Thursday, January 31/2019

Today’s trip north of the border to Famagusta is the one we intended to take two weeks ago, postponed because Jane had a minor encounter with a post, necessitating car repairs. So first stop is coffee in the old walled city, one of my favourite places in the world.  Interesting discrepancy in the menu prices here. The official rate of exchange is almost exactly 6 Turkish lira to the euro. Menu lists items in both lira and euros, but the price if you pay in euros is more than 50 percent above what the exchange rate would have dictated. Presumably the assumption is that tourists either won’t know or won’t care. The Turkish lira has fluctuated pretty wildly, varying from about 4.5 to 7.5 to the euro over the past year and making life very difficult for people, but this does seem excessive. We pay in lira. The cash machine charges 6% on a withdrawal from a foreign currency source, but with this sort of differential it would soon be made up. 

Then a visit to Fehmy, our dentist. Visits, oddly enough a pleasure. He’s a lovely person - calm, sensitive, talkative, with a wide range of interests, including photography, music, and history. And a good dentist. His dental surgery is actually in the room he was born in. Lunch in the old city and then we visit the Thursday market. Fehmy’s wife Filiz had said that the market was open until evening, and surprisingly there seem to be as many people here in mid-afternoon as there usually are at ten in the morning. Always such a sensual delight. Dark clouds almost above us, but it doesn’t rain before evening.

Wednesday, January 30/2019

Mario the tailor is Greek Cypriot but grew up in London. May in fact have been born there. Told me once that odd as it may sound his visits to Cyprus when he was young were always in the summer, so for years he didn’t realise that Cyprus could be lush green instead of brown - but in the temperate winter not the broiling summer heat. Another feature of Cyprus is that its rural origins often thread themselves through city centres as well as suburbs and outskirts. So a block away from us is a small field where wild mustard grows and an old tractor sits, seldom if ever used. And wild flowers grow like the weeds they are everywhere from the cracks in the pavement to chinks in walls, or around the base of palm trees and orange trees which are often, unaccountably planted in the middle of the sidewalk  - possibly for shade in summer but at great inconvenience to anyone trying to pass with a wheelchair or a pram. 

And returning from Prinos the greengrocer we pass a house where the fenced back garden includes grape vines, orange trees and a traditional outdoor brick and mortar oven, suitable for baking bread or roasting meat in clay pots.

Tuesday, January 29/2019

We’re to meet up with Harry and Ailsa and Jane and Bill at a Chinese restaurant off the Dhekelia Road. Usual futile calculations re probability of bus arrival corresponding to schedule predictions. Made more complicated by the fact that there are two different schedules online - and the more official one has less desirable arrival times. Reconcile ourselves to arriving early - which we do - and going for a walk while waiting for the others. Happily, it’s a nice mild evening. First time we’ve seen H and A since we got back to Cyprus. Turns out they’re celebrating an anniversary and wish to be host the meal. Some amusement as we ask which anniversary and they try to remember whether it’s fifty-one or fifty-two, eventually settling on the former. Meal is good, background music is quiet, and as there happen to be no other customers in the little restaurant it’s easy to hear and conversation is a pleasure. Lack of other customers presumably less desirable for the restaurant, but they’re very gracious. 

Excellent luck in the timing of the bus home, though the driver has to tell us that after nine o’clock the fare goes up from €1.50 to €2.50 - and I remember Hazel telling us of a confrontation she had had with a driver who told her it was after nine and the higher fare, when she pointed out that the bus had been due to leave before nine and she had been there but the driver hadn’t. Can’t remember whether her view prevailed.

Monday, January 28/2019

So report the non-working of the “new” hot plate. And Venera duly replaces it with one that looks unfortunately familiar. J twiddles the controls. Yes, it’s one of our previous rejects. Light will come on, which is probably all that’s ever checked by staff, but no relationship between free spinning knobs and actual temperatures on the burners. Or as J puts it more professionally, defective thermostats. Which has to be conveyed to Venera more or less without words. Is “kaput” international? Anyway, she gets it and reappears with what is now our fourth cooker in two days - have given up keeping track of the grand total. V presses almost her total English vocabulary into service: no good change tomorrow. We all nod and smile. 

The simplest, and obviously standard, method of finding replacements is to liberate them from other flats. And presumably this game can continue for some time before ultimate repair or replacement is required, so long as the hotel isn’t full. The interesting question is what happens to the rejects. Do they go to a housekeeping area and get a sticker labelling them hopeless? It would seem not. Do they wind up in housekeeping unlabelled, innocently waiting reassignment by the uninformed or the uncaring? Or are they simply stuck in the flat that supplied our replacement in the hopes that the next occupant will never want to cook - or at worst will complain to a different employee? 

(Consider including accompanying photograph of hotplate in question but appearance battered enough to be mildly embarrassing, though no doubt effective in discouraging any possible envy of our Mediterranean winters.)

Sunday, January 27/2019

Cyprus Mail finally mentions the dust in the air, saying that it is “expected to subside by evening”. Along with commentary on public health implications and mention of the fact that it has blown in “from other continents”. Sounds rather like one more instance of the need to blame the foreigners! A suitably hazy photograph is included but proves on inspection to be, as one might have suspected, a file photo. In other words the current situation, though unhealthy, is not providing sufficiently dramatic visuals. 

Meet Jane and Bill at Cambanella’s for Sunday lunch. Surprisingly quiet today, while last week it was full, abuzz with families including babies. Hot plate has been replaced by the time we get back, but replacement only has one of two burners working. And so it goes. 

Bit of juggling with the read aloud books as our new Ontario Library download, Reporter, by Seymour Hersh (he who broke the My Lai massacre and Abu Ghraib stories), takes priority. We have it for two weeks, having waited since last August. Multiple use of the devices not only a minor technical miracle, but a rebuttal of sorts to those, mostly of our generation, who talk disparagingly about people (and they usually mean the young) who are always looking at their phones and tablets. Sometimes seem surprised when I say yes, but the kid on the bus with the phone could be doing her homework, reading a library book, filling out a job application, writing her granny a letter, checking her bank balance, reading a newspaper, checking tomorrow’s weather, many etceteras. Self serving justification - but we’re not always doing the same thing. 

Saturday, January 26/2019

Too noisy to read aloud on the balcony, as the occasional motorcycle cowboy enters  the weekend decibel contest, but it’s sunny. Temperature reaches 40 in the sun. That’s above, not minus! Happily, feels like less than that because there’s a breeze as well as occasional clouds. So we each take a book and a tin of lager. Mediterranean visible in the near distance. We make spaghetti carbonara for dinner, with mushrooms and caramelised onions. Just barely make it too, as the two burner stove gives up just before the spaghetti is cooked. Bacon, onions, and mushrooms already done, so we’re lucky because the water stays hot enough to finish the pasta. Fuse panel ok, as is outlet, so must be the hot plate itself, most probably the plug, as Cyprus uses UK plugs, which have built in fuses. Will see to it tomorrow.

Friday, January 25/2019

Apparently more than 60% of restaurants and pubs are closed in Paphos for the winter, a not uncommon phenomenon in Mediterranean tourist areas. Probably higher than that in Rhodes. We benefit in one way, in that monthly prices are significantly lower offseason than they would be in the summer - which is too hot and humid in any case. Larnaca, like Limassol and Nicosia, is not really a tourist city, though it does have beaches and attracts some tourists. Not a high enough percentage to affect local prices much, though, unlike Paphos where British expats and tourists combine to persuade food sellers that customers can and will pay more. (An advantage for the sellers but not really for Cypriot customers who also get to enjoy higher prices). 

The flip side of the Paphos coin is that waterfront pubs and cafés often discount beer significantly in order to lure in scarce offseason patrons, whereas in Larnaca beach area restaurant customers are likely to be well heeled locals or Russians or possibly Scandinavians - all more or less immune to high prices. Out of sight of the sea, in the poky little back streets, there is more genuine atmosphere and warmth, no playing at being the rich and famous, and lower prices. However, gentrification proceeds apace, with much muttering in the press about attracting a better class of tourist, i.e. one who spends a lot more. In Sioux Lookout suppose that might translate as someone who stays at a lodge and hires a boat and guide rather than bringing a tent and a fishing rod. 

Thursday, January 24/2019

We’re walking back from Lidl and speculating on whether the solid grey of the sky means it’s going to rain. It looked like rain yesterday and did shower briefly - one point for the local television forecast that said it would and nil for the internet forecasts that said it wouldn’t. But it occurs to us that we haven’t recently thought to check the pollution indexes (felt that should be indices, but autocorrect let it go). There are two different sites we use that record Larnaca pollution, giving live, weekly, monthly and yearly results. Slightly confusing, as they don’t list precisely the same factors, but they’re in broad agreement. Pollution high today. 

Larnaca generally has quite high pollution in world terms, it can vary considerably over a day let alone a week, and the chief culprit is fine particulate matter. In other words, dust. (Can mean other things such as smoke, pollen, ash, etc but here it’s mostly dust). Fine enough to go into the lungs and even bloodstream, hence the occasional warnings re infants, the elderly, outdoor sports, etc. Today is just grey but there have been times of reddish brown sky, occasionally for several days, as dust has blown in from the Sahara. Not the sort of pollution anything can be done about, of course. Surprising, though to find that Larnaca is usually more polluted than London. Not so in the old days of the Victorian peasouper fogs, in the days before coal fires were banned, when a sulphurous smog killed between 4 and 12 thousand (estimates vary and 4,000 probably conservative) Londoners in four days in December 1952. Chına, of course, has many of the worst cities.

Wednesday January 23/2019

Reported that flamingos have returned to nearby Oroklini salt lake. They’ve been at Larnaca salt lake on the way out to the airport for some time now. Cyprus is on the migratory route between Africa and Europe for a lot of birds, and for the greater flamingo there is a good supply in the salt lakes of the small shrimp responsible for their pink colour (although a black one has been spotted the last couple of years). They come in the thousands and are quite an attraction, so much so that there have been problems with people using drones to try to get close up photos, disturbing the birds. We have gone to see them other years, and did get a glimpse coming home from Kofinou ten days ago. The difficulty is that they don’t necessarily stay anywhere near shore, so it’s more than possible to take the bus out and find that they’re half a mile away on the other side of the lake. Not always posing for the camera, either. Fishing for shrimp means spending a lot of time with heads under water. (Photo from Cyprus Mail)

Tuesday, January 22/2019

Clementines, my favourite, nearly finished, so glad we began eating them in Portugal. Plenty of mandarins, and clementines still to be found, though at slightly higher prices. Less fond of mandarins, both of the taste and of the fact that they have more seeds. Lovely place for citrus fruit in the winter. Various kinds of oranges 🍊, lemon 🍋 trees everywhere, and plenty of grapefruit and pomelos. Citrus fruit development a complicated history. Had assumed that pomelos were an offshoot of grapefruit, but quite the opposite. The (slightly simplified) version is that all citrus varieties are descended from pomelos, citrons and mandarins. The more familiar oranges, lemons, limes and grapefruit come later. 

Monday, January 21/2019

Cypriot man arrested on the motorway for driving 200 km per hour. The same paper records a man having his prison sentence raised from ten to fifteen years on appeal by the prosecution after he shot his nineteen year old son at point blank range in the abdomen following a dispute about use of the family car. It’s a pretty safe country in that unprovoked attacks on strangers or tourists are extremely rare. I wouldn’t worry much about walking home after dark. Violence within families or business partners seem to hit the papers frequently, but perhaps no more than elsewhere. Traffic injuries might be a greater risk. Driving standards are poor. The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office country advisory points this out, citing as evidence a road death rate of 5.4 per 100,000 population, primly comparing it with the UK’s 2.8 per hundred thousand (2016 stats). 

Difficult to be as smug as one might like, though, as it appears Canada’s is 6 per 100,000. Unable to resist checking US out of totally unworthy motives. It’s 10.9. Egypt turns out to be 12.8. Some fairly ugly memories of the road from Cairo to Alexandria. Road itself newish and high quality - drivers less so. Saw more fatal accidents in an hour than in the whole rest of my life. Surprised it isn’t massively higher than US. Maybe a question of how much time citizens of various countries spend in cars? Dubious prize goes to Malawi at 35 deaths per 100,000, but many shockingly close contenders.

Sunday, January 20/2019

Bus to Cambanella’s for Sunday lunch, meeting Bill and Jane who are also reliant on the bus while their car is being repaired. Sunday buses to Pyla few and far between, so we order coffee after the meal mainly in order to use up the time between finishing dessert and the arrival of the next Pyla bus. Proprietor does not seem happy and makes a face. Nescafé, he suggests. Yes, we reassure him. Message basically that they are extremely busy and have no wish to make either Greek or filter coffee. But a reminder that Nescafé is available at virtually all Cypriot (and for that matter Greek) restaurants, and usually for a higher price than Cyprus (=Greek=Turkish) coffee. Some level of holdover from post war years when it had status as a foreign product? Not simply a jar to be pushed to the back of the cupboard in case of emergencies, anyway, although in this case there seems to be some acknowledgement that Anglo customers may consider it second best.

Saturday, January 19/2019

The move back from the first floor to the fourth has pros and cons. Pro, can actually see the Mediterranean. Con, the water, while usually hot enough, has pretty feeble pressure. [Translator’s note: Cyprus, like all European countries including the UK, considers the first floor to be the one above the ground floor, or even (as in our case) the one above the mezzanine, so our fourth floor would in Canada be considered the sixth floor.] We have a shower as part of our bathtub arrangement. Rumour (via Maggi), though, has it that only showers are in future going to be allowed in hotel accommodation. No more bathtubs, apparently for hygienic reasons. Suppose they may have a minor point, but can think of many other things they might consider first. This is a country where you can’t flush toilet paper, for heaven’s sake. And how are hotel guests expected to bathe small children?

Friday, January 18/2019

To the tailor to have a jacket altered. But “closed” sign up and door padlocked, so clearly not just in the loo. Pop in to real estate office next door where they express mild surprise and say he was around yesterday. So presumably not on holiday abroad, in hospital, or dead, although all of the above begin on some particular day, which could conceivably be today. Wiser course is to phone first, but don’t have a number, and if phone books exist here have never seen one (and would be in Greek anyway) so bus back. 

Meanwhile, high school students in Cyprus stage a two hour strike to protest the implementation next year of twice yearly examinations. They do have the brains to give a laudable rationale for their stance: “...we do not want exam centres for schools, or schools centred on competition and individualism...We want a school that offers a well-rounded education.” But the interesting thing is that most of their rhetoric is trades union inspired, asking for real and meaningful dialogue and issuing warnings - and the education ministry seems, even more oddly, to take them seriously in that rôle.

Thursday, January 17/2019

Take the bus out to Pyla. And nearly miss it, or more accurately it nearly misses us, as the driver is late leaving the station and speeding along in the centre lane hoping not to have to notice would be passengers standing at the stop, though he does pull over in response to our waving. 

J helping Bill repair damage to their car port done by termites. Jane off by taxi to sign the insurance papers before Toyota will start work on their vehicle. As the damage isn’t major, except insofar as any damage to the body of today’s cars-without-true bumpers is costly, one can only assume that the garage has had bad experience with unpaid bills and wants the guarantee from the insurance people rather than Bill and Jane. So I assemble the apple crumble to accompany the lamb in the slow cooker. Always slightly disconcerted by the main meal appearing midday, but it’s lovely. 

Stop at Lidl on the way back hoping to pick up bread. There is some rebate in living here, apart that is from the fresh fruit and vegetables, the sunshine, and (usually) the warmth. Total bill  €15.53 ($23.45 CAD, £13.67 - and no, I have absolutely no idea how the pound is holding its value against all logic). Anyway, the receipt shows that for that grand sum we got 250 grams of Irish butter, a packet of shortbread style German butter cookies, a 200 gram dark chocolate bar with whole almonds, and four bottles of South African shiraz/cabernet sauvignon. Not our idea of a balanced diet - just the things that Lidl is best for. Produce usually wildly overpriced, though one does see other people buying it. Multigrain bread very nice, but this makes twice they’ve been out of it. 

Now finished Heroic Failure as well as the reread of Down and Out in Paris and London. Poverty, and even homelessness definitely worse in the thirties, although seemingly less actual sleeping outside in all weathers. But the worst accommodation actually charged men to sit along a bench and lean forward against a rope for the night - then cut the rope at five in the morning. Orwell does definitely say cut, although untying it would seem more prudent. And, in England at least, tramps did tramp. From one shelter to another, normally in different municipalities. It prevented them from settling in and becoming a permanent burden to any given town. And, one can’t help thinking, gave them no time or energy to join a revolution. Nor would the usual meal of tea with two slices of bread and margarine have provided much strength for rebelling.

Wednesday, January 16/2019

Well, guess justified in cancelling coffee yesterday. Cyprus Mail reports “Torrential rain and strong winds wreaked havoc across Cyprus, which saw power cuts, overflowing rivers, flooded dwellings, and other damage to property”. Larnaca not the worst, but unpleasant enough. So Maggi here today for “coffee” - actually meze, catch up and much laughter. During which Jane phones to say that she has pranged the car, which will need repairs, so trip to Famagusta postponed. But damage only to vehicle, fortunately.

Tuesday, January 15/2018

Wake to strong winds and rain. We’re supposed to meet Maggi for coffee, but unkeen on walking to the café, which is over a mile away, in this weather. And, in fact doesn’t actually have inside seating. Fortunately she’s not enthusiastic either, so rain cheque - our place tomorrow. 

The drama of the day is the British vote on Theresa May’s Brexit plan, which comes shortly after nine pm our time. No serious suggestion it would not be defeated, but anticlimax avoided by the unprecedented size of the defeat - 432-202. Not only unprecedented, but nothing even close, and many news watchers are left googling Ramsay McDonald, the 95 intervening years putting his shaky government’s 1924 defeats well out of memory for most. As the no votes represent both those who wish a much harder Brexit as well as those who would prefer to remain in the EU - as well as various other positions - the future isn’t much clearer. 

And this is not technically a no confidence vote, despite the overwhelming lack of confidence displayed. That is tabled by Jeremy Corbyn within minutes and will take place tomorrow. And, oddly enough, the government will probably survive, its minority propped up by the rather unpleasant Northern Irish DUP. The DUP MPs voted against May’s plan but don’t intend to vote against the government’s and their own survival, their position in a «supply and confidence » alliance having involved significant bribery.

Monday, January 14/2018

First time to the town centre since we got back to Larnaca and some significant changes. No actual count, but it seems that there are fewer vacant buildings and empty shops, which is obviously a good thing. There are also a number of high rise buildings under construction or promised on prominent billboards. Have much less sanguine feelings about this. 

The square which has for years been home to the Saturday farmers’markets is now the site of a massive excavation, preparatory to building a new market complex incorporating shops, bars, a gallery, green space and multi-storey parking as well as outdoor market area. It does sound attractive, though one can see the gentrification and tourist appeal proceeding apace as the old balance scales (admittedly not always fairly employed) and the woman with the little stool from whom J learned how to prepare artichokes for sautéing, disappear. 

The high rises present a different problem. They will certainly choke out small traditional houses and period buildings, changing the unique character of the city centre. And no doubt some of what appears charming is poorly insulated, hard to keep clean, or even unsafe. It’s easy to want to preserve quaintness on behalf of others - like admiring donkey carts without caring to be relegated to using one for transport. 

But there appears to be another problem with high rises near the seafront, as recorded in the Cyprus paper. Given the frequency of earthquakes - 146 recorded in Larnaca over the past 20 years, 32 with magnitude of over 3, and four measuring over 4 - and unstable soil, it is doubtful if high rises should be built near the sea at all. A geological survey report has recommended against, so another, apparently independent, study has been commissioned. The newspaper report concludes somewhat ominously: « Despite the warnings of the geological survey department, the Larnaca municipality, which currently has eight pending applications on behalf of high-rise seafront development projects for construction permits, has remained adamant in its attempt to find ways to secure licensing ».

Sunday, January 13/2018

Saturday, January 12/2018

One of the pleasures, well dubious pleasures, of travelling as much as we do is to take breaks from the more frustrating political situations as we trade them in for new, and equally enraging fiascos in other venues. Not that anything is truly ever left behind in the days of the internet. Some political dilemmas are simply overwhelming, and it’s impossible not to be drawn in to the self-inflicted injuries of the current American impasse or the slow motion inevitability of the Brexit disaster. And the Middle East is a constant running sore. 

Then there was the Canadian election of 2006 when we had our ballots couriered to Cyprus and back to Canada. But indignation over Sioux Lookout council decisions does fade as we observe, with gratitude falling a little short of schadenfreude at our political detachment, the scene in Cyprus. And this quite apart from the endless and futile negotiations over the reunification of North and South. So in the Cyprus Mail, the Cypriot Attorney General’s brother makes accusations in some astonishing detail of the incestuous relationship between the Supreme Court and the banks, saying “There is not a single supreme court judge who does not have a child at the law office that promotes the banks’ interests,” and following up with a very long list of names and relationships, adding that this was “the reason Cyprus was convicted by the European Court of Human Rights in January last year for lack of impartiality of the Supreme Court”. Truly shocking even in the tribal system that Cyprus enjoys.

Friay, January 11/2019

Walk home past lemon 🍋 and olive trees. Unfortunately, the comfort of being at home in a place is incompatible with the excitement of being in an exotic location. So we now have the happy sense that Cyprus is one of our homes, but have lost the thrill that we had in December 2000 of seeing oranges on the trees - trees at that time in Syntagma Square in Athens, also decorated with Christmas lights. 

Now reading aloud Heroic Failure by Irish journalist Fintan O’Toole. A look at Brexit through the lens of England’s (not Britain’s - he specifically exempts the Scots, Welsh, and Northern Irish) exceptionalism, conscious sense of superiority, and experience of loss of empire. Because “when your neighbour is going mad it is only reasonable to want to understand the source of their distress”. Written with wit and insight. A bit over the top, but much truth in it.

Thursday, January 10/2019

Jane and Bill collect us at 9:30 and we head north. First stop is a frozen food wholesaler that Bill patronises, with freezers full of seafood and fish, as well as lamb and other delights. Tempted by the enormous (though not inexpensive) prawns, but restrained by the knowledge that the minute freezer in our bar sized fridge is already partly full, and that before we have taken half an empty plastic egg carton to make ice cubes. 

Then an exploratory trip to find a new (as of November) crossing to North Cyprus. Road signs not entirely helpful. Driving east looking for the town of Derynia, we repeatedly pass signs saying it is 11 km away. If the first is right, the others can’t be. No South Cypriot sign ever says that the border, or the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus, exists, let alone in close proximity. So we come upon it quite suddenly. Passports checked on both sides and we’re driving down a long road, maybe a mile, lined with abandoned houses, some small and made of clay, collapsing ruins, others larger brick or stone buildings. Presumably left to the elements in 1974. And then we’re in the city of Famagusta proper. 

Thursday is market day here, and it’s always a delight. Fruit, vegetables, bedding plants, cheese, butter, yoghurt, nuts, clothing, minor hardware, kitchen ware, jewellery, and more. Jane and Bill fill their trolley, and we, with less kitchen space to return to, get sundried olives, dried apricots and red lentils. (The green lentils here, as in the south, are almost always Canadian). A meal at Minder, home of traditional Cypriot cooking, first introduced to us by Femi, our dentist, and Feliz, his wife. Everything here good, but my favourite has a minced meat and onion (and sometimes ground nut) filling with a bulgar, onion, and mashed potato based crust, deep fried. Check the recipe at home. Complex and labour intensive, and very tempting, though salt and deep frying oil quantities every bit as dubious in health terms as one might have guessed.

Wednesday, January 9/2019

 More or less the last day of getting restocked, although with a half sized fridge, limited cupboard space and an endless supply of fresh produce, shopping is more or less daily anyway. We missed the pre-Christmas to New Year liquor and wine sales at the supermarkets, which are usually pretty good, the difficulty being that ideally one should predict consumption through to the beginning of April and stock up. Still, post New Year’s Cyprus remains one of the better countries to buy in. Grant’s triple wood whiskey blend on sale for €7 ($10.64 CAD, £6.30) for a 70 cl bottle. Not that one wishes to become alcoholic simply because it would be inexpensive to do so. 

Always some entertainment value to shopping as well. Looking at the various jars of honey, I’m puzzled by “theme” honey. And spend a few seconds wondering what the theme might be, until it occurs to me that the intended word is almost certainly thyme. Paused yesterday over “backed” beans, but clearly that was baked. My previous favourite was self raisin flour. But actually we’re pretty lucky in the larger stores that they make any effort at all to put it in English. The alternative is the chancy judging by the picture, which can be quite misleading. 

Tuesday, January 8/2019

Settling in. As with other rooms/flats where we’ve stayed before, much simpler when we know where everything goes. Couch is new, and about time as its predecessor was getting embarrassingly threadbare. Or at least management should have been embarrassed but probably weren’t. This one is, as J points out, designed to open out into a bed. In its unopened state the seating seems to have a slight tilt. Well, not all that slight, as the spirit level app on my mini iPad shows. OK to curl up on, though, and the armchairs are comfortable. J has kept the plastic coated wire for a number of purposes - like hanging the frying pans, their stainless steel and our ceramic, from the ceiling slats. The too very large glass jars we’ve kept are back in service storing the heavily chlorinated water until the chlorine dissipates, thus avoiding the environmentally ugly (and expensive) local practice of buying all drinking water. Heavy to carry too, and our system works very well. 

Still in the stocking up department, trip over to Super Discount Store. Still known to us by previous title of Elephant Store and to many locals by longtime name of Sarris. Reminds me of Rachel’s complaint in Sioux Lookout that residents referred to local businesses by unguessable former names. Buy excellent bacon and lountza (smoked pork tenderloin). Meat counter also features somewhat disturbing collection of sheep’s heads, eyeballs included. Don’t bother asking the price.

Monday, January 7/2019

Stock up day. Trips to Lidl and Prinos, the greengrocer. Lidl, home of one of our favourite multigrain seeded breads as well as perfectly drinkable French wines at €3 ($4.56CAD). Whole grain spaghetti at 90 euro cents for a kilo ($1.37 CAD). A pail of Greek yoghurt, olive oil, chocolate. Stop at the Russian shop on the way back for pepper spread and herring fillets. This a little trickier, as the languages of the shop are Greek and (I think) Bulgarian. Whereas we are capable of purchasing in English, Polish, and probably French. Thus the overlap is imperfect. But lots of good will on both sides. 

Sky overcast as we leave for the second errand, though it’s only four short blocks away. Prinos always an aesthetic delight of colours and shapes. Prices always a delight too, now that we’re into entirely local produce. So sun-dried olives, red peppers, carrots, bananas, onions, courgettes, tahini, bananas, parsley, two heads of garlic, three conference pears, nearly a kilo of clementines, over a kilo of tomatoes and a lemon come to a grand total of €10.82 (16.45 CAD). Going away for the winter isn’t free, but there is a rebate. And everything fresh. Umbrellas up as we return, though it’s not raining heavily. 

Sunday, January 6/2018

Somewhat depressingly, we’ve returned to Cyprus to wet and (for Cyprus) chilly conditions.  Realise that January 6 is also Epiphany. In much of the world a feast attracting minor religious interest but in Cyprus a major public holiday. Implication for us being that the stores will not be open, excepting the little peripteros. That’s the Greek. In Québec read dépanneur. Somehow convenience store doesn’t do it. Corner shop a bit better sounding, but not very descriptive - or often inaccurately so. Bakeries open 365 days of the year, so we get a round loaf of whole grain village bread. 

And off to Cambanella’s with Bill and Jane for Sunday lunch, British style. Cypriot restaurateurs know how to treat their customers. Warm greetings as we go in, arriving at the table with Jane’s regular cushion, the owner round at the table to see us, his wife and partner at the carving table and disappointed if we don’t eat enough. They’re just back from a holiday visiting their daughter in England, where, she says, it was warmer and dryer than it’s been here. We picked a good year for our alternative Christmas. 

Collect the boxes we’ve stored for the winter in the staff coffee room cum junk area. A Norwegian couple, whom we know slightly from previous years is there on the same errand, having also arrived yesterday. Not highly fluent in English, and of course our Norwegian limited to the words for thank you and I can’t speak Norwegian. But she and I lament that despite our intentions we still have too much stuff. Though can’t help noting that their too much is considerably more spare than our too much. Rediscover stash of everything from french press coffee maker and mugs to cd’s and tapes from lucky charity shop purchase one year (also player for same) to a small crescent wrench.

Thursday, December 27/2018

The plan was that we would take the bus in to Ipswich and collect the hire car to use for the next four days. The bus bit worked fine. UK seniors free and us £2.40 ($4.13 CAD) each. The car bit no so much. Bill had booked the hire in September and showed them his (Cypriot) driving licence. Everything was fine, but they had neglected to say that since his driving licence was foreign he should bring his passport as ID. So a little unhappy discussion resulting in an agreement that we would be back tomorrow with the documentation and get the car for three days. 

Bus back, but interesting stop at a charity shop where we admire much but actually only buy a lampshade for Jane’s sitting room lamp. Which turns out to fit the lamp and the living room decor very well. Quiet afternoon. Turns out it’s Jane and Bill’s forty-second wedding anniversary. Time to open the port. 🍷🍷

Saturday, January 5/2019

Dark when we get up. Well, it would be. Not much beyond the winter solstice, and the alarm set for 6:50. And Ipswich is fractionally north of London, which is north of Sioux Lookout. Interestingly, when we got up yesterday the temperatures were the same in Martlesham and Sioux Lookout - at minus one.  Chilly for England, but not inordinately for January. Unusually mild for Sioux Lookout in January, of course. 

Taxi collects us at ten to nine, which leaves us quite early for the ten o’clock coach from Ipswich to Stansted Airport. Time pleasantly filled by coffee at McDonalds. Coach takes an hour and a half to Stansted, but it’s a comfortable ride and interesting, going through Colchester, a Roman city in its time, and past its stone castle. Stansted looks to be in contention for London’s least pleasant airport, although in fairness I haven’t been to London City - just Heathrow, Gatwick, and Luton. A single storey barn of a building in which passengers come a very obvious second to commerce. Endless duty free along the winding sparkly path, and wooden slatted seating.  Our priorities in airports are decent toilets, free wifi, and free drinkable tap or fountain water, probably in that order. Well, the toilets are fine. Cheapest water is £1.15 ($1.95 CAD) for 750 ml, and the wifi, while free in theory, simply doesn’t work. Also, the waiting room at the gate has seating for considerably less than half of the passengers on our flight, leaving a lot of people (though not us) standing for over half an hour. Not impressed. 

Flight very full, and seats pretty narrow. J and I have aisle seats opposite each other, chosen last October. The man in the middle seat next to me overflows a bit, probably on both sides, but can hardly fault him. His shoulder width is simply more than the seat is designed for. Have visions of centre seats occupied only by prisoners with hands handcuffed in front as most suitable use for the plane. Then, stroke of luck, As soon as seatbelt sign is off broad shouldered man disappears to join friend in front of plane. Window seat bloke and I beam happily. J not similarly fortunate. 

We’ve ordered a prepaid meal, on the flight, in part because it was a reasonably good deal as part of seat selection and luggage check package and in part because of arrival at hotel some time after ten on a Saturday evening. Turns out to be quite nice and fairly substantial. Much better than the à la carte offerings on the seat pocket menu, which features bottled water at £1.80 ($3.06 CAD) for 333 ml. 

Plenty of reading on our tablets, which is good, as the entertainment consists largely of the crew trying to sell scratch style lottery tickets. Though there’s also a round of “duty free” sales, talked up, almost barker style, by a stewardess before the trolley comes through. A little confusing as UK still, barely, part of EU. Unable to assess the value or efficacy of the “magic oil” but liquor prices almost certainly still better in Cyprus than aboard. 

Jane and Bill have ordered a cab from a driver they like. Turns out to be a limo, so space no problem. Friendly receptionist at the Sunflower. We’re given the key for 404, but expecting our old 403. Take both keys and decide - return the one you don’t want. Look at 404. It’s a corner flat facing the main road, so noisier. Couch is really flat covered bed. No arms or back. On the other hand fridge, kettle and corkscrew are better than 403. Frying pan much better - stainless steel instead of weathered non-stick. So we swap above items, in accordance with longstanding local practice, and settle in. 

Friday, January 4/2018

Last day. Tantalising introduction to Suffolk. Sutton Hoo closed for improvements and we didn’t get to Woodbridge, home of Adnam’s Brewery, and about three miles from Sutton Hoo, home to a complete excavated Anglo-Saxon burial ship and treasure. Not much evidence of Bronze Age settlement, or for that matter of three hundred years of Roman occupation. But this bit of East Anglia, once the independent kingdom of the Angles. Its east coast location made for very early Anglo-Saxon settlement, as well as significant Danish and Viking incursions. It also makes for villages and towns of sailing and second homes as well as farming and fishing. 

Bill’s sons both grew up sailing the rivers and coast and Bill and Jane initially retired onto a yacht that Bill had built. Kevin, in a wheelchair since an accident in his teens, won a gold medal in sailing at the 1996 Paralympics. Seventy miles from London, but a different world.

Thursday, January 3/2019

Jane to the doctor for medication, inhaled and antibiotic. 

Bill, J and I take an afternoon walk nearby. Chilly, but lots of green to see - holly, for example. Lovely, huge oaks, many over a hundred years old. Plenty of bright yellow flowers on the gorse bushes, a few tiny brave daisies, and even three lonely blackberries, unripe but still clinging on.

Wednesday, January 2/2019

Cancel our planned trip to Woodbridge, as Jane has an ugly chest cold. J and I do the Tesco run - walk, rather - taking, inadvertently, the scenic route. Two new concrete pads opposite the end of our driveway will soon be the sites of modular park homes like Bill and Jane’s. As we leave for the store there is a loud, slow drumming sound, rather like Indian drumming. Turns out to be a young man rhythmically hitting a small cement mixer with a mallet, to knock off dried cement. J stops to joke with the men and I note that one of them is sporting a mohawk.

In the evening we watch a British program on the finding of Sir John Franklin’s ship Erebus in the Northwest Passage. Interesting watching with Bill, who is both sailor and diver and has a fair number of comments.

Tuesday, January 1/2019

New Year’s Day. Chillier today, and a bit windy. We’re to meet up with Kevin and Ann and Tony (Mandy’s working) for a meal at a pub called the Farmhouse. We’re planning to take the bus, assuming the Sunday and holiday schedule applies. Turns out it doesn’t - there are no buses on New Year’s Day. And the taxis are fare and a half. But we’re soon there. Cheerful and very busy. Beef and ale pie for us, but it’s a menu with lots of choice, including vegan sausages for Tony. 

Opportunity to book same taxi firm as took us to the pub and back for the trip to Stansted Airport on Saturday. 

Monday, December 31/2018

Overcast, with low clouds, but not cold. Or so J and Bill say after a morning planting bulbs - which sadly will result in crocuses and daffodils that are finished before they’re back from Cyprus next May. J suggests installing a camcorder. Jane to Tesco on the mobility scooter for coffee. We seem to have a superabundance of everything else, thanks to our own shopping and an enormous Christmas hamper sent by Jane’s brother. 

Afternoon tea at Tony and Mandy’s. Laura there as well. Christmas coloured strawberry daiquiris, and Tony’s homemade vegan Christmas cake. 

Can hear a few distant fireworks in the evening but end with London’s pretty spectacular ones via BBC.