Alongside the natural beauty and the inviting blue pool, it is, I think, the silence that strikes us first. An unbroken sense of calm. It’s almost eerie.
We are on holiday, and the children are not with us. There are no waterslides, no doughnut-shaped lilos, and – hopefully – no peeing in the pool. It’s just us, my wife and me, sunbathing quietly. We are not ministering to our young people, and so we barely know what to do with ourselves.
The answer comes in daily increments: nothing. We are here to do nothing, to relax, the inference being that, after two decades of heavy parenting, we’ve earned it. We’re in Crete, at the Arosmari Village Hotel, a small cluster of stone cottages set around a pool and a pretty garden, through which wander several laconic cats, one of them in a tutu (best not to ask).
Shorts
Gavalochori in Crete (Photo: Terry Dorvinen)
