June 16: Home again

From Mediterranean sunshine, it was a bit of a shock to arrive at a foggy 8 degree Newcastle airport at 5 a.m. yesterday.

Plan C ended up as a week in Rhodes, about which we knew absolutely nothing till we got there. We had a most enjoyable week, chilling "right to de bone", and doing what we do so well, i.e. pottering about. There was all the old town to explore, harbours, ruins, beaches, hundreds of eating places, all within easy strolling distance. There were even Greek dishes on the menu at many places. By luck rather than judgement, we stayed in an area sheltered from the wind off the Aegean Sea.

We took a couple of trips out, one to Lindos, which was a bit of a misunderstanding; and one a jeep safari (inevitably called "Off Rhodes"), which was very good, in spite of the obligatory stops at the businesses of several mates for them to try and sell us souma, honey, and wine.

The TV over there was interesting - the World Cup, of course, but not exclusively from the English point of view (where we stayed had a large proportion of German, Dutch and Italian guests); the only English speaking channel we found was CNN, but the soaps, sit-coms and "Who wants to be a Millionaire" (German version) were all instantly recognisable, even to us poor monolinguists.

Back home, some of the washing mountain has been tackled, and all our 174 photos have been downloaded, printed out and neatly labelled before we forget where they were all taken. If I can find the energy, I might even put a few up on the blog!

And after the vivid colours of the extravagant flowers of Rhodes, it was a delight to find all the roses in full bloom, plus the blue clematis, the oriental poppy, alliums, dianthus and foxgloves.