One of the major plus points of the company I work for is the amount of holiday allowance I get- It's huge, after having been there so long.

So in 2012 when home was the last place I wanted to be, I ended up away every single time I had vacation time! This included 4 different trips abroad and another week spent in the Lake District with my dad.

Soon after returning from Tenerife I again felt the urge to just get away so I started looking at dirt cheap holidays to Greece. Rhodes won simply because I could fly locally from Bournemouth. So while mentioning it to my friend Jeannette, she joked about coming with me....it took me awhile to realize that she was serious...and then there were two!

And so a few short weeks later we headed for Lardos where we stayed at the Cosmos Maris. We arrived in darkness and sat like lemons on the coach going 'ummm is this us?' because as usual we were busy talking and not listening properly.

Our room was basic but it did the job. We had a small kinda kitchenette, bathroom and a bedroom come lounge area...oh and a balcony which did nicely for our ouzo breakfasts.....

...and I kid you not!

Looking at our pictures now, I'm like 'wow I remember that' and 'wasn't that gorgeous' etc. But if I'm honest the only thing that comes directly to mind when thinking of our trip to Rhodes, is the ouzo we had.. at the bar... as shots with brekkie...and at every opportunity in between

...I get it may sound like we might have a teeny tiny 'problem' but really it was only the one night Jeannette struggled to make it back to our room .....In hindsight maybe I should have made sure she didn't go swimming on her own in the mornings though...hmmmm...

Anyhow... our first day we explored the area we were staying in, making our way down to the beach and generally lazing about. Like me Jeannette loves to read so during the week we each got through a few books, spent a few evenings at the bar joking with George the bartender/owner and we watched the shows that would come into the hotel. We shared a meal with a nice young couple from the uk and got far too up close and personal with one of the entertainers...can you say, ewww!

We enjoyed crazy big breakfasts on the balcony where we would end up talking for hours. And we visited the actual village of Lardos down the road, finding a small rundown artist studio that we loved poking through while trying to converse with the elderly proprietor.

Lindos was only a 15 min bus journey away from Lardos so we made a couple of trips to this well known white washed town. Its simply stunning and definitely my highlight of Rhodes.

On our visits we made our way up the cobbled streets and while we never made it to the acropolis (It was closed the one day we tried for it) we found some amazing views from underneath it.

We saw the donkeys struggling to carry people far too big for them up the hill and decided to walk back down, later stumbling across where the donkeys were kept when not working.

One day in Lindos, we stopped for lunch at a nice little rooftop restaurant...and proceeded to take forever to make our minds up while driving our Greek waiter mad with our questions.... Its amazing how we can do this in both Britain and abroad alike!

We visited St Pauls bay but gave the Lindos Ice bar a miss although we were intrigued. And I have to admit I was rather flabbergasted that when waiting for the bus, Jeannette took a call from back home....rather her than me paying that bill!

We also took the bus to the city of Rhodes one day and with no real plans we just waited to see where we ended up. Rhodes Castle as it turned out.

On arriving in Lardos we had already booked to go to Rhodes on a tour at night too so on the Friday we made our way back there....where they had torrential rain all afternoon . Luckily after a while it did stop and we enjoyed our tour through the old town and enjoyed a traditional mezé.

Before we knew it the holiday was over and we were back at work but it sure was fun while it lasted!

''No reason to stay, is a good reason to go''