under another sun

Up early in Kalami bay, in time to watch the sun creep over the Albanian mountains as we ate a small breakfast in the cool of the morning and then sauntered outside to be picked up and transferred to the airport. The eastern costal strip of Corfu quite built up, but still very appealing. To the airport in good time, and shuffled through security and into a waiting hall. I realised my specs case which had been in an outside pocket had gone missing. Probably in the taxi, where everything was stowed in the boot. I returned to security and asked if they had noticed a pair, but met with an infuriating woman who, speaking to me as if I were an idiot, demanded where I had lost them. In your hotel? In the taxi? In the airport? Perhaps the word lost was lost in translation. They were not at the security gate however. I felt very stressed this morning, and so about an hour before takeoff took a diazepam, which did the trick and I felt able to cope.  An EasyJet flight home, unfortunately. Her...

Up fairly early today. Turned over in bed this morning, half asleep, and had a passing moment of vertigo, where I felt I was falling through the bed out of control. Woke up nastily. It was a Monday, and was gripped by the feeling I should be doing something. Dawn called around this morning for coffee and a chat, she is obviously sad about her dad -- and there will be the funeral this wednesday. In the afternoon, Lorraine went to visit Rosie in hospital. I went to the gym, and started to get a grip on life again, making an appointment for the optician and the dentist. When Lorraine got back, we slew the dragon and made a claim to not-so-EasyJet for the delays and cancellations we endured. This involved uploading receipts and so on, but was not quite as painful as it could have been. Also we looked at our wedding photos, with the view of producing an album of it. An evening in, decided to watch two films with Lorraine. One was fairly useless: The Other Man , with Liam Neilson, and ...

Up in our rented room in Catania, and we had to be out by 10:30. Trundled the cases down to the place we stopped at for a cheeky beer last night by a crossroads. Very hot of course. We had breakfast, me choosing a panini full of french fries and hotdogs. Tasty, of course, but morally reprehensible. A table nearby of English people being rude to the staff. We trundled through the lovely Piazza Duomo to a hateful bus station where we were hounded by unlicensed taxi drivers. We headed back to the Piazza where we found a taxi rank. A high-speed exhibition of Italian driving dodging about the road and hooting people you were tailgating, we reached the airport. Our plane was delayed by hours again, and we spent the rest of the tedious day waiting for the plane which none of us felt was in any way guaranteed. A pretty lousy way to spend eight hours. EasyJet are rabble. But once we were flying, it was easy to prioritise the nice memories of our time there. The flight eventually took off at...

Barely heard Toby and Romy creeping off this morning at an eye-watering 4AM. I had a nightmare about a brother that disappeared, and woke up in a strangely Toby and Romy-less place. The rest of us got up early, finished packing, and all had a last dip in the incomparable pool. Tina arrived at around 9:45 as we were zooming around. I was ironing one of Lorraine's tops, and she took it from me and finished it. We all really liked Tina. Then final things squeezed into the car, and we set off for a last mooch about in Noto, where we had granita breakfasts, and looked at a few places. Another swelteringly hot day. As we were making our way back to the car to drive up to the airport, Lorraine got a message from EasyJet saying our flight had been cancelled until tomorrow. This all a bit horrible, and under some stress we managed to book a room in a hotel in Catania urgently for tonight using our phones. Trying to get everything else sorted was hard, and Beth and John were great at mak...

Up at three like zombies. Cats confused. Into the car, and Lorraine driving us in the dark to Gatwick. The airport very busy at that time of day. Luckily the French air controllers strike didn't affect our 5:50am flight to Seville. Sleasy Jet not quite as cramped as last time. Poor Lorraine stuck between me, looking twitchily out of the window, and a nervously talkative farmer. The flight was fine, but I felt tense and weird and fuzzy as I had taken a diazepam. Landed in Seville, which proved to be an easy to use airport. We caught an airport bus to the Santa Justa station. We managed to buy tickets to Cordoba in Spanglish, and some warm chicken and bacon baguettes in the station, which we ate hungrily with a couple of cokes. Three ticket checks before we were able to get onto the platform, and our cases had to go through airport style security scanners. The coaches were confusingly labelled. Several people including ourselves were ousted from their seats, by people taking their ...