I randomly seeded Skiathos with ‘couchmagpie’ business cards in various bars and bus stops. We kept hearing ‘Perfect Day’ being played in bars around the island and the line ‘you’re going to reap just what you sow’ sticks in my head. It is a morbid song along with ‘Wonderful Life’, but seems to get played a lot over there. If you are reading this post because you saw my card in Skiathos then thanks for popping by. I hope you enjoy Skiathos as much as I do, despite the odd choice of music.

Sunday is the day of rest and therefore up until six o’clock the highlights had been eating some spicy feta cheese stuff which was a bit like cream cheese with green chillis in in it blobbed on top of some cucumber, tomatoes and pepper – all massive and cheaper than in the UK with some chopped up frankfurters. Yes we are self-catering. I had some strange things called Choco Smiles for breakfast which were a cross between coco pops and beetle carapaces. At six I ate my first ever Cookie Magnum – nice – half normal magnum choc-ice with chocolate chips inside and half magnum ice-cream in a soft cookie sandwich. Nom.

I swam about quite a bit today so I figured I’d done some exercise. Muscles I forgot I had are aching now. I would love to learn how to tread water so I can swim at the deep end. A tubby tubster local boy swam around like a dolphin at lunchtime and didn’t sink once. It’s all about a technique I don’t know rather than weight.

Of course not only is the fruit and veg bigger but so are the insects – we saw some gi-ants today and lots of big butterflies. It is quite gross to watch a swallow try and swallow one it if catches one. Odd sentence, moving on… The swallows come in small groups to swoop down and drink from the swimming pool. It is a sight I never tire of. The sound of the crickets chirping constantly is also something that I love. It tells me for sure that I’m not in Kansas now and I can almost physically feel the stress falling away from me and a rare smile blossoming on my face. It’s either that or the effect of all the chocolate I’ve been eating.

Unfortunately another sound of the island is the drone of quad-bikes and mopeds, sometimes accompanied by the screech of brakes as locals and holidaymakers sometimes get a little closer than they intended (more on this later as it turns out). I remember being in the back of a taxi in Kefalonia after a light rain mixed with blown sand to make the coast road treacherous. We drove at speed past an over-turned hire car lying wheels up on the beach. The driver gave a tut and put his foot down on the accelerator as if challenging the Muses to do the same to him, a local (never mind me and Siggy pale in the back seat praying he would see sense and find the brake pedal). The people who had been in the car were standing on the beach beside their vehicle looking none the worse for the accident in true A-team style. They were also being attended to by some locals. I am sure our taxi driver would have stopped and helped if needed.

Tea at Salt and Pepper was great. They do nice freshly baked bread with dips and the water is complimentary. I hit a bit of a wall early on and switched to diet coke after a large Alpha while Siggy stayed on the cocktails.  An easy celebrity lookalike was the woman who runs Salt and Pepper with her husband (at least I guess that’s the relationship) who looks just like Juliette Lewis. Although we had escaped the Download Festival we were treated to a collection of Eighties metal in the taverna – very odd considering it is probably one of the classier places in Troulos.

We had a little stroll down to Troulos Bay. There was no sign of Charlie the Cat (mentioned in Broken), but a couple of cute kittens were hanging around near a smelly dumpster. We popped into Victoria bar on the way back. We didn’t frequent the bar last year as it was always packed because of the football. Pedro, if that is indeed his real name, the bar man is a very friendly character and mixes some good cocktails. I said that I would probably get through the whole list by the end of our holidays. You’ll have to wait and see if I pulled it off. TWSS.