We wanted to do at least one winery visit while in Crete so found one close to the villa called Lyrarakis Winery. They offer wine tastings and a local Cretan food picnic so we decided to go on spec.

Luckily they were pretty quiet so after a brief wander around one of their cellars (it’s pretty much for show we reckon), a fuss of a local stray dog that’s moved in (so friendly and cute) and a welcome wine we were provided with a huge picnic hamper and taken off to the picnic area in the middle of the vines.

What a fab experience! We sampled three different wines with our brilliant picnic all explained by our host – accompanied by stuffed vine leaves, fried and stuffed courgette flowers, pork gyros in pitta bread, feta and spinach cheese balls and a mix of cold meats, nuts, cheeses, figs, bread and fresh feta and tomatoes.

For dessert, we had Greek pancakes stuffed with creamy cheese covered in local honey served warm with walnuts and accompanied by a glass of fizzy wine.

What a wonderfully relaxing afternoon, in 35 degree heat sat in a shady spot in a vineyard with the mountains in the distance.

And yes, of course we bought a few bottles to bring back to the villa….it would have been rude not to.

Tonight Mr Fogg has fired up the charcoal BBQ and is about to have a go at cooking what the butcher described as baby cow chops – veal to you and I. They look delicious

Many moons ago, Mrs Fogg spent 12 months learning Greek in our attempt to relocate to the Peloponnese. So here we are Tylosos about 30 mins outside of Agia Pelagia, to visit some Greek ruins, which are shut and for the Mrs to order two hot coffees in her bestest Greek. Well that paid off then didn’t it, nice iced frappe.

And the local toilette which has no seat, a swimming pool for the locals and a SAW toilet rating of 7 out of 10 (based on SAW 1)

All we can say is WOW! The Villa is Here

Built on 4 levels, with a gym in the basement (and pool table, ping pong and drum kit), next floor has 4 spacious bedrooms with 2 en-suite, the 3rd floor is the main living / dining area, with the final floor containing yet another en-suite bedroom and a study. This place will easily sleep 10.

On top of that is a pool and, manicured gardens, BBQ pit and numerous terraces.

It is quite something

After the quite abysmal emirates trip to sit in Dubai and play where’s wally with our luggage, we are trying again, this time to a 5 bed private villa in Crete.

Leeds Airport is a dump! Dirty and plain horrible. Grumpy Mode engaged. Park up and look for the non-existent signs to the bus, queue to check-in, be told to go to desk 41, just as the person walks off for a well earned tea break. Go to the Fast Pass security to witness the Silver Fox assistant moving at snails pace that Fast Pass actually became Slow Pass. Take all your electronics out ready, to be told you don’t need to (yet you do in Manchester, Heathrow and Gatwick), take your belt off, take your left shoe off, hop through the microwave scanner. And then wait 20 minutes for a coffee as the girl figures out how to make one.

I feel so happy! Will our luggage make it or not?

Welcome to that well known airline currently playing where’s wally with our cases. Latest and greatest just leaves you mind boggled…….

On Thursday Heathrow airport made contact to say one bag had arrived, can you come get it. Nope send it to us or somewhere within less than 200miles! Ah but no sign of the other case.

The airline’s own web tracker is showing one case delivered to London and the rest of the team scouring the world to find the other (yeh right).

On Saturday the central airline team then emailed us to asking us to confirm we had received our luggage, which was met with a polite NO!

Bali Airport then reached out on Sunday confirming a case was sent to London and we need to collect it, which was met with a less polite, “Are You Having a Laugh”. Closely followed by Bali asking for our address and nearest airport to direct the luggage, then followed by “can you send photos of your luggage, so we can find where it is at present”, if I could do that I would already have my sodding luggage!!! Then followed by can you now complete this form detailing the exact contents of each case so they can start to looking for the cases in Bali that they say are now in London!

Cue latest from Heathrow, apparently both cases are with a courier to deliver on Tuesday, closely followed by yet another email from Bali apologizing and advising luggage will now go to my address in Manchester airport!!

Speechless……