First time to the beach!!

Hello little one. The plan for Saturday 18 July was as ambitious as it was difficult to implement. Daddy's oldest friend, Jockey, was going to be coming to Athens with Lisa, his friend and there was a great opportunity to meet up and see eachother. Lisa lives in the wooded areas around the old temple of Dionysus and we were all going to go up there and then go on to Marathon where the Persians fell foul of Miltiades' cunning and the marshy ground. There's a whole lot of stuff in this area for Daddy and Jockey to get excited about as archaeo-culture-vultures that they are, although Daddy was not so sure about whether they would overcome the inertia.

Before setting off, Daddy read to you about Neolithic stone tools. You had a lot to say about these and found the arguments in favour of specialised production (as opposed to each household producing its own) quite appealing.



After the insightful reading, Daddy played a little with Telonius - everybody's favourite robot turtle...







Daddy is still working on the definitive Telonius video - it should be coming soon. So, after playing, it's time to set off for Dionysos and Lisa and Jockey! When we got there Lisa's family went out of their way to make us feel at home. They have a very nice garden, much bigger than Daddy's with all sorts of plants - some useful some just pretty. We had a very nice lunch - a very nice homemade quiche. Although we didn't mention it, Daddy and Jockey both know that quiche is just another word for omelette pie...

After eating we set out for the beach at Schoinias. Daddy used to go swimming there when he was younger. The waters are nice and warm and the sea is shallow and the pine trees come down almost to the sea itself providing plenty of shade.

When we realised that we could not set up Daddy's camping shade without tent-pegs we folded the tarp over and put you under a tree with Mummy while Daddy went swimming with Jockey and Lisa.





The sea was nice and warm, but we didn't feel right about putting you in it to see for yourself. That has to wait for a different day at a different beach.



Here you are with your nice red hat that Daddy bought for you from that nice man, Johhny Boden.



Here you are with Daddy's friends Jockey and Lisa. Lisa used to work with Aunty Igor, although she knew her by her proper name, Aunty Annika. That was in the days when the Athynew was still a daily newspaper and still belonged to the charming Mr. Lambrakis.



Here are your first photographs near the sea! It's as close as you got that day and much closer than we got at Flisvos.





And here you are again on the tarpaulin with your toys. You had a really good day out. We all stayed out almost until the sun went down when Jockey and Lisa had to go. These were the first people you had met from the UK, where Daddy grew up and where Mummy spent some years. It was fun for Daddy to spend time and talk with Jockey, to remember old times and talk about how everyone from the past is doing now, even though Lisa felt a little left out when we talked about technical webby things like RSS feeds.

Some day, we'll all go together to the UK so you can see for yourself what things are like out there, on the edge of Europe, sandwiched between all-encircling Ocean and the savage tribes of the Hyperboreans.

The trip to Marathon worked as a "dry-run" for the next day's trip to Euboea. You worried us a little with your crying on the way back, but we think it was not so much because of the car but because you were tired and hungry after seeing foreign visitors and the vast expanse of the sea...



In all we covered about 94 km this day - quite possibly more than you have travelled in your whole life!