Going home - Tuesday

When we disembarked the air hostess said to Dad "That's a lovely handbag, Sir" because he was carrying Mum's Cath Kidston for her.
A man thwacked me with his kid's trunki suitcase so his wife said "Watch what that gruffalo's doing."

Zante - Monday

We got the bus to Kalamaki and had a swim/paddle in Laganas bay. It was a nice sandy beach. There were some of them round brown seaweed things and Dad jumped out the way when they floated towards him because he thought they were lumps of poo!


A lady came round the sunloungers charging for massages so Mum had one and got a right going over with special oils.

It was 34 degrees today so all day when we were out of the sea we were sweating and tired and too hot to do anything.

Zante - sunday

At breakfast today they'd taken away the jars of biscuits and nutella croissants that I usually stock up on. Dad said this is because Spiros saw me feeding some to the chickens!

Dad drove us for another jaunt into the countryside along the coast. We went to Xigia beach,
 a beautiful small bay set between the cliffs, with turquoise waters. The natural spring water flowing into the sea here is filled with collagen and sulphur which is meant to be good for rheumatism, arthritis, and skin conditions so Mum sat on a rock and dipped bits of herself like her boobs in. She even opened the top of her swimming costume to get some water down there! The sand was a bit gritty but we did some exfoliating on each other with it.
I went for a swim. Then I lay down on the hard stones to read while they snoozed on their sunloungers as Dad only likes to pay for two and says we can share/take turns.

Zante - saturday

We hired a car and drove up the winding hairpin bend roads in the mountains

to Askos stone park. We got to feed the deer and the raccoons. And there were lots of other animals too.

On the way home Dad nearly got distracted from his driving because there was a woman walking down the road ahead of us wearing a thong bikini so we got a right eyeful of bum.

Zante - Friday

We got the bus to Zakynthos town. I was getting all hot and grumpy. Dad said he feels like a milkmaid with one of those things round their necks and on the end of his weighing him down are me and Mum moaning!

We went for some lunch and Dad confused the waiter by saying stuff like "er, oui?" when he couldn't hear/understand him.
When the zucchini chips Dad ordered came he said "Where are the potatoes?"
We said, "You didn't order potatoes."
He said "Yes I did, chips are potatoes."

We walked all the way to St Dionysius church (which Sue our tour guide from yesterday had said was a must-visit) much to Mum's disgust because she is not a fan of long treks but when we got there Mum pointed out a sign saying closed between 1 and 5pm. Oops.

It was uphill on the long walk back to the bus station and Mum was struggling. Two stray dogs came along and gave her some moral support.

We had a siesta at our hotel then went out for dinner. Mum had a banana split and a sun goddess cocktail and they came with sparklers in. Dad said to the waitress it's Mum's birthday and the waitress was like oh how lovely, happy birthday and then Dad said it's not really. I cringed in the corner.

 

We got given free shots at the end of the meal so Dad was happy, drinking mine and his own.

Zante - Thursday

We went on a coach tour of the island. We went to look round the monastery of St Dionysius aka St Dennis. Dad tried to make me wear a hankie on my head because any ladies with bare shoulders (not me) needed to borrow a pashmina.

We stopped off for tasters of halva, Greek delight, honeyed nuts, raisins, orange and thyme honey, sesame seed bars, olives, red wine, white wine. I don't like none of that so Dad had mine as well as his own.

The coach nearly drove off without Mum because we were all back on except her because she was browsing all the stalls for presents to take home.

We looked down on Zante's famous shipwreck from a special viewing platform. Dad was underwhelmed and said it didn't look any better than the one at Hunstanton.

We stopped in a little village for lunch.

I had fried cheese, Dad had a mythos beer and an enormous pork chop, Mum had Greek salad but wished she'd ordered the chicken because other people were having that and it looked nice. She settled for a gnaw on Dad's pork chop bone.

We stopped off briefly in another tiny village in the mountains to admire the scenery of grapes growing and all the cypress trees on the hillside. Our guide, Sue, told Dad off for going in the cafe because we didn't have time for that.

Zante - Wednesay

We went on a turtle-spotting boat trip. I was so happy that we got to see some.

We stopped in the middle of the sea for people to climb down the ladder of the boat and do some swimming. Mum and Dad were a bit gutted coz the water was too deep for them to go in but they would've liked a paddle. When people got back on the boat they dripped on us a bit and Dad said "Oh don't mind us will you" really loudly to these blonde bikini-clad girls. I think he thought they were Russian or something and wouldn't understand him but they were Australian and said sorry.

After our excursion we stopped off in town for some refreshments. I was on a cake crawl.

Dad asked for the Alex special cocktail that was on the menu and asked the waiter if he is Alex. The waiter said no, he's James and would Dad like a James special instead so Dad said go on then. He made it and brought it over and told us it was vodka, schnapps and grenadine and asked Dad if he liked it. Dad did one of his no not really faces.

Zante - Tuesday

Spiros took us up to our rooms. He thought Dad's name was William.

We went into town for a pitta wrap. Dad said to our waitress "Are you from Angleterre?" and she said "No, Somerset."

Bike ride

Me and Dad cycled all the way from Girton to St Ives. We stopped off on the way back for a bit of blackberry picking and a much-needed pint of shandy.

Build-a-bear