Saturday, March 29/2014

Off after breakfast for a day in the Yorkshire Dales. It's a huge area of rivers, hills, dales and little villages with stone houses and lovely gardens. We visit the village of Middleham, home to 870 people and 500 racehorses at local racing stables, some of which we're lucky enough to see being exercised on the road outside the pub where we stop for coffee. They're not the only would be racers on the road. The Tour de France is coming to the area in July (we're well informed because Elaine has volunteered to help at it) and local cyclists are enjoying a Saturday out covering the same roads. Middleham' other claim to fame is Middleham Castle, built in the 12th century and one time home to King Richard III, who lived there as a child and later used it as his northern base. There are still pretty extensive bits of it standing on a hill overlooking the village.

The hills and moors are too misty for photography, which is a shame because the views would be spectacular. The moors are more subtle, but home to a great many nesting birds among the heather, not yet in bloom. We see curlews and lapwings, and hear clucking from many unseen birds. The area is protected and peaceful, the roads too slow for speeding traffic - sometimes single lane.

Lunch at a pub. The landlord warns that we're late, but the food is still on, and the bitter is good. Some of us choose Whitby scampi and some steak and ale pie. Both good, with very generous portions and plenty of accompanying vegetables. Afterwards a stop at an old mill on a stream with very pretty little waterfalls. The beauty here is enormously varied.

And then a stop at a Wensleydale cheese farm. Quite a large operation, and we get to sample enough of the varieties that Doug jokingly says that we could have done this for lunch. Plain Wensleydale and cheddar cheeses of various ages, as well as some delicious varieties, such as cranberry and (my favourite) balsamic and caramelised onions. And at dinner more delicious cheeses as well as salads and cold cuts and chutney (plum, made by E). They should be seriously worried that we may never leave.

Elaine and Phil are just back from a major cruise, starting in San Francisco and ending with an extensive tour of New Zealand. Lots of photos which we watch on the computer screen, inspiring the rest of is to thoughts of visiting New Zealand. Some year.

Friday, March 28/2014

Off to Thames Ditton by tube and train, as we're heading up to Yorkshire with Jenny and Doug. It's about two hundred miles but a slower drive than you'd think - probably about six hours as we change routes to escape traffic jams that stagnate the motorway in places. As we reach the Harrogate area we're treated to banks of daffodils reaching their prime as well as field after stonewalled field of sheep with newborn lambs, some tiny and barely standing and others romping about and giving their typical little sudden jumps, with all four feet off the ground as they hop straight up in the air.

Arrive in Hampsthwaite and begin immediately to be spoiled. Gin and tonic waiting, followed by blueberry and lemon curd cake, a happy combination. Which lets us chat with Elaine and Phil until dinner - chili with rice and guacamole and taco chips. Lovely being here again and nice arriving this time feeling that we know E and P. So wine and chat and laughter.

Thursday, March 27/2014

Check out at eleven, so we're pretty well packed by morning, and a better job than usual of having the end of the food coincide with the end of the stay. Final two eggs with toast for breakfast. Bus to the airport and then a longish wait as the flight isn't until 16:50,  A man with a car at the bus stop offers us a ride to the airport for €10 (roughly $15 CAD, £8), but there's not much point as the bus takes over an hour and we might as well kill the time. Chat with a retired couple who used to live in Sackville, New Brunswick, but now live near Newcastle.

We've done our occasional trick of booking the aisle and window seats in a bank of three. If we're lucky no one opts for the middle. If they do sit there sometimes I offer to trade for my window seat, as this time. So full it's astonishing that everyone gets a seat. Mild panic as we go to put the carry-ons in the overhead and I realise that I've left my jacket in the departure lounge. It's a small airport - say about the size of Regina's - and we weren't bused - just walked across the tarmac. The departure lounge is ground level with the door in plain sight from the plane. They won't let me go back, but are quite lovely about it. A man in high visibility jacket radios back and, just as they're starting the pre-flight patter another man comes down the aisle with it. Jokingly, I offer to kiss him and he is gallant: later, madame, when your husband is not around.

Flight is a little over three hours, which moves it from the sandwich to the hot meal category. Though not to the wine category. Odd encounter at Heathrow immigration. We get a young and friendly female officer, who asks a few of the normal range of questions - then wants to know how much sterling we have. I have no idea, as we have cards. But an estimate? My guess is £200 (haven't yet made the compartment switch with the euros as the oyster - transit - cards will get us in to central London). Will that be enough? No, of course not: we have cards. Was the hotel prepaid? No, they know us. She lets it go, but the odd thing is that neither we, nor I would assume our friends, normally land in a country with as much as £200 in local currency, nor have done since the advent of cash points. Additionally, we do have a UK bank account, but mentioning that could  raise questions of whether we ever intend to leave, not that the UK account would run to financing permanent residence. Have we, flatteringly, been mistaken for young backpackers? Has she, perhaps seen the weather reports for northern Ontario and concluded that no sane person would go back for several months?

Wednesday, March 26/2014

Our last day. Fair dramatic interest from the construction project opposite us. Although construction is not quite the right term as it's actually a demolition project, manned by the hardest working labourers J has had the pleasure of watching. They're taking down a multistorey building one floor at a time. Now, as the shrouding falls, they're busy using a jackhammer to break up the floor beneath their very feet. And thankfully they're sure footed. No EU fussiness here. No harnesses or guard rails, or protection from the attendant noise either. They're working only two or three feet away from a five storey drop, sitting on the edge with legs dangling when they take their break. I see one take a step backward, secure that he knows exactly how far it is to the edge. Plenty of dramatic tension here, but today, at least, a happy ending.

Tuesday, March 25/2014

New (to us) custom apparently part of a world wide trend. Instead of carving their names  on trees, bridges, etc, couples write their names on a padlock, affix it to some romantic or iconic spot and throw away the key. In Malta the key goes in the Mediterranean. Here we've spotted the locks in Tigné Point in Sliema as well as in St Julian's near our favourite café. 

Monday, March 24/2014

Would living permanently on an island feel confining? The word insular wasn't derived accidentally. Malta is attractive, but it doesn't have much area that isn't built on and over-built on. Gozo somewhat less so. The new high rises make this more apparent, especially in the southeast. It looks at times as if one could go for miles without seeing any naked land, let alone green space as each building attaches to those around it.

Sunday, March 23/2014

Pretty lazy day. Actually begins like every other day in retirement, somewhat luxuriously with coffee and the news. Sky TV is appallingly bad, although I gather that it's not the only news channel endlessly focused on the missing 777.  Interesting that even when there was virtually no news to report the same material was replayed ad nauseum and not because there is nothing else in the world to report - Crimea is getting short shrift and there's virtually no mention of the politically motivated death sentence of over five hundred Egyptians. Little sense of what things will matter ten years from now (Syria will and Oscar Pretorius won't). But with tablets, even with dubious and uneven wifi reception, we, like the rest of the world, have access to news and analysis from the best international sources daily. Amazing.

Saturday, March 22/2014

The traditional architecture in Malta is compelling, particularly the balconies. Some are in poor repair, and the sea air is not kind to sandstone structures. There's little room for green space but many buildings have been well maintained or restored attractively.

Friday and Saturday nights pretty loud here (here being Paceville in general and our building in particular). Night clubs across from and underneath us and young people exuberant enough to be high decibel even without the music. Mostly the rhythm can be heard, or more accurately felt, rarely accompanied by anything resembling melody. We're pretty sound sleepers, though, and can't say the reviews didn't warn us. Revs up about ten at night on the weekends and ends at about 4 AM. 

Friday, March 21/2014

Y

Second try at Mosta. This time we intend to go and have a better look at the rotunda as well as seeing the church's famous painting. However, when we arrive the church isn't open. Later look it up and see that it's only open 9-11 and 3-5. Surprising we hit it last time. Though we have been here before, in 2003. It's an interesting church in a couple of ways. For one thing, the rotunda is supposed to be the fourth largest in the world (depending on who you ask), the third largest unsupported dome in Europe, after St Peter's in Rome and St Paul's in London. Built in the 19th century around the existing parish church, which remained in use during the construction. The walls are nine metres thick and the internal diameter about thirty-seven metres. It was modelled on the Pantheon. In WW II a German bomb fell on it during an afternoon raid (April 9/1942) but did not explode and left the congregation of 300 uninjured. A replica remains in the church, the original having been disposed of at the time. A tough war the Maltese had. They were nearly starved to death, going eleven months with no delivery of food supplies, as all convoys were bombarded. And this on a small island country that is almost entirely rock, and that heavily built upon. When the first Allied ship finally made it through in August 1942, it was on the Feast of the Assumption, still celebrated as a national holiday. Six days after the bomb landed on Mosta church King George VI awarded the George Cross for heroism to the entire population of Malta.

Thursday, March 20/2014

Bus to St Paul's Bay, reputed site of St Paul's shipwreck as recorded in the book of Acts. I'm a little more tolerant of oral history than I once was. After all, historic events have to have occurred somewhere, so why not where local tradition says? On the other hand, personal experience is enough to suggest how rapidly truth becomes corrupted. As a child I met a man whose father had been killed (so I remember it) by suffragettes who mistook him for Lloyd George. However, decades later, when I realised that this must be a googlable event, it became clear that he must only have been injured, albeit by murderously inclined women. Obviously the man would not have described this as being killed; the shifting sands of memory must be the culprit.

There is a church built atop the prison in which Paul stayed, but we visited it last time we were in Malta and don't go again. We do stroll round the town of Bugibba, (g as in magic). It had been one of our hotel options this visit so we're curious. And not sorry we didn't opt for it. The coast is pretty enough and there's a friendly square with benches at visiting distance. Places to have coffee or a meal or a drink overlooking the sea. It's just that it's populated overwhelmingly by retired people speaking English. A high proportion of them making us look slim! May be my imagination but north of England seemed to predominate (overinfluenced by man with Manchester United t-shirt?). Don't know if our area is actually more genuinely Maltese - it seems very international and very young - but varied and alive. And it doesn't feel at all unsafe. Noisy, but we're pretty sound sleepers. And, interestingly, restaurant and café prices seem lower in Valetta.

Wednesday, March 19/2014

Feast of St Joseph. Celebrated not as J's name day but because it's a national holiday in Malta. As with Sundays, stores and supermarkets are closed. The construction workers opposite our building are silent.

Maltese is an interesting language, and we're not very good at it. It has early Semitic origins and is related to Phoenician. There are similarities to Arabic, which isn.'t surprising - we're not far off the coast of Tunisia. We pass a church called Marija omm Allah, easily recognisable as Mary, Mother of God. (Traditionally women are known as mother -"um" - followed by the name of the eldest son). Some words in Maltese are similar to Italian, again unsurprisingly as we're just off Sicily. Pronunciation is a challenge as well. G with a dot over it is soft, like the g in magic. C with a dot pronounced like ch in church. But odder things - gh, at the beginning of a word at least, not pronounced at all. X seems to have a sh sound. Judging by the announcements on the buses (pre-recorded and synchronized with the electronic ticker of information at the front of the interior re coming stops) the stresses are quite different from those in English. Words sound almost unrecognisably abrupt. 

Tuesday, March 18/2014

Malta is one of the most densely populated places on earth, so the cities simply run together, especially in the south. There are no gaps or visible shifts as you go from Paceville to St Julian to Sliema to Ta'Xbiex, and even to Valetta. Most of this southeastern area has a charming coastal walkway incorporating trees, gardens and park benches. We walk along the Strand in Sliema trying to find the hotel where we stayed eleven years ago, but it simply isn't there. Either demolished and replaced or so altered as to be unrecognisable. We get close, and at the corner where we used to by mushrooms we get a small container of ripe Maltese strawberries for a euro. Find our old supermarket up the hill and get some sundried tomatoes. Some of the shops must be the same as in 2003, but surely there were fewer of them then? And the fast food places are definitely new.

Monday, March 17/2014

St Patrick's Day. Ignore next door pub's offer of free Irish hat with purchase of undrinkable quantity of Guinness and head down to St Julian's for coffee. Tables overlooking the bay prove irresistable, so rashly decide that it will be worth it regardless of price, coffee not appearing on posted menu. Drink Americanos and bask in the sunlight until it is simply too hot to stay longer. Total cost €2.80 (£2.34, $4.32 CAD). Absolutely amazing.

Sunday, March 16/2014

Bus along the waterfront to Valetta. We remember a Sunday market here, but maybe that was morning. It's warm in the sun, though still a bit. Hill in the shade when the wind comes up. St George's Square has a St Patrick's concert in progress. And the singer accompanying himself on his guitar is pretty good. Fair crowd gathered, many wearing green.

Outdoor cafés are busy but not crowded. Prices seem to be no higher (or perhaps lower) than in the fast food places elsewhere in Malta; one place advertises pasta with rabbit plus a drink for €4.95 (rabbit being the national dish, appropriately for such a tiny country). 

Have been reading bits of An Account and Appreciation of Malta by Sir Harry Luke, picked up at book sale at St Helena's in Larnaca. Luke was the pre-war lieutenant-governor of Malta and the book has a lot of nuggets of historical information. Plan of reading a chapter a night and then proceeding, knowledgeably, to visit relevant sites seems to be faltering, though, due either to soporific qualities of very worthy book (so that chapters are rarely finished) or general indolence. Can't even pretend that it will be a good summary and reminder when we get home, as we don't plan to take it with us, considering the luggage weight problem.

Saturday, March 15/2014

Take the bus to the nearer Lidl in San Gwann. Theory, at least. Actually end up in Mosta, which we recognise from years back as the place with the enormous church dome modelled on the pantheon. Decide to save it for better appreciation on another day. On return bus actually spot Lidl at an impossible angle to see while travelling in the opposite direction. So milk, oranges, apples, aubergine, lettuce, cheese, honey, peanuts, mushrooms, coffee, pesto, oatcakes, courgettes, muesli, wine. The basics. 

The bus network pretty well covers the island and in a country that is 17 miles by 9 there's nothing that's more than a day trip. Actually Sicily is a day trip, but a pretty long day - up at five and home about midnight, so we're wavering. Spent six weeks in Malta eleven years ago, so no compelling need to revisit everything. Significant changes this time. Many new highrises of no particular aesthetic merit and many of the older buildings in dire need of repair. Charm still there but at risk.

Friday, March 14/2014

Early this morning the relatively useless Sky News channel, hitherto obsessed with highly repetitive info on the Malaysian Boeing 777 disappearance and the Oscar Pretorius murder trial (flavours of the day as Ukraine largely and Syria more or less completely disappear from their radar), brings us the news that Tony Benn has died. Not totally unexpected but sad. So glad now that we saw him in November, being interviewed by Owen Jones at Bishopsgate. We knew then that we were lucky and that it might well be our last chance. A beacon of the left, yes, but beyond that a man of overwhelming personal integrity. No quiet retirement, though he would have been 89 next month. Certainly no ossifying of ideas or principles. As Harold Wilson quipped, he immatured with age.

Thursday, March 13/2014

(www.piwigo.com - a vintage Maltese bus)

To Valletta, the capital. Somewhat accidentally as the bus we are on changes route number along the way and heads there. Which is fine as we have week passes. Many changes here too. There are still buses just outside the city walls, though not the old ones, of course. They were smaller and they weren't airconditioned, but they had personality, individually owned and operated and customised by the owners.

The buses aren't all that's changed. The tunnel type entrance through the city walls has been opened up to the skies and a new parliament building is being constructed just inside the city gate. We're not here for long - well, long enough for a coffee - today, but we'll be back.

Wednesday, March 12/2014

Back to the airport by "express" bus. Three reasons: we get to time the trip for our return flight, there's a tourist information office there, and we noted on the way here that the bus stopped at a Lidl store so we can get a few groceries. Timing proves to be a little over an hour. The tourist office is reasonably helpful and we have a longish chat with Caroline, who once visited Vancouver Island. And the stop at Lidl gives us as many basics as we can carry. Prices somewhat higher than Cyprus, but lower than the tiny supermarket round the corner from us. Though that shop does have surprisingly sophisticated offerings, probably because of the international nature of the clientele.

We're opposite a building that's being demolished. Less noisy than we first expected. I'd ticked the "sea view" box on the registration form but more or less as a joke as I knew the building wasn't on the sea. The shrouded demolition isn't very aesthetic but we're a block away from the sea and much of the coast has beautifully maintained walkways.

Tuesday, March 11/2014

Monday night or Tuesday morning? Well, technically Tuesday morning. About five o'clock we hear the man across the hall calling his partner to let him in. He seemed a nice enough bloke when we met him yesterday as we tried to get the key fob to turn on the electrics in the flat. (The fob had seen better days but J's substitute of a spoon handle worked well). He's not really losing it now, alternating between pleading and shouting Natalia, Natalia. Knocking, then pounding. Silence and more pounding. She's not in, or she's OD'd or she's punishing him. Almost I'm tempted to offer him a kip in our spare room. Then, as J has predicted, he breaks the door in. No sound from Natalia, who is presumably not there, and, admirably enough, some sound of repairs being made. So back to sleep.

The theory is that we share wifi with Berlitz language school in the same building and reception, on the fourth floor, gives us the code. Available in the tiny lobby by the always open front door. Reviews have said that it's available - and also that the availability is a lie. Not quite either. Berlitz seems to have pretty limited hours, but there are also some unsecured wifi sources around, of varying and uneven strength. So not cut off but not entirely satisfactory either. Many hotels in various countries seem slow on the uptake re wifi. It's rapidly becoming like hot water or television - should be standard.

We're in St Julian, or more accurately in Paceville (Pace bit not pronounced as it looks but as in the Latin for peace, paw-chay). It's one of the most densely populated places in the world at about 10,000 people per square kilometre (assuming it's more or less the same as adjoining Sliema). Most of them young, it seems. Vibrant, multi-ethnic and lively. Colleges, restaurants, bars, tiny shops. A happy feeling, studenty - so far - rather than the holidaying football yobs we'd been led to expect.

Monday, March 10/2014

Sleep with the curtains open, though we haven't yet (knock on wood) missed a flight, and this one isn't until 11:30. Can't tell within half an hour when the bus comes, but it's the Vlachos one going the opposite way. Takes the full half hour but arrives, with Elena, who used to be receptionist at the Eleonora aboard. She's on her way to wire money to her daughter who is starting work today as a teacher in Bucharest (tried working in Cyprus but fell victim to the old problem of being paid very little and having trouble collecting it).

Check in with Emirates. Originally booked on Airbus but switched to 777, much like the Malaysian Air one that has just vanished into thin air. Our current problem is all too solid, though.  J's suitcase is an unprecedented (for us) 24.5 k. I have my mouth open to suggest we repack - not easy as the chief problem is heavy bottles that can't be moved to the carry-ons - when J gives me a look and my mouth closes. And the woman at the desk tags his suitcase without comment. Which is all the more interesting because a robed Franciscan at the next counter is being asked questions about liquids, and even powders, and asked to weigh his carry-on as well as his suitcase.

Plane not full, lunch light but decent. Wine pretty fair too. Entertainment system the most sophisticated we've seen - takes us half the flight to figure it out. Just under three hours until we land in Malta. One week bus passes €6.50, which is hard to argue with. Pretty comprehensive network of buses, though they're now a modern Arriva fleet and not the motley collection of individually decorated 1930's British Leyland buses we remember from pre-EU days. But more efficient, I suggest to the young man who sells us  the tickets. He rolls his eyes. And indeed the express bus takes us over an hour to reach St Julian, which can't be much more than five or six miles - the island is only 17 miles long. 

Identifying our hotel isn't easy. There's a streetside map, but it's primarily an advertising venture, not that helpful for detail. I spot a florist shop and think that florists deliver everywhere, and indeed the florist, using his smart phone, and a customer, looking at the smart phone photo, get us pretty close. Then a passing young man with a painter's bucket suggests that the keys for Dragonara Court are usually given out at a hotel round the corner - as proves to be the case. We can see that it's probably not a place that gets many floral deliveries.

Our key is for 414 but the fourth floor proves to be entirely offices (as well as an area labelled reception with no desk or anyone looking receptiony. Eventually we ask. Oh, 414 will be on the third floor. Why not? And it is. It's a big flat. Main room 33x13 feet with kitchen at the entry end and beds and dressing table at the balcony end. Surprisingly, or "studio" has a small second bedroom, complete with two single beds, a desk, and a wardrobe. Two heaters, a two burner cum oven cooker, small fridge, and a reasonable assortment of dishes, though one pot and a frying pan have had violence done to their teflon and there is only one bowl, though lots of plates and glasses as well as two big mugs. We have a new home.

Sunday, March 9/2014

Packing day. You wouldn't think it would take all day, but there's a Chinese puzzle aspect to fitting things into small suitcases that is as difficult as moving house. Then there are the things that are almost left behind inadvertently because they look like part of the flat itself, like the thermometer tied to the balcony rail or the suction hooks on the wall or the small wash tub in the bathroom. Plugs that come and plugs that stay. Spices that go in the boxes but a starter amount of cheese and olive oil (rebottled in a small plastic wine bottle saved from Air Canada). The almonds come but the luggage is getting heavy so the raisins stay. A hundred little decisions.

Jane and Bill drop by with a print from the photo Jane had a waiter take at Vlachos on Friday. Came out well - everyone's eyes open and mouths all shut. Lovely memory. They stop for a cuppa and it suddenly pours outside, but we're done washing and drying clothes anyway. But pull the drying rack inside to keep it dry - it's ours and stays with the boxes. Then it's back to serious packing. Tapes, CDs and dying radio boxed, so we're down to Euronews for entertainment. Not much focused on entertainment anyway.

Then Maggi in late afternoon to say her goodbyes and take custody of the mini carnation plant, which has finally decided to bloom.

Boxes safely stored on the mezzanine - rather inconveniently as the lift stops at ground and first but not mezzanine and some of the boxes are heavy, e.g. The one with three bottles of wine. Some Norwegian neighbours' boxes there already. Bed at midnight. Packing all done so we can leave in the morning.

Saturday, March 8/2014

Know better than to complain about heat in the sun, as it's frigid in northern Ontario and won't be as warm as this in Malta, let alone London. But when we meet for coffee give serious, if brief, thought to choosing ice cream (excellent here) or beer instead of Greek coffee. In fact M does have beer, which comes with a large dish of nuts, and despite our having ordered only two coffees, there's a plate with three chocolate biscuits. Not much saving of calories by forgoing the ice cream.

Quite a lot of plastic bags plus a very fat book of Lillian Beckwith's Hebridean memories to the animal shelter charity shop. When they have to buy the bags there's less money for dog food and we're pleased to have something to do with the excess other than pollute the environment.

Then home to begin packing up after three months. Five boxes get to stay. Everything else comes with us or is given away or ditched. A bonus, of sorts, is that we're now using a hotel microwave as ours gave up the ghost this winter. Which means that we can keep using it until the last minute rather than packing it away. Down to say goodbye to Kiki in reception as she won't be on again until after we've gone. Hugs and a gift. She's brought us some halloumi and five huge lemons from her tree. Beautiful lemons and so kind - but impossibly heavy to add to the suitcase.

Friday, March 7/2014

Last visit to Vlachos for the season, with Jane and Bill, Ailsa and Harry. Will miss them and also Vlachos, a restaurant in the old expansive pre-tourist Cypriot style, where the starters could be a meal in themselves and two hours is considered a minimum for a decent dinner.

Thursday, March 6/2014

The man at the next outdoor table at coffee tells us that the sixtyish woman exercising on the beach at the same time as J's morning walk/jog represented Russia at the Olympics as a sprinter some years back and took silver.

Wednesday, March 5/2014

Bus travel in Cyprus is an exercise in patience. There is a fairly good looking website, modelled on impressive ones like Travel for London, with theoretical timetables, routes, journey planners, etc. looks good until you try using it, when you discover that the timetables give only starting times on two hour routes, leaving no way of assessing arrival time at any particular stop. Journey planners also are most impressive before use. Streets turn out to be unrecognised and times refuse to enter correctly. Estimated journey times involve routes even we know better than to take. We also know better than to ask at the tourist information office, source of laboriously slow misinformation. The maps are quite good, showing every bus stop - all run together until you zoom out. The best plan used to be to walk over to the dispatch centre and take the advice of whoever spoke English but a few weeks ago we saw that the office and accompanying yard had moved, and our Greek isn't good enough to figure out where from the sign on the gate of the old premises.

Stop to talk with the Ukrainian girl (well, showing my age - she's in her forties) who makes and sells jewellery near St Lazarus Church She's a Cypriot resident, married to a Cypriot, but has family, including her parents, in Ukraine. Not impressed with the Maidan demonstrators and depressed by the feeling that each new regime repnlaces one set of corrupt thugs with another. The family is Russian speaking, lives in central Ukraine, and just wants to be left to live and garden in peace.

Tuesday, March 4/2014

With X to hospital surgery/clinic (bilingual variants). Much like a Russian store of Soviet times. Initial queue about twenty patients long to register at one of two wickets. Residents all have orange folders with medical info inside as well as blue prescription books with counterfoils - one copy for the pharmacy and one for the records. Many patients go privately - these are the ones who don't, mostly I suspect for financial reasons rather than on principle. Though it 's not free - there is an up front fee of €3 ( approx £2.40, $4.50 CAD). Patients are assigned to wait outside the door of one of the two or three GPs in attendance ( five doors but not all concealing doctors this morning. An (inexplicably) shorter queue appears to be for approval of prescriptions, in advance of the actual prescribing. Each costs €0.50 regardless of what is being prescribed when the prescription is taken to the dispensary.

Then a more disorganised queuing outside the door of the assigned doctors. No handy butcher's take-a-number but there are little numbers on the assigned paper work, so a little comparing with the others does it. Assuming one speaks a little Greek. Today unusually busy as it follows a long weekend but wait only fifteen or twenty minutes.

Final step involves taking 50 cent receipts plus prescriptions to dispensary to exchange for medication - further queuing similar to that at parts counter at busy automotive supply.

 Whole organisation highly reminiscent of Soviet era shopping, when any purchase seemed to involve at least six interchanges, employees, bits of paper, etc between inquiring after the item and leaving with same plus receipt.

Monday, March 3/2014

Green (or, depending on who's telling it, clean) Monday. The Monday before Lent begins.  Always a holiday here, celebrated with picnics in the country, featuring seafood, fish and greens. Traditionally a day for kite flying as well. And mini carnivals in places. Children usually wear their costumes down on the promenade. Still pretty high dust content in the air, though.

Sunday, March 2/2014

Should normally be an outdoor day, despite wanting to hear the continuing updates on Ukraine, unhappy though they are. However there's an enormous amount of dust in the air, blown in from Africa. Dust storm sounds more dramatic than what's happening - shades of Lawrence of Arabia and camel treks with zero visibility, but it is windy and the particulate levels in the air are obviously undesirable. Shame, because this is "carnival" weekend. That too will be a bit of overstatement, in Larnaca at least. It's the weekend before Lent begins and the children would normally be down at the promenade in their costumes. Temperatures are warm, but it's not very nice in the dirty wind.

Saturday, March 1/2014

Coffee with X and Friend and the final (?) instalment of the story. Friend indeed arrived yesterday, accompanied by two suitcases and prepared for the week's visit X had suggested. Meanwhile X had remembered the lunch appointment but had had no idea she'd issued any invitation at all. Some laughter. Seems all right now but has agreed to see doctor.

In the evening begin research. Soon learn to avoid using terms like memory blackout, thus avoiding stern suggestions re drinking less. But amnesia does it. Descriptions of temporary global amnesia just about spot on, and much less horrific than other possibilities. Apparently variously triggered, less than 24 hours, and not usually repeated. Narrative accounts match amazingly closely. So, fingers crossed.  

Friday, February 28/2014

Check with X in morning. All well. Yes remembers about meeting Friend at 12 for lunch, although not, worryingly, about having been with us yesterday.

Lift with David and Susan, expats recently back from visiting family in Australia to Pyla for lunch at Jane and Bill's. Lovely, with the six of us outside round the table on the south side of the house, with ripe tomatoes on the vine, flowers growing, and the little park on the other side of the wall. Beautiful meal with homemade tomato soup, amazing fish and seafood pies baked in individual clay pots, and apple and almond tart. Then inside for coffee in the sitting room with Jane's paintings on the wall.

Thursday, February 27/2014

X phones as we get back about 12:30 to say she's been feeling ill and would like to come over. Is she all right to drive? Oh yes. She arrives, and thus begins the strangest afternoon of our lives, and no doubt hers. She has no memory of having visited us the previous evening and flatly denies having gone to the cinema at Dekhelia, last night or at any time. Much worse, she's unsure whether her husband, who died over a year and a half ago, is still alive, and is under the impression that she is still living elsewhere and only visiting Cyprus. We talk her through the last couple of years only to have the process repeat more than once. No signs of stroke - no skewing, strength good in both hands, etc. Get her to phone her friend, who spends the winter up the coast in Paralimni and visits occasionally. Yes, Friend will come tomorrow and stay for a couple of days.  Reluctant to let her leave, but now seems OK, and have trouble imagining what local emergency services would make of it all. Prudently text Friend to say there are memory problems. X calls to say home safely and Friend due tomorrow at 12. Agree on a good restaurant for her to lunch with Friend and Friend's friend, who is supplying the lift from Paralimni.

Wednesday, February 26/2014

Jenny has emailed to say they can fit in the trip to Yorkshire after all, so both simpler and more fun - and am now proud possessor of detailed plan of Leeds railway station for future reference. Nobody provides more accurate and complete information than the British (perhaps unfair, as I don't read German - or actually a great many other languages). But never any unresolved ambiguities. Will enjoy the ride up with J&D.

X over in the evening on her way back from seeing Twelve Years a Slave with some marinated strawberries, that turn out to be not as sweet as hoped. Small glass of brandy for X, J and I having a wee dram in memory of John K, James having messaged to say that he died on Sunday.