared from nowhere....you know, just in case! The cabin crew, we didn’t know there were so many on board had all came racing down bringing iced water with them. Honestly, what a drama. You could see all these passengers up and down the plane standing up and peering out from their seats watching as the drama unfolded. Meanwhile, in her semi–delirious state and hunched over in her seat I told Maice to rub her wrists with the ice, which thankfully seemed to do the trick. The colour started to return to her cheeks and she looked a little bit better. She wasn’t great though but fortunately managed not to faint, so a big shout out goes to all the passengers who rallied round. What a great bunch of people they were. Honestly, we were very proud of them all. The guy in the seat next to Maice told her the fan he’d used had been passed to him from a woman four rows back........you see, in times of need people do rally together. Of course Maice’s ‘episode’ became the talking point on the plane. On a trip to the toilet a little later on the man in the queue in front of Maice was telling her someone had taken ill, and then when we were waiting for our taxi the lady in the queue asked her if she was the lady who’d taken ill and if she was okay. It certainly restores your faith in people when they go to great lengths to help out to people in need.
The next ‘incident’, not a health one I hasten to add, came after I went to the loo whilst waiting for our bags at the carousel. I went to get my phone out of my wristlet bag which also contained my passport and money and realised I’d left it hanging on the back of the toilet door. OMG ......with pounding heart I went to rush back to the loo when this woman comes up to me holding my bag and telling me not to worry. Phew, what a relief. Quick lets get our bags and leave the airport before we have another drama.
We’d ordered our taxi in advance and presumed we would be driven directly to our villa in Coral Bay, which, to some extent we were. All of a sudden our driver veered off the road onto a dirt track, started muttering and gesticulating to himself, then turned to us and said, ”I have to go. Another driver will come and take you to your accommodation“ and with that he disappeared, leaving the keys in the ignition and the taxi running! So, welcome to Cyprus where the Greek Cypriot traits reign supreme .......don’t you just love them. Five minutes later, Robert, taxi driver number two turned up, reversed out of the track, crossed the road, drove up a side street and there we were, outside our villa. Honestly, it was less than three minutes away from the switch, we literally could have walked there! Then, on getting her bags out of the taxi Maice realised that one of the straps had got stuck in the mechanism of the seat which took a while to untangle and then promptly she left her mobile phone on the seat, which fortunately I spotted as I was getting out. Honestly, what is going on with us two today? We’ve concluded it’s either an age thing or we’re both jet-lagged!
I must say our villa, Villa Lilia is lovely. We chose our bedroom, moved the furniture
around so that we could open the wardrobe doors......visions of our very bijou room in Melbourne sprang to mind and decided to go and decorate Pearls villa, Villa Atalanta which was just down the road with all the birthday bunting we’d brought with us. The only problem was, can you believe this ........I’d forgotten to pack them all. All we had was a small wooden ‘Happy Birthday’ bunting which would look ridiculous hanging up in their very large lounge. Fortunately we’d brought party hats and animal masks with us so we strung them together and hung those up. In fact we ‘made-do’ which is our mantra.....shame we don’t always stick to it when we go shopping!
The Scottish contingent weren’t arriving until 8pm so we decided to relax and enjoy a glass of red wine whilst waiting for them. Maice still wasn’t right in the head so a quite night in would be best and if they wanted to go out when they arrived we decided we’d go with them for just an hour. Turns out we all ended up in the restaurant down the road, enjoyed a meze washed down with copious giraffes of wine, did some impromptu Zoroaster (predictive text, should be Zorba) dancing and a great time was had by all. How lovely to be amongst great friends; Pearl, Dianne and Mark and new ones....Grant and Irene all here to celebrate Pearls 50th birthday.
So, our attempt to go out for one hour turned into four, rolling home just after midnight! Well, I think we deserved it after the day we’d had.........honestly, there’s never a dull moment when we go on our holidays.......!
Until tomorrow
MMADPIG xxx