15th July 2017

1

Whato my lovelies! So, I’ve spent the week with my darling wife and now I’m on my way home. I’m currently in Italy in a camp site just north of Rome after catching the overnight ferry from Igoumenitsa to Brindisi last night and riding north today. In typical Georgiou style the week with my gorgeous and wonderful wife didn’t have the best start. Unbeknownst to me my mobile phone had dropped its connection to the carrier and hadn’t been receiving or sending text messages for the best part of two days. Flowie had taken my silence to mean that I had crashed and was dead. As you can imagine she was incredibly unhappy and I was incredibly in the shit.

A trip like this is hard work and with the heatwave that had spanned the area I was exhausted and looking forward to a nice and relaxing holiday with my loveliness. When I arrived at the place where my wife was supposed to be staying I rather egotistically expected a welcome and lots of smiley faces. Instead I got a huge bollocking and a very unhappy and panicked wife crying her heart out. On top of that Flowie had fallen out with one of the friends she was going to be staying with so needed to find somewhere else to stay. Add to that the fact that she hadn’t slept for coming on 48 hours and hadn’t eaten all day and I think that pretty much paints the picture.

That evening we found some temporary accommodation for the night, unsuccessfully tried to hunt down our friends so we could ask if we could steal one of the hire cars for 24 hours and found a nice restaurant to eat at. It wasn’t the best evening; emotions were high and conversation strained.

The following day we had to find some accommodation for the remainder of the week and get a hire car arranged. We found a nice hotel right on the beach in the small village of Agios Ioannis, the receptionist lady was very helpful and found a car hire company in the closest city, Volos. Unfortunately the car hire company couldn’t deliver so it would be down to Flowie and me to work it out. We’d drive the hire car we already had to Volos and pick up the new hire car, we’d then drive both cars back to our friends, give their hire car back, Flowie would then drive our new hire car back and I’d follow her on my motorbike. Phew …

Unfortunately, the bed in the temporary accommodation was not great and the air conditioning made lots of weird noises so we’d got next to no sleep and were both grumpy. On top of that the address for the car hire company was not clear and we felt a little like we were being ripped off as the prices were high and, as is often the case in Greece, their card machine was currently broken so they were only accepting cash.

I won’t go into detail here but suffice to say that the day was long, very hard and full of arguments, though it did end with everything arranged and in the right place.

So, after two days of shit we could finally enjoy our holiday. We visited the little cove where Mumma Mia was filmed called Damouchari, Flowie and Nick became friends again, we ate, drank, read our books on various beaches and visited the local sights. There are plenty of stories but I’ll save them for the book.

Flowie was going to be staying for a week longer than me but the accommodation and new hire car had only been arranged for a week, and she didn’t really want to stay there without me, so she decided to book a flight and return home when I left on Friday. Unfortunately this meant that her holiday was half the length and double the price, poor thing.

Before we knew it, it was Friday. Flowie drove our hire car to Volos with me following on my bike. We said our goodbyes, I jumped on my bike and left. The end of a holiday is never much fun and the fact that we were going home separately made it feel worse, as such the goodbye was brief and left me feeling quite sad.

The ride across Greece to Igoumenitsa was reasonably easy, the roads were decent and it was only about 230 miles. The ferry trip I had previously booked was due to leave Igoumenitsa at 11pm on Friday so I arrived very early and had 9 hours to kill. I drank coffee and ate cake.

The ferry turned out to be wonderful, it was almost empty and very comfortable; I got an excellent nights sleep and felt refreshed for my ride up through Italy. It docked at Brindisi about nine and a half hours later. As I rolled off into another new country I momentarily felt the traveller in me lust for adventure but then the need to get back hit home, I jumped on the main road and made my way up the east coast of Italy.

I have lots of photographs but I’m going to wait until I get home before uploading them. Tomorrow I’ll be aiming for the south of France. I miss my wife. I miss my dog. I miss Home.

 

About the author

Richard

4 Comments

  • Oh bugger, sorry to hear of your troubles. Not a great way to start a holiday!

    Hopefully the situation sorted itself out to reasonable agreement!

    When are you aiming to get back to uk?

    T&N xx

    • Thanks mate, all sorted now. Flowie is already at home and I should be able to get there either tonight or tomorrow. Speak soon! Rich x

  • HI flowie and Richard
    Don’t feel so bad about leaving Greece it’s not stopped raining since you left. We’ve had thunder each day and it’s raining right now.
    Love Denis Linda Sue and Nick.

    • That’s no good, it’s lovely this morning here in France. I hope it all perks up for you. I am a little jealous of the thunder though. Much love to all. Rich x

By Richard