Summer in Skopelos...

was wonderful!

What an absolutely delightful time we had, meeting up with old friends and making new ones, having visitors come to stay, our eldest son and his girlfriend coming to the island and getting engaged there. It was a really lovely time!

Now we are back in Istanbul, work has started and the holidays are just lovely memories.

But for two of our friends, Mike and Dot, the holidays don't end! They have taken the plunge and moved to the island permanently so we are hoping to hear how life on the island is when all the tourists have gone and the harbourside tavernas have closed for the winter. Skopelos will be a very different place, though I think Mike and Dot will survive and still be there when we get back next July!

Our holiday started and finished with a 9 hour drive between Istanbul and Volos, an over night stay in Volos and a 4 hour ferry trip between Volos and the island. Fortunately we have a GPS (we call it Kate) and Kate knows the way from our front door to the front door of the hotel we stayed in. Now, I know that a 9 hour drive doesn't sound like much fun, but it really was quite pleasant, the road was fairly quiet both ways (though on the way back we did get some pretty busy pre-Iftar traffic in Istanbul).

When we got to the island we drove up to the house to drop our bags off - that was a bit hairy as some of the streets on the way up are not much wider than our car! We had to close the mirrors at one point. So on the way back, we asked our good friend Reg to bring our stuff down to the port because his car is a bit smaller than ours. We brought so much stuff back to Istanbul that Reg needed to make two journeys! Ah well, Mrs Istanbilly never has quite mastered the concept of travelling light! Maybe next year.

The time in between was just relax, relax, relax! And much needed relaxation it was too. Actually it wasn't all relaxation, I did do a little bit of work - I built a new shelf for the kitchen, which rekindled my interest in working with wood so I am going to do some joint making in my spare time this year in order to get better at it because I intend to make a book case when I am there next year! We will see how it turns out.