Searchin for an urchin

Welcome one, welcome all, back to Mount Olympus, may you catch the goats that roam freely through life’s journey!

Fellow travelers (in that your spirit travels even if your body stays put; in fact, some philosophers say that you only need to read to be considered well travelled, but what do I know, I didn’t technically pass my philosophy exam, and they were all probably drunk anyway), it is a commonly known fact that the hardest part of the journey is the first step.

A blog must be a journey then, since I can NEVER FIND A GODDAMN OPENING LINE!

Now that that’s out of the way, I can tell you that I woke up in Allegra’s bed. This is because she made me move to her cramped single mattress on the floor with her, since my bed really squeaks as soon as I move. This annoyed a good amount of people, and Lily’s bed was the same.

Plus, Allegra was really cold because the aircon was on so she was in dire need of a snuggle. Twas life or death.

So I had a terrible sleep once more. I should rename the blog “a series of unfortunate beds” at this point. I don’t think I’ve had a good sleep since we got here.

Anyway, Lily made me have breakfast with her, it was frankly much too sugary sweet (Kellogg and soja vanille, now everyone who knows dad knows he likes to say I am a fussy bugger, this is a fact, but I don’t agree with it, I prefer to say I have refined taste in order to uphold my pride, anyway, I only like one specific brand of soja vanille milk. And no other milk. So. This was not that brand. It was so darn sweet.)

And Tate had Korean lessons this morning so she was confined to mum and dad’s room to do her call, and what did we do for like an hour and a half?

We watched Hamilton act 1.

That’s right, finally my whole family hath seen the first act of my fave musical! Yayyyyyy!

It was bopping, no one else agreed really, I was still the happiest I have been at such a time of the morning.

But the happiness was not to last, because after act 1 Allegra and Lily did sport while I read. This seems to be staple of every morning at this point.

And then we had to get ready 🙁 to go out ☹️ which includes sunscreen 😢 and going into boiling heat of outside 😭.

It wasn’t so bad though. While we got ready, Lily watched the f1 qualifiers, since she is now up to date with the past races and is ready to watch them live!

Sadly my man Hamilton (Lewis, not Alexander) is not doing so good.

But then we left, with no spring in our shuffle. This may have been due to an argument? My memory is hazy, and I cannot write down notes of what happened (cf: dad drove over my phone). So.

But the walk was long, though I thought it would be worth it since dad promised me that we would pass some ruins, and I do love me a good ruin, but we did not. So.

And it was uphill and hot and 2pm (cf: an activity done only by mad dogs and English men), and it was suffering, and we finally made it to the beach and had to partake in some uncouth clambering (I say uncouth only because I love the word and it was in my head and when I am tired (cf: everytime I write the blog) I have little filter so perhaps I question my life choices the next day. Anyway.) before we made it to our cove!

It was fun. There were very many urchins though.

We did some swimming and diving and some fun snorkeling during which Tate and I saw a thick ahh sea urchin, truly massive, luckily much too deep for us to reach, so we went back and told the tale to our parents.

They then hastened to take a look, and dad was wholly unimpressed. He was like “tis a regular sized urchin, fool.” It was really harsh.

But it was funny because every time I saw an urchin, which was often, I would say “are you searchin’ for an urchin who can give you ideals” (what can I say I am Hamilton obsessed) and Lily found it funny and we kept bringing it up, and when I wouldn’t swim with her, she called me “an urchin whose ideals she was not searchin’ for”.

It was a whole thing.

Besides that, Lily argued loudly and longly with mum. My sisters and I hate it because it is truly a blow to our reputation, we keep getting looks from people enjoying the quiet, and we sort of just look away awkwardly hoping that they understand that we are in no way involved.

And we all tanned on a rock that dad at one point climbed up, Lily was very uncomfortable in her spot, but I had a perfect seat, and every time she complained, I could not help but remind her that I felt like the rock I was on was more comfortable than my mother’s womb had been.

Not that I remember, but still. Tis the principle of the matter.

Anyway.

After a couple hours, we decided to head home, meaning another thirty minute walk, so we packed up our stuff, but Lily and I felt rather faint in the sun, so Lily declared she was hyperglycemic and needed sugar. With joy, she discovered she had a packet of sugar in her bag and offered to split it with me. I am never one to say no to sugar.

I had more than half on accident, leaving her maybe twenty grains, and felt soooo bad. Plus I then loudly proclaimed that it wasn’t good because it was brown sugar (refined taste, remember?).

Luckily, we had juice in the bag.

The walk home was dastardly. A steep uphill in hot hot weather. Lily at one point almost pitched off the edge into a donkey field. Our discussions were long and random, including, but not limited to, the fact that we did not know au paires were still a thing, the future and how we could do anything, and (understandable?) sexism against men when it comes to babysitting.

We arrived home and I thought that was it, we’re never going out again in the damn sun, I can relax (I have a thing against beaches, I don’t really like the sand or the sea or the heat. Which is stupid I know).

To my ABSOLUTE HORROR we were going back out for drinks?? And I was thinking, it’s six? We’re having drinks? It’s so hot?

And dad said I didn’t have to go but he l i e d. I didn’t ultimately mind.

So we went out and I just got a sprite (which I am super happy about because I am collecting the lil tabs from cans so I can one day make chainmail). During this, we thought about dinner options. Lily said “I can make a salted tomato salad”, and dad h i l a r i o u s l y said “we don’t need to beat it up, Lil”. Get it?? Assaulted? Anyway.

Drinks done, mum and dad f i n a l l y realised the time, and said “let’s just go out for dinner”. (I shudder to think about what they would have said I f I hadn’t gone out to get drinks with them. Probably the same thing. I would have been sitting alone, wondering if my family would ever come back). So we did, even though it was only seven, we went back to a restaurant we passed where a waiter had called out “are you looking for a job?” As a joke, and dad bantered with him a bit, saying he would if he could be paid in beer. So we went back there for dinner, and the man said he would give dad a free beer or ouzo.

Everyone thought back to our first night in Greece when mum was “flirting” with the waiter and got free beer, and we thought, “dad saw the free beer, thought “hell yeah” and took up mum’s tactics.”

It was really funny. And the food was delicious too.

Many a funny moment was had, if a tad unsavory for polite company. But as we all know, tired Ruby has no filter so I am gonna put it on, idk be forewarned.

So first you should know that Lily has corrupted us all by making constant “that’s what she said” jokes about anything. So when she said “it was hard and tastes kinda chickeny”, Allegra shocked us all by saying “that’s what she said”, and dad laughed sooo hard.

My filter has kicked in and I have decided to save my own dignity. Too late for Allegra though.

Yeah. Anyway.

Other things worth mentioning during the dinner, a napkin blew past mum, so, behind her, and she looked in front of her, saying “where did it go?”.

Not in front of you when you watched it blow past you, that’s for damn sure!

Anyway.

We then discussed my ideal 18th birthday and I just couldn’t think of anything but then mum had a genius idea which would honestly be my ideal birthday, but I shan’t tell you what it was teehee. I mean who knows if it will happen.

Dad then got an extra glass of ouzo (Greek alcohol) which tastes strikingly similar to fennel, which is yummy. It did burn my lip which I had bitten the skin off on accident though.

And then after dad took a suspiciously long amount of time to pay, mum’s words, we left and strolled back to our house in the Greek evening air.

It was ultimately a fun time.

Back at the house, we chilled and wrote the blog, had biscuits for some of us, and then partook in some strange dance line with my sisters that was hilarious, I think mum and dad began to wonder where they had gone wrong in raising us as they stared in befuddlement.

As I wrote the blog on mum’s phone, I took the chance to message my sisters from mum’s number to inform that that they were her least favourite child (Liv and Lil) or adopted (Leg).

It was funny.

And that’s all!’

And so this is where we pause our trek up Mount Olympus, folks.
Bye family!!!Read more