one last lingering look...

...then back to the hustle and bustle of city life.

rise and shine

after a late night carousing at the local taverna, hipployta and i retired to chez bunny and arose this morning refreshed and rejuvenated to enjoy a delicious breakfast...

before helping hippolyta with the application of sun bloc (she is conscious of the need to preserve her youthful looks) and – as the holiday draws to a close – settling down to some serious sun-worshiping...

the end of the affair

so...

later that night, i had a bunny-to-croc conversation with cedric in which i asked what his true intentions were with regard to hippolyta and pointed out that whilst he might have bigger teeth than me (and he does! lots of them) not to mention strutting around in a silly top hat and waistcoat as if he were in the royal enclosure at ascot, it didn't cut any ice with me and that he needed to understand that i wasn't prepared to stand by and see him break hippolyta's heart.

i think i must have got my point across as, that night, cedric upped-anchor and slunk off into the aegean.

according to buttons hippo (who took the photo below) hippolyta spent the next day siting on her balcony gazing, he says, at the spot where cedric's yacht had been moored – or, maybe, just hoping that the shiny, newly arrived, motor launch might indicate the imminent appearance of an international talent scout on the look out for someone to star in a forthcoming vegas spectacular...

i spent the day with brother bruno exploring the early christian baths and listening to extracts from his exegesis on first century religious ablution practices with special reference to the spiritual significance manifested by archeological finds in the islands of dodecanese. 

for something that was basically about washing, it was pretty dry stuff...

happily, today, everything seems to be back on an even keel (to use a nautical turn of phrase) and hippolyta and i had an energetic game of hide-and-seek up in the mountains...

before settling down to a little sun bathing.

as for cedric: crocodile schomocodile, i say!

trouble in paradise

a disturbing incident occurred to unsettle the equanimity of the greecian idyll i have been enjoying with hippolyta.

a british yacht came in with a super-smooth character on board – cedric by name – who was dressed up to the nines (totally at odds with the prevailing dress code in the little taverna where we enjoy our evening trysts) who was soon behaving in a very smarmy, leslie-phillips-kind-of-way towards hippolyta who quickly succumbed to his crocodillian blandishments...

i tried to sneak up and eavesdrop on their chitchat, but it was all murmured nothings. i can't believe hippolyta has fallen for this scaly character just because he has a top hat and waistcoat and flashes so many teeth with every caddish smile.

buttons hippo told me that, in his opinion, hippolyta is totally smitten...

then he kindly allowed me to cry out my grief on his shoulder...

for me, it brought back sordid memories of an incident recounted on this blog back in 2013...

is history repeating itself........................

september 8, 2013 

hippo-got-a-mouse

we are staying at a truly international venue where big yachts from all over the world come into the harbour on a daily basis.

today a boat sporting the american flag arrived owned by a vip who can truly be described as a big cheese.

since arriving he has done nothing but talk about his studio in hollywood, the films he has made and the oscars he has won...

buttons hippo did his best to sell a treatment for his memoir, carry on up the limpopo, and i actually thought he was going to strike a deal, but as soon as the visitor saw hippolyta (she was relaxing under a parasol by the pool with her first tequila sunrise of the afternoon) he lost interest in b h's proposal and started talking about how he was going to make hippolyta into the new marilyn monroe.

"more like the new margaret rutherford," said buttons hippo cruelly (i thought), retreating to his room with a  bottle of bourbon. but now h is totally smitten with the yank (with his ludicrous red shorts and yellow boots) and is on the point of signing a three picture deal which will whisk her off to the other side of the world to fame and fortune and out of my life for ever...

september 9, 2013 

beware of yanks bearing contracts

my worst fears have been realised! the yank has turned out to be an even worse cad than i anticipated: overnight, he up-anchored and vanished!

not only has he abandoned hippolyta who is devastated and is sitting in her room with mascara streaming down her cheeks sobbing, "i'm ready for my close-up mr de mouse...", but he has also filched the script of a disaster movie that roger was hoping to sell to brian's friend peter jackson; set in greece, it was entitled goats on a boat and will undoubtedly be at a cinema near you sometime in 2014.

buttons hippo and i toyed with buying a boat to go in pursuit of the mouse, but it turned out we didn't have enough euros even if brian went without ice creams for the remainder of the holiday...

all chance may have now gone of a hacienda in the grounds of hippolyta's beverley hills mansion, but we haven't yet given up hope of getting our revenge on that black-eared villain...

september 10, 2013 

cliffhanger

determined to pay out the rat who had so badly wronged poor hippolyta, buttons hippo and i pursued his yacht with the assistance of our trusty inflatable bambi, which, in the circumstances  i considered poetic (or, more accurately) filmic justice...

we eventually found our quarry sunbathing on a bay further round the coast, so we snuck up on him...

...located a large boulder, precariously balanced...

...gave it the teensiest of shoves - scarcely more than a nudge...

...and left the rest to gravity!

after which we just had a jolly good laugh!

 

september 11, 2013

greeting the dawn

as anyone who knows her will tell you, hippolyta is not really a 'morning person': the hours between sunrise and noon are – understandably for a diva – reserved for the necessary cultivation and preservation of her legendary beauty.

however, the upset over the mouse who turned out to be a rat, left her feeling abused and abandoned and sleep was a total impossibility.

after a seemingly endless night of anguish, I eventually managed to console her and help her see that, as vivien leigh says in gone with the wind, "tomorrow is another day..."

and so, together, we greeted the dawn on the last day of our holiday...

 

...................

but will this year's incident as happily...? 

who knows...?

togetherness

chillin'

just sittin' and thinkin'...

birthday bunny

yesterday, apart from being easter sunday, was my umpty-first birthday and, even though brian and david completely forgot, i was very lucky that a certain hippo remembered her bunny's special day...

ready for easter

christmas sparklers

i spotted this in a shop window and immediately thought of my friend, hippolyta, the diva of hippos...

unfortunately, brian said we didn't have enough euros: he's such a spoilsport!

early pressies

hippolyta and i had a very romantic get together over the weekend...

obviously two minds with but a single sweet thought: i gave hippolyta a bumper bar of hippo-embellished chocolate and she gave me a basket of marzipan animals – a bit of a bizarre collections as it turns out: a bear, a pig(let), a rabbit, an owl, a kangaroo ––– and a penguin...

except i'm beginning to feel there's a theme going on here and i wonder if she forgot and gave me a present that was actually intended for that well-known pooh-person with whom i happen to live...?

oh, yes and now we've also got an non-edible a penguin with ear muffs...

forever young

yesterday: celebrating hippolyta's **th birthday...

on with the show

brian's asked me to look after these – as well as that penguin...

 so, all i need now is an owl and a kangaroo and i've got my christmas show sorted:

buttons the rabbit

starring in

the next house at pooh corner

stalked!

it just followed me home...

rabbits and bears and penguins, oh my!

at the launch of the new 'pooh' book brian has contributed to, the best bear in all the world...

lend a paw

here i am giving brian a helping paw with his recording of watership down...

with a little help from my friends...

i get by with a little help from my friends,
i get high with a little help from my friends...

tricky business

we're not sure what these things are, but we're definitely making headway in teaching them tricks...

hippolyta is going to design costumes for them ("sort of in the style of zandra rhodes") and buttons hippo is giving them lessons in the history circus, theatre and music-hall with special reference to the work of p. t. barnum's lesser known second-cousin, sid.

we should easily be ready for the next season of bgt.

extended stay

hippolyta and buttons hippos got their big people to agree to their being able to stay on with me for another week's holiday.

so, early this morning, we waved them off...

 

then, as the car disappeared down the road, hippolyta gave a sigh of relief and said: 'right! now we can get on with some serious partying!' what a girl!

beach games

some young people play 'mummies and daddies' or 'doctors and nurses', but when you're with hippolyta, you can easily find yourself playing 'cinderella and prince charming'...

something fishy

of course we are in the land of myth and legend, but this rather surprised me...

 
i sang a couple of choruses of 'under the sea', but didn't get a response ––- guess she only speaks greek.