Our Mykonos Holiday – a touch of Greece 2 hours from Cape Town

June 26, 2013

At Mykonos

All we did was go to Gumtree and punched in Mykonos holiday and up popped the West Coast Holidays advert, promising a not-to-break-the –bank deals for a Mon-Fri stay at Mykonos during the first week of the school holidays. Well, in Superman style, Val Hopley , our ‘travel agent’, promptly sorted out all the hiccups that we experienced in Levona's kaliva.. Then we were ready to soak up the pleasures of our own piece of Greece. We are now on to day 3.

Mykonos is the ideal getaway even for consummate homebodies

Mykonos is your ideal winter getaway and caters for all kinds of holidaymakers – the seasoned ones and the ones who are terrified of going on holiday. Okay, I am exaggerating ,but goodness – the reasons we manufacture to justify why we can’t go on even a ‘cheapie’! The reasons are often elaborate, pseudo-valid ones. There are some who would say “ No, we have to choose. Our children want a flatscreen TV or others would say “ I can’t bear to sleep in another bed”. Hogwash, I say. If I were the children, I would opt for the holiday, because there is enough social peer pressure out there to make the adults buy the latest modcon. I would call their bluff. For those who can’t sleep in another bed, I would advise that you get the strongest sleeping pill to knock you out so that you wake when daylight or the sun reminds you that the night has passed.

I think our real fear is that we forgot how to just have fun, worrying how to fill all those empty spaces that would usually be clogged with all those demands from work and from home.

Natalie, Sasha, Riko and Reagan playing in the waves

Mini-golf in action: all our teens on the course

We need short holidays

Seriously, we need to learn to unwind. I am one of those jacked-up people who are also completely wrapped up in my work and have to tear myself away. I know all those feelings of guilt or feelings of wasting time when we are doing nothing. But we have to learn to do nothing and give our overworked bodies and minds a rest. Our families make a concerted effort to break away. Levona and I would bring the kids out for a few days and then we resume life when we get home.

Playing Family Bingo at Oceanis Pool Deck. From left clockwise: Reagan, Natalie, Sasha, Levona, Riko. We did not win a single prize. Tomorrow we will take revenge!

Teens on the rock

Learn to relax, warns a colleague’s GP

I was chatting to a colleague, Zaida, who is a Head of Department at one of our primary schools. Zaida is energetic, progressive and always busy. Zaida, who had just returned to work after a 2-week sick leave stint, told me about her ankle injury that forced her to go on sick leave. According to Zaida, she had taken her mom out for Mother’s Day and had donned a pair of high heels, wanting to feel special. She trod on a stone or a rock – I forget which – and the next minute she sat with a broken angle.

Zaida’s doctor told her: “ All the teachers have such taut muscles, so much stress in their bodies, that a simple mis-step like in your case, cost you an ankle injury. Loosen up…you guys are damaging your bodies by doing so much and not looking after yourself”. Point taken. I too, can attest to this rigidity. All I did one morning was raise my arm to brush my hair and I had a shoulder ache for days. So, what are we trying to prove? Life is so rushed we have to put alerts on our gadgets to remind us to breathe. The best remedy is to take time out, even if we still want to do some work-related stuff while on holiday. Just fit in some leisure time and go to a place where the scenery is different. Go there where others are trying to find themselves too.

Snapshot of Mykonos activities

So here at Mykonos, we are having some chill time and our children are enjoying themselves thoroughly. Yes, they are eating far too many luxuries but they are having so much fun, filling their hours. There is so much to do. They can play Mini-golf, swim in the sea or fish at the harbour and catch crabs and sand sharks. Then there is the organized holiday entertainment programme hosted at Onos Club House or Oceanis Pool Deck. We played Family Bingo after lunch and the youngsters have just gone down to play a game of Adults & Teens Volleyball.

Our two princesses: Left to Right: Tanika and Letitia who have just emerged from the indoor pool.

And now…

And I? I am preparing supper – sumptuous burgers, braised onions and sausage. Perhaps I will make some potato chips too – just to round off the decadence for tonight. Then I am going to continue wrestling with a script I am trying to fashion for my birthday party next week. A rather ambitious goal, but let’s see how it all pans out.