The late Canadian writer Norman Levine came and spoke to - I believe - the Humanities Association in Fredericton some time in the sixties. He would have been in his forties then and talked about the years after he moved to the artists’ community in St Ives, Cornwall in 1950. He was at pains to tell us that those had been the glory years and that St Ives in the mid-sixties was not the same at all. The experience he had had could no longer be shared. One young woman, caught up in the spirit of his reminiscences wanted to know where now was like St Ives had been fifteen years earlier. Nowhere, said Levine. There’s nowhere like that now.
And it seems that now there’s nowhere quite like the Mediterranean cities we first stayed in nearly twenty-five years ago. The old city centres, a bit shabby but real. Not assembly line high rises or international chain restaurants. Places where old men read newspapers and drank coffee and played a little backgammon. Where women remembered how you liked your Cypriot coffee and started it when they saw you’d arrived.
So down to the waterfront today for a cup of coffee. They’re heavily into upgrading and repairs but Mcdonald’s used to be a good spot amidst the touristy places to get a pretty decent cup of filter coffee with the advantage of being able to take it across to a bench by the beach. Well, the filter coffee is no more, replaced by Americano which isn’t the same thing by a sexier name and isn’t as nice. It’s also €2.40 (£2.09, $3.55 CAD). Just about twice the price of a small coffee at McD’s in Canada where it would have been premium roast filtered and not Americano. Other coffee shops in the area also seem to have adopted the Americano, along with lattes and cappuccinos. And looks like €2.50 is standard for the Americano, though most of them do make Cyprus (read Greek or Turkish) coffee. Have my suspicions re the cappuccinos. When Dorothy visited us here some fifteen years ago she quickly learned to ask restaurants whether they had a cappuccino maker. Inevitably the answer was oh no - we have little packets.
But farther back from the waterfront is inevitably more local and more real. More cats, more tiny shops, more cafés that are only a couple of tables. Still looking for the backgammon players. We do pass an old man on his balcony, a former councillor that we chatted with years ago. Astonishingly he remembers us. So we chat for a couple of minutes. His English is quite good. His hearing not so much. But smiles all round at having met up again. Then past what used to be an independent Italian restaurant. Now a Wagamama. Well, why not - they’re popular. Do we expect to eat only English food in England?
And then our bakery.The koulouri (sesame studded bread rings) are now in plastic bags, which will, unfortunately, ruin them. But it’s already too late in the day. They’re perfect hot out of the oven. Afternoon is too late. They do have our favourite loaves of rye and whole wheat bread though. Dense and sesame studded as well. And available nowhere else that we’ve discovered. Found the bakery by chance one Christmas Day - for who would want to eat day old bread at Christmas - and have been coming back ever since. Enormous loaf slightly less than the cup of Americano. Some things haven’t changed.
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