Swimming in the Sea in December!

Today I had arranged to spend time with my sister Kaye who is staying at the King Evelthon which is the hotel at the bottom of the hill from where Mum and Dad first lived in Cyprus.  It is a huge sprawling, minimalistically decorated hotel which advertises itself as 5 Star.  It is probably a lovely hotel to holiday in with family or friends but rather too vast and clinical for someone on their own.  My sister freely admits to disliking eating on her own in a restaurant and I can understand that.

It was a glorious day and we decided to take ourselves on a walk along the coastal path before we made the decision as to whether or not to try the sea or the swimming pool or both.  This pool (there were others) was vast and stretched far beyond the bridge you can see in the distance ending in a waterfall.  There were a couple of hardy children splashing about in the shallow end but no-one actually swimming which kind of reinforced our opinion that the water was freezing!

This is a lovely walk.  It the walk we used to do with Mum and Dad on Boxing Day - quite apt really because technically I guess this was our Boxing Day having had Christmas Day yesterday.  There have been a lot of changes but most of them quite sympathetically done and includes an open air open gym for people to use.

We made the decision to go back and have a drink and then change and go and try the sea.  There is a little natural lagoon area by the hotel - I have seen it on many occasions previously and have always wanted to try it and today I was determined.

We had asked a guy who was standing in the water when we passed whether it was cold - he said no but then he was only ankle deep.

I changed, gritted my teeth and went in.  Initially it was super cold but as I began to move around and encourage my sister to join me it was actually really lovely and to be fair it was December 8th and we weren't the only lunatics in the asylum!

This then encouraged us to test out the swimming pool.  This was considerably colder than the sea but what the heck once we were in there was nothing left to do but swim from one end to the other - either that or freeze.  

You get a strangely exhilarating feeling when you have plunged into water which is much colder than your comfort zone but stick with it and get the benefit - apparently!  the jury is still out while I try and feel my toes.

I stayed to have lunch with my sister.  She is on half board and going out this evening to the pantomime with mum (oh no she isn't, oh yes she is) so she could change from evening meal to lunch and so she asked me to join her.  The food was rather standard buffet fayre.  Nothing earth shattering but they charged an additional 25 euros for my plate of salad and couple of spare ribs.  Extortionate!

Anyway it was good to catch up with her.  She hopes to return at some point next year but would like to stay somewhere different on the island so is looking at accommodation up near us.  She appreciates that our place really is a bit small and she likes to have her own space and time.