Last week we were left stranded at the pier with no vehicle there to collect us. The first spits of rain were splashing on my bald pate.

We called the emergency line we had been given. It was absolutely clear that the person on the other end had not been briefed about a blind person coming. In fact, I would say blind visitors to Koh Tao are a pretty rare commodity. He asked us to find our way to the counter. I explained I was blind and that my wife did not have enough spare arms to guide me.

After he suggested, for the third time I think, that we go to locate the customer service counter I lost it. It is situations like this that make me feel lost and totally vulnerable. Walking in the dark to our hotel simply was not an option. We might have been able to find our way in daylight but certainly not in the stygian dark that now engulfed us. Indeed, I felt as if I was waiting for Charon to appear and transport me across the Styx, it might have been a relief!

Eventually, a car was despatched to pick us up. Except, and unbeknown to me, it was not a car. It was now raining heavily; the deluge was deafening, bouncing off some sort of canvas cover. Maybe it was a jeep? Jane was now shouting, but the noise was drowning out her words. I stepped into the car. I stumbled on some sort of obstacle, fell nearly flat on my face between seats, there were steps in the way, so crashed my shin against a metal step of some sort. As I sprawled, somewhere between a seat and the floor, the pain hit. It was excruciating, as anyone who has bashed their shin on a bollard, a common occupational hazard for blind people, will testify. At that moment the penny dropped, I was not getting into the usual door of a car or jeep, it was the back of a golf buggy.

The darkness made the journey to the hotel seem quite perilous. The hills were steep and I felt as if I might tumble out of the back at any moment. It certainly did not feel safe.

After we were booked in it was back to the buggy for transportation to our bungalow. By this time I had become totally disoriented and could feel an angry anxiety rising up. It was hammering with rain by this point. We arrived at the staircase that led to our front door. I was soaked. The driver held an umbrella for us. Somehow, I managed to find myself on the outside of the shelter. Water cascaded off the edge, soaking the front of my shirt in the process. I had not actually recognised that there was an umbrella in play, I assumed it was rainfall of biblical proportion. Then I found out with another surge of pain. One of the spokes, although it must have been shrouded in rubber or something, managed to gouge my eye. The anger tipped over at this point and I ripped, the what I now discovered was an umbrella out of the holder’s hand, and threw it violently to one side. I was raging at this stage and nearly out of control.

Soaking wet, we were shown into our small bungalow where, of course, it was freezing. The aircon had been cranked down far too low. I have never been a fan of air-cooling and always turn it off whenever I can. I would rather sweat than have my skin, so called, comfort cooled. Comfort cooled, now there’s a contradiction in terms. I accept that this is my view, there is no such thing as being comfortable when cold. Not my fault others sweat like hard ridden horses.

The anger was now ruling my general demeanour. I was boorish, to say the least, and probably damnably rude to the driver and Jane. It was not their fault. Neither, for that matter, did I feel it was my fault. The beginning to our relaxing stay on Koh Tao had not got off to the best of starts.

Jane, as calm as ever, set about unpacking our stuff. I think I might have said something like, “No need to unpack mine. I’m not staying.”

So, she didn’t.

She cleaned herself up, it was nearly nine o’clock by now, at least three hours later than scheduled. I sat, still in my soaking clothes, on the sofa. Eventually, the lights went out. I was still on the sofa, wet, cold and feeling sorry for myself.

At some time during the night I must have stripped out of my wet clothing and crawled under the sheets. I could not give in to sleep as the anger was only subsiding gently. I sat up in bed all night, a simmering vexation not far from boiling over. It was still dark, but much closer to dawn, when we held some sort of a conversation, the first words we had properly exchanged since our arrival.

“What are your plans for the morning?” Jane enquired.

“I’m going home,” I responded tersely.

“And, how do you think you will get home on your own?”

“I’ll find a way.”

“Well,” she said. “I am going to make the best of this and I think you should do the same.”

“Don’t want to. It’s shit!”

“It’s up to you, but I am staying and when I get home we are going to sell the house and go our own way.”

“Good.”

The cold, or rather warm, light of day didn’t see me in a much better mood. I had been festering right through the dark hours. Jane had been sitting on the balcony for a little while by now and suggested I go and take a look. The view, even to my limited vision, was breathtaking. I honestly don’t think we have enjoyed a more spectacular view from a room, although looking out on Ailsa Craig from the bedroom at Glenapp Castle runs it close. At some point, I can’t put my finger on exactly when, I must have agreed to give it a go. Breakfast was calling, indeed, it was to be our first meal since breakfast the day before.

When we arrived it seemed that things would only get wetter! Trust me, though, and in the words of Professor Brian Cox and D:Ream, things would only get better. And they did. Thank you Jane Angela Taylor, my Christmas Pudding, you were fantastic and I could not survive without you.

Love you loads! 💐🌹💗💞

<image:>

Paphos: The Tombs of the Kings

Before we go visit the underworld, the House of Hades, the domain of Persephone and her husband, we have some unfinished business at the Paphos Archaeological Park.

Something new, to me at any rate, was the amphitheatre. I have no recollection of this incredible monument, still in better shape than some lower league football stadiums, from our previous visit. On the other hand I cannot conceive that it has been excavated in its entirety over the last fourteen years. It is named the Odeon, a Greek term for theatre. If you are reading this in the UK you will be well aware of the cinema group with the same name. I was always under the impression that the name came from an acronym using the founder’s name: Oscar Dench Entertains Our Nation. Nearly right; thanks to Wikipedia, I have discovered that he was actually Oscar Deutsch, so I wasn’t far off the mark! Ha-ha.

<image:>

Now over to one of the most dramatic burial grounds in the world. You could either purchase a guidebook or scan the QR code at each family vault to learn more, brought to live, by very well read audio. It transpires that, to the best of historians’ knowledge, there is not a single king interred at the site. Instead, it appears it is reserved for high socio-economic characters such as council leaders. It is not like these tombs would have been constructed within a week or so of their deaths, but must have been commissioned long before they died.

I did note that most of the tombs pay tribute to Aphrodite and Dionysos. Well, we all know what Aphrodite brought to the table; Dionysos, however, was the god of wine. There is no doubt that these people were going to party all the way to the gates of Hades itself. And who can blame them!

Since scratching the surface of Greek Mythology, it has made me determined to learn more. So, I set about improving my education. I didn’t want something that resembled a university thesis, but something that would give me a bit of a laugh as well. Then listening to the radio last week I heard Stephen Fry advertising his latest work, the fourth in a series, “Stephen Fry’s Greek Myths.” I set about tracking down the first, “Mythos.” I now have it within my audio library stored in the cloud, which in my simple mind sounds mythological in itself. It is read by the man himself. I accept this is my opinion only, but I would thoroughly recommend it, I cannot stop listening.

As you will remember, I mentioned Aphrodite last week. Mr Fry has, in his own inimitable style, cast away any illusions I had been carrying of her wonderful creation. I knew she had emerged from the frothy wavelets kissing the Cypriot sand, Aphros is Greek for seafoam. Everything, though, has a hidden back story, a skeleton in the cupboard as it were. True, she did rise from the frothy seafoam into that beautiful creature of love, lust and beauty, but, and it is a big but, her beauty came out of such a gruesome and brutal act it nearly shocked me. Turn away now if you are a little squeamish.

Whilst some claim that Aphrodite’s father was Zeus, including Homer, who on earth can disagree with him, others point the finger at Ouranos (Roman: Uranus). To be honest, I am not sure that the Big O can be accused of a dereliction of duty in not being around for his daughter, indeed, he would not have known too much about the conception. I think, it is safe to say, he will never forget the events leading up to it, unless it is a regular occurrence, in the land of the immortals, to have one’s genitals swished off by a scythe, ouch!

For those of you who don’t or didn’t know, including me, what on earth had Ouranos done to deserve this. Ouranos had assaulted and, therefore, jarred off his wife, Gaia, earth mother. He was sky father, and as well as Ouranos’s wife she was also his sister. It appears that incest was alive and kicking in the land of the primordial gods; in fact, life could not have developed without such relationships. It appears that the earth and the sky had a massive falling out. In fact, I can see it from both sides. Gaia gave birth to some monster embryos, several heads and arms each. Ouranos did not like this so what to do? “I know,” he said. “I’ll put them back.” So, he promptly stuffed them back into Gaia’s womb. I mean, what else could he have done? Answer on a postcard to Mr Fry, me thinks!

Gaia, possibly not unreasonably, took offence to this. Somehow she persuaded their youngest son to kill his father. No problem, Cronos hated Ouranos. Yes, you’ve got it, he took his scythe along to see his father, swung it once, picked up the resultant gore from the ground, went down to the beach, and tossed the ex-gonads of Ouranos into the sea. They, somehow, still managed to remain fertile, even after all that, and, of course, Aphrodite was born. It’s all true, honest!

As I mentioned last week, I had suspicions about Adonis’s death at the hands or, rather, the tusk of a boar. I have learned that when a mortal is seen off by an animal, there is usually another explanation. It transpires that the boar was really Aries, God of War, in disguise. The two A's had met on the battlefield at Troy; how romantic, but I suppose they are immortals. When an immortal became jealous of a mortal, it was never going to end well for the mortal. There you go.

Next week I will be looking at some of the food and getting a nose wax, not that the two are connected.