Monday, February 27/2017

Kite flying, Agia Anna

Green Monday. Jane's plan is to go on our second annual outing to Harry's cabin, to help him out and have a picnic. So take hamburgers, beer and a large salad and drive to Agia Anna, a village a few miles outside the city. Jane and I paint boards, Joe sprays weed killer and the guys make part of a complicated addition to the back of the cabin, which is supposed to become a pergola with both shade and a means of locking up the outside things safely.

 This last of some importance, as Harry has had problems with theft, both premeditated (an expensive stove) and casual (locally based soldiers "borrowing" chairs and leaving them down the road). Also unbelievable claims of having believed the cabin to be abandoned! Lovely day. Can see the improvements in the cabin since last year. Neighbours also in holiday mode, with kids flying a kite and families eating outside. Bells sound in the late afternoon as the goatherd bringing his charges down from the hills behind the cabin.

Sunday, February 26/2017

Cambanella's for lunch and then a walk along the beach. One or two people with kites, which are traditional for Green Monday. We've recently seen some fairly cool stone art online and the beach has an abundance of suitable stones so we try out a little kid version. Has possibilities, but can see that, as with most of life, making anything good would take time as well as talent. Could be fun, though. But clearly not a project for those travelling light.

Saturday, February 25/2017

This time it really is the Saturday before Green Monday, and the supermarkets and greengrocers are busy. Traditional food for the day includes vegetables and seafood, and according to one survey Cypriot prices are up. General rise or taking advantage of the season? Though the comparison is with the same time last year:

"The price of cucumbers has doubled year-on-year, according to a price survey carried out by the consumer protection service ahead of Green Monday.  Compared with prices at this time of year in 2016, cucumbers recorded the highest increase at 101.16 per cent – from €1.60 per kilo to €3.22...The price of tomatoes was also high in large supermarkets, recording an 85.7 per cent rise to €1.80 per kilo compared with €0.58 last year...and [bunches of] leafy vegetables between €0.21 and €0.50...Shrimp, squid, and cuttlefish were more expensive in larger supermarkets compared with last year. Halvah was cheaper with prices in small and larger supermarkets ranging between €1.45 per 400 grammes and €5.69 per 400 grammes." 

Does lead me to think that  some people are shopping in the wrong places, because we generally do quite a bit better than they suggest, though no doubt, as in Canada, the villages have higher prices than the cities.  We do stock up on fruit and veg, though not seafood. Not true traditionalists. If we were Green Monday would be salads and seafood and Lent would mean no meat and no dairy.

Friday, February 24/2017

Another dispute with Cyprus taxi drivers, loved by no one. They've met with the transport minister. "At the meeting, the two sides discussed long-standing problems faced by urban taxi drivers; taxi licences, piracy, and not enough taxi ranks. Taxi drivers have been striking or threatening to strike over the last few years over these issues." [Cyprus Mail] A bit difficult to sort out. Too many taxi licences but not enough taxi ranks? Taxi rates here are extremely high, given local cost of living, petrol prices, etc. They work very hard at maintaining a monopoly - preventimg shared taxi services, threatening violence to unofficial taxi drivers, etc. Doesn't seem to register that if taxi drivers were more pleasant and taxis were cheaper, more people would take them, and more frequently.

Thursday, February 23/2017

"Our" team lost last night's football game. No, we don't actually follow local soccer. Wouldn't know any of the players, etc. The winning team was originally from Famagusta, but relocated after 1974. Which brings us to reunification talks, which appear to have broken down again, in part down to the new legislation re commemorating Enosis in the schools. Well, that was highly predictable.

Wednesday, February 22/2017

Last Wednesday of the month is always book sale in the courtyard at St Helena's Anglican. Hundreds of books, almost all in English and most previously owned by people of our age, which often makes good pickings. Not overwhelming today, although that may in part be because we're not very early, having passed the convent on the way, dropped in on their charity shop and got involved in conversation with a nun and two volunteers, all very friendly. We're far from desperate for more books, with three ebooks alternating on our read aloud plan as well as books we're reading separately. But, like true addicts, we can't simply walk away either. So: 1) How to be Good- light novel by Nick Hornby. 2) Home to Roost - light reminiscences by Deborah Devonshire, youngest of the Mitford sisters. Intro by Alan Bennett is recommendation enough. 3) Caedmon's Song - mystery set in Yorkshire, by Peter Robinson, UK cum Canadian detective fiction writer. If he turns out to be good there's plenty more in his publication list. 4) Finding Poland - a search for family history across Poland, Kazakhstan, Iran, India, and England. 5) Jams, Pickles & Chutneys - recipes, obviously. Had thought to copy a couple of the best and then pass the book on to Bill and Jane, who might want to do the same, but so many of them look good that I'm wavering....

Football is huge here, and the pub down the road seems to be a gathering spot for fans, often audible through closed balcony doors. Tonight there's a pre-game rally complete with songs, chants, firecrackers and flares. The road completely blocked off, which seems to offend nobody. This goes on for about an hour before the assembled fans head off for the game. 

I make spaghetti for dinner. Spaghetti and sauce are fine, but I succeed in burning a pristine stainless steel frying pan before I begin and smash a dinner plate into more tiny fragments than I would have thought possible (and of course am not equipped with broom, let alone dustpan). Don't dare pour wine until everything else finished. 

Tuesday, February 21/2017

Jane's birthday and we're invited to Cambanella's in the evening. Harry and Ailsa too. It's our usual spot for Sunday lunch, but classier in the evening, with piano music playing in the background. Not crowded, and the table is oval, so it's easy to converse. Their specialty is steak but J goes for the lamb kleftiko anyway and says it has the same butter melting goodness of Sunday's. I have a chicken dish. My best, though, was the starter, with bruschetta topped with cheese and avocado and a little sweet hot chilli sauce. Delicious. Intend to replicate it, although Sioux Lookout avocados in comparatively short supply, less appealing, and more expensive than those here. Lovely evening and Harry and Ailsa kindly give us a lift home.

Monday, February 20/2017

Seems to be spring, although perhaps unwise to say so aloud. J and I meet at St Helena's charity shop and pick up short sleeved shirts that can always be redonated later. Conversation with Liz who runs the shop about what we all perceive as the unlikelihood of Cyprus reunification, given (among other things) that the government has recently passed legislation requiring schools to commemorate Enosis (with a holiday?) considering the number of Turkish Cypriot deaths associated with the Enosis movement (an attempt to force political union with Greece), this has naturally triggered huge Turkish protest. Liz says that she lived in Cyprus during the sixties, when her husband was in the British forces. This, of course being well before the Turkish invasion (or intervention, depending on which side is providing the narrative). She remembers when the British provided convoy escorts to take people from Nicosia to Kyrenia because Turks were likely to throw stones at the vehicles on the road. On the other hand, she also remembers General Grivas [Greek] entering a village with soldiers and killing women, children, and the old.

Sunday, February 20/2017

To Kofinou with Jane and Bill. It's a village a bit south of Larnaca, known for its several restaurants serving lamb kleftiko, traditionally cooked in clay pots in the beehive shaped outdoor ovens. Our place is busy - in fact a bus load of people arrive just as we do. Bill parks next to an almond tree in full flower (though next to a flowerless one still bearing a few of last year's nuts). Nice windowside table overlooking the garden. We all order rhe kleftiko and it's perfect - like butter melting in the mouth.

Saturday, February 18/2017

Under the impression that this is a long weekend, with Monday being Green (or clean) Monday in the Orthodox calendar. So three grocery stops. First at Saris, probably the most local of the supermarkets and usually the best prices. Not especially bilingual, and sometimes the translations are not so much inaccurate as unfortunate. Thus the food freezer includes meat labelled "rabbit carcass frozen". No doubt. 

First suspicion that this is not Green Monday weekend dawns at Prinos Greengrocer, which is not, as one would have expected, unusually busy. Humus, onions, potatoes, oranges, tomatoes, bananas, carrots, and a very small cauliflower for a grand total of €3.50 ($4.88 CAD, £3). All local and fresh. Google Green Monday (a moveable feast as it signals the beginning of Orthodox Lent) when we get home and find it's next week. Well, we won't go hungry.

Friday, February 17/2017

Stop at Micro, the little offshoot of Alpha Mega Supermarkets. Large display of Valentine cards as we walk in. Don't seem to have been reduced in price. J asks (me) if they know the day has past. Worse, in the refrigerated display case there are Valentine cakes with cream piping. Must be at least three days old. Also unreduced, although that's not their least appealing quality. 

Also stop at Maris Studio, newly opened in December. Owner artist Maria Aristidou is engaging and the shop funky and fun. Images not exactly original - Mona Lisa, Ellen Degeneris, Peter Rabbit, etc - but work in coffee, and occasionally tea, intriguing. Would it last well?

Thursday, February 16/2017

Meet J for coffee, this time taking the alternate route, parallel to Makarios Avenue, the main street. It follows the sea, with the port area fenced off between the sea and the road, and more than fenced - barricaded with rolls of razor wire on top of the wire fencing. It should be nasty and depressing but, oddly, it isn't. For one thing, it's quiet, unlike Makarios, which is noisy and polluted. A block away the street feels almost village like. A few business establishments but many homes - small apartments and houses. Gardens and flowers. The feel is village, despite its running beside a commercial port. This ends with a large dirt-surfaced parking lot adjacent to the marina and then the municipal bus depot, newly paved. And then the promenade. Pleasant walk, and about five minutes shorter than our usual route.

Wednesday, February 15/2017

Meet J for coffee, this time taking the alternate route, parallel to Makarios Avenue, the main street. It follows the sea, with the port area fenced off between the sea and the road, and more than fenced - barricaded with rolls of razor wire on top of the wire fencing. It should be nasty and depressing but, oddly, it isn't. For one thing, it's quiet, unlike Makarios, which is noisy and polluted. A block away the street feels almost village like. A few business establishments but many homes - small apartments and houses. Gardens and flowers. The feel is village, despite its running beside a commercial port. This ends with a large dirt-surfaced parking lot adjacent to the marina and then the municipal bus depot, newly paved. And then the promenade. Pleasant walk, and about five minutes shorter than our usual route.

Tuesday, February 14/2017

Wake up about half past seven. Listen to the radio while picking up the morning news, editorials, etc online. No hurry - J always gets up first and makes coffee. Engrossed surfing but eventually realise it's ten o'clock. Can't actually remember J having slept this late before. Occurs to me that I haven't really looked to see if he's breathing (in the other bed). He is. Can imagine having to explain that I have no idea when my husband stopped breathing as I was busy surfing the net. Yes, could have been any time after midnight. Obviously not the worst aspect of the situation, but possibly the least explicable. J wakes up about 10:15. No drama.

Maggi stops in the afternoon. First time in ages so lots of filling in. You did expect me to do most of the talking, she says cheerfully. Cypriot brandy time.

Monday, February 13/2017

Meet J at the beach for coffee. Huge oil rig (or liquid natural gas?) anchored in the bay. Harry says they have large crews and this one doesn't seem to be doing much at the moment - which still requires a basic crew. Harry, in his pre-retirement incarnation, captained commercial ships, a job which always seems to involve massive consequence of error - my view from having been a job analyst in previous incarnation).

Sunday, February 12/2017

Have just finished a not insubstantial breakfast when Jane phones and invites us to lunch. And do we have any cooking apples. No, but we do have one pink lady left and we can bring it. We do, and take advantage of the sun to have sherry and starters (pastries with cheese made by the Bulgarian next door neighbour) outside. Then move in for the main event - saganaki. Sounds Japanese, but is actually Greek - shrimp in a spicy tomato sauce, usually with feta. Very nice. And baked apples for dessert, with some of the last of the mincemeat. The microwave does these much better than one might have thought. Then watch Scotland vs France in Six Nations rugby. What a brutal sport!

Saturday, February 11/2017

The hotel is being renovated, almost entirely except for our room, which may well be added to the upgrade once we're no longer in it. So we have virtually the last of the solid old wooden furniture. Admittedly desperately in need of recovering but comfortable and indestructible. Unfortunately, the replacements won't last forever - and maybe they don't have to - but the ones we've seen aren't comfortable either. Armless fake leather sofas and chairs whose charms are distinctly superficial. The carpet will be scrapped, and should have been years ago, but the tile floor replacement will be cleaner but colder in winter. Probably the floor is a good thing, but we're wary. When they proudly replaced our horn shaped bed lamps with disk shaped ones aimed at the ceiling we lost the ability to read in bed, except for ebooks. It will look better in the carefully angled website shots but it won't be more liveable. 

Friday, February 10/2017

Radisson is building a huge hotel just past the roundabout on the way to Lidl's, and has been for as long as I can remember. Well, maybe not, but it didn't just start this year. Most days, it seems, there's no one working on it. But it hasn't been abandoned. There's a large crane permanently on top and occasionally it's seen moving. Also occasionally a half dozen or so workmen visible. Other days no action. Seems like a terribly inefficient way of going about it even if funds are scarce or unreliable. And the crane must be costing a lot of money sitting idle. Also, for my money they've built in the wrong spot. It's not near the beaches - and there are several good hotels a couple of miles north that are right on the beach. Nor is it in the city centre, and, while it's within a couple of miles of the centre, parking is dreadful in that direction so staying in a downtown hotel and not bothering with a car would be handier. Reasonably well located for Lidl and Carrefour, but supermarkets can't be much of a drawing card for tourists.

Thursday, February 9/2017

Haze and pollution looking somewhat similar, it's hard to tell visually. We do, periodically, get dust blown in from the Sahara. Obviously not much can be done about that, although it's not benign. Inhaling the small particulate matter is damaging and warnings get issued accordingly. It does turn the sky a brownish colour, though, and is easy to spot. This morning is pretty overcast, so I check out the live air quality site. Surprisingly, it shows pollution below average. Yesterday it was above, with appropriate (minor) cautions on outside activity. And, sadly, Larnaca is, on a yearly basis, above average. So, no doubt, for all its charms, is London. So nice that the other half of the year is Sioux Lookout. (https://air.plumelabs.com/en/live/larnaca - plumelabs also does similar reports for other world cities)

To the Blacksmith restaurant near St Lazarus for dinner with J&B. We all choose meze and there is an overabundance of it. One of the better mezes we've had. And far too much of it, no matter how hard we try. Fourteen dishes? Leftovers for Harry and Elsa's animals. Fairly warm breeze at night.

Wednesday, February 8/2017

Have added Melvyn Bragg's The Adventure of English to our reading aloud list. Despite being well aware of some of the crisis points coming - such as the Norman invasion - there's still some suspense, as well as a lot of fascinating detail and examples. And still words that are different in the north and south (UK) for reasons of historical occupation. Bragg himself grew up speaking a Cumbrian dialect at home and a significantly different "received pronunciation" (BBC English) at school.

Tuesday, February 7/2017

Breakfast looking out the window at the Iraklion Hotel. The street below has become a symbol of the city and a quiet morning entertainment. A crooked little street - a stage on which two or three people appear at a time: a woman shaking a small carpet and throwing out the water from her bucket, a girl on a bicycle with left hand on handlebars and right holding her mobile, an old woman in black crossing the road with small grandson to talk to a friend, a young man carrying a cup of coffee, a woman followed by two small and happy dogs, an old man using his umbrella as a cane who stops at an outside table not for coffee but for a five minute rest. Sometimes there are pauses between the little scenes and the sets take over. Small cars, a tile roof deteriorating, shops, balconies, shutters, street signs, a stone building no longer habitable, rubbish bins. A modern city within the Venetian walls and spread outside them. A port city with a history going back to neolithic times. A home.

And then by bus to the airport and back to our Cyprus home.

Monday, February 6/2017

Last day, and a leisurely one. Have kind of fallen for this city. A tough people and used to resisting, from pre-historic times to Nazi occupation during the war. But a relaxed feel to the place. Because it's winter we're seeing Heraklion almost tourist free. Not quite, as the variety of people in the breakfast room shows. One of the few places in Europe - southern Europe at least - where I wouldn't stand out as being foreign. The cafés and squares are full, with people enjoying the sunshine and each other's company. We have a gelato - not quite Florence (my gold standard for ice cream) - but nearly. Lion's Square near us has a central fountain with four lions spewing water. Decorative, but initially created in 1628 to supply the citizens with water from the hills.

Sunday, February 5/2017

                           Pillars - reconstructed

Local bus to Knossos, the enormous (6 acre) Bronze Age archaeological site sometimes considered to be Europe's oldest city. There were neolithic settlements here about 8000 years ago and a Minoan kingdom (approximately 3650 to 1400 BC), followed by a Mycenaean city, established by settlers (invaders?) from the Peloponnese. There is some dispute about what ended the Minoan, the oldest European civilisation, but a widely held theory is that it fell victim to the tsunami that followed a major volcanic eruption on Santorini. Certainly ash and sea deposits have been found this far inland.  

                            Multi-storey section

A wealthy British amateur archaeologist undertook excavation and some level of restoration beginning about 1900, and what is now visible includes excavated foundations as well as reconstructions that don't pretend to be part of the original but are based on assumptions, educated guesses, and projections from what has been found. The method is somewhat controversial but definitely impressive. 

Reconstructed room with lustral basin, original design/colouring

The site includes various stages and periods, and it is possible to look down shafts into the underground storeys of what was once a multi-storey complex of some 1400 rooms, including shafts for lighting and ventilation and a complex water and drainage system. Even flush toilets. At its most populous there were probably 100,000 people or more and a city area of 200 acres. It was also richly decorated. 

                     Bull rider - copy in situ

Most of the art and artefacts discovered are now in the Archaeological Museum in Heraklion, but some copies have been created to put in situ. When we arrive about ten in the morning we are almost the only people there - we and a Saskatchewan couple we met on the nearly empty city bus coming out. Lovely breeze and surrounding fields, treed hills and mountains. We're free to wander (having passed on the €60 asked by the guide -"but you'll get lost"). 

Bull - right side of face reconstructed

Luckily for me, J has been here before, although he says there has been considerable development since his last visit twenty-eight years ago. But he's a good source, pointing out the motif of bull horns repeated throughout and reminding me of the myth of the minotaur, associated with the hundreds of tiny rooms that may be the originals in the story of Theseus slaying the half bull half man and finding his way out of the labyrinth. 

                     Greek wit circa 1500 BC

In the afternoon we take the bus back in to Heraklion and visit the museum,  an amazing trove of ancient pieces of art, many of them from Knossos. We're very lucky that our visit is on a Sunday, as both Knossos and Heraklion museums are free on winter Sundays. 

                            Leda and the Swan

Saturday, February 4/2017

Leisurely breakfast at the hotel and then down the hill to the port. J has memories of coming here with student cruises some thirty years ago. There's a Venetian castle and a view across the harbour to the mountains in the near distance. It's Saturday so the streets are busy. Many cafés around the squares. After dark I'm reminded of the market at Marrakesh. It's not really very similar, but so many local people eating at dozens of places, having coffee, mostly happy. We pick up a couple of chicken  souvlakis in pita from a corner place doing a brisk business and bring them home with a bottle of rioja.

Friday, February 3/2017

Bus to the airport for our 12:40 flight to Crete. Plane not quite full and we're lucky enough to get two seats with nobody in the third, although it's only an hour and a half from Larnaca to Heraklion. Entirely over the Mediterranean of course, so one of the few flights on which the oft displayed life vests might actually be usable rather than leading to instant human ice cubes. Bus in from the airport. We ask the driver to let us off near our street and he does - and after a bit of map misreading on my part, as well as kind help from two separate motorcyclists who stop to offer directions, we're there. Nice room, ok wifi, a bit of exploration of the immediate area. We're within the old walled city, but it's much more modern and commercial than the old cities of Rhodes or Famagusta. Mostly locals on the street. Lots of restaurants and fast food, although all drink from coffee to spirits look overpriced. Not tourist prices either - most people around are locals and the atmosphere pretty relaxed. 

Although two small children, a boy and girl - the girl is no more than six and the boy not noticeably older - are begging. Or they're selling something token - it's not clear. They don't look underfed or neglected and they're cheeky rather than pathetic but we're rather shocked when the girl puts her head on J's leg and says pleeeease. We withdraw and they bounce off, but it's hard not to see this as her first steps on the road to prostitution, or to suppose her parents don't know and encourage what she's doing.

Thursday, February 2/2016

Weather seems to have turned a spring corner. Coffee at Harry's Café. J spots a newly arrived couple from Norway passing and they stop to chat. They're staying at the Sunflower with us, as they have in past years, and are delighted to be out in the sun and, as she shows me, wearing sandals. Now, if only we could remember their names! Ask Kiki? Or tell the couple we've forgotten first names and then ask Kiki for surnames? Pack our carry ons for flight to Crete tomorrow. Never worry too much in Cyprus about whether the dimensions might be a centimetre out - whatever we take, there will be Cypriots taking much more.

Wednesday, February 1/2017

Reading (aloud in the afternoons or evenings Chris Mullin's A Walk-On Part, political diary of his time as a Labour MP between 1994 and 1999. The first of the diaries chronologically but we're reading it last, and indeed it was the last to be published. Alternating it with Mary Beardy's SPQR. Abbreviation is from the Latin phrase Senātus Populus que Rōmānus (The Roman Senate and People) and the book a history of ancient Rome. Could say I don't know what we did before ebooks, but I do - hauled around heavy books.

Tuesday, January 31/2016

Out for dinner with Jane and Bill, Ailsa and Harry. This time meze at the AEK sports club, the initials standing, I think, for a Greek football team. Certainly there's a soccer game playing on the tv. Screen largish, but behind me. Odd comments from those at the other side of our table who can see the largish screen suggesting that those faking injuries could well dive for Cyprus. Good meal, and far more than enough of it - Plenty of leftovers for A and H's dogs and cats. Extremely noisy, as in most Cypriot restaurants, and not particularly down to the football game. Greek speakers simply do, disproportionately, talk loudly. Never had the benefit of Kieran's pre-school teacher explaining about using the indoor voice.

Monday, January 30/2017

Obviously no vote in the Cypriot reunification referendum, which we assume will be a no regardless of the terms of the final agreement. If we did, though, would be in the not unfamiliar position where our view of the ultimate universal good (reunification) would be at odds with our own personal advantage. As long as Cyprus is divided it is unlikely to join the Schengen Union. Schengen countries only allow non Citizens who are non Schengen and non EU to stay for 3 months out of any 6 in the whole Schengen area - which is most of Europe. So far Cyprus has argued, with limited justice, that the intractable North makes securing the border impossible. It has also been to their advantage to make entry easy for Russian tourists, to say nothing of Sri Lankan and Philippino domestic workers. Also increasing numbers of other Asian and Africans visible on the streets in recent years, some possibly students, although foreign students seen to have an easier time registering in the North.