Final Day

Awoke at 5am to begin Operation Nab The Good Sun Beds. It never ceases to amaze me many people are up at the same time doing the same thing. The plus side to getting up at ridiculous O'clock is that you get to see the most beautiful sunrises. The Husband and I sit on the balcony and chat away with a cuppa.

We sit and watch the hotel opposite us as people gradually come out onto their balconies like little birds in nesting boxes. Each person has their own story, some happy and some sad. People just fascinate me, think they always have. Some like to train/bird watch but I like to People Watch.

As we sat there a Chinese couple walk below us and suddenly stop dead in their tracks, they look at each other and promptly begin a very passionate embrace. At one point we actually thought they were going to go the whole way. Their moment was spoilt by The Whirlwind who flung the patio doors open and exclaimed that he had just done the biggest poo ever and that he felt much lighter today.

The Husband and I who already felt like a couple of voyeurs dived inside before they looked up and saw us watching. I wondered afterwards what had prompted this sudden display of affection by them. It was then that i remembered those early days in a relationship when having a snog whenever and wherever you wanted was OK and a reason wasn't needed. It might of been a certain look or a compliment that started it and it didn't matter who was watching.

These days a moment of passion is a usually found when we don't have those things known as The Human Birth Controls AKA The Kids around.

Today is our last day and tomorrow morning we will head home with heavy hearts. My 1st impressions were one of horror but I have to say we have had the most amazing time away together. The all inclusive thing was hard to get used to and when you left the hotel you had the feeling that there was always a small chance that you may get shot in the back by a man in a watch tower who had seen you escape.

The staff have been amazing and I have completely changed my opinion of The Entertainment Team who work tirelessly to stop any one from the age of 3-18 getting bored. The food has been of such a high quality with so much choice that some evenings your only problem was what to have. Never mind the suitcases being to heavy, I think The Husband and I will need the Heavy Load stickers.

So as I sit here writing my holiday diary for the last time I am struck by what a gorgeous family I have and how lucky I am to spend these precious times with them. Someone asked me this week if I was writing a book "No" was my reply "I am just making sure I never forget all these amazing events that happen in my life before my kids grow up and the memories start to fade".

I'm off now to have one last family swim in the sea before dinner. Tomorrow my nerves will return as we board the plane again and bid farewell to Cyprus.

I hope you haven't been too bored following my travels and have enjoyed it as much as I have writing it.

Good Bye for now, see you back in good old Blighty.

Lots of Love
Me xxxxxxx

Day 6....Heavy Load.

The Whirlwinds heat rash seems slightly better today. Probably because I smothered him in Calamine lotion last night.

A quiet day was had by all today. The Husband nodded off into a full deep power nap only to wake himself up by doing the most enormous full body twitch and nearly falling off of his bed. This resulted in me and most of the people around us laughing until we couldn't breath.





The Whirlwind has made friends with all of the waiters who call him "The Boss".......Good observational skills on their part then.

The Husband went to the departure meeting this afternoon with the Reps Kayleigh & Vicki. Who informed him of the strict procedures when leaving Paphos Airport.






I probably should of mentioned that when we checked in at Gatwick our bags were classed as too heavy to go through the normal check in desk and had to go on another one round the corner for Heavy Loads. We got to have stickers on our bags to warn the baggage handlers of their weight. Unfortunately they are not so lenient in Cyprus and if you have too much in your case you will have to leave stuff there....End of.

This resulted in us having to buy another case whilst there and distributing the weight more evenly. We then had to pack a day early so that we could weigh them downstairs with the reps. NIGHTMARE !!!

I was going to unpack again but decided that it wasn't worth it for 1 day and we could live out of the suitcases for a day.

The plus side is that I have nothing to do tomorrow except enjoy our last day on holiday.

Tonight we went for a lovely walk and The Teenager took some amazing shots of the sunset. The Husband got all romantic and took me in his arms and began to dance with me, this was all going great until he decided to dip me.............The outcome of this endeavour is a very sore back for me now.

Its boiling tonight so off to sleep for me. Night night.

xxxxxx

Day 5....Chain Reaction

The Whirlwind has woken up with a bad case of prickly heat so a day in the shade wearing his newly purchased I LOVE THIS CRAZY PLACE t-shirt will be in order today. I would imagine there will be quite a lot of "I'm itchy" today.

The Husband and I have been able to snatch the odd 10 minutes here and there alone time in the pool. This is a family pool and many activities go on in here. We just went in to cool off and watch the final minutes of a very badly played Water Polo match when The Husband kissed me on the back of my neck, I returned this display of affection by kissing him on the lips and pinching his bottom.
As we got out of the pool Mrs Miserable informed us that although it was nice to see couples "our age" being affectionate we really should go into the adults only pool as there were children around.

W.H.A.T!!!!! It wasn't as if we were doing anything 50 Shades Of Grey in there and quite frankly we have been over and looked at the adults only pool and I am not entirely sure if there's not a bit of wife swapping going on.

Talking of 50 Shade Of Grey, I have seen 11 women and 1 man reading it this holiday. Not sure if the bloke was reading it for a laugh or to get some tips. Put it this way, I did notice his wife looked permanently tired but always had a smile on her face. I have to say that I have read all 3 book now and after a while it all gets a bit eye rollingly "What...Again!!"

A trip to Paphos Harbour tonight sipping cocktails by the sea in a trendy bar was the plan.......Oh how wrong could we have been.

A trip to the surface of the sun was more like it, the heat was unbearable. Even an ice cream didn't do the trick due to the fact it ran down your arm before you had had a chance to lick it.








We sat in a bar for a while just to experience the atmosphere. The Husband commented on what a good idea it was that they had a machine that sprayed water onto the fans thus producing a fine mist into the air above us. It was at this point I noticed The Teenagers hair take on a life of its own...POOF!!! She went from Cleopatra to Diana Ross in 30 seconds. Anyone who has a teenage daughter will understand the trauma this hair situation can cause.

Not sure we will be going back to the Harbour any time soon.....Not unless they do a 70's theme night.

Back at the hotel now. Night night.
xxxxx

Day 4...Rola Cola

Have woken up this morning with 2 slightly black eyes as a result of the nose banging incident yesterday. Great!!!!

Have discovered the delights of Fanta Lemon, very refreshing in the hot sun. Only down side was that it gave you the most chronic gas and heartburn.

The Whirlwind has become addicted to the all inclusive as much as you can drink before throwing up Coke. I use the word Coke very loosely as its sort of more like Rola Cola/Schweppes soda stream. Am going to try to sway him onto the Fanta Lemon instead today.







The couple who were arguing yesterday are back beside us today. Think things have got progressively worse as he has moved his bed away from hers. He asked her if she would put suncream on his back to which she said quite clearly "NO" followed by a muttering of "I hope you blood burn" under her breath.

The Husband is contemplating buying The Whirlwind an inflatable for the pool. Had a quick look at it and decided that due to the fact it was as big as Free Willy it wasn't such a great idea and settled on a lilo instead.






Shirley and the gang are leaving tomorrow so she is busy organising everyone. She popped into town last night as her daughter had another baby back at home. They have called him Beckham after David Beckham but don't like the name David as its too plain. So she is showing off her latest tattoo on the other leg this time as she has run out of room on the right leg.

Off into town this evening to do a spot of shopping. Myself and a couple of friends have a tradition where whenever we go on holiday we have to buy each other the worst tackiest gift we can find and it must be under £5. Looking forward to this immensely and taking family with me this time so they can help.

Just got back from Operation Find A Shite Gift and I don't think they will be disappointed. Managed to find a truly tacky shop that had a lot of crystal in it. Found a statue of Achilles which would of been perfect but it was £30 so that was out of the question.
Finally settled on an ornate ashtray with matching cigarette holder (neither of my friends smoke by the way, so this makes it even more hysterical), a donkey carrying some bananas, an ornate teaspoon with a map of Cyprus on the handle and the best of the bunch.......5 mini shells with candles inside them .(Not sure how you light them as they are just going to roll around the table).





As I was laughing quietly to myself I suddenly heard The Whirlwind and The Teenager snickering behind the shelf. She had found a pack of Karma Sutra playing cards and was showing The Whirlwind who in turn exclaimed "Oh my good god, look at the size of......" you get the picture.
These were promptly snatched away and attentions were diverted to the sweet section.



Got the kids a couple of fans as a joke. The Whirlwind used his a bit to professionally and flicked it out like a Flamenco Dancer whilst dancing around the shop. The Husband rolled his eyes and said we should of got him something more manly like a football.......Cant see that being much good when you are hot but anyway.




Finished the evening off with drinks at the bar and the kids fanning themselves to keep cool.

My bed is calling me......Night night.
xxxxx

Day 3...Ouch!

This morning started well but went completely pear shaped when I had the most horrendous accident.

To cut a very long story short, The Teenager took herself off back to the room to get her book and after 1/2 hour I began to get a little concerned. The Husband and The Whirlwind were off snorkeling and I was alone with just my beach bag and my bottle of water. As any mother will understand there is a little voice that sometimes fills your head with crazy thoughts about where your kids are and things that might of happened to them. I am no different and convinced myself that she had been abducted and I would never see her again.



In my haste to rescue her I shoved my kaftan on and grabbed my bag and hastily stood up.....BANG!!! I smacked my nose on the end of one of the spokes of the beach umbrella. It went with such a bang I dropped like a stone back onto my bed and literally saw stars. After shaking my head I went to stand up again. This time I realised that I had sweat dripping from the end of my nose...Wrong!! It was blood. I sat back down again and pulled a little mirror from my bag only to discover my face was completely covered in blood and I had a gash the size of The Grand Canyon down my nose.

Luckily a lady at the next bed had seen what was going on and between us we cleaned my nose up and stuck a plaster on it to stop the bleeding. I think my pride was hurt more than my nose and I sat for a minute to regain some level of composure.
Just then The Teenager swans back over without a care in the world rabbiting on about how she decided to change bikinis and then her sarong didn't match. In true Teenager fashion in took her a good 10 minutes to notice that I was sitting with blood all down my front and had a plaster on my nose resembling Adam Ant.
She kind of looked around and then gasped "Oh my God, whats happened Mum". I relayed the story to her and noticed a slight smirk desperately trying to break free from her mouth. It didn't cross her mind that had she just gone up and come back down again I would not of stood up and bashed my nose.....Teenagers!!!


The Husband was slightly more sympathetic and checked to see if I needed stitches (which I didn't luckily). I spent the rest of the day wearing a plaster and received several strange looks from onlookers.

That will teach me for assuming that Shirley (see Day 1 Diary) would of punched me in the nose wont it.

The rest of today has been fine, except for a new family that have just arrived in our little peace of paradise. From what I can gather they absolutely hate each other, the kids look traumatised and bewildered by their parents. The reason I have come to this conclusion is because of the following conversation they had...

Her: "Can you get us some drinks please"
Him: "Why cant you get them, I have just started a new chapter in my book"
Her: "For gods sake, why are you so lazy?"
Him: "Because I work so bloody hard so you can come on expensive holidays like this. That's why".
Her: "Well don't worry because I am coming on my own next year".
Him: "Thank God for that....2 weeks without having to look at your miserable face and listen to your constant nagging"
Her: "Oh why don't you just go and drown yourself in the sea".

You can see why I think they don't like each other now cant you.

The rest of today has been spent trying not to laugh at other people nearly knocking themselves out on low parasols. Have counted at least 10. Of course I totally sympathise but was secretly hoping I wouldn't be the only one wearing a plaster on my nose.


Spent this evening at a Haagen Dazs Ice Cream Parlour across the road. 4 cups of deliciousness were consumed whilst we watch the world go by.

Myself and my sore nose are off to bed now. Night night.

xxxxxxxxxx

Day 2 Zumba Time

Day 2 began with a lovely brekkie and a dip in the strangely quiet pool. We have discovered that although the towels of Camp 1 are on the beds they don't actually surface until 12am for the women and kids and 3pm for the men.






The Entertainment team have stopped coming through the little white gate as asking us if we would like to take part in bingo, quiz afternoon and Zumba.......Yes that's right.....I said Zumba. I'm not being funny but who on earth would want to do Zumba when its 100 degrees. I have tried this popular past time once and ended up sweating like a horse in a disco so why they would think doing it at midday is beyond me. To be fair 6 people did take part but looked like they needed oxygen afterwards.

The Teenager and The Whirlwind are having a ball and dividing their time equally between playing in the sea, arguing, reading and snorkeling followed by a bit more arguing then a bit more reading. The Husband is enjoying doing nothing and keeps dropping of in a sort of Narcoleptic type of way. he has even stopped snoring which proves my point that it is definitely stress induced.

I am going a totally gorgeous shade of.....Freckled red and have burnt my nose thus resulting in me looking like Rudolph The Burnt Nose Reindeer. I haven't got a particularly big nose but its always the first thing that gets burnt.

We sat by the pool tonight and ordered cocktails. The Whirlwind exclaimed very loudly that there was one called Sex On The Beach which caused me to snort my drink out of my nose (CLASSY BIRD). The Hubby grabbed the menu before he noticed the Screaming Orgasm and The Harvey Wall banger and promptly knocked his drink all over my lap. We returned upstairs with the kids placed strategically in front of me in case anyone thought I had forgotten to put my Tena Lady in.





Whilst on our balcony the Entertainment team broke out into a Michael Jackson dance routine which to be fair was amazing. I wanted to show them my Beyonce All The Single Ladies but was stopped by the Husband. SPOILSPORT !!!!





Time for bed now which I must say I am ready for, funny how doing nothing makes you tired isn't it.

Night night for now.

Come back tomorrow for Day 3.

Lots of Love
Me
xxxxxxxxxxxx

Holiday Diary Day 1

Have decided to split my holiday diary into 7 smaller daily parts. Hope you enjoy them as much as I have writing them.

Well, we are finally here in Cyprus. Miraculously enough the flight was actually alright. I will never completely enjoy it like some people but on a scale of 1-10 it was a definite 7.
The air steward who was called Sebastian had been a contestant on the X Factor a few years ago and at one point I thought he was going to break out into a rendition of River Deep but a small amount of turbulence put pay to that luckily.

Once we had landed we headed for our shuttle bus which was to take us to our hotel. Our holiday rep Maurice (very Larry Grayson) informed us that due to budget cuts he would not be accompanying us to out destination and that he would run through the finer points before we left. NICE !!

We arrived at our hotel which was beachfront and set along the coastline with 5 similar hotels. As we checked in we were greeted by a German Shot putter called Eva. She welcomed us with the grace of a angry Pitbull and in an extremely effective manner gave us the rundown of where everything was and times of dinner etc etc...
She offered us a bell boy to take our luggage up but we decided that he looked so knackered we would do it ourselves. She in turn gave him a right telling off at looking lazy, quite frankly she could of lifted our suitcases and us up in one hand and carried us all upstairs.
Our suite was lovely, clean and bright and had its own little private balcony. The Teenager and The Whirlwind had separate rooms which was a complete blessing due to the fact they had just threatend to maim and kill each other in the lift.

We unpacked and headed off for an afternoon by the pool. It was at this point it all went spectacularly wrong...............

As I told you in my last blog, this was our first holiday abroad in 7 long years and we had really splashed out and paid a small fortune for it. We were expecting a family environment, peace, quiet and tranquillity. WRONG!!!!!

As we stepped out onto pool side we were greeted by the very opposite. The scene in front of us was not unlike a scene from the TV show Benidorm. Bomb diving kids in the pool, cigarette smoking tattooed welding women and to top it all off an entertainment team who were all on microphones encouraging the kids to find an adult and jump on their heads in the water.


As most of my friends know I used to be a closet snob but decided to come out as a fully fledged member of the "I LIKE CLASSY AND NICE STUFF" brigade. I am not embarassed of this at all.

We all stood like 4 startled rabbits staring out at the sight that greeted us. I spun round in the vague hope that we had by some small chance come out of the wrong door and we were in fact in the hotel next door. Alas "NO" was the answer to that.

The Hubby (sensing that I was about to have a hissy fit) quickly guided me over to one side and pointed to a large grassy area through a little gate which over looked the beach and was somewhat quieter.We walked quickly due to The Teenager sneering and The Whirlwind pretending to choke on all the cigarette smoke. As we went through the little gate we were greeted by.......Calm, peace, palm trees and the beach.
"Ahhhhhhhh" was the sound that escaped my lips.
"Ohhhhhhhh" was The Teenagers reaction.
"Yeeeessssss" squealed The Whirlwind
"Thank you God" whispered The Hubby

At that moment a group of people beckoned us over. These were other families and honeymoon couples like us who had paid a fortune and who had all experienced the same reaction that we had just endured. As I sat on my sun lounger surveying the scene It became very obvious that it was a them and us kind of situation. They didn't come onto the grassy bit and we didn't go on to the tiled bit.

Some of the families told of arguments over in Camp 1 when one kid had taken another ones lilo and the mums had squared up to each other. Others spoke of mums and dads having huge stand up rows because the dads hadn't come in until 5am. It all sounded like a scene from Shameless, what the hell has happened to people these days. Where have manners and being nice to other people gone. What a shame that some people think its OK to just do as they please without any cause for others feelings.

I have attempted to smile at the Camp 1 mums but have been greeted by dirty looks. This evening a breakthrough occurred in the ladies loo's. As I washed my hands one of the women came in from Camp 1. I smiled and looked away when suddenly........ "Hiya" she said, followed by "You are so lucky you are in the quiet section, we are desperate to come over but cant."
"Why not"? I said.
"Because we have come with a huge group of 35 and we will get lynched if we leave the group. Shirley is our group leader and she pretty much tells us when and where we are going" she replied.
"Oh right, which one is Shirley then"? I asked
"Shes the one with the tattoos of all her 27 grandchildren on her leg" she answered slightly smirking.
It was at this point I did my very best Actors Guild "How Lovely" kind of face.

As I bid her a goodbye I scanned the foyer for Shirley and sure enough there she was standing amongst everyone bossing them around. And yes she really did have 27 names tattooed on her leg going from the top to the bottom.
If I had been brave enough I would of taken a picture of her leg to show you all but I quite like my face and didn't want my nose plastered across my face for being cheeky.

So there we go, Day 1 over and done with. First impressions were one of horror but after settling in I think we will be alright.

Come back tomorrow for Day 2.........Who knows what will happen!!!!!


Lots of Love
Me xxxxxxxx