Had a strange moment yesterday. Strange but also pleasant. I went out onto the balcony in the mid-morning to take a break from work and suddenly had the smell of holidays. By which I mean, the smell of the sea and the sun as you might find when going down to the beach knowing you have nothing ahead but time off for several days. Strange because we’re not near the sea, although we can see it, what with the harbour directly in front of us. We can also see it from the roof, as Neil’s photo of yesterday’s sunrise illustrates.
I was trying to think when I last had a holiday where I sat by the sea and experienced the same feeling off work, and it must have been in 2000 when we last came here on holiday. Since moving here, our holidays have mainly been to cities, and if I ran through a list of them, you’ll think us very well off and well-travelled. We’re neither, really, but we do save up and, when we can, go to places that are perhaps a little bit different and not near the sea. Apart from the Galapagos Islands, but that wasn’t a lying-on-the-beach holiday, more of an exploration, and the five days on the boat there came after two weeks ashore in Peru and the Ecuador mainland. It was also a pretty exhausting time what with three big meals a day, two trips off the boat sandwiched in between, and lectures in the evening.
Earlier this year, I went to Prague with my music student and godson, and no doubt, I will tell you more about that another day. A few years ago, Neil and I visited his brother in Vienna, then took the train to Prague, then Budapest, and then to Belgrade. We’ve also been to visit my brother in Australia, the children in Scotland (we were there in November for a wedding), and have turned up in Athens, Berlin, London, Split, Bucharest and Transylvania. In 2020 we scooted across Canada by train. My one and only trip to Cyprus was for work, and none of the above have been holidays where we sat around doing nothing. We don’t need to – not that we sit around doing nothing here, but if I needed a day on the beach, I can have one any time. I just choose not to. In fact, the last time we tried, I lay on a sunbed at ten, woke up at twelve, went home, had lunch, and went to work.
Anyway, the breeze must have been blowing in the right direction yesterday to bring the smell of warm sea salt, and I must have been relaxed enough to imagine I was on holiday. It only lasted a moment or two, and then it was back to the desk.
You might like to know that it was 21 years ago today that we left the yUK to live in Greece. If I remember, I’ll fill you in on ‘This day in history’ over the next couple of weeks, because it took us 11 days to get from Luton to Symi.
