Another memory of Crete...

...namely one of my watercolours.

I was sitting on a rock at the seaside - on Varkotopos beach, the little, rather scruffy town beach five minute's walk from my rented room - and the waves were coming in with just enough of a roll to make a breaker with a good crest on it. If you wanted to swim, you had to make the exciting and slightly undignified walk through the breakers first, to get into water deep enough to have only the swell. Then you could swim, in the rolling, warm blue. I had been swimming earlier and now I was drawing and trying to decide where I was going for lunch, and I saw this woman, elegantly dressed and with big sunglasses on, paddling with a studied stylishness at the water's edge. I thought "Sooner or later she's going to get hit by a big breaker" - and next moment she was. She had the good sense to laugh uproariously at herself as she pulled her soaked skirts up round her thighs, and I painted her quickly, to remind me of a happy moment.

Memories of Crete...

This was my lunch on my last day in Crete - Mythos beer, tzatziki, fresh sesame-seed bread and a vegetable frittata... Good, simple, tasty food, delicious, straightforward and honest. Eaten sitting under a vine arbour, a few yards from the sea. Oh, memories...

Holiday-ay!

It's been a rather hectic week but at last I have got to Friday and I'm about to start a fortnight's annual leave. I'm going to Crete (to Bali, pronounced "Balee", on the north coast between Iraklio and Rethymnon) for one week of it, and relaxing at home for the rest.

I booked this period of leave several months ago, long before our team at work discovered that we were going to be a member of staff down for the foreseeable future. I feel, to be frank, like an absolute cow. I'm leaving my colleagues to try and do, not four people's work between three, as we are currently doing on a daily basis, but four people's work between two. Ouch. But the thing is, I did book my leave ages ago, and I am knackered and stressed and desperately in need of a break - and we have no idea how much longer we are going to be short-staffed... and I simply couldn't bear to knuckle under and cancel my holiday. I'm sorry, ladies; you'll get the chance to stick me in it too, later in the summer, if you want.

In the meantime, as I type this, the thought that I am now free for two whole weeks is beginning to sink in. It's settling into my shoulders and back; all the tension starting to trickle out, at the thought of being able to do nothing but sit in the garden and read for an afternoon if I want to; of finally finishing sewing the poppy-patterned top I've been making for months; of going to the London Wetland Centre to listen to reed warblers and sketch ducklings and goslings... of painting and writing and listening to music and just chilling out...

I am torn between treating myself to supper out tonight or buying something nice to take home to do a share-supper with my flatmates (who are both also stressed). I think I'll do the latter; let's spread the happy mood around a bit. Something nice and mediterranean, with lots of herbs and garlic, and a pudding of some sort, and a bottle of plonk...

I don't know how often I'll have internet access for the next fortnight, then, so I'll say goodnight and see you in two weeks!

Just as well...

...that in another three days I have two weeks annual leave; because one day back at work and I'm shattered. The Busy Season has started, we're still short-staffed and things here are a bit hectic. And the new computers and Windows 7, which arrived with them, are still causing problems. And the printer has stopped talking to me; so now I can only print on the colour printer in the next office, which is wasteful when I'm only printing black and white...

Easter was lovely, and so was the Royal Wedding Bank Holiday. I've managed to relax, but also to see my family, attend a fascinating talk on the Science of Attraction at the Natural History Museum in South Ken, howl my eyes out at the Royal Ballet's "Manon" (by gum, it is turning into Steven McRae's year as far as I'm concerned - what a guy!) and at Favourite Baritone's haunting performance of Mahler's Ruckert-Lieder at the Festival Hall, garden myself into the ground, sit in the sunshine, have a very enjoyable lunch with my friend Louise-Brooks-Bob the Crazy Intern, watch the Royal Wedding on tele, cook, clean, finish re-reading "A Fringe of Leaves" and do some mending...

I've managed to get a late deal on a holiday in Crete, which is brilliant, but now the website of the holiday company is playing up and I have so far been unable to input my passport details - which they have to have, to match me to my booking when I turn up at the airport. Grr. Stupid computers.

I'll have one last try now, and if it still doesn't work then I'm off home, and will try again in the morning. Tomorrow is another day.