Some thoughts from the weekend
The weekend, of course, starts on a Friday around here and usually lasts until Thursday evening. If only! I did have to go to the bank on Friday and, due to the new work regime knocking out my time from six in the morning until lunchtime, the only time for these kind of things is in the afternoon, unless one of us manages to get through our chores early; sometimes we both manage that (or put things off) and we get the chance to go to Yialos together in which case there’s usually a call for a celebratory lunch. On Friday though I had to go down in the afternoon. I took the long zigzag path below Lemonitisa which, eventually and after being a bit rough under foot, comes out at the bottom of the Kali Strata by The Old Markets Hotel. I’ve not been that way for ages and it was a pleasant walk offering varied views of the harbour, some newly restored houses, some ruins and lots of chickens.
Once the business was seen to I decided to come back up along the main road. This is another very pleasant walk and easy enough, though the path is bumpy in places. You simply follow the road out of the harbour on the south side and climb the long slope upwards. It gets easier after the first stretch of road past Petalo. Mind you, I would rather be doing this in the early morning and not at three-thirty in August; by the time I reached the village I looked like I had been thrown in the sea and had to head home for a shower and change of costume. The whole walk only took me an hour or less, that’s from home and back up again.
On Saturday we attended the wine tasting up at a private party in the village, and that was a wonderful night. On the terrace, under the stars tasting various wines from Rhodes (and one from Symi which came in 2nd out of all of them, bravo Chris!), chatting and catching up and having fun… all very pleasant and it didn’t, as I feared, wipe out my Sunday at all.
The odd thing about the weekend was booking a flight, or at least looking around for flights. I was looking for a one-way flight to the UK for Neil later in the year. Don’t worry, he is coming back, but we’re buying the tickets one at a time because of the, as yet, unfixed itinerary while he is there which will involve visiting Lincoln and parts of Scotland. I was aiming to get a direct flight to East Midlands airport, so needed to catch the end of the season charter flights. Well, I looked at all those CheapFlights and Expedia type sites that compare prices, found which airline was available and then went directly to that airline to check the tickets, only to find them slightly cheaper than advertised on the ‘cheap flights’ sites. It was the process that made me laugh:
Enter dates and details, fine. We have a flight for you for €200 (made up amount but not far wrong), would you like to take luggage? Yes please, €39.99 please. Hm, okay. Would you like a meal for €10.00? Are you kidding? No. Would you like priority boarding for €19.99? What’s the point, you’re not going to go without me. Would you like a seat? Say what? No, would you like a seat? I have a choice? In that case, no I’ll save a further $14.99 and stand. No, would you like to reserve a seat for €14.99? No, I’d like to reserve a seat for nothing please. You can’t do that. We can give you any old seat that’s hanging around but if you want to book a specific seat then it will cost you €14.99. Okay, then I’ll have that one there by the captain. You can’t do that. Then what about that one? That’s already booked. Oh for heaven’s sake… No, I’ll just sit where I’m put thank you. Fine, would you like… Sheesh! What now? Would you like insurance for €30.00? Against what? Not getting a seat? No, thank you I’m covered. And so it goes on: would you like to pre-pay for oxygen in case of emergency? Would you like to pre-book semi-breathable cabin air, use of the toilet, a cheery welcome form a stewardess, a glass of water, any other basic human right…? I’ll go and look at flights with Aegean instead, thank you.
And that was my weekend.
