Thursday, February 24/2011

Robert Fisk, intrepid reporter on the Middle East for The Independent is now in Tripoli, just as most people are trying desperately to leave. He provides a fascinating, though not particularly encouraging, insight into Gadaffi's though processes. It seems that a friend of Fisk's was granted a twenty minute interview with the Libyan leader. Thinking that the friend had had a facelift, when in fact he was simply young looking, Gadaffi insisted on spending the entire twenty minutes inquiring about facelifts, apparently wanting one for himself.

Wednesday, February 23/2011

Haircuts part two. We go earlier this morning, by 9:30, but wait until nearly eleven. In part it's the usual Cypriot problem. In theory there's a queue but in practice the tribal system takes over, with friends, relatives, friends of relatives and relatives of friends taking precedence. Not speaking Greek is no asset, both because we can't (though probably wouldn't) engage in special pleading and because we don't pick up on what pleas and promises have been made. I usually simply take a book but with J there as well I'm too polite to sit and read it. And why do we do it? The man is cheap (€10 for my haircut and €5 for J's) and he's very good.

Over to our café afterward for Cyprus coffees, sporting our new haircuts, though with sunglasses designed for preventing ocular deterioration rather than displaying status.

Tuesday, February 22/2011

J has a dental appointment this morning so I go along and make an appointment for next week to have my bridge replaced - or step one thereof. It's about thirty years old, more or less - I haven't really kept track - and apparently these things don't last forever. Ernie, our dentist at home, says that teeth are only designed to last about forty years - in which case we're pleased to be outliving them. Should have had haircuts as well, as part of the general self-improvement process, but our usual spot is very fullso we decide not to wait.

Down to M's flat at four for drinks - and to examine the mysterious shell she's found. A dark shadow inhabits the interior, presumably once alive but dissection with a kitchen knife just leads it to crumble.

Gaddafi makes a bizarre speech, looking strangely like Baron Von Munchausen. He vows to stay to the last bullet and to die in his country, leading one to hope someone puts him out of his misery before there are too many hundred more bodies on the street.

Monday, February 21/2011

We're about to leave for Pyla - actually out on our way to the bus, but the rain starts, so it seems a bit pointless standing at the bus stop in the rain in order to go on the hash walk (me). Shame though, as J was to visit with Bill at the same time.

Television and radio are riveting though, as the violence continues in Libya. Heartbreaking pleas for world help from Libyans who report horrific events like security people going into hospitals and killing patients and medical staff. . We listen to the extreme distress of Libyans telling of the bodies on the streets over poor phone lines - it sometimes impossible to separate breaking transmission from accounts mixed with sobs. At the same time, as we watch BBC television with the sound muted the ticker tells of two Libyan fighter planes landing in Malta rather than obey orders to bomb their own people - while the footage on the entertainment news shows Lady Gaga arriving at some event in a transparent egg. Bizarre juxtaposition!

Sunday, February 20/2011

Brunch and lazy reading. We're nearly finished The Towers of Silence, Book 3 of the Raj Quartet.

Saturday, February 19/2011

Coffee at our usual joined by M's friend Dino, a British Cypriot. Stop at the market round the corner on the way back for a bag (of 14) large fresh grapefruit for €1.50. They let J shift grapefruit to get more pink ones and fewer white in his bag.

Friday, February 18/2011

J, M and I to the English language Mediterranean High School for their production of Grease. A good choice as it's fun and has a cast of thousands to boost the ticket sales to family. The two leads are a bit lightweight but two of the major backups are professional quality good. It's packed and everyone has a good time.

Thursday, February 17/2011

Dougie drops over - the first time we have seen him this year. We were talking about not having seen him when M, who had his mobile number, texted. Dougie is a British born Cypriot who drives a local bus. For the last ten years it's been the airport route and he was always cheerful and friendly - knew his regulars by name. And of course that's how we knew him. In fact, as his business card shows, his name isn't really Dougie but Christakis Antoniou. So why Dougie, we ask. Well, it comes from the second half of his first name, and in Greek the t is pronounced like d. So it's a corruption of Daki.

He's in transition now, disillusioned by a system that has moved him to a backwater village route and left him with an unpleasant six day work week - and this despite the fact that they're expanding the routes and have hired new drivers So he's finishing next month and off back to Jersey where he drove a tourist bus for years and has maintained a house and a flat.

Wednesday, February 16/2011

To the dentist in the morning for teeth cleaning. Some difficulty finding our files - J doesn't exist in the Greek alphabet.

M has Jane and Bill and us to dinner - chicken curry. And nice evening with good company. These hotel flats do at least have the basics of furniture and crockery so that it does feel somewhat like home entertaining.

Tuesday, February 15/2011

The cleaner doesn't exactly knock at the door - it's closer to a scratching sound and reminds one inevitably of the dog wanting to come in. The "cleaning" is a minimalist performance - a little under five minutes and not involving vacuum or duster. Bathroom and kitchen floors wet mopped, toilet and sink cleaned and rubbish removed. Better than nothing. The difficulty is that when one does ask to borrow the vacuum there is a certain amount of horror downstairs as it interferes with the myth that the cleaning staff does all this. And given that the cleaning staff is one, possibly a bit simple and almost certainly underpaid woman, the charade continues.

Monday, February 14/2011

Once more the Cypriot news is full of violence on the part of football fans - including injuries to the police, who were attacked with slingshots and nails - therefore malice aforethought. While deploring the violence and warning that deaths may eventually result, police and authorities always stop short of the obvious solution - forcing teams with uncontrollable fans to play their games in empty stadiums behind locked doors. No fans. It's worked quite well elsewhere.

Google some more on Dave Barr - in order to find the sad news that he died in Vancouver two years ago.

Sunday, February 13/2011

Online booking for our trip to Portugal. Takes a few tries as I eventually figure out I'm trying to use my UK debit card with a room-booking account in J's name. So eventually I create an account in my name and it all works. So now airfare, with EasyJet, studio in Albufeira and transfers in one fell swoop.

Idly google Jaworski and Sioux Lookout and find the obvious and expected and the totally unexpected - a reference in Dave Barr's autobiography One Lucky Canuck. Dave and his wife Irene were part of the 12 person group we went with to China in 1990. It must be only a small section of his book - and there are bits missing from the google online posting - but it's still pretty exciting. Dave had obviously made detailed notes and done background research as well. We'll have to get a copy and then we'll have a wonderful account of the China trip - from before the days when we kept a journal.

According to the evening news there has been an earthquake south of Limassol. Three point something. No damage and we didn't feel it here. We did feel one back about Christmas. Went on for 30 seconds or so, but no news report that we noticed.

Saturday, February 12/2011

Back to our favourite café - our new local.

In the evening J, M and I head over to the restaurant known as "not the Famagusta but the one next to it." We go at six, ridiculously early for cypriots and unnaturally early even for us, mindful of the fact that it closes at 7:30. We do know tht it's popular at lunch. What we haven't picked up is that it's basically cafeteria style and by the end of the day the choice is pretty diminished. So a walk along Macarios looking at the options. In the end we finish up at the Famagusta, right across from the Sunflower.

It turns out to be a pleasure. Not very full at this hour (by now 6:30) but a traditional Cypriot enu, and attentive proprietor (cum chef?). We order beef stifado and it's excellent. Done in a nice balance of Commandaria style wine with a touch of vinegar and succulent onions. He discusses the cooking methods in detail and agrees to see what they have in vegetables - spinach, it seems, which we all like. We also get a small sample - on the house, he explains - of cypriot preserved fruit. It purports to be lime peel preserved to curling softness in syrup and bottled for weeks. However, the fact that it's carrot coloured and the fact that limes are the most expensive and rare of Cypriot citrus fruits make us wonder. Very nice, but sweet enough that the small sample is plenty.

Friday, February 11/2011

Another coffee at our now favourite café in the warm sun. Ah, it's a hard life.

G&T and nibbles (first class) at M's and then we come home to the breaking news that Mubarek has resigned and that, temporarily one prays, the army is in charge, though prepared, they say, for elections to follow. Less than a day after Mubarek's appalling non-resignation speech. For all the fears, the jubilation is a joy to watch. The square we have watched for the past two and a half weeks is pulsing with celebration and the lights now at dusk give it a golden glow, punctuated with fireworks above the throng - a people who for the past thirty years have been forbidden to gather in groups of more than five, hundreds of thousands of them.

We've been watching the visuals on BBC World television, while listening to similar coverage on BBC World radio - not pirated and therefore much better quality sound.

Thursday, February 10/2011

Mostly looking for a trip out of London. Of course air fares have risen, and the "no frills" ones are so misleading. Unlike Canada, the Uk is not allowed to advertise fares without including taxes and fees. What they do, however, is advertise fares that don't include luggage, food or seat selection and the differences are major. RyanAir, for instance, charges £40 ($64 CAD) per suitcase. Meanwhile Marty emails to say that the Welby is very busy and they`re now booking bedsits in London into mid-March, so not time to waste.

In the evening Mubarek comes on television to speak to the Egyptian people. Rumour had had it - and quite high level rumour - that he would resign, but not a bit of it. He`s quite pleased to refer to the people`s "legitimate grievances" and say that their martyrs will not have died in vain and those responsible will be punished. No doubt some wretched persons will be tortured for obeying orders, but this is little comfort to anyone. The response in Tahir Square is as distressed as one might expect. The BBC ticker describes public reaction as "angery" and that seems about right - three syllable anger.

Wednesday, February 9/2011

This morning brings the deferred ceremony recognizing our status as long-term visitors (though there must be many longer about). Thus we leave early enough to find the building (Larnaca Chamber of Commerce and Industry), just round the corner from the Kition really.

We're greeted inside by Takis Vorides. He's a city councillor and head of the tourism committee and, surprisingly, we have met him before - J several years ago and both of us this past Saturdayas we passed his house on the way from the market to Metro. He expressed interest in the ceremony then (having asked how long we had been coming to Larnaka) and had me email him the specifics - apparently to see that it was his committee that waas planning the recognition. So here he is, representing the major (whom Kikki refers to as the major, obviously the same word origin and essential meaning). He's warm and avuncular, greeting us with kisses and expressions of pleasure.

There's Nana(?), the young assistant and another man, who Mr. Vovides refers to as Kikkis Kyriakides, whom he has known since his youth. (Only later do I fish out the Sunflower's business card listing Mr. Kyriakides as managing director).

We go to the boardroom (though we're told the ceremony is usually at the fort, as it would have been last week). There's a very large period representation of the Larnaca waterfront and Mr. Vovides uses it to provide a short history lesson, from St. Lazarus to the export of heaps of salt from the salt lake. He's a former customs inspector and has a good memory for the exports. Larnaca is also the birthplace of Xenon, founder of the Stoic school of philosophy and he points out that the name comes from the tradition of standing in a stoa or arched doorway to do the teaching.

Then we are presented with an engraved plaque set in daark wood calling Mr and Mrs Jaworski "loyal friends of Larnaca," as well as a bottle of Cypriot shiraz, both contained in a cotton bag decorated with a colourful picture - the winner of the Larnaca graffitti contest. And a snapshot for the website if we don't object.

In the evening M to dinner. J does a chicken.

Tuesday, February 8/2011

Book our trip to Syria for February 25-28, using the little agency next door run by Chris, son of Mr. Andreas who runs our building.

Variation on the customer taking a grape while passing the fruit counter. At Carrefour we see a woman munching a whole banana and discarding the peel as she heads off toward the meat counter.

Monday, February 7/2011

Cyprus lulls one - but there are other places to see, so now busy setting up side trip to Syria and also a trip after we get back to London. We fly to London March 16 and February is a short month.

Sunday, February 6/2011

Another beautiful sunny day. Brunch and the newspaper - which J points out is getting worse by the week. It always had a high proportion of fill - ads, standard bits from the international press, and lightweight reports on local services, verging on advertisement. but there have always been some fairly good local opinion pieces and they're thinning out. The paper is also our weekly telly guide though. Overpriced as such at a euro sixty perhaps, but we're not likely to give it up, especially as it also includes a guide for BBC World Service radio.

Walk down along the promenade. It's busy now but not on weekdays, so presumably most of these people, whether Cypriot, Asian, or East Europen, have day jobs keeping them occupied. There don't seem to be very many genuine tourists. Stop at yesterday's café for Cyprus coffee. Exactly our best image of retirement - sitting at a little sidewalk café in the sun, sea view, old buildigs, short sleeve weather in February and a friendly café owner who remembers us.

Saturday, February 5/2011

Sun back in evidence and M has sussed out a café where the sun hits earlier and stays later It's just round the corner from the Athene - the best of our former hotels, now half rebuilt and up for sale. Tables a bit weather warped - and nice wicker chairs just off the pavement with views of sea and lovely old Larnaca buildings across the road and lots of interesting foot traffic. The owner is a painter as well, so his paintings are in evidence as well as large blow-ups of old Larnaca photographs. Friendly relaxed atmosphere and even biscuits with the Cyprus coffees. Good find!

M to dinner in the evening. Spaghetti with vegetarian sauce - lots of mushrooms.

Email fro Lilly in Syria. She's planning to take the bus in from Lattakia - four hours up the coast - and meet us in Damascus for a day and is giving us several possible plans of what we could see and do. Quite exciting.

Friday, February 4/2011

Cloudy, bits of light showers, and cool - about 15. Then it occurs to us that in mucay h of the world this would pass for an incredible spring day in mid-winter. But we make soup and read. Currently Ian Rankin's Black and Blue alternately with Paul Scott's The Towers of Silence, third book in the Raj Quartet. M and I play Scrabble in the evening.

Thursday, February 3/2011

Home from Carrefour with an enormous stalk of celery - a good three feet high, many stemmed, with luxuriant dark green leaves. As J says when I get back, "You've come home with a tree." No waste, though. We share part of it with Maggi and J dries the leves and powders them before starting on the stems.

Watch the last two episodes of Downton Abbey.

Wednesday, February 2/2011

J and I to town hall to check on hotel tax update. Not astonishingly, there is no update - try back about the 10th. Run into Maggi there, come to ask for a Larnaca calendar with historic pictures of the town. We admire the pictures and are shown large ones on office and boardroom walls as well, the office occupants looking a little startled at finding themselves part of a tour.

Mobile rings outside. It's Larnaca Tourist people. Back when we were first at the town hall in mid-January, Androula, who we spoke to, said that the city likes to honour long term tourists (we've confessed to eleven years). We obligingly filled out a form, feeling that there was no need to be rude about refusing to let them type up a certificate. Turned out there was more to it than that. They wanted to arrange a ceremony. So we left, hoping it would all disappear into the bureaucracy and be forgotten. Back to the ringing mobile - turns out we've just missed the ceremony and everyone was waiting. Didn't we get the fax? They sent a fax to the hotel. Ah well - a new date will be arranged. So be sure to ask for the fax.

We're watchig the next bit of Downton Abbey when Kikki arrives with the fax, having guessed that if we weren't in our flat we'd be in Maggi's. So no escape this time.

Throughout the night the protestors in Tahrir Square are attacked by pro Mubarek forces - many of whom admit to being paid thugs.

Tuesday, February 1/2011

In evening watch first disc of Jane's Downton Abbey DVD on M's laptop - and are hooked.

Watching Cairo for a week now. we knkow Tahir Square. It's big, but not huge. Certainly not Tiananmen. Can't help wondering about some of the baser practicalities of the demo. Do hundreds of thousands of people use the loo at KFC - or what?

Monday, January 31/2011

Nicely balanced day. Morning listening to the Today program (BBC Radio 4) and in the afternoon M and I meet up with Jane for the Monday hash. It's in extensive parkland near Aridippou, which is now more or less suburban Larnaca. A nice walk with lovely views of surrounding hillsides which have, somehow, raken in enough rain to be as green as Ireland. I chat on the walk with Fatholsa (spelling almost certainly wrong) a Cypriot woman who has lived ingermany for over 40 years but spends frequent extended holidays in cyprus where she maintains a flat. She's a translator and fluent in five languages. Very interesting.