Holidays Ahead with some minor dark clouds

With 2013 already underway, our little house in the south of London has been happily buzzing, making plans for the near future. The easiest and most pleasant of them are of course the plans regarding holidays and trips. Even if it is still very early for the year, we’ve decided on making a trip to Athens at the end of January, beginning of February! And I’m so excited!  What’s great about Athens is the fact that it’s inexpensive, since we’ll be staying at my brother’s and the weather most likely will be good (during the Alkyonides days). We’ll meet members of my family and some of my dearest and oldest friends.

Speaking of my family, I’ve mentioned to my mother the days we’ll be staying in Athens and that it would be nice to see them. It would also be nice of them to meet JJ for the first time. It was only fair since I’ve met JJ’s parents very recently and we could get the ‘meeting the parents’ thing out of the way once and for all. My mother didn’t sound too excited about this prospect. On the phone she mumbled something on the line ‘we’ll see’ and that they’re busy, so she can’t promise they could get the time to go all the way to Athens!

Although, this could really be the case, I had my doubts. So, on a later phone call I’ve openly asked her that if JJ left earlier and I stayed a couple of days longer, would they then think about coming to Athens to see me! And then, the amazing happened! They could make it (if I was on my own)! This whole thing upset me the day we had that brief conversation.  I’m now feeling much better about it though. I don’t have anything to be apologetic about and the problem lies with them. I’ve decided that some things can’t be forced, although I will bring up the subject to my mother when I see her.

I believe that the first time I mentioned us being in the country and if they could come, she didn’t even check with my father about it. He simply doesn’t want to hear about it. He can’t accept the fact that his son is gay, even if he’s happy and partnered. It’s not that important but I’m mentioning the partnered bit because when we had the ‘talk’ once, he was going on about how I was wasting my life, being alone and ending up on the street like a tramp, begging for some affection and paid love! She’s better than him. When I know he’s not listening she’s asking me quietly about how we are doing and even wished JJ Merry Christmas! Just to stir the waters I had sent them a Merry Christmas card signed by both of us. :-)

In any case, we have holidays approaching and I’m very happy about it! I’ve already been checking on things we could do and didn’t do during our last visit. The most important one is visiting the National Archaeological Museum of Athens. The last time I’ve been there I was probably in my teens. There are some amazing exhibits there including Cycladic art, the well-known golden mask of Agamemnon and the famous Antikythera mechanism.

Please meet Agamemnon

Especially the latter is something I would really love to see again. We were recently watching a full documentary in National Geographic (I think) regarding it. For those of you not familiar with it, this Greek ancient mechanism is considered to be one of the very first “computers” ever built. It was found in a ship wreck close to the Antikythera Island and its very complicated cogs and wheels were calculating astronomical positions.      

 Antikythera Mechanism