Refreshed?
Our first proper family holiday for 12 years has now come and gone. I was working solidly right up to the day before departure, and endured no sleep for 30 hours on the outward travelling slot - including an overnight drive to Manchester airport, flights, ferry ride, and drive to our destination.
The holiday itself was a well-earned rest. Two weeks of solid sunshine, beautiful surroundings, ice-cold afternoon beers, eating out, and lots of napping were the order of the day. We had two villas with pools - the first in Skopelos, and the latter in Skiathos. Both places were lovely, and had totally different vibes. My youngest teenager took a sudden dislike to being seen in public, and proved to be a challenging force to be reckoned with in terms of negative behaviour, but apart from that, everything went swimmingly.
I made the ridiculous decision to start work as soon as I got back, and after arriving home at 11.30pm after flight delays and the long drive back, I crashed out for a few hours and set an alarm to get me up for a packed sunday work schedule -arranged mostly due to my guilt about being away for a fortnight. It’s 10 days later now, and I’ve finally managed to keep a Wednesday free to just relax. Last weekend was taken up by a trip to the Gravity supercar show at Birmingham NEC with my youngest - an even longer drive than Manchester obviously.
My choice of imaging equipment proved to be a mistake. I took my Hasselblad X1Dii and a 28mm XCD lens, but never really used it. The thought of getting sand and stuff in the workings of a £5K setup just horrified me. The iPhone pro models are the ultimate travelling cameras, and I ended up using it for almost all stills and video. I had my DJI Osmo Pocket camera as well, but it also stayed in the villa most of the time. I could have easily halved my bag weight if I’d eschewed the pro camera stuff. Next time maybe.
