We went on holiday

Last week we were on holiday in Cyprus. It was lovely. The trip was supposed to be a relaxing "lie by the swimming pool and do very little" kind of trip to try to force us to relax and reset after what's been a pretty busy year. I think we successfully achieved it.

We flew from London to Cyprus and got a coach to our hotel. We stayed at The King Jason, an adults-only all inclusive resort in Protaras a few miles up the coast from Ayia Napa. We are not really "party people" so I didn't want to be too close to the late night revelers. The hotel was superb and from the moment we arrived to the moment we left I felt looked after and relaxed.

Neither myself or Mrs R are particularly heavy drinkers so apart from the odd Piña colada, I didn't realy make use of the "unlimited drinks" but the food was absolutely amazing. The hotel put out amazingly diverse and fresh buffet spreads every day and presented them beautifully.

We could have probably eaten ourselves silly but we tried to be relatively controlled, only going to the buffet at meal times and avoiding ordering snacks during the day. On Sunday the restaurant did a Sunday Roast which seemed weirdly anglophilic but probably made sense given the target audience and customer-base (I never will understand British holidaymakers who travel to foreign countries and want to eat cooked breakfasts and chicken dinners). The rest of the nights rotated through different themes and we got to try lots of Greek and Turkish style cuisines.

We didn't really leave the resort very much except for attending a drag variety show called Stardust where the drag artists sang, did stand up comedy and danced, a very entertaining evening (also included in the price was unlimited drinks and quelle supris a roast chicken dinner - which, in fairness, was delicious).

We also went for a walk up and down the Protaras coastline a couple of times. We went for a swim in the sea near a bay where we'd been told we might see sea turtles. We didn't see any turtles but we did make friends with some of the stray cats near the hotel. Mrs R wanted to bring the cats home with us but I didn't think our cats would get along with the new additions to the family.

In between exploring, swimming, eating and napping I spent a lot of time reading. I finally finished William Gibson's sprawl trilogy which I thoroughly enjoyed. I DNFed Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon (I just didn't get on with his style of worldbuilding) and I got about half way through Larry Niven's Ringworld which I understand is the spiritual precursor to the Halo series. I also read and made notes on some few articles in my Omnivore backlog and kept up with my RSS feeds.

I did take my steam deck but I managed to avoid playing it very much and preferred to read or peoplewatch.

Overall I think we both had a really great time and we'd probably consider going back to the King Jason again for a "do nothing" sort of holiday although normally we prefer active breaks where we go and visit stuff. It was a very restorative and much needed break after a very manic few weeks and months at work. I came home feeling refreshed and ready to make la rentree and to start something new.