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    A blog about my first holiday abroad in quite a while. A solo trip to …

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  • Solo Travel: Paphos, Cyprus

    Cat in Cyprus

    I am an hour early to the airport for my return flight. A small child is screaming ‘MOMMY MOMMY NOOOO NOOOOOO’ as if being held hostage for the inevitable return home. Any broodiness I had five minutes earlier is seeping away. And I am met once again with relief. This isn’t a blog about having children. Or not having children. I am attempting to once again meet myself half way and stop procrastinating and start writing again. This website has been an empty shell of its former youth driven naive self*. As the decaying process has begun, fear consumes my thoughts. This could potentially be the youngest I will ever look and be again. Unless I get plastic surgery obviously. And I get it! I do, I do… getting older is a privilege. And this wasn’t mean to be a blog about the shallow corners of my mind either. But, whoever says getting older is easy well… really? Well aren’t you lucky then! 

    *what am I talking about… I’m still naive…

    Too Much by girl in red

    It has been far too long since I boarded a plane and been on a ‘holiday’. Perhaps maybe around… 7 years. There was, in fairness to myself a misdiagnosed hip crumble in there and a global pandemic in amongst some other life events. And on a random meeting with a young woman who turned out to be a huge dog lover I now had the escape ticket I needed. I know when depression might be kicking in. Because the sentence ‘but… what is the point?’ starts to radiate through my mind. Winter rain lashing at the windows, gloomy skies and the cold faces of living in central London can become.. too much for anyone. Except of course maybe, sadists, psychopaths and the extremely affluent. As of which there are many. And they’re not exactly very community spirited either. So an exit plan is probably the best plan. Maybe… the only plan… (have I set the scene?).

    So I decide to get the fck outta London town, and leave my surrogate dog baby behind before I start dressing him in little outfits and move towards some sun. 

    Cue: Solo travel to Cyprus. 

    Ok. So I could of done a bit more research in all honesty, but I’m the sort of person that doesn’t have much patience. I either have to ‘do it now now now’ or not at all. This lifestyle got me through my 20s. Every weekend was a festival, not much planning, not much thinking, just… go go go go and don’t stop. 

    ‘Do you ever.. not want to book a holiday? Because you get too excited? And you can’t wait and the build up is too much so you just.. you just don’t do it…’. I question my friendly neighbour. 

    ‘Yes’.. she replies. ‘I prefer spontaneity’… ‘but… sometimes that can feel like it’s far too soon as well’. 

    We chuckle with each other about this limbo state of mind. Yet deep down I suspect there’s an annoyance at it too. 

    So, after scrolling for far too long and not really knowing where to look for last minute holidays (I’ve never actually found anything on lastminute.com have you?) boredom hits. Life just seemed easier when the internet was more of a novelty. Now it’s a soul sucker. Hours drawn out by instagram scrolling, internet shopping and well. Everything seems to be on the internet. There doesn’t seem to be any avoiding it. 

    So after too many hours of scrolling and review reading I decide to ‘just do it’. 

    Memory interlude: I remember when Nike were so cool at school. I actually bought my first pair of Nike trainers the other week. The one’s with platforms. This isn’t sponsored by Nike. I wouldn’t mind though. That would be good. 

    So Paphos then. Why not. I’m at a crossroads. I ponder whether a place like Ayia Napa might be too much. Am I now over the hill for the whole clubbing/pub scene? However, the alternative is that I may have indeed just booked myself into a retirement home and that wasn’t quite my intention either. However eligible and charming Alan (and attractive), recently widowed and early 70s is. 

    I’ve come to realise there are a few things I do not enjoy about solo travelling. One of them being the al a carte part of the dining experience. When the rest of the hotel stayers are eating at a table with their family or their mates (those retired people have so many friends), having a male model looking waiter hovering around your table waiting to take your plate. Well. It can feel like all eyes are on you. 

    ‘Hey, why don’t you take a photo it will last longer’… 

    I was actually invited to the bowling green the following morning but didn’t realise it was a serious invite. I now regret this decision. I should have gone. 

    Another thing about this #solotravelling business is that there can be a lot of ‘sitting with oneself’. Either sitting watching the waves or just wandering about discovering. I did attempt to sit by the pool and read a book but I have a sense of urgency in life that never seems to go away. Is that a London after effect I ponder? 

    Another thing about travelling alone as a female is being propositioned by men. But it’s never the kind of guy who wants to order you a taxi, buy you flowers, take you fine dining etc. It’s the man who wants you to first purchase a tour with the company he works for. Meet you after hours down some dark alley or something. And then tries to get you to buy him a kebab. Or some crack. 

    Well. That’s been my experience thus far anyway.  

    The waters of the Mediterranean are captivating. Sitting watching the waves at night a storm in the distance lights up the sky and its fiery redness flashes behind the clouds.

    Cyprus is not far from the conflict happening in the Gaza strip. I google whether you’d be able to see the effects of what is happening in the sky since Cyprus is approximately 250 miles from Palestine. Someone else has also asked the question on reddit. I feel a little less ignorant I suppose. It feels wrong somehow to enjoy such beauty in the world when there is so much suffering. And the world seems to get smaller the older I get. 

    Scarily sad times. I’m not sure anything I write [here] will relay how awful and disturbing the events happening in this evolving strange world we live in are.

    So much to learn and so much to do. A female lone traveller sits on a table nearby eating her dinner alone. Absorbed in her phone. She looks up briefly and we smile at each other. 

    And begrudgingly back to London I go. 

    Flying over the Swiss Alps!

    Thankfully I had a Monzo card hidden in my drawer which helped me track payments abroad. I booked my flight separately with Easyjet, and the hotel – via the Booking app. The hotel – the Constantinou Bros Athena Hotel was clean, and the staff were all amazingly friendly. Cyprus is certainly a great destination to visit in warmer weather. However, I felt I’d covered most of Paphos in a few days. If you’re good at relaxing then it’s definitely a great location to just sit. Outdoor heated pools would be a nice touch. I got a bus from the airport which was 2 euros. The taxis’ are 30 euros. It’s not that hard to travel about via bus and bike which are cheap. I was recommended Staysure as a health insurance company. Twenty something me would totally have forgotten this part of the trip, however, 40 something me knows that the moment I don’t have travel insurance I’ll probably break a leg. With health conditions many companies were far too expensive. Thankfully staysure covered me despite having AS.

    Until next time.

    Much love, BeckiB Xx

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