I Am Aphrodite… Erm Avert Your Eyes Please

Once upon a time, a very long time ago in the days before gravity had done things to my body which, quite frankly, I rather wish that could be undone if I'm honest, and before pregnancy had stretched those parts of me irretrievably beyond what is considered to be fit for viewing by a public audience, I took a holiday to a paradise isle set in a turquoise idyll. Oh alright, I went to Zanté or Zakynthos as it is also known, just one of the many beautiful Greek Islands. 

I travelled there with a friend of mine who had split up with her husband and in the spirit of the 'sisterhood' we booked a ten day female only break in the sunshine for rest and recuperation purposes. Like many bargain breaks, it started with a night time flight and we were dropped at our apartment at three in the morning. There was no one to meet us but keys had been left out with room allocations which were made by the coach rep and we went to our room which smelt of poo and had no promised sea view. Well this really wasn't on and so we popped back down to reception and grabbed all the keys for the later arrivals and searched out a room that we liked and took up residence. In the morning we feigned ignorance, blamed the coach rep, and refused to move from our fragrant sea view (we had payed for a sea view when booking and I do not recall requesting the smell of shit!) We were happy.

The next day I went along alone to the obligatory meeting, my friend decided that she needed to sleep, which was replete with Ouzo (oh no Ouzo!) at 10am which gave out the usual information concerning trips and theme nights which were available to us should we wish and  to broaden our horizons. Hmmm yes a quick look around my fellow travellers gave me all the answers I need regarding booking any trips with the reps, but I say is no one else drinking this rather marvellous Ouzo? No? What just me? Have I really just drunk the entire bottle? I don't feel very well. At 11.30am I stagger back to the apartment just as my friend is waking up bright eyed and bushy tailed from her sleep and declare my new found love for Ouzo! It is three hours before she manages to sober me up enough for the beach and my love affair with Ouzo is largely confined to that first day. That night I have a love affair with the bathroom, well I say 'love affair'…

The holiday progresses and days slip into one another, beach, taverna, small town, and then one day we book a boat trip that travels around the island. This is a good thing to do. We see dolphins, we see Kephalonia, we travel into a cave and I see my Armani sunglasses plop to the bottom of the deep crystal clear water... 'wails'. We stop for lunch at the most amazing little beach with a shipwreck on it and swim ashore onto hollywood white sand, it truly is paradise. On board this friendly little boat, my friend and I meet another couple of girls, two german lesbians to be precise and we decide to hook up the next day and hire a jeep and tour the island. We enjoy the rest of our day, I have to fend off the amorous advances of the boat's captain (as I say gravity had not yet taken its toll on me and I was still pretty awesome in those days!) who decided that I was very much his type, oh how we laughed - well how they laughed at my expense.

The next day dawned and my friend and I went to meet the lesbians at the appointed place and time and a jeep was hired. We drove all over the the place and saw all sorts of things that we would otherwise have missed and took in views over the sea that were simply stunning. there was one little deserted cove that we came across that was breathtaking. We all got out and looked out into the water and it looked so inviting. You could see the bottom of the sea even from up here on the rocks, it was absolutely crystal clear and turquoise blue green that only the way water can be in hot sun. There was a white sand beach just a little way over and best of all there was not a soul around.

"Lets go swimming!" I found myself saying. Everyone was in agreement and they went back to the jeep for towels and costumes. There was no one around, not a soul and I thought 'Oh what the heck' and just stripped off because there is such pleasure to be had from skinny dipping.

So there I was, buck naked, standing on the rocks about fifteen feet above the sea. I put my arms out in a crucifix pose and declared in a very loud voice, "I am Aphrodite, Goddess of Love!" Now the synchronicity of the boat that came into view at the exact moment could not have been made up as it chugged around the cove with its cargo of tourists all looking directly at this mad English woman bellowing at the top of her voice. Well my companions just fell about in tears and the only way to preserve my modesty was to jump into the water, and so I did to catcalls and applause and cameras clicking. Thankfully the water was beautifully warm and pleasurable to be in even if it did not afford me an awful lot of cover to my modesty.  I stayed there for what seemed like hours until that wretched boat chugged back out of view again before I clambered rather ungracefully back out of the sea and hauled myself up the rocks.  I hadn't considered my exit from the sea when I made my hasty entrance and ended up rather bruised and quite grazed but otherwise undamaged. Naked flesh and rock is not a good combination just for the record.

Someone somewhere in the world has the photographs of this woman's hedonistic moment of madness. Still it is a memory that makes me look back and smile and we all need those as we find the shadows growing longer.

I hope that I made you smile. 

Twiglet and a Relaxing Bath...

What can a Twiglet possibly have to do with a relaxing bath, you may well wonder to yourselves. Well let me explain that the Twiglet in question is, in fact, a border terrier dog. She, for she is most assuredly female as the logic that she employs during her antic will attest, was just a pup at the time of the tale that I bring for your amusement today. Border terriers, or Border 'Terrors' as their owners often refer to them affectionately as, are loyal, affectionate and downright scampish in character, for the uninitiated amongst you. They are brave, wise, kind and have a stubborn streak like not other breed of dog that I have ever encountered. Twiglet, like any puppy, had an enquiring mind and always wanted company, to be part of the pack, if you will. 

So what does this have to do with a relaxing bath you may well wonder?

Allow me to set the scene…

A Sunday afternoon in late January, I was preparing a roast dinner as is usual and timing is everything with a roast dinner. I have a routine whereby I like to get it to a stage where the potatoes go in, a timer is set, I slip into a hot bath and the other half takes on 'potato duty' which basically just involves basting the spuds and popping them back into the oven and resetting the timer by which time I'm finished in the bathroom and ready for kitchen duty once more. It makes him feel as if he has helped me cook the Sunday roast (he hasn't) but more importantly, it gives me time for a bath. On the Sunday I am describing, I had pushed the boat out bath wise. It was not long after christmas and I had received some Jo Malone smellies which needed my full attention. I also had a beautiful and expensive scented candle that I thought that I would light for the first time.  So here was my haven, heavenly scented water, flickering candlelight, a mug of herbal tea (yes I'm a lightweight, it should have been wine) and Paul O' Grady on the radio (guilty pleasure revealed). I slid into the bath, it was hot hot hot and I felt the aches and pains just fall away, bliss. I lay back in the water and dunked a new fluffy flannel and put the steaming cloth across my face and allowed myself to relax completely.

Have you ever listened to Paul O' Grady on a Sunday?  His show is very formulaic and all the more comforting for it. Every week there are certain things like 'lost theme tunes', 'classic triples' and at the time he also did a slot where listeners wrote in to ask him to remember their dead pets. It was a real tear jerker and always guaranteed to make his voice crack a little. He doesn't seem to do it so much these days. I refreshed my face cloth with more steaming water and settled back as Paul launched into this particular week's 'Dead Pet' slot. It was the usual mix of dogs and cats and his voice cracking when all of a sudden Sploomp!!!  The wind was knocked out of me and as I inhaled my own flannel, I made an extraordinary noise of shock and disbelief. I snatched the flannel away from my face to find Twiglet sitting neatly on my rather wobbly stomach and realising her predicament and the large volume of water that she now found herself sitting in, with typical female logic she set about trying to drink her way out of it. Whatever strangulated noise that I had made when inhaling my flannel as the air had been rudely pushed out of me by trajectory of a flying puppy landing on my flabby belly. had elicited the response of my family invading my sanctuary and they were now in the bathroom hooting with laughter at the scene before them. Twiglet, god love her, must have drunk her own body weight in bathwater in an attempt to make it go away.  She was duly removed, and I was left to continue my now wet dog scented bath in peace. I didn't enjoy it very much...

Twiglet