Oh hot damn Allegra’s gone!

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

I write this as we happily listen to the bopping tunes of the Pet Shop Boys (we all love West End Girls and have decided it is the og Uptown Girl despite the latter being the older song. 1983, as dad correctly said; he was applauded.)

Anyway!

This morning, I once again woke really happy but still burdened by the knowledge that I had to write the blog (which I didn’t do until late).

But the knowledge of a task ways heavy on the mind of a procrastinator.

Despite this, when dad came in to wake me up, I was in a good mood. Dad stared at me for like seven seconds, I stared back. He then was like, “morning roo”. It was funny.

It really doesn’t sound funny, which is t r u l y a blow to my reputation as the funniest blogger around. Barring mum of course.

Anyway, I got up in a cheery mood, and much like yesterday I was being a “goofball” (still Lily’s words).

Immediately I was betrayed. You see, yesterday we had bought milk, I told Allegra to replace the almond milk Olivia had grabbed with coconut milk, that I like, with Tate’s agreement, so that I could eat the weetabix.

But ALLEGRA that damn fool did NOT grab coconut milk and she DARED tell me that I never told her to grab coconut milk!!

She is the worst ever and I was forced to not have weetabix because I dislike soja milk. Not to be confused with soja vanille which is the only milk I drink.

Very different. Veryyyy different.

Who am I kidding.

Anyway, I got my retribution for Allegra soon enough. You’ll find out more later on in the day! *cackles evilly*

But then I made toast so ultimately I was happy. I do love toast! And today, two minutes was the perfect time for this toast.

I also told dad about how the numbers on the toaster mean the time they are heated for, not the level they are heated (1 is one minute, 2 is two minutes and so on), and the man did not believe me. Stubborn dad.

Mum then told us it was 9:29 and that we aimed to leave at 10. After a cacophony of scoffs, we did very little, because really, it was an ungodly time to be awake in the final days of our holidays, and then mum and dad got a bit antsy, rightfully so, so we snapped into action.

I was mainly happy because dad turned to me, said, “I have a question” in a very serious tone. I put down the sunscreen and turned to him. He paused as if to wonder how to phrase his question, and said, “who uses typewriters anyway?”

I was so joyously happy that I giggled with laughter. For those who don’t know, that is a Taylor Swift lyric. And it was so random and yet so funny.

But finally we were ready and out the door! The car ride was chill as can be, very relaxed, and with little trouble we made it to our destination, aka the Acropolis of Lindos! It’s this cool sort of temple on a hill overlooking the sea in Lindos!

We had to walk up a hill to get there, and this including walking through the tourist town. As we walked, I saw the most gorgeous skirt I have ever seen, on a mannequin, it was just layers of different colour and pattern materials, and I fell in love, but I didn’t say anything, so we walked past it as I cast wistful looks, as if it were Romeo and I, Juliet.

Skirt, skirt, wherefore art thou, skirt?

Once we made it out of the shop, I could no longer hold my tongue about the one true love of my life, so I said to mum, “I saw the skirt love of my life” and mum sighed and rolled her eyes knowingly, and said “was it the multicolored one on the mannequin?” And I was like, “you know me so well”.

To my absolute delight, mum said we could get it when we go back!

But first we sweated our way up the path. I have never sweated more in my life than I did on this day. Sorry for that fun info for you.

But seriously, I didn’t dare take off my hat and expose my hair; it was bad.

We had to queue for maybe five minutes, which we have no problem with, as Brits, but as we stood in the queue, some guy who had gone in was loudly telling the queue, “yeah, get ready to LOSE twenty euros. Each!”

Men. No culture.

It also was free for under twenty five, so that’s pretty good.

Although they did request ID to prove that you were under twenty five, and that’s when tragedy struck.

As I took my purse out of my bigger purse, I dropped some tan cabs into the floor! This could have been a tragedy: they are all my babies.

Thank goodness Tate picked them all up for me.

Anyway, the temple itself was awesome, I love archaeology and such, as you know thanks to yesterday’s blog. Although there were many more tourists, I don’t really mind.

I would qualify the whole thing as exactly worth twenty euros!

At some point my sisters decided to stay in shady spots as me mum and dad went to a further part. This led to more photos of just us three.

I really am the best daughter.

At one moment, Tate felt sick and so we all stopped and waited, Allegra and I took selfies and changed pose each time, but disaster nearly struck when I turned to kiss her cheek and she turned to pretend to bite me at the same time.

We stared dumbly at one another for a moment, thankful to have dodged that bullet, before bursting into laughter.

Fun times!

After the temple, we made our way back down the hill, and followed our exact path to find my gorgeous skirt!

And I bought it!!

It is the most amazing piece of clothing I have ever worn I love it more than I love burnt toast.

After that, we walked back to the car, hopped in, and made our way to our next destination: a bakery!

The bakery was hard to locate but the food (aka a cheese pastry) was scrumptious! And we made our way to our next destination, aka, a beach!

We wanted to fulfill Tate’s dreams of jet skiing, but she was not allowed to drive one since she is not 18. So we ummd and ahhd and eventually I made us all do it. The guy said, “when you’re out there, I can’t see who’s driving.” So I don’t think he cared. And Lily promised to let Tate drive, so that left me with Allegra.

What was it I said about retribution earlier?

We did lie and tell them I’m 18, but, well, two months off won’t make a difference right?

So after a trial period where I kept pulling left on accident and almost flipping us, I managed to figure out how to go straight and, with Allegra’s arms wrapped tight around my waist, I put on full speed. I don’t know how fast a rental jet ski can go, but heckity darn did it feel fast! Allegra was screaming in my ear (she and Lily aren’t so much adrenaline junkies like me and Tate), but I had the controls so who could slow me down!

I didn’t realise I could have seen how fast I could go, so I will never know. Tate said her max speed when she went fast as she dared was thirty km an hour or so, but it felt much faster compared to the fifty an hour I do on my scooter.

Who knows?

It was awesomely fun. I couldn’t keep the carefree laugh from my face as I sped at a high speed through the waves and although I kept stopping really badly and jerking us both forward, slamming us into the handle, I felt like a pro.

At one point, I spotted some waves that looked fun, so I drove off, full throttle, and Allegra has me in a death grip. and we’re both screaming, and the wind is in our hair and the salt water is on our face and the air is fresh and I feel weightless because Allegra’s not holding on to me anymore-

Oh hot damn Allegra’s gone!

She slipped off at a moment of bumpiness and just flipped straight into the water. Panicked, like any, uh, responsible big sister would be, I forgot how to turn off the damn jet ski (there is literally a bright red button) so I just yanked on the cord that is attached to me, which stops the jet ski if I ever fell off. I desperately look around, I hear Allegra going “ow, ow, it hurts!” but I can’t see her, and I worry because I know she hates the deep water, and then she’s behind me and I can’t figure out how to reattach the cord to start the jet ski and I call out that I’m coming and thank god I finally manage and she climbs back on-

She’s fine.

She told a riveting story of her grip on my life jacket slipping and then she flips over and she’s cartwheeling while she’s deep underwater and she can see the surface but she has to swim up and she has whiplash and her ribs hurt-

I felt so bad. I turned on the jet ski and went full speed again.

To be fair, Allegra doesn’t really mind. She’s not terrified, she’s just worried.

I convinced Allegra to drive for a minute at the end of our session. She was going very slowly (5km an hour) and was screaming; it was hilarious. When we got out of the vicinity of our sisters (they automatically block the speed when you get too close) and the jet skis speed up, she went faster; it’s much less worrying being in the front, I can confirm.

But the time came for us to go in, the guy laughed because I tossed off Allegra (I did promise retribution did I not?).

We hopped off in great joy, laughing and telling the story to the parents and sisters, who had not seen Allegra fall. We were all high on adrenaline, and very shaky, and my arms hurt because at that speed and with waves, it was a struggle to maintain a grip on the handle and hold Allegra’s weight and not let us slide backwards so I was permanently flexed.

We also learnt that Lily hated it and never wants to do it again. Tate and I can’t wait, Allegra has mixed feelings.

But Lily was really feeling very unwell and says she almost had panic attacks when Tate was driving. The poor chap.

We drove on our merry way home, happy to have fulfilled tate’s dreams, chattering about how I tossed Allegra into the waves, and how Tate loved to drive, and we were still all feeling very weird and energy-less, so we stopped at a nearby restaurant to get some sugary drinks.

Mum calls it “some guy’s meat cabin in the woods”. She’s not wrong.

What kind of self respecting place doesn’t sell sprite?

I asked this aloud, and dad actually answered and explained the Pepsi v Coke deal thing. Very interesting. So I had a zero sugar 7 up. They didn’t have regular sugar, to my chagrin.

My sisters, bar Lily, got very sugary milkshakes. My teeth rot just thinking about them; I don’t love ultra sweet things. But they seemed fairly happy.

We then drove home, looking very disheveled from our sweat inducing walk and then our energy depleting jet ski. As soon as we got home I dove into the pool to just feel weightless; it was great. Allegra preferred to lie in the sun to calm herself down; when her adrenaline crashed she cried a little, from the shock of it all I think. Tate joined Allegra, and Lily joined me.

After swimming, I finally finished up my blog from yesterday, and then showered, singing along to the boppingest of tunes.

We chilled for ages, Lily and I watched an f1 race from the beginning of the season, and then it was dinner time!

We had some pizza found in the freezer, and toasties!

As Tate and I made our toasties slash simply toast in my case, many a funny moment was had. First, I timed my toast, and indeed, on level 2, not accounting for human error and how badly I jumped when it popped, it was 2 mins 3 seconds. So, take that stubborn dad!

Second, Tate had one last slice of cheese, the plasticky, melt on a burger type. She asked if she could slap me with it, I readily agreed. She wanted to hit my hand, but missed and dropped it on the floor. She then washed it under a tap (who washes cheese?) and hit me in the face with it. The cheese, not the tap. It was ultimately unsatisfying, and likely unsanitary, so she washed it again, and then proceeded to try and wring the water out of the slice of cheese.

It was so funny.

She then turned to the toastie machine, and asked, “are you sizzlin’ dog?” And it was just tooooo funny.

Outside, there was a stray cat that looked fairly hungry. When we went out, the cat meowed at Tate, who would, in all seriousness, pterodactyl screech back. Another miaow, another screech. And so on and so forth. Lily and I laughed endlessly.

Mum decided to feed the cat, so made a weetabix/greek yoghurt/some milk mix, which the cat ate some of, and then left. Maybe he was disgusted. My sisters weren’t. Allegra kept pretending to pick up the food and eat it. She said it would be her desert instead of biscuit time. It was absolutely hilarious.

Anyway, at biscuit time, the Legrechaun went to get biscuits, and dad shocked us all by saying that Taylor’s last two concerts were in Toronto then Vancouver, TV for Taylor’s Version. I was so flabbergasted (what an amazing word) that he knew this.

Dad is a true fan.

Mum was sulking hilariously because she wanted to take a picture, but I kept posing, and mum didn’t want that, so she would put down her phone, then pick it up quick and I would pose quick and she would put down her phone again. In the end, I dramatically pretended to weep upon the table, and unbeknownst to me, the photo was taken then. Treachery.

To end the day, Lily showed us the hilarious Instagram reel that we all love, an edited clip from Beauty and the Beast, which I will add to the photos (tomorrow). It was so funny, and everytime Maurice danced, we all imitated it. My parents watched it, dad laughed a little, but mum questioned our sanity.

And after moving inside to write the blog or rewatch our concert videos in Tate’s case, that was it!

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