A Day on Asprokremnos Beach...

We had been invited to go out on Crafty Jane and Olive Mark's boat today but as it had a flat battery and it would need eight hours to charge that had to be abandoned but as we were all geared up for a day out and had our packed lunches all sorted Jane suggested we went to the beach anyway and so I suggested that we went to Asprokremnos because when we have been in the past the water had been clean and clear and easy to get into (that was if we were going to be swimming which, as it was November 27th, seemed a bit unlikely to me!!).
 

Jane and Mark picked us up and we made our way to the beach - it was bright but not overly warm and we could see that there was quite a lot of cloud bubbling up directly over us but we are British after all and we adopted the stiff upper lip Dunkirk spirit and set up camp utilising an awning which was already there - in fact we were quite impressed with the construction - John always likes to sit in the shade so it was perfect.

We decided to take the plunge (forgive the pun) and go for a swim - it was very much more pleasant than we had anticipated - once you were in it was lovely (that age old saying you hear time and time again over here!!!) - who would believe it so late in the season???  Jane and Mark always take a Christmas Day swim at La Plage and I have jokingly said I will join them - if I thought that the water was going to feel anything like as good as it did today I would go.  John spent ages snorkeling and saw all sorts of fish.

We spent a few lovely hours on the beach playing games and walking and collecting pebbles and having our packed lunches.  John had taken two beach bats and a rather heavy old ball and he and Mark and then he and Jane played 'keepy uppy' with a champion score of 20 amassed by John and Jane.  Mark probably breathed a huge sigh of relief when my i-pod ran out of battery power so he plugged his into our speakers - he is very worried about my musical taste!!

We did get a bank of cloud over us which hung around for a while and we were laughing that over in Argaka and up near the Baths of Aphrodite the sun was shining - typical!  It wasn't really cold though and for quite some time I sat in my damp bathing costume testing Jane on Greek words and phrases as we both need the practice!  As we did so we could see a whole host of fishing boats making their way out from Latchi harbour in search of their next catch.

John had taken his body board with him - much to the hilarity of the rest of us but when Jane decided she was going in for a second dip John dashed down the beach David Hasselhoff style with his board under his arm even though the waves were piddling and small (no shipwrecks and nobody drown'ded - nothing to laugh at, at all!)

Together they did the best they could and Jane seemed to really enjoy herself - note to Mark for a Christmas present I feel!!!  Further footage of John's prowess as and Olympic body boarder in waiting is featured below...

All in all we had a lovely few hours and felt tremendously priviledged to have been able to spend time on the beach and in the sea in November when many of our friends are either under water or shivering big style back in the UK.

John and I had been supposed to be meeting up with Costas and Jackie down in Paphos with Mum and Dad this evening but as Jackie's brother was over unexpectedly and only for a couple of days they had asked to postpone it.  As a result Jane invited us to join her and Mark and a spaghetti bolognaise which sounded good to us.

We had a lovely evening - Mark had the wood burner lit so it was warm and cosy in their house.  The three dogs that they are looking after were all behaving themselves and we enjoyed a nice meal together.  We were amazed during the course of our conversations to find out that Jane and Mark had held their wedding reception at Langdon Court in Devon.  We couldn't believe it because Langdon Court used to be owned by our dear dear friend Joani's parents - we are not exactly sure when but we have a sneaky feeling that they may have been there when Jane and Mark got married.  I am emailing Joani to find out - how spooky would that be???