Gone nearline 

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A view of Parikia bay from the Parian Village Hotel laying on a deck chair under a parasol with dotted blue sky as backdrop

It’s been a bumpy ride these last few months, and I can’t wait to unplug and defrag in our favourite spot in the Cyclades.

I’m often asked why I like returning to places I have already visited rather than discovering new towns or regions of the World. I make a distinction between a long weekend, holidays and travelling.

Holidays vs travelling

Holidays (for me) means taking a break:

An extended period of leisure and recreation, especially one spent away from home […]

#time-out #relax #defrag #refuel

Obviously, both notions have a lot in common, but going on holiday will involve less effort, and be more focused on taking a break.

Forgetting the day of the week

Going on holiday will be shorter in time than going on a trip (aka travelling). Holidays last between 10 and 20 days, whilst travelling requires 3 weeks minimum (the more, the better).

It take more than a break for me to forget the day of the week. It depends of the context, but I feel it tend to happen to me between 12 and 16 days. I need about three weks off to properly disconnect from my life at home. Two weeks may be a bit on the short side depending of the conditions in which I leave.

I enjoy returning to places I like, because I like them.

I know what to expect, I usually have a number of favourite restaurants and places I enjoy going back to. I can look forward to meeting up with the people who live there, catch-up with their lives and just enjoy an uncomplicated and relax-full life away from home.

I love travelling

My numerous trips to India in the 1980’s and 90’s involved going back to spots I really liked and felt good about, mixed with discovering new part of the subcontinent.

I use to take between 4 and 7 weeks off. Our last trips to India lasted about a month each, and our USA or Cambodia travels about the same.

Don’t get me wrong, I love travelling. It’s just a question of knowing what’s good for me now, and what resources I can allocate to taking time off.

Right now, I need a break, some uncomplicated day to day downtime, and Paros will provide me with exactly that.

Our break in pictures

Enjoy a few lazy pictures below, or hop over to Flickr for more.

Cyclades 2023

Recent Logs — or the next 10 entries

Well, they might not be all that recent. You'll find the older entries in the archives.

  • It’s a(door)able

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    → Any Bell posted a fun web component to add a verified checkmark to your website.

  • Make Something Wonderful

    → The Steve Jobs’ Archive has published “Make Something Wonderful, Steve Jobs in his own words”.

  • Self-Repair Manifesto

    → The lovely peoplem at iFixit are building a free repair manual for every device. That’s a monumental undertaking, but they are making great progress, one photo at a time and need our help!

  • Bitten by my network settings, SwiftBar saves me

    I got bitten into debugging my network setup, because of a proxy setting I had forgotten to disable.

  • How to turn off the microphone beep in iOS

    On iOS, if you’re not running in silent mode, you will hear an obnoxious beep each time you tap the keyboard microphone. Personally, I’m constantly in silence mode, but that’s not the case of everyone in my family.

  • A hug is always the right size

    Mum passed away on January 17th, 2023 and below is the eulogy I delivered at her funeral, on Wednesday February 8th, 2023 at Penmount, Truro.

  • Love you Mum

    Love you Mum.

  • iPod nostagia

    → iPod.js threw me back 20 years…

  • My mobile office setup

    I usually carry my iPad Pro with a Smart Keyboard Folio when I’m on the road. It fulfils most of my mobile needs, and it’s lighter and smaller than a MacBook Pro.

More entries »

Paros — Our favourite greek island / 2022

Flickr album page

This year, we took an early summer break in Paros, our favourite Greek island. It was so good to be back and welcomed by our local friends.