Sunday, January 2/2011

Down to the beach today, and the promenade is busy. It's sunny and we arrive while the Cypriot dance perforance is still on, as the men, in traditional costume are doing a dance that involves balancingstacks of glasses on their heads. It's more balance than dance, but impressive still as they get up to a dozenglasses before they finish, though our suspicion that the first glass is fixed to the cloth head covering is confirmed when they take these off. The performance ends with a circular dance drawing in volunteers from the (mostly tourist) audience.

Sit for a while on one of the promenade benches waatching the great parade of passers by, many with children, some with dogs on leads, one boy with a tiny puppy in his arms. It's a gathering place for locals as well as foreigners and a showplace for Christmas toys and fashions, with little girls in sparkly silver Christmas boots and mothers in impossibly spiky heels. We're sitting opposite a booth with a large and impressive display of prizes to be won by playing a small pinball-type game - tickets one euro each (or more expensive ones for a second stall featuring prizes like large bottles of liquor). J's guess is that the best prizes are virtually unwinnable, but we do see a couple of successes with the second class prizes, though most are things I'd pay not to have to display. A woman chooses a large, grey plastic pig, apparently a garden decoration as it's taken from the section including giant plastic snails and gnomes. And there's a family with three children who take turns at the pinball and head off with a four foot high pink panther bundled up and peering out uncomfortably from under the father's arm.