Because the evening had been relatively cool, we decided to sleep with the windows open. As Julia Roberts said in 'Pretty Woman', "big mistake. BIG MISTAKE". There was a tremendous amount of noise coming from the restaurant/taverna where we had eaten (just below our flat) and that noise went on for hours. Not only the noise was making it hard to sleep: at about 2:30 am, my left nostril became blocked, making it hard to breathe with the CPAP mask. At home, I keep a inhaler by my bedside, but of course on holiday I had nothing. After thinking about it a little and remembering how either the ENT doctor or a nurse said that salt water would do just as well as the inhaler, I decided to get up, make a cup of tea and inhale the steam coming from the tea. To my surprise and pleasure, after a few minutes my nose cleared and I could go back to bed.
My wife also suffered from the noise so she stayed in bed until quite late. As a result, we didn't get moving until about 10 am. Although we are on holiday and not really bound to any timetable, we had intended to drive around the island in the local minibus that follows a circular route. The bus has strange hours (for us): 8-11 am, 1-2 pm and 7-12 pm, and so we didn't feel that today would be suitable. So we spent more hours walking the shops. By the time we stopped for lunch, it was already close to 2pm and by the time we had finished it was nearly 3 pm. In order to make something of the day, I suggested that we take a taxi to the monastery; when a taxi finally pulled up, the driver told us that the monastery closes for lunch between 1 and 5 pm, so that was out.
So we spent our afternoon dozing in the flat and making up for the lost sleep. Eventually we had a light supper in our flat and then I went out for an evening power walk. I discovered that past the supermarket there is a coloured fountain, similar but smaller than the one outside Bari train station1. Waiting in the supermarket queue, I heard someone speaking Hebrew - this is the fourth group of Israelis that I have come across in the past few days, so obviously Poros is known in Israel. Unlink my wife, I don't believe in engaging unknown people in conversation, even if we are speaking the same language.
In the night I woke up again with a blocked nose. This time I didn't bother making tea: I boiled water, poured a cup and inhaled the steam. Again this worked perfectly after a minute or two - so when we are back at home, I'll use this trick the next time my nose gets blocked.
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[1] 1509
| Title | Tags | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 975 | Intermediate submission accepted, part two: the feedback | DBA | |
| 976 | Sleep apnea (again) | CPAP, Apnea, Gadgets | |
| 2001 | Biopsy results | Health, Motorbikes, BCC |
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