Lindos and more Prince

Blimey - I'm terrible at this blogging lark, aren't I?

Well, what has happened since I was last here?

First of all we went on our annual trip to Lindos back in the middle of August. As always it was a delight, and it was so nice to see so many people we now feel are our friends (hello to Manolis, Yannis, Alex, Manolis - a different one - Dimitri, Kiki and Evipredes) and also to make some new ones (hello to John and Linda). The weather was fantastic - mid to high forties - and we both came back looking very brown indeed. Lindos has changed a bit since last year but the changes are for the better: the new mayor has insisted that the upper tiers of the restaurants have to be removed if they are not the "proper" rooftops of the buildings they are on, and as a result the village looks more as I imagine it did maybe ten years ago, and also the noise levels are much lower as the bars are spot-checked by the police and so it is much quieter than before. Needless to say we got home and two days later booked again for next year. We can't wait!

Still on the subject of holidays we've booked to go away in June next year for a week, and we're going to somewhere new! We're going to a village on the Greek mainland called Parga. It looks very small and lovely - just the way we like it. We're both looking forward to it very much.

While we were in Lindos we both did a lot of reading as usual. I started with "A Suitable Boy" by Vikram Seth, and as much as I was enjoying it I did get rather bogged down around 400 pages in (it is about 1300 pages long!) and gave up. "Pies and Prejudice" by Stuart Maconie was a lovely read, as was "The Book of Lost Things" by John Connolly (and it also made me cry an awful lot). "Straight Man" by Richard Russo was as good as his books always are, and "Ghostwritten" by David Mitchell was a let-down, as was "The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

One thing kind of spoiled the holiday for me - sadly I felt unwell for quite a bit of the time. I had extremely bad pains in my stomach for the entire first week, and so as soon as we got back home I went to see the doctor. After a long chat he decided that I had IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) and put me on a course of tablets for a month. Since I started them it hasn't been too bad, but I'm keeping my eye on it.

On the musical front my persistence paid off when I managed to get some Foo Fighters tickets long after the tour had officially sold out, and I didn't even succumb to the lure of Ebay - I bought them from an agency for the face value price. Hurrah!

I'm sorry to report that Prince's 21-night residency at the O2 in London has now come to an end, but joyously I managed to get tickets for the final show. Lou didn't want to go so I ended up going with my boss, Chris, from work. He drove us there and back and we both had the day off work. The show was absolutely incredible, the best I've ever seen him play, and he did two and a half hours in which he played pretty much every hit he's had in the UK. I was really upset when the show finally ended (big jessie that I am) and the only thing that spoiled it was the mindless minority who decided that it would be fun to hurl the purple glow-sticks we were given on admission at Prince and the band as they left the stage. For a few minutes glow-sticks were being hurled at the instruments, not to mention people in the crowd, and at one point a lady in front of me was hit hard on the side of her head. My glow-stick, when it wasn't being waved frantically in the air, was safely hidden in my pocket, and is currently lying on the kitchen table, no longer glowing but still bringing back happy memories of Friday.