Is it strange to be friends with people you were at school with over 30 years since you left school? A lot of people think so. To stay close to those people for that long despite moving apart and having families. How we related changed bit by bit. During university holidays and after Neil and I graduated there were Friday and Saturday nights out drinking, Rotaract midweek and other weekend events like sport playing.
As work and settling down increased first of all it was Saturday nights only, then just some Saturdays, then once a month. Three of us living or working in London made it easier for a while My ongoing ME made it even harder (https://wordpress.com/post/fivemilesout.home.blog/1526 ) and Neil retired.
In 2016 we were 50 and we decided to go on holiday for a week together. Dave had suggested this a number of times, but this time we were serious. We went to Lindos to make sure that the pace of life was not too much for us 50-year-olds (actually it turned out we could go more lively than that).
We were lucky to go. Dave’s son was ill and in hospital, Neil and I both had medical flare ups – John was very nearly at the departure gate on his own with a four-person apartment for himself.
It was a nice apartment, part of a small complex above Lindos with its own pool, there was even some limited wi-fi in the pool area. Neil celebrated our arrival with a large Greek Salad (though in my experience that is the only size that they come in)
Eight days isn’t a lot as the first and last are pretty much travelling. We needed recovery time from work (John had not slept for 36 hours by the time we arrived and had some severe headaches for a while)
(Me, John, Dave and Neil in the Ice Bar)
We went to the Ice Bar – totally incongruous in a place like Lindos. It would have been nicer to pop in for five minutes a couple of times a day.
Lindos is pretty but not very exciting. On the second day we asked the rep in there were any night clubs. She asked us how late we were out, and we said until around 11pm. Her answer was that the clubs did not open until 1 or 2am. Our response? We like to be in bed earlier than that. She looked at us and said that if that was the case maybe they weren’t for us. Cruel.
We hired a car for three days and went Go Karting. John won but I amazed the others by being second (though Dave being bigger than me and the size of the engines gave me an advantage). It was enlivened by Dave getting a wasp up his shorts near the end of the race but managing to keep going.
I did not do so well at mini golf – I am not at the podium as I was a distant fourth.
(Neil, Dave and John)
Neil elected not to go on our second day out. First to Seven Springs where Dave and John noted how much lower the water was than when they had visited in 1989.
(Hiking around Seven Springs)
Then into Rhodes and looking around the Old Town, somewhere we would spend far more time in 2018.
(Dave and John in the Old Town).
We use the car to spend two nights in Faliraki – watching football and enjoying the louder bars and the more vibrant atmosphere. Faliraki was far more gentile than it had been in 1995, something that would only increase by 2018. Shame as it was a great party town. Rhodes is the no the family vacation centre for Romania, Bulgaria and the Ukraine, but at least they don’t have British people passed out in the streets. The hotel owners and bar owners were ambivalent about the change – they liked the calm, but there was far less revenue.
If you can put up with three other men in a cramped apartment for a week it shows you must be mates for life.
The ultimate trance song, but it was already over a decade old by the time we went on holiday – and we thought that was recent. Love the twist ending to the video too.
Sandstorm
Five Miles Out 