Away till next weekend

Tomorrow morning Richard and I leave directly after church. We have to drive to Limassol, which is about an hour's journey, and hope we can leave the car at the port. We're going on a mini-cruise thing to some Greek islands for five days, in celebration of 25 years of marriage (well, nearly. The anniversary is actually in a couple of weeks). It's the first time we've been away on our own in five years. Five years ago when we had a couple of nights in a hotel in Limassol for our 20th anniversary, that was the first time in over 13 years - ie since Daniel was born.

A friend went on this same mini-cruise a few years ago and highly recommended it. As I don't like flying unless it's essential this seemed like a much better idea than going on holiday by plane. It worked out less expensive too. Cruises are often thought of as luxuries, and of course in a sense every holiday is a luzury, but there are quite a few which go from Limassol, which are very reasonably priced. Particularly if one goes early in the season, as we are.

Food is all included, that much we know. And we've booked a guided tour for the day we're in Patmos (where the book of Revelation was written). Other than that, we know almost nothing about what to expect. Do we have to dress up for the evening meal, for intance? We're taking some less casual clothes for the evenings, but hope it won't be too formal. Richard certainly doesn't want to have to wear a tie, although he's taking one. And what about towels? I would think they would be provided - I'm guessing the facilities are somewhere in between a hotel and a passenger ferry - but perhaps not swimming towels. So we're taking a couple.

And what about my early-morning coffee? I usually wake about 6.30am and make myself my first cup of coffee immediately. I only have one other cup per day (after lunch) but if I miss one I get a headache.

Then there's the possible heat. It should be cooler than it is here, due to the sea-breezes. But will there be plenty of shade on the deck? Will there be lounges to sit in and read? If I'm out in the sun when it's hot, that's another way of getting a bad headache.

Ah well, I've learned over the years that it's better not to worry too much about these things, but to take life as it comes. This morning after I had spent a couple of hours watering the garden, we did our packing. Or rather, Richard did. I found what I needed, and he organised it tidily into cases. I've spent most of today trying to catch up on finances (ie putting everything into Quicken) and emails.

This evening I cleaned out the fridge somewhat - throwing on the compost heap some rather tired looking lettuce and some almost-fermenting leftover watermelon chunks. Tim's going to be here, along with four young men from a church youth team (three from Northern Ireland, one from the USA) who are in Larnaka for three weeks looking after various youth activities. Two of them have arrived already, the others come on Monday. So he'll have plenty of company.

We get back on Friday but may well go to our favourite second-hand bookshop in Limassol before we return. In the evening there's a youth group variety night, so I may well not switch my computer on until next Saturday. I certainly won't tomorrow since church starts at 9.00am and we'll be leaving immediately afterwards.