under another sun

Last morning in the Kamelia Hotel, tucking into a final breakfast of olives, tomatoes, triangles of cheese, and toast and other scraps of Greek nice-ish stuff. Lorraine and I dragged our cases and assembled at the back of the hotel looking up at Mt Ipsarion with our fellow holidaymakers Penny, Dave and Jeanette. To Thassos town, where we caught the ferry, and all sat together at the front. A toothless but tuneful accordion player played as we made the short crossing to Keramoti. Lorraine and I sat in a little Taverna by the harbour for half an hour drinking iced coffee with Dave, Jeanette and Penny before we all got back into the minivan which took us to the airport. We were first to arrive for our flight, two hours early. After surveying the shop and resisting bottles of ouzo and fridge magnets with donkeys on, Lorraine and I ate a final spanakopita from the cafe. The flight home pleasant, but cramped. England grey but I was pleased to be back. Cheery farewells to Dave and Jeanett...

Last three days, after Saturday's excitements were spent close to our hotel on Skala Potamia. The resort seemed less busy in the last week.  Annoyingly I developed a summer cold, which became a chest infection.  However as our days were spent underneath beach umbrellas reading and going for the occasional snorkel it didn't spoil anything and we were winding down very well by now, dreaming on our sunbeds and with the wooded arms of the land stretching out either side of the bay, and the mountains behind. Reprehensibly, we managed to put on several kilos. Not a great place for keeping to a diet. We also got to know some of the new guests, a likeable couple called Dave and Jeanette knew my old school friend Mike Longman. Dave and Mike had been in the police together. Another was a recently-widowed woman in her 40s who worked in education called Penny. Fell in with these a bit and sat in the hotel bar with them from time to time, being served by a pleasant Englishwoman called Su...