Holiday vocab

"Cat" hunting

One thing that's been really fun has been Louis' Greek holiday vocab. Okay, so his eating strike/illness (yes, another holiday illness - we're beginning to think he's trying to tell us he doesn't like travelling) means he isn't quite saying 'spanokopitta' or 'gyros', but he's got the seaside stuff down pat. 

We head to the "sand" so we can go "swimming" in the "sea" and then take a "shower" when we come out. His other favourite pursuit is to go "cat" hunting: this being Greece there are plenty around to chase among the bushes. I can feel a kitten hunting mission of my own coming on when we get home...

Although he's struggling with Raphael's German - "key" is just so much easier to say than "schlussel" - he's having lots of fun playing "cou-cou" with Mathis, the very sweet two-year-old from Versailles who is our next door neighbour here. 

Then there's "bum". For a day or two we were stumped about where that one came from, but then all became clear when he started pointing excitedly to the "bummer". Which is, obviously, the camera. Try it, "bummer" isn't as far off as you might think.....

Baby Butlins, Chania

Captain Monkey's breakfast

Louis and Raphael

Posing on the Marimekko cushions

So, it turns out that despite our odyssey to get here, Daddy J might just have struck holiday gold with his choice of hotel. Not only is the Ammos, near Chania, an i-escape pick (that website will bankrupt us, damn it), but it also does a mean sideline as a Baby Butlins.

Forget designer one-pieces; the accessory des vacances is a cute toddler. From Mathis and Athena, to Raphael and Noé, the Ammos is swimming in little playmates for Louis. And being one of Crete’s few boutique hotels, the Ammos attracts a cosmopolitan crowd, making poolside playtime into a virtual UN crèche. In fact, we wondered whether Nikos, the owner, had some sort of EU-style quota system in operation when it came to bookings: we counted Dutch, German, French, Poles, Brits, Greeks, Italians and even Danes, Swiss, Icelanders and Russians among the guests. Louis will be practically chattering in Esperanto by the time we get home.

Nikos apparently has a website called Baby Friendly Boltholes to “thank” for his baby magnet status. I am still trying to decide whether that's a website to use - or avoid in the future. If this stay has been anything to go by, then having other babies around is a real bonus. For one thing, it makes all the parents heaps friendlier. You have to be when your little ones are all sharing toys and splashing in the sea together. Which means that come bedtime, we've got someone to share a glass or two of wine with as well. Double bonus. 

Taking it easy

After abandoning the buggy

Why don't my shoes have pom poms?

The view

This time, we swore we'd get it right. Holidaying with a baby. Not for us the madness of a two week roadtrip; instead, we'd seek island serenity. Not the deserted, hut on a beach, almost-camping-in-a-vastly-different-timezone kind, but the child-friendly, mod-con equipped, Mediterranean kind of island. Greece would do, we figured. Or more specifically, Crete. After all: you can fly straight there from Gatwick. What could be easier? 

Except that in our vocab easy seems to be a dirty word. So, rather than book a direct flight to Heraklion, which would have been but a short hop in a car to the boutique hotel DJ promised would represent positively our last, last blast before a future of actual camping holidays beckons, we thought it might be more fun instead to fly to Athens and take a ferry. To the furthest Greek island that you can get to, thereby turning what could have (and should have) been a relaxing two week beach holiday into more of a hybrid city and beach affair. And just to make packing even more fun, we decided to throw some mountains in for good measure. Because there's nothing like trying to squeeze three types of clothing into two smallish bags to put mummies in a good pre-holiday mood!

At least we weren't doing our usual getting-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night thing. No, this time we thought we'd play it safe and get the afternoon flight. We did all the calculations: landing at 9pm Greek time would be only 7pm back home making it barely a late night for Louis once we finally managed to check in to our hotel. But somehow I forgot to take account of the fact that by the end of the flight he'd be so wired by the excitement of traveling that in future I think even that 3am alarm call would be more painless. 

And for the record, Athens, for all its Olympics makeover, is still Athens. That is to say, chaotic, dirty, crowded, pavement-less, traffic-ridden, and utterly buggy unfriendly. (Not that Louis minded that we had to leave the buggy behind on day two: these days you can't even bribe him with snacks to stay in it. I wonder if Bugaboo does refunds?) We hardly helped ourselves when it came to trying to take it easy on the sightseeing front. We ended up walking round the whole of the city, including taking a funicular to its highest point, on our first day. If this sounds like toddler hell, then consider the mummy torture of zooming straight past shop after shop, not to mention cool looking bar after cool looking bar. 

Next time, I guess we're getting that direct flight straight to the beach. And staying put once we get there.