Mummyfried

Last week we flew from Thessaloniki to Athens. It is a one hour flight. We thought it would be a good way to see if Little Miss had overcome her inability to fly with ease. A short trial flight would be ok. Well. We are optimists afterall. It was on hour of hell for all the surrounding passengers. Fortunately it was ten minutes of sheer terror for Little Miss. So, while we didn't win any prizes in the fabulous family stakes, I was somewhat relieved that she freaked out for only ten minutes, rather than the entire flight. Little Miss has largely lost her ' Port a Volcano ' status. It has been replaced with a 'Meltdown on anything that moves' title. We sat her in her own seat near the window. She turned pale and started hyperventilating. We hadn't yet put on our belts so we swapped seats thinking she would be happier between mum and dad. This made it worse. She absolutely freaked out. The air hostess came over to help. I asked if she could sit on my la...

There are lots of things I love about Greece. One thing is the food. There is only one word to describe it, delicious. Another is how child friendly it is.  Greeks absolutely love children, and children that receive their love and adoration are happy little campers.  My cherubs suck up the attention like a sponge does water. Before moving to Greece, eating out would be a stressful initiative (for me mostly).   Sensing my anxiety, my cherubs would turn ‘Chucky’ throwing food and morphing cutlery, glasses and plates into deadly weapons. In Greece it’s a more relaxed affair.  Staff and patrons are used to children wondering around restaurants and tavernas.  A broken glass is a problem only because staff worry that the bits of glass are dangerous, not because it was broken in the first place. We recently were in Athens and dined at the Hotel Grande Bretagne’s GB Roof Garden Restaurant. My old stress levels returned.  I couldn't shake my old mantra ‘...

I have talked about my uniform fetish in an earlier blogs entitled ‘ A call out ’. I can’t help but raise it again.   I am often fascinated by people in uniform. They are so perfectly groomed. Shoes shiny, shirts tucked in. Hair in place.  In my mind there is an air of mystery around somebody in uniform. You just can’t tell what type of person is under the cloth.  Are they kind, approachable, funny, strict, creative? Are they as clean cut as their uniform suggests? If I visited them at home, would I enter a home so pristine and in such order that even I the germaphobiac would think the sterile environment was a bit suss? I always want to crack and unravel the mystique.  Police officers fascinate me largely because these law enforcers require a combination I think of humor, empathy, strength, bravery and importantly intellectual and emotional maturity.   Requirements that I think are missing from the list of essentials on a pol...