GRETA Koumides may be 100 years old but she lives an active lifestyle most people half her age would struggle to maintain.

The lively great-grandmother swims 10 lengths of a pool every morning, enjoys Mediterranean holidays four times a year and is a keen dancer.

In the last week she has enjoyed a helicopter ride and will join 100 friends and family members for a celebratory tea dance on Saturday, the day of her birthday.

But the Vienna-born former restaurant supervisor takes it all in her very lively stride and plans to carry on into her second century.

We caught up with Greta as she enjoyed her morning swim with her daughter, Christine Carrington, at the health suite at the Elstead Hotel in Knyveton Road.

She told how she moved to Bournemouth just before WWII and got married after meeting her husband-to-be at a tea dance at the Pavilion.

She worked at the South Western Hotel in Holdenhurst Road as a supervisor for many years and settled in the town, where she still lives with her daughter and son-in-law, Christine and Graham Carrington.

Christine said: “My mother is very active and fit and that is what keeps her going. We go to Majorca four times a year and she spends all her time in the sea and on the sand.

“A lot of people are surprised that she manages to travel so regularly but it is something we all enjoy.”

Greta has one daughter, two grandchildren, Nichola and Michael, and great-grandchildren Joshua, eight, Aimee, four, and three-month-old James.