First walk downtown. Note there are a few more store closures, including, sadly, a little second hand shop run by two English Cypriot sisters, where I once bought earrings. Nice to be remembered, though. Not with the drama of Sunflower's young man on reception, exclaiming "oh my god" and rushing out with enormous hugs, though really we scarcely know him, unlike Kiki, the evening receptionist whom we've known for years and whose more decorous hugs of greeting are clearly genuinely affectionate. But we get a nod from the woman who owns our regular café and knows how we like our Greek coffee - sketo, no sugar. As usual there's a little treat, two small slices of sponge cake this time. We could, of course, say no to it but somehow never do. And at "our" bakery - very large dense loaf of our favourite sesame studded rye bread €2.15 ($3.07 CAD, £1.84) - the woman at the till welcomes us back. She has very little English - not much more than our Greek - but once managed to tell me that my husband had already been in and had bought the bread I was trying to purchase.
Metro supermarket has not closed, though. It's renovations are finished and it's spanking new, though the prices, as ever, a little higher than elsewhere. Impressive state of the art lifts, as well, suitable for taking a shopping trolly from ground floor to the hushed recesses of the liquor section above. On the way there we encounter the former deputy mayor outside his house - actually a four storey building with a relative occupying each floor. We first met him at the embarrassing little ceremony where we were being recognised as long time visitors of Larnaca, and he sort of remembers. No longer in politics, but interested in everything political. Pithy comment on the mess the Americans have made of the Middle East. Indeed.
Amid our trove of unpacked treasures we are pleased to find an unread Ian Rankin book. Has to be daytime reading as the lighting in the flat just isn't up to it - obviously nothing to do with our aging eyes - so "real" print in the daytime and tablets in the evening, although only the newest of these filters out the undesirable blue light. Theoretical sunset here close to five thirty but disappears from our window, and I think behind the western hill, closer to half past four.
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