Saturday, August 13, 2005

Of holidays and romance

So we've been back from our holiday for a whole week now and I'm now firmly back in the grip of day to day living in Dublin. O yay.
I tried really hard not to let that blissful glow brought on by a week in the Greek Isles slip away, but as they say, all good things come to an end. I fought bravely though, annoying my colleagues with little stories and anecdotes (did I mention how hot & sunny it was?) the whole week. I even subjected a couple of them to my 35mm photographs which I brought in to work one day, haha!
I took almost 100 photographs - and only 2 were from Crete; the rest were all taken on our 2-day excursion on Santorini (What can I say? It's a really photogenic place!). That's excluding the 147 digital pics. Overkill? you might ask. Well not really - the logic is that you take lots of photos so you can be sure that amongst them there just must be a few good ones. It's the law of averages. Of course the logical argument is pretty much nullified because in reality I can't bear to throw away any photographs, so most of them went into the album anyway. But that's me - I never do anything in half-measures. An all-or-nothing kind of girl... it's part of my charm ;-)
Bad luck for the suckers who felt obliged to take a look at my holiday snaps, tee hee!

It was hubby's birthday yesterday so I took him out to dinner at our favourite restaurant which, conveniently, is only about a 5 minute walk from where we live in the village. Coincidentally, it is a Greek restaurant, so we were quite excited about recapturing some of the magic from our holiday. Only problem is this is Ireland, not Greece. The background music did its thing to set the atmosphere, and we had a table by the window... but where was the sea? Our view was of a building site! The tzatziki was nice, but seemed to me to be a watered down version of the real thing. I think this is cos the Irish appear to have a very mild palate, so all the food is milder in this country. Less garlic in the tzatziki, curries that don't burn (in Indian restaurants, I mean, you don't see many curries on the menu in Greek restaurants!). And you could order any kind of coffee after your meal - except Greek coffee.
?!?!
But the dessert was just gorgeous and the waiter had a genuine accent (I'm a sucker for that Greek accent!) and we enjoyed our meal and our wine and were nicely sauced by the time we got home. Whereupon we enjoyed one or two (or three or four?) gentle (?!) whiskeys while listening to our favourite music.
A quietly romantic evening, if not terribly imaginitive on my part. No, I'm afraid hubby is the one with the romantic imagination. Don't get me wrong - I LOVE romance and I'm a real romantic at heart, I just don't know how to DO romance. He does romance - I do funny. I'm the family clown, and it's hard to be romantic and funny at the same time. Besides - the man gave me the most beautiful sunset on earth last week... that's a difficult one to top on the romance scales!
Plus, what kind of thing would be considered romantic by a guy who at this very moment is sitting watching a Korean war movie (in Korean, with subtitles!)?

Seriously, help me out here. Guys, what are some of the romantic things your girls have done for you? Personally, I love candlelight dinners, flowers and sunset walks along the beach, but I suspect that men have a different view of what's romantic to what us girls have.


5 comments:

kyknoord said...

That's a tough one to answer, because one man's meat is another man's best friend. I'm rather fond of shoulder rubs, though.

Stephalupogus said...

If you can pull it off, try for an evening of seductive relaxation. I've done the bubble bath in a big garden tub, his favorite drinks (ready made because it would have been a serious pain otherwise), full body massage, and basically just pampered and pandered him outrageously. The night ended rather early because he was so relaxed after the bath and massage, (and in his defense it had been a rough month), but the next morning I got a wonderful wake up.
I know that most men would rather admit eating quiche rather than admit enjoying a bubble bath, but if you are in there waiting, it tends to work.

Terri said...

Undr thx for ur post - you crack me up!

KN: Shoulder rubs, huh? Sounds like an awful lot of hard work ;-)

Stephalupogus: Actually u might have a point there. Hubby LOVES bubble-baths. (Although after telling the world about it I guess I'll just have to include the massage now!)

ChittyChittyBangBang! said...

I am not a romantic and romance does not come naturally to me.
I do however appreciate it when someone does something for me that comes from the heart. It does not necessarily have to be a romantic gesture - it can be anything that shows an appreciation of me and who I am. Perhaps it is something that I like or have an interest in. It does have to be a grand gesture either... every thing is GRAND when you are with someone special and when you feel loved and needed.

Terri said...

bangthud Did anyone else hear that?

Aw Chitty u old softie! Actually that is good advice & confirms my point that men & women have different ideas on romance. So wot ur saying is, if the man likes Korean war movies with subtitles, then I should get him Korean war movies with subtitles, and he'll see it as a romantic gesture?!