Friday, April 3/2026

Courtesy in-cyprus.philenews.com

 Once more, it’s difficult to take a photograph of what isn’t there. In this case the mountain behind our flat. Although a news reporter seems to have done not too badly with a street scene. For the second time we wake to find that the mountain and the sea have both disappeared. This time the culprit is not fog but dust. Saharan dust not unusual here, but meteorological director is quoted as saying “It would not be an exaggeration to say that episodes this strong are recorded once every ten years.

Courtesy Gill Caunt, TRNC 

A fellow North Cypriot had better luck, a better camera or both. Possibly also took the photo at a time of lighter dust cloud than my attempt.

Should have been our regular Friday afternoon gathering but not a good time for the walk down when municipalities are cancelling outside work.

But am a little less than half way through Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News, which I borrowed from the online library, meaning it will vanish when its time is up. An excellent read on an indoor afternoon.

In the interests of which I check the iPad’s charge level and say oh shit. Siri, programmed to answer in a Jeeves style butler’s voice, says primly that he is unable to respond.

Thursday, April 2/2026

Courtesy New Yorker

Wake to find that the mountains have disappeared. So, for that matter has the sea. Mist fairly impressive, but proves not to be highly photogenic. May also be combined with dust, which has been forecast to be with us for the next four days. Difficult to distinguish amongst the fifty or so shades of grey.

Yesterday was EOKA Day, a national holiday in the Republic of Cyprus (South). An interesting and, from the point of view of North Cypriots, unfortunate day to celebrate. 

With apologies, from a previous blog:

“EOKA was a terrorist organisation active from the fifties to the seventies whose aim was political union with Greece, pitting it against the British, Turkish Cypriots, and many fellow Greek Cypriots. While many independence movements have involved violence. EOKA was not an independence movement and did mean death for Turkish Cypriots. Independence was granted by the British in 1960, and the government of the republic later outlawed the organisation, which had been responsible for civilian deaths, including deliberate massacres, and involved with the death of the American ambassador.”

Inevitably, continued celebration of EOKA leads to hostile attitudes and worse. And yesterday men dressed in black threw rocks and, reportedly, [presumably minor] explosives across the buffer zone into the North.

This morning Doğan arrives at the door to collect a document. As is usual with Doğan the text saying he is coming arrives very slightly after D himself. Somewhat apologetically, he calls my attention to a small piece of what is unquestionably dog poo on the doormat. More or less the colour of the doormat as well, so had he not noticed it might have been discovered by more unfortunate means. Interesting, though. A small dog does live across the hall, but it never leaves its apartment. Can’t imagine the nice couple opening the door and directing it to nip over and foul our doormat. Though it seems even more unlikely that a passing dog negotiated the outside door and climbed the eighteen steps to our landing to make a deposit. And, as we have no known enemies, most unlikely of all that a human saw fit to insult us. Really very odd.

Wednesday, April 1/2026

Nine pm and it’s not raining. Glance at the radar does suggest that this snug dry refuge may be temporary. Radar not an April Fool’s posting, unfortunately. Storm even has its own name - Erminio. Also, dust from Libya expected over the next two days.

Previous blogs not particularly reliable re weather comparisons. Don’t always mention it, and any given day’s offering from the skies may be atypical. But do notice that on March 31, 2019 I complained about “more of the same old intermittent rain - as it has been for the last several days and is predicted to be until at least Thursday”, so clearly - or rather murkily - that was a wet March. Even led us to wonder whether, like Joe Btsflg of the old Li’l Abner comics, we walked around under our own permanent rain cloud. Really not that bad this year. Or maybe just becoming more philosophical with age.