Day 5 - Friday 13.05.26: We’re gonna need a bigger candle!

We woke up and smelt nothing. Thankfully the acrid smell of the burnt eggs had dissipated overnight, thankfully sucked up into the air-conditioning machine during the night.

So there we were, sat on the balcony this morning enjoying our yoghurt and granola, of course we should have been enjoying our eggs this morning but of course they met a disastrous end yesterday, when Maice spotted yet another bite on her appendage. She seems to be acquiring quite a number of mosquito bites on her arms and legs to the point where if she joins the ‘dots’ they’ll look like some astrological constellation. We don’t think they’re in the apartment although it could be when we’re out on the balcony so we’re gonna need a bigger candle, a citronella candle as the one we have is very small. If it’s not the balcony she’s getting bit it must be when we’re out somewhere…..the beach, restaurants, who knows. Not only is she prone to these bites she’s also finding small tiny bruises appearing on her appendages and to top it all she’s got tooth ache! You see, this is what happens when you’re on holiday, the body goes into relax mode and is then susceptible to all sorts of things. Thankfully I seem to have got away with being bitten although I did stub my toe on the balcony door which hurt and which, I might add, drew blood!

Surprisingly, we thought we’d head off to the beach today but go to the sun-beds at the far end of the beach which we prefer. With bags packed, including our frozen water bottle we wandered over to the Remetzo bar for our early morning frappe. We don’t have to say anything to the waiter except καλημέρα as he now remembers our order. As always we watched the ferry come and go and then headed off to the bakery for our daily pastries. It was packed in there so we headed across the road to the ice-cream parlour that also sells pastries and purchased two spinach pies which were exactly the same as the ones we buy in the bakery opposite but were twenty cents cheaper! What a bargain!

It’s a lot cooler today, no let’s say it feels a little bit cooler because there is a very slight breeze and there is a ripple on the water, but we’re sure that will change when we get to the beach. What we have observed here in Poros is that at 1pm the ripple of the water ceases, the breeze drops and the sea becomes like a mill pond wheres in all other places we’ve been on holiday, and indeed in Weymouth you can bet that at 1pm the wind gets up and the sea becomes choppy. Is that what they call a phenomenon?

As always the sea was so lovely to swim in and for me the cooler temperature made it more bearable to sunbathe whereas Maice, probably due to her ‘ailments’ spent most of the time under the umbrella. When we left the beach just after 2pm the front row was packed, which is good for the business and we set off to the ‘Φαρμακείο’ to ask for some expert advice on what to do about Maice’s toothache. She was given a gel which hopefully will numb the senses! We then scoured the mini-markets for citronella candles and couldn’t find any.  In the end we went to a ‘tourist’ shop and found one in there which we purchased together with a notebook, our ‘summer is coming’ notebook to jot down the events of the day. By this time we were hot and sweaty and clammy and as we trudged back to the apartment we did a detour to the Miastrali bar where we ordered two glasses of crisp dry white wine to aid Maice’s recovery. We were served by Amira who was the waitress from the Totolino Taverna where we ate on Wednesday night. She’s Albanian and been here for 25 years, married with children. So she works in bar in the daytime and in the taverna at night. She’s lovely and very personable.

Back at the apartment we had a quick siesta, showered and walked up to the Agrapidos taverna which is situated at the top of the hill, perched on the cliff edge and which we can see from our balcony. Although it was 7pm it was still very hot and when we arrived we were given a lovely table overlooking the sea and although not in direct sunlight, it was still baking hot. Fortunately Maice had brought her hand held fan which was working ten-to-the-dozen, but it seemed to do the trick. We did enjoy a wonderful meal though, Greek salad with capers and five (!) pieces of ‘roasted’ bread topped with a tomato, grilled octopus which was absolutely delicious and a small carafe of wine. Overall it was a lovely meal, slightly more expensive than the others but you have to factor in the view…..but would we go back? No is the answer simply because the young waiter had attitudes and was quite pretentious plus there was no atmosphere and we just didn’t ’get the vibe’. Can you believe this, about ten minutes before we left during the sunset it got quite breezy which was a welcome relief and what did the waiter do…..he closed the windows!!!!

It was still early so we wandered down the hill to the Remetzo bar for a negroni. It’s very different here in the evening, in particular it’s very dark inside as there is virtually no lighting so you can’t really see what’s in front of you. Maybe it’s to make it more atmospheric, who knows. We watched the rest of the sunset, tried to get some night photos of ‘Rock’ but we both agreed he looks much more handsome in the daytime than at night.

On that note, it’s καληνύχτα from ‘M’ and it’s καληνύχτα from ‘A’ xx