A Grecian Shanghai, Scootered and Train Lagged.

I last left you, dear readers, having returned from sunny Malta. Since then, while life at Chez Kojak has not been the epitome of boredom, the summer, such as it was, passed in a fairly humdrum way  with the exception of course, of the ongoing war of attrition against the evil Uberbinfuhrer and his henchmen

As the yearly cycle swung into September I began to look forward to my usual Autumnal visitation to the Grecian Isles. I made the normal rendezvous with travelling companions at Manchester Airport after a nocturnal and expensive taxi ride to the big city of Preston thanks to the evil Transpennine Express having the temerity to exclude the Gare de Kojak from their stopping places. A few more such journeys and it may be worthwhile buying the taxi company. But I digress, once again.  There was some jocularity when meeting my companions when it was suggested that we walk to the end of the concourse to partake of a cigarette. I declined, having encountered, the previous year, the unfortunate attentions of a pigeon suffering from chronic irritable bowel syndrome. It took 2 packets of Boots Cucumber wipes and a spray from every tester in the Duty Free Shop to mitigate the effect.
 

The middle section. 10 metres in...

The flight passed without incident but on landing at the island of Rhodes we were informed that due to  problems with ferries we were required to spend one night there before catching the ferry the next morning. This caused some anxiety as we had heard prior horror stories of abandonment in accommodation that was rat-infested, liable to imminent collapse and plagued by white slavers etc.. In the event we were relieved to be placed in a very pleasant hotel. I was sure there had to be some mistake when I opened the door to my own room. It was well appointed although a tad on the large side.  When I say large, it contained six beds in three different sections. It was so long that I could barely see the far end and it was well into the next day before I discovered there was a very pleasant lawn and well furnished patio there
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The rest of the holiday passed without incident or injury (which is unusual for Kojak) Now during my sojourn, my great friend there invited the ensemble to his house for a meal. We knew this was seriously good nosh because he had been a ships cook in his merchant navy days and the meal was guaranteed to be haute Greek cuisine. During the meal he once again asked me to return to the isle in 4 weeks to celebrate his name day. He is named after the Archangel Michael and the island possesses a very famous icon of the said Archangel endued with miraculous powers. The name day celebrations were therefore considerable and attended by Greeks from far & wide. I began my usual excuses, flight difficulties etc. but was shanghai'd by a friend who dropped me in by informing him that cheap flights to Athens now operated from Manchester out of season. I arrived home and  was promptly subjected to more pressure when the complete flight schedule was emailed to me.  By this time I was feeling more than a little beleaguered as I was also organising a reunion of my fellow holidaymakers in the English lakes. And so it was that in early November I again found myself in Greece, this time staying with my Greek friend and his family. A pleasant week was spent including many trips up into the mountains to various monasterys where we were treated to splendid Greek hospitality. The trips were made on the back of a friend's scooter and being a gentleman of a certain age I found the experience resulted in some aches & pains. After one trip off road on a rather rough track I needed to be winched off the scooter. My flight home via Athens went to time and I landed in good time to catch the planned train home. Not to be, dear reader. After flying across Europe without incident I once again fell victim to the machinations of the evil Transpennine Express. The first train was cancelled, the second train broke down and  the third one was 25 minutes late resulting in a lengthy wait on a cold, wet and windy platform.  Thoroughly train-lagged, the holiday was over, I barely had time to thaw out before it was Monday morning and evil bin day...