Monday, March 25/2013

Camden Town in the morning. Then in the afternoon out to Jean's in West Harrow. Happy to have brought my black pashmina. Some shortage of glamorous opera evenings draped in it, but the cashmere is warm and I'm quite willing to appear in a babushka/hijab cross in the cold wind, especially as it retreats to being a scarf when the wind dies down.

But warm at Jean's - tea and wine and then curry and good conversation catching up. Also she has Kieran's and Katy's school pictures, as  Rachel was afraid of missing us in Cyprus, given their erratic mails. Shanthi joins us after work, her big news that she's being loaned to the cabinet office for two years (still as civil service policy advisor).

Sunday, March 24/2013

Palm Sunday but definitely not weather for parading with palms. There's a race, the Malaysian Grand Prix, at 8 a.m. but unfortunately it's only on radio not TV - or at least not on any channel we get. In the afternoon down to the electronic shops on Tottenham Court Road and then to John Lewis. For the first time many electronics are cheaper in the UK than in Canada.

Saturday, March 23/2013

Wake up to listen to a London radio host taking calls about bizarre government surveys and letters. there's the Birmingham council's survey regarding garbage bins which asks the gender and sexual orientation of the respondent (with a surprising range of choices). Why, asks one resident - if I say I'm gay do I get a pink one? There's a complaint that the form at the GP's office asks what colour you are (that's right, not race but colour). As one man says, can't they tell by looking? The strangest probably from a man who got a letter from the council referring to his wife's recent sex change. It was news to him.

Morning visit to Starbucks office to catch up on the email/internet. While the coffee is good, there's nothing very upscale about this particular venue - but the basement lounge does have a comfortable, slightly seedy feeling. Soft, if worn, seating, good music and no hurry.

Down Oxford Street in the biting cold to look at tablets at Curry's. The salesman is very enthusiastic about the Nexus 7, but his own has a cracked screen, and a bit of research turns up the info that this is a very common problem and not one Asus is too keen on fixing. A new screen is not much cheaper than a new tablet.

Dinner at the Indian Veg, the mostly vegan buffet near Angel tube station. The street market outside is just shutting down and the men look chilled through. As the canopies come down frozen slush slides onto the road to join the cabbage leaves and a wet abandoned glove. A surprisingly cheerful man tells us he's been up since four. It's warm inside the Indian Veg, though. It's warm and bright with signs advocating vegetarianism and providing bits of associated trivia. The young couple at the next table are happily affectionate and ask us to take their picture with his mobile.

Friday, March 22/2013

Two hour time difference means we don't sleep in. First priority, given the nasty weather forecasts, is a stop at the 99p store in Camden Town for a 99p umbrella to replace the one I lost in Paphos, which regrettably was rather better than the 99p variety, although it was one that we found abandoned on a train. Nice poking along the shops but there's a bitterly cold wind. Temperature about 0 but the kind of wind that makes you want to pop into shops of even minimal interest just to warm up. Do get a jar of crunchy peanut butter at Lidl. Actually the umbrella is relatively useless in weather like this - if it were to rain it would snow and there's too much wind anyway.

The north of England is much more unpleasant, with snow drifts, blocked roads and school cancellations, while tens of thousands of people in Northern Ireland are without power. They seem to have got Canadian weather by mistake. We stop at Nottinghill in the afternoon and encounter a wind we can only barely walk against. At the tube station is a sign we've never encountered in London before:
SEVERE WEATHER EXPECTED. Severe weather may cause disruption to transport services over the next few days. We have contingency plans for this and will make every effort to run a full service. However please check before you travel using the contacts below.

Tiny ice pellets in the air as we walk up Queensway on the way home. The flower seller round the corner from us is huddled against the wall of the pub and the flowers a are just above the freezing point. Daffodils three bunches for a pound, but will they survive?

Thursday, March 21/2013

Moving day. The things  that are to be left behind in boxes and hauled down to the box room on the mezzanine - awkward as the lift doesn't stop there, but a pretty secure storage spot. And our cases stuffed to the bursting point - well, they are pretty small suitcases.

Bus to the airport. We're waiting at the stop across the road when a plain white van drives up onto the sidewalk followed by a police car with flashing lights. A policeman waves us to move over. A little annoying as we feel more entitled to the sidewalk than the vehicles. Out of the van a man emerges in helmet and bullet proof vest bearing a package and all becomes clear We're standing outside a bank and this is a delivery of much needed cash from the equivalent of an unmarked Briks van. (The man who emerges from the police car is wearing a black tshirt with logo and army style camouflage trousers). Across the road a man has been watching and is first over to make a withdrawal.

The bus, when it comes, is a minibus but everyone squishes over obligingly and insists that our luggage is not in the way - which it is. Picnic lunch at the airport. An elderly couple in the lounge near us are well equipped for the wait. He has a bottle of whiskey and one of water in a plastic bag as well as clear plastic glasses. Once he's poured generous drinks he takes out a crossword book and she a novel.

Flight not overfull and pretty quiet. Shrimp salad, chicken curry and chocolate cake for dinner. The wine's not bad either.  Pretty good for the $22 we each paid for the flight after redeeming the air miles with BA. Canadian air mile redemptions always seem more like a down payment on a flight than the acquisition of one.

The usual meeters at Heathrow holding up placards with the names of the passengers being met. One man is holding a sign reading "Silence" - presumably a name not an instruction. Pounds at the cashpoint and the tube to Bayswater. It's cold, and windy, and beginning to spit a little. But we're only a couple of blocks away from the little hotel and our usual room looks like home.

Wednesday, March 20/2013

J and I to say good-bye to Margaret at Terra Santa nursing home, taking some chocolates, the last of the lemon curd and a Maeve Binchy novel with large print. J has the best present though - he shows her how to change the language of Euronews from Greek to English, when previously she only had access to ten minutes a day television news in English

Then I meet up with Ailsa for coffee and catch up as we seem not to have got together this winter, one way and another. And home to pack.

Tuesday, March 19/2013

Day one of the extraordinary bank closure. Rumours abound. Some people seem able to access money from the ATMs and others not, probably in accordance with whether individual bank branches still have cash. Although Maggi tries moving money from one account to another online and is unavailable to do so, confirming statements that electronic transfers have been stopped. The Troika (EU, IMF, and European Central Bank) have insisted that there is no option other than Cyprus raising 5.8 billion euros itself, an argument that the government seems to have bought. But by the time the vote takes place in the evening it is 36 opposed with 19 abstentions (this latter the governing party). So now the desperate search for a plan B, with a fair bit of hysterical euphoria in the streets - they told us we had to take a measure that no one else has been forced to - and we refused.

Monday, March 18/2013

Coffee down at the beach which is not busy this morning, though the odd costumed child can be seen and there are leftover bits of ribbon from some celebration yesterday.

The emerging news from financial analysts is mostly negative, taking the view that a line has been crossed in failing to respect the sanctity of the principle of deposit insurance and also suggesting that this will lead to distrust of banks and social unrest in other EU countries. It also emerges that the decision to tax small depositors was made by Cyprus - i.e. the president - rather than imposed. The calculation is that a tax of 15.4% on amounts over the EURO 100,000 would have raised the same amount of money but the assumption is that Anastasiades was unwilling to anger the Russians. Though he's not likely to be forgiven by his own electorate as it's only four weeks ago that the now president campaigned for election swearing, as he did until a few days ago, that there would be no haircut.

Most stores are shut, but we stop at Metro and the bakery for milk and bread (last loaf of the season) and head home. We're passing a house about three blocks from home when we're halted by the beauty of a luxuriant bougainvillea. J is setting up an angle for a photograph through the gates when a young woman comes to meet us. we tell her how beautiful the garden is and she insists that we come in and meet her parents. There's an extended family gathering for the holiday and a barbecue taking place and in no time we're handed plates amid insistence that we join in. This is traditionally a meatless day - but not exactly penitential. There's a great spread of cooked and raw vegetables, pickles, humus, breads, kalimari, octopus, salads, wine, pastry. It's magnificent - and delicious. I sit at a table with the women while J joins the men and some of the grandchildren out near the enormous stone barbecue. There must be a dozen and a half people, including a couple of Asian women clearly working for and eating with the family. And a happy atmosphere despite the weather eye on a television screen as there are reports on the financial crisis. The vote on the levy, it turns out, has been postponed again (in fact it has been moved to Tuesday while there is an attempt to command a majority, possibly through renegotiation of the terms, though that could only be a juggling of the percentage points with few for small depositors and more for large).

After we've eaten, one of the daughters, and then two lovely teenage granddaughters, show us the rest of the house. It's quite extraordinarily beautiful in a baroque way. Elaborate gilt ornamentation and statuary and mirrors - a cross between a museum and a palace with rooms that truly would have been at home at Versailles - as well as photographs of the grandparents in their youth and the various daughters and grandchildren. The girls, cousins both named Andrea, talk about their country, their schools, their hopes - and translate fluently for their grandfather - though everyone's English is much better than our negligible Greek. They're being educated in English at the American Academy and the older one will be off to university this year. She alludes briefly to the financial levy - they take students' savings for university. we must have been with the family for two hours before we leave - with invitations to stop any time for coffee.

The final news of the day is that the banks will remain closed until Thursday. For years we have thought it ironic that the Greek word for banks is trapeza, and never has the finance here been a more precarious high wire act.

Sunday, March 17/2013

First race of the F1 season, the Australian Grand Prix at 8 a.m. Cyprus time. No luck in getting a televised version but it is covered by BBC 5 radio, which we get through the British forces. The Sunday papers full of the bank levy, of course. Seems like a pretty crude mechanism, and pretty hard lines that depositors with under EURO 100,000 would have been covered by deposit insurance had the banks failed, but as they have been the means of preventing the failure they're not covered. The rewards, of course, go to spenders rather than savers, as money is the only asset to be taxed. And, as one Cypriot man says sadly of his savings - "It's one working life, that."

Maggi's birthday, so she comes to supper. As she's now a Cyprus resident she has a Cypriot banking account which will be affected. Parliament was to have meet today as the levy must be ratified before it can take effect but that has now been postponed til tomorrow, presumably in an attempt to shore up a majority.

Saturday, March 16/2013

Wake early in the morning to the news that the much discussed Cyprus bailout deal has been struck. And it's quite horrifying. A levy on all Cypriot bank accounts, higher on larger accounts than smaller. The news gets worse as the day goes on. Six and three quarter percent levy and accounts under EURO 100,000 and 9.9% on those over. This first seems incredibly hard on small savers who have modest savings for their old age, prudently (they thought) placed in savings or deposit accounts rather than under the mattress. The pharmacist gives J a different view, though. Cyprus, he says, has an economy based on services and investment. Yes, there's big Russian money in the banks, but if assets are seized who will invest here in the future? Meanwhile the fury grows as queues form and some ATMs fail to deliver. One Limassol man parks his bulldozer beside the bank and threatens to break in to access his "stolen" money.

Friday, March 15/2013

Our last weekend here and, as always, where did the time go? Long weekend begins today as Monday is Clean Monday(sometimes known as Green Monday for reasons that are unclear but probably not related to rhyme). It's the run up to Ash Wednesday, celebrated in the Orthodox church on Wednesday of next week. Children often wear carnival costumes and Sunday is sometimes a day of parades, though not on Latin American scale, and Monday is traditionally a time for picnics in the country as well as kite flying.

Thursday, March 14/2013

A little more emerges re Pope Francis - he's a Jesuit, lived in an apartment instead of a bishop's palace, used public transportation, did his own cooking.

Maggi, J and I to Vlachos Taverna in the evening to meet Jane and Bill for our last meal there this season. Bountiful and delicious as always. I order moussaka and J the lamb kleftiko, not always available here. The place is full, humming with happy locals - and with good reason. The starters at the beginning and fruit plates at the end, as always, plentiful and free. Don't think to take photos until there is, unfortunately, little left on the table.

Wednesday, March 13/2013

Back to the dentist re J's x-ray. Not good news. Broken root one side of the bridge and a problematic tooth on the other. Maximum damage two implants plus a short bridge. Too late to begin now, but a bit of a dental time bomb.

The papal election brought to us via a comedy team from Euronews who seem to have been on air for long enough that they're punch drunk and babbling. As the relevant smoke rises from the chimney they pronounce it black but revise their opinion just as J and I are saying it looks white to us. If the pope were to be Italian, they say, he would be the first in thirty-five minutes - no, that's thirty-five years. And so it goes. The band strikes up strains from the Italian national anthem (familiar to us from Formula One, though we're not Ferrari fans). Is this a sign? The commentators speculate on the band and the need to keep trumpets dry in the light rain. One says that it's been an unusually short time to think about a campaign. Well, consider that most elections are triggered by a death, sometimes an unexpected one. Then on to papal names: what about Frank one suggests. No one mentions the long tradition of opting for a saint's name. Ah, it's been over an hour since the white smoke - but yes, now there are lights being turned on behind the balcony. Let's hope, says one of the comedians, that it wasn't the cleaner going into the wrong room. Excitement mounts  in the square. Well let's hope, says the other presenter, they're equally enthusiastic once they see who it is.

And, as a red-garbed figure emerges, looking ancient and tottery, it takes us a few seconds to register that it won't be the new pope but Cardinal Jean Louis Tauran, the proto deacon who is to introduce him. He's flanked by two priests who ook as if they may have to provide physical support. Will he survive to the end of the announcement? (Turns out later he was born in 1943 - not so very ancient!) Habemus papam. And there he is, as the presenters are still struggling to decode the Latin names: the archbishop of Buenos Aires. More bits of the Italian national anthem. Well, he is bishop of Rome, and it seems the band knows the tune. He has chosen the name Francis. Small bit of debate between the comedians - no, he's not Francis the first til there's a Francis the second. But it does seem a positive beginning, as do the modest robes and the quiet "good night" in Italian.

Tuesday, March 12/2013

Quite a number of young people staying here, often without visible means of support though they must be able to afford it. The two young Latvian men worked previously in Denmark and have gone for interviews for jobs at a bar in Agia Napa. Meanwhile much time in reception using the wifi. A warm ane relatively inexpensive spot for the interim. And J chats with a girl who is doing her teacher training here. In English?

Monday, March 11/2013

The day improves as it goes. Starts with dental appointments as we each have a filling in need of repair. There are half a dozen old National Geographics in the waiting room which we're slowly working our way through in the years we've been going to Xenia. J has a bridge covering a break of some kind, so we're sent off to get a panoramic x-ray - at a lab around the corner. Done on the spot for 45 euros ($60, £39). Oddly, the receptionist says "Fifty euros - you pay forty-five."Not sure whether this price reduction is for cash or because they don't have to bill. Presumably not the Thailand custom of "special price for you" on everything.

After coffee and a stop at the bakery for rye bread we walk into the Sunflower just as Maggi is about to leave and are invited to her flat for lunch - "we'll see what's in the fridge." What's in the fridge proves delicious, including a vegetable mix of kohlrabi and a wild green gathered by the next door neighbours and tasting a little like asparagus. All with a bottle of Merlot. So lovely leisurely all-afternoon lunch on the west balcony more than makes up for beginning the day at the dentist.

Spend most of the evening (successfully) getting rid of a bit of malware that had lodged itself on the netbook. After which a visit to Facebook shows the photos Klaus has taken of our house and truck under heaps of snow. Not time to go home yet. And is it time to go to London? Late night radio brings telephone interviews with people who are stuck in their cars on the motorway between London and Brighton and have been for the last seven hours, unable even to sleep as every once in a while there's a tiny bit of movement, as snow covers the south of England.

Sunday, March10/2013

Sign of the times: during the papal election the penalty for tweeting from the conclave is excommunication.

Saturday, March 9/2013

Down to the animal shelter charity shop with the plastic supermarket bags we've been saving. If they don't have to buy the bags for people's purchases they ccan buy more dog food for the rescued dogs. We also have an Ian Rankin novel and a couple of items of clothing to donate, as we weed out our winter's possessions with our two small suitcases in mind.

We're early for our coffee date with Maggi, so poke around the Saturday market first. Heaps of oranges gleaming in the sun, deep purple aubergines, ripe tomatoes and dark green cucumbers, brilliant lemons. It's a jewel toned market. Some exotica as well, at least by Canadian standards. Artichokes are now in season, adding their green tulip shapes, and there ae plastic boxes of snails, sustained by a leaf or two as they await their fates. Then Greek coffee in the sun outside the café with Maggi, who has biked over. Sketo - one of our few Greek words - without sugar. Each cup individually brewed in a tiny long handled metal pot known as a briki, heated three times almost to the point of boiling, traditionally on hot sand. And, oddly enough, costing half the price of Nescafé.

Friday, March 8/2013

Not cold, but very windy. Meet up with M for coffee. J back from the greengrocer's with a large bag containing about 15 fresh artichokes (€1.70, $2.27, £1.48). So pasta with caramelised onion and sautéed artichoke hearts. In Canada it's usually more than that for one artichoke - and it looks long dead.

Thursday, March 7/2013

Over to the convent nursing home (Italian Franciscan sisters) to see Margaret, taking a jar of lemon curd, which, she says, is impossible to buy in Cyprus. Once again the convent seems peaceful but very lonely. And, as Margaret points out, the cupboards in the rooms have locks but the same keys open everyone's. A cheerful girl comes by and brings us all tea. There's a fridge in the room covered with magnets - mementos of all her travels with her late husband Charlie. Most of the rest of her things, she says, disappeared after her accident - furniture, coats, and even money. She doesn't know how to pursue it - nor, really, do we.

Wednesday, March 6/2013

Googling now for the time in London - theatre, lectures, restaurants.  Lovely that one can google "London - restaurant - 'ridiculously cheap'" and get over 170,000 hits. Some of them real winners.

Tuesday, March 5/2013

High today in one spot in Wales is 17.5, so there's hope for spring when we go to the UK in two weeks - though that temperature is not, probably, typical.

We're in the reception area using the wifi in the evening when four young men in casual trousers and jackets come i. We hear them say that they're from the Larnaca police station and want to see someone's passport and speak to him. Another man - from the restaurant? - goes with them, heading to the hotel rooms. I'm thinking that they don't look much like cops and that I'd want some ID before handing over my passport. But after they've gone, some twenty or so minutes later, Kikki, who's on the desk, says tht they wer undercover (plain clothes?) police and did show their identification.

Monday, March 4/2013

The bailout that Cyprus requires is not the largest EU has seen in absolute terms, but it is in terms of national economy. The €17 billion needed is equal to Cyprus' annual GDP, a horrific amount for the coutry to repay. The concern here, apart from the usual blame attacks, seems tobe that good terms be negotiated - no "haircut" and no real suffering. Understandable preferences but a little unrealistic. This is the largest bailout ever given as a ratio of bailout to GDP and heads are placed firmly in the sand. It's the same with the oftheard EU complaint about Cyprus as a haven for money laundering. The defence is three-fold. We have never had any money laundering, we've already cleaned up all the money laundering, and anyway it's not just us - other countries do it too.

J and I to the dentist this morning. Teeth cleaned and inspected (€45 each) and one filling each  needed next week.

Sunday, March 3/2013

If evidence were needed of the provincial nature of the Cypriot press - the headline of the Cyprus Sunday Mail is "Boarding Pens Fury at Airport" refers to the rage of passengers in Paphos who are being kept, nominally for twenty minutes or so but allegedly for over an hour, in outdoor pre-boarding areas to facilitate quick turnaround times for low-cost airlines. There is an issue, and one which would clearly infuriate passengers, the more so as the airport blandly denies any problem. But Cyprus is in a state of economic crisis, with negotiations ging on re an EU bailout. It's also a divided country with UN troops still patrolling the green line. On the positive side there are great hopes of the offshore oil (the difficulty being that it's off a number of other  mid East shores as well). So maybe the headlines aren't indicative of a provincial view but of a preference for dealing with the manageable. Or unmanageable as the case may be.

Saturday, March 2/2013

Make lemon curd with Kikki's lemons (from the tree in her garden). Right up there with fresh strawberry jam as one of the world's great tastes.

Friday, March 1/2013

"The grand object of travelling is to see the shores of the Mediterranean. On those shores were the four great Empires of the world; the Assyrian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman. --All our religion, almost all our law, almost all that sets us above the savages has come to us from the shores of the Mediterranean." - Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson (though looking a little less PC than Boswell may have seen fit to worry about).

Thursday, February 28/2013

The Cyprus Tourist Organisation is appalling. Stop to pick up timetables for bus routes 430 and 431 re our outing tonight at Vlachos Taverna - and mention Vlachos to the girl at the desk. She is immediately (and unasked) on the phone and, after a little Greek, informs us that  it is opposite the Palm Beach Hotel. Fortunately we know that it is on the same side of the road as the Palm Beach but half a km further on. I say to J that I'm going to apply to the CTO, saying that I speak no Greek but that my information and research skills are vastly better than present staff. Ah, he says, but you have forgotten the last question on the application form asking who you are related to.

Duly take the bus out to Vlachos. Fortunately J has opted for more than due prudence and we are out by the bus stop just after five for a bus that should leave Pervolia - a village on the far side of Larnaca - at five. Impossibly, it arrives at our stop at 5:10 - which can only mean, even if there were no passengers at all, that it left its end point early. As there are no buses between five and seven, this is rather awkward for anyone attempting to plan - but entirely typical of Cyprus. So the good side is that we arrive while it's still daylight, so our exploratory walk (as we're not meeting for dinner until 7) is more interesting.

We're dining with Jane and Bill Curtis, whom we haven't seen for nearly a year, as they left just after we arrived in Larnaca for Christmas in England, followed by a six week cruise to the Caribbean and the Amazon. So much to talk about. They highly recommend both the cruise and the line and were pleased to be in a small ship rather than a city block at sea. Dinner as good as usual at Vlachos, with multiple meze style starters - salad, tahini, tzatziki, pita, olives, pickled beetroot, pilaf, eggs - before the main courses. They do a nice moussaka here and J and I both have it. Enormous portions and I bring more than half of mine home. J and B kindly give a lift back.