Wednesday July 8, 1981

 _. Back to it. To the beach. I have a funny, bloated tummy. No appetite. Why? We retired to bed early after a walk around the harbour. I could go on and on about the Irish tourists in the hotel, but I'm on honeymoon and aren't honeymooners supposed to be oblivious to everyone and everything but each other?

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Tuesday July 7, 1981

 _. Up at 10 for breakfast in the hotel. ___________.Exiting the restaurant Ally suddenly looked like death and she fainted on the stairs just as the manager was coming down carrying a bed. I carried her, out cold, to room 45 [our love nest], where we passed the remainder of the day. Tranquility. I went out this evening and bought a couple of paperbacks. 'The Inheritors' by Harold Robbins, and Ken Follet's 'The Eye of the Needle'. 

-=-

Monday July 6, 1981

Koumbara beach.

 _. Up at 10. Feeling very hungover. Walked to the Koumbara beach and stayed there until 4:30. Very quiet, windy and delightful. We took a large bottle of fizzy orange and sprawled on our beach mats discussing the names we are going to call our numerous children. Joshua Lawrence Dixon Rhodes is a certainty - God willing. Clementine [not after Winston's Clementine though.], Lavinia, Harriet [sweet], and Amelia, &c.

Food tonight consisted of chicken and chips and a couple of bottles of Cambas. A few daft hours in a cocktail bar clowning with the English barmaid, Karen. Very pissed. Back down the mule track eating crab sandwiches....

-=-

Sunday July 5, 1981

 _. 3rd Sunday after Trinity

Up at 10:30 and just made breakfast. Ally needed the orange juice. We walked to the village this afternoon and both bought red Greek trousers [350 drachmas each]. The little man in the shop insisted that Ally should try on her trousers before purchasing, and so she stripped behind the bacon slicer. I cashed a £50 traveller's cheque and bought our ferry tickets for the homeward voyage.

There was a sandstorm on our usual beach and so we took a short walk over the cliffs to a secluded cove full of naughty nude bathers. We had melon and pizza in a beach bar and walked back to the Armadoros.

Out tonight in our matching Greek trousers. I became intoxicated. The owner of our favourite cocktail bar told me he has been married for forty days and is going on honeymoon to Holland in October when the season ends. We did numerous taverns and arrived back at the hotel at 2am.

No sign of Philip or Gillian. Have they gone home perhaps?

-=-

Saturday July 4, 1981

 _. Independence Day, USA

Philip & Gillian.

Spent the day on the nearest beach. Met Philip in the bar at lunchtime. He gave me his copy of last Thursday's Daily Express. Lady Diana will not say 'obey' on July 29.  In the sun until 5:30.

From 7-8:30 we sat in the open air at Club Ios listening to classical music and watching the sunset.

Out at 8 to a restaurant near the windmill. Chicken and chips washed down with Domestica. We were hounded by a horrible American child carrying a reptile. On to a cocktail bar. Ally had Pina Coladas and gin. I stuck to gin. The American tourists were making merry.

Back to the hotel at 12:30.

Friday July 3, 1981

Philip & Gillian.

 _. A windy day. We sat in a beach bar from 11:30 to 6:30. We bumped into Philip Knowles [from Yeadon] and his girlfriend, Gillian. Today is her birthday. We had two bottles of Cambas wine, beer, &c. We were in a collapsed state this evening. I had squid, Ally shish-kebabs. We met Philip and Gillian in a bar at 11pm and had cocktails for a couple of hours. We roared with laughter at a couple dancing in the bar as though they were John Travolta and Olivia Newton John.

We walked back down the mule path. Not easy.

-=-

Thursday July 2, 1981

 _. Took a bus to a different beach after breakfast and stayed there for the day. Lots of naked sunbathers. Things hanging everywhere. We did wonder why some of them bother. One guy arrived naked on his motor bike. That cannot have been comfortable.

Had spaghetti for lunch washed down with beer.

-=-

Wednesday July 1, 1981

 _. Dominion Day, Canada. New Moon. 

The twentieth birthday of Lady Diana Spencer. 

We put in an appearance at breakfast in the hotel. Ally uncomfortable with mosquito bites.

Visited the nearest beach this morning. Ate hamburgers for lunch and drank tins of orange and grapefruit juice. Sunburned.

At the hotel this afternoon a good rub down with after-sun was required. I then slept as Ally pottered around.

Back to the village for dinner. Ally had tomatoes stuffed with egg, and I had a vegetable concoction in a greasy sauce. Home by bus. Bed at 11. Exhausted.

-=-

Tuesday June 30, 1981

 _. Stayed in bed. Later we sprawled in the sun and splashed in the Aegean. We took a bus into the village this evening [10 drachmas each], heaving. Last night we had walked up the road, a hot and sticky experience. We had shish kebabs and cheap white wine. Found a quiet bat at 8. Ally drank pina coladas [150 drachmas] and I swilled ale. Went into a few bars playing English music, and staggered down the mule track at 12:30am.

-=-

Monday June 29, 1981

 _. Ios is beautiful. An extraordinary island. We are fanned by a constant warm breeze. We can lay in the sun all day without any apparent desire to find shade in a bar. We walked to the beach this morning and sat from 1pm until 4pm writing postcards and drinking wine. To the 'village' tonight. A labyrinth of narrow white streets, swarming with cosmopolitan people. Lots of Yanks and people from the Irish Republic. Lots of fat, flabby, white flesh in the bar. I had moussaka and Ally had squid. Back to the hotel before 12:30.

-=-

Sunday June 28, 1981

Hotel Armadoros.

 _. 2nd Sunday after Trinity

We spent our wedding night at 35,000 feet. We touched down at Athens at 6:50am. An insane taxi driver took us to Piraeus where we arrived just in time see the ferry on which we were booked steaming out into the blue ocean. This almost caused our first marital tiff. We aren't good when we both panic.  We found another ship which sailed at 9am, but going via Tinos [where Prince Philip's mother spent some time doing charitable work], Siros, Paros, Mykonos [the gay island, where we changed ferries], then on to Naxos, or was it Paros? They all blend into one, you know. We spent the journey on deck, close to exhaustion. We came into Ios at 10pm. A man looking like Peter Sellers came from the hotel in a dingy car and took us to the Hotel Armadoros, the only hotel. We ate pizza, drank Campari, and retired to bed.

Ally: on deck.

-=-