Indian summer, the beach in West Wittering and a short break to Cyprus

Firstly, my eye is completely better. Thanks to everyone involved in Austria at Kepler University hospital and in particular Professor Bolz. The gas has reabsorbed and is replaced by aqueous fluid. My vision is now pretty much as it was. I feel very grateful and lucky. The recovery was slow but the results very much worth waiting for. Thanks again.

So our adventures can resume. We feel like we've fallen off the vanlife horse and that getting straight back in the saddle is the only way to ensure we don't immediately mothball Nessa for the winter. In Just stop Campervan w#nkers, I reflected long and perhaps too hard on the pros and cons of #vanlife. Mrs NHSOTR contributed to that blog, and we both found it a useful exercise. What it did crystallise for us was the need to find an easy and reproducible fun experience in Nessa.

Without doubt we both love a lazy day at the beach. However we have only very occasionally in the last thirty years taken a short day trip to the English coast. Sitting in traffic on the way down, stuck on the M 25 on the way back, overcrowded English beaches and unreliable weather. It may seem obvious to you, but we have till now missed completely the reality that Nessa might provide a solution to this. It's no surprise that when we were working full time we hadn't considered the midweek break. But with much more free time, it's now an option to run down to the coast and stay a night or two. Hopefully we can really piss off a long queue of car drivers on the way if we keep the speed limiter set at 65 mph.

So it was with some trepidation that we set off in Nessa headed for West Wittering beach. We found a campervan site in Sidlesham West Sussex about 15 minutes from the coast. I wondered, as I was booking it , whether Bucket and Spade holidays was actually the most off putting name a campervan site could possibly have chosen?

The mid week break in Nessa was good fun, we enjoyed it. The local pub did great fish n chips. The trip restored some faith in Nessa as a holiday home, and all's good with the world.

Nonetheless, we had come back from Europe needing a proper holiday.

Personally, the dark mornings and early evenings between October and February have always had a negative effect on my energy and enthusiasm. Not an illness just an effect. I'm not great at going to work in the dark and coming home in the dark. So really any excuse, or free time to get somewhere hot over winter has become more important as I've got older. Even to the extent that if I'm now honest with myself, I'd rather lie on a beach or round a pool than go skiing. Perhaps that's the entitled white male middleclass definition of getting old?

So when we identified a week in October we could get away we relished the opportunity and now we are just back from a great week in Paphos, Cyprus.

Why Cyprus? Good flights, reasonable hotels, guaranteed weather. Never been there either, so worth a look!

Cyprus does exactly what it says on the tin. GREAT weather and lovely hotel. Downside, and often heard complaint here at NHSOTR : full of Brits. Also, even tho there are some local ruins and a castle, it's a pretty soulless place. Good restaurants, everyone speaks Norf Lundun. Fabulous, but we won't be going back. The world is too big, but we had a pretty enjoyable week. The restaurant owners tended to introduce themselves as bbc, which is not a pornography term apparently and means British born Cypriot. (We were relieved to hear.)

Sports Bars, bar Why-not ? ! (Don't get me started). Tea for two restaurant grrrrrr....

Had a great AirBnB experience in the town when we booked in for pottery. A morning throwing pots and hearing local stories from Dimitri broke up an otherwise artless week.

An arial yoga class in the gym was fun and reminded me just how inflexible I am. Thoroughly enjoyed hanging upside down and contorting although I am glad we have no evidential photographs!

We made no friends, and it was an entirely anecdote free break. I Read a book, enjoyed the sun. Used the gym. Took some snaps. No drama, no breakdowns emotional or vehicular. Sun, sea and the rest is none of your business.