Deborah’s Path

We first choose Villa Selene as it ticked all the boxes, nestled in St Basil Olive Grove just a short way up the mountain from the picturesque and charming resort of Almyrida. It was private enough for us but close enough to the restaurants and shops. The most principal factor however was that it was on the flat with a pool that was more than accessible for Deb to use.

We had a great holiday, the villa was terrific and met our needs, more than that the Hosts Jon and Tina were fantastic. One time Jon asked if there was anything more that could be done for the Deb in the villa, I remember reassuring him it was perfect except for just one thing.

And here was the cruncher, it was pretty much perfect with just one considerable exception. The pay from the car park area to the villa door was pebbles, it took all our effort to drag the wheelchair over the stones to the front door. In fact we more or less wrecked the tyres getting her onto the threshold. I explained this to Jon and he listened intently, nodding . “We will have to see what we can do” he offered, I of course nodded politely.

The thing is when you travel with a Disabled person you hear this a lot, if I had a pound for every time someone offered to improve things or make it easier for a disabled person I would be sailing around the Med now, talk is cheap, reasonable adjustments for disabled people far less so. We returned home having thoroughly enjoyed our stay at Villa Selene but unfortunately ruling out any further visits as the path had been a deal breaker for any return. It was a shame as this is a villa people return to often and I can see why, every thing about it was fantastic I just couldn’t afford to buy new wheels every time we came.

Trust me what happened next does not happen very often, out of the blue I had a text from our fantastic host Jon, “we have listened to what you said and we are having a concrete path fired fro the parking area to the door.” I picked my jaw up from the floor and rushed to tell Deb, “remember the villa we really liked, well we are going back” I remember an email from Jon just before our second visit to tell me the path was ready.

Jon of course was true to his word, and what you are seeing on the photos is 5he path they build, I took them yesterday on our third visit to Villa Selene. We love it here and have brought all the family this time. Jon and Anne are back in Blighty now; grandchildren have lured them away from Paradise although they remain still overseeing things from the UK. We will meet our new hosts Keith and Anne tomorrow. If they are half as friendly as Jon and Tina it will be an absolute pleasure.

Things like this matter, it’s just a path but it wouldn’t have been cheap, they didn’t have to do it, the reviews for the villa tell you how popular this place is. But they did do it, they listened and more than that they acted. Just outside the villa is a tree , it’s called Isobel’s tree, I have no idea why, besides the tree runs a path, it doesn’t have a name but to me it will always be Deborah’s path but perhaps it should be Jon and Tina’s path.