sore thumbs

Getting everyone up before half-past three went reasonably well, considering. The only shite-I-forgot moment came when I remembered I hadn't packed either a knackered old pair of trainers or my sandals to act as water-shoes in the rucksacks I dropped off yesterday evening, so had to stuff the very old trainers I recently retrieved from my work locker (originally kept there to deal with mornings when my bike trainers were soaking wet, but which degenerated considerably further over lockdown and which were already missing several eyelets) at the bottom of my hand luggage. The route to the parking had been scoped out beforehand, but there was a brief delay when the electric barrier didn't recognise the number plate. Despite the early hour, security was already heaving when we went through. Shoes were allowed but not belts, and I was delayed for a manual wand-swipe whilst the tray with my wallet, phone, keys and so on were merrily rolling out of the scanner. The alleged source of free airside water initially evaded us, but was eventually found within a reserved seating area. Despite all the boarding groups and priority arrangements, every passenger was stuffed onto the same bus for the short journey across the tarmac. It was just lightening up by the time we took off, allowing some views of known things. Fortunately, none of the motion-sickness-prone people succumbed, neither on the plane nor the very warm bus transfer to the hotel, though there was a fair bit of moaning in the hour-long queue to get through passport control, during which time I was hoping that no-one nicked our unclaimed bags off the carousel.
This was only our second try at a combined flight/transfer/hotel/food holiday after winterfeast 2003's trip to Cyprus, before children, when we ate breakfast under the shadow of embarrassment at sharing a language with most of the other diners and spent as much of asmany of the days as possible away from the hotel, passing the same people on the same deckchairs on our way out and back. This hotel didn't initially seem as bad when we started down for the back end of lunch, though by the time we wandered down to look at the nearby rocky beach the sunbeds were all full and the air strongly scented with old-fashioned paperfags. The bit which actually led to the sea didn't seem particularly official, though there was a nearby flat area with lots of poles which would eventually be covered with tufted straw parasols. Initial impressions of the sea were that it was colder than expected, though the not-quite-cripplingly-oppressive air temperature would ameliorate it.