Saturday, January 17/2009

Very sunny at morning market so we ignore forecasts of rain and have Cypriot coffee at the ittle cafe with M&M. Then pick up oranges, broccoli, onions and tomatoes from the stalls - a big bag of oranges with the dark green leaves stil fresh. The promised rain does come in the afternoon but not enough of it to help Cyprus water supply much. Our hotel gets municipal water supplied three days a week. The other days it has to be brought in, and at that we´re much luckier than the locals, many of whom simply do not have water every day. Some water has been brought in from Greece by ship but the situation is still very difficult. The basic problem, of course, is simply lack of rain but there is also a lack of deent storm sewers and local reservoirs. When there is a real rain, as just before Christmas, the local news is busy reporting not only on flooded streets but on how busy the fire department has been pumping out people´s basements. An interesting use for the fire department.

Friday, January 16/2009

Late night. Jewish MP Sir Gerald Kaufman is interviewed on BBC 5 radio. He´s so softspoken, so rational, so humane. So sympathetic and yet so totally opposed to Israeli policy that considers Palestinian lives as having no vallue, as they did Lebanese lives. Hamas is particularly unpleasant, but Kaufman blames both Israelis and Americans for having been unwilling to talk to Arafat and more moderate Palestinians until they were left dealing with Hamas. Sir Gerald´s perspective is interesting. He represents Manchester and points to the number of British killed by the IRA in Manchester and the fact that peace eventually came in Northern Ireland not via bombing or even British troops but by talk and negotiation. The other interesting aspect of his perspective is his family history. His grandmother was killed by German Nazis and he regrets what he considers the use of the holocaust to blackmail the world into accepting the unacceptable. So unacceptable that he believes that Israeli leaders should be tried for war crimes.

Thursday, January 15/2009

Further to the price of sweet things in Cyprus. A single iced doughnut costs a euro sixty five at the bakery down the street, and that´s not unusual. That´s $2.75 CAD of one pound fifty UK. By comparison, a litre box of Spanish wine - young vin tres ordinaire, but perfectly drinkable - can be had for a euro fifteen ($1.95 CAD or just over a pound UK). Impossible to explain.

Wednesday, January 14/2009

Walking home from the supermarket I pass a high school. In front is a bit of graffiti - two large words printed in English. NATIONALISM and RACISM. No suggestion of pro or con.

Only in Cyprus. For the past month a Cypriot criminal called Kitas, better known by his nickname Al Capone, had been on the loose after escaping from a medical clinic. Kitas, who had been jailed for life in 194 for the rape and murder of two women, was recaptured only Monday, after endless scandal in the press, police searches, etc. Now tonight the clincher - two senior policemen are accused of being accomplices in the escape. And we´ve been wondering why police are so reluctant to ticket the many Cypriots who park illegally or use Hollywood mufflers.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Meet Maggi @ internet and she invites us to lunch so we collect J and drive out. So lunch on th sunny balcony overlooking the dark blue sea. It´s a stunning view, and one we could hae shared but for us a bit far from the centre. Lovely lunch and we linger and chat. Then walk back along the waterfront, our shadows long in the sun across the road.

Monday, January 12, 2009

We watch television, although only BBC World is in English. The other chanels do show English programs though; particularly films, though sometimes documentaries. So we see quite a bit in the way of subtitles. We´re a bit slow at sounding out the Greek leters and some of the combinations ae quite different; for example the mp letter combination gives the b sound. But it´s interesting nontheless. The Swedish chanel is quite interesting, with many words similar to the English or, often, to the Scots usage. Thus child is barn, comparable to bairn. Sometimes as interesting as the program itself, although there are often good British programs in the very late evening. We also get a chanel from Dubai where the programming is almost entirely American of a relatively uninspired sort (chat shows, soaps), apart from the occasional film and local news. Here everything has Arabic subtitles but it´s done nothing for our literacy. Periodically one thinks that it should be possible to learn what any six year old can learn with a little application, but the swirls and dots remain impenetrable.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

We take a walk down to the waterfront. It´s sunny but quite breezy. Either tonight or tomorrow morning a boat is supposed to go to Gaza from Larnaca carrying medical supplies, a successor to the boat Dignity that was rammed by the Israelis, apparently in international waters. We try to spot the boat from the pier. There´s a possible one in view but who knows. We´re less than 200 miles from Gaza. Mostly we´re north of it. We´re probably not a hundred miles from Syria, roughly opposite Latakia, where Lilly, my genealogical correspondent and probably very distant relative lives.

The news from Gaza is so horrific it´s painful to listen to. Actually, it´s rather difficult to listen to, as J is too frustrated by the blatant Israeli framing of the conflict in misleading terms to listen silently. Not only are casualties running a hundred to one but, as has been pointed out, this is the only war of recent times where civilians are unable to flee the conflict. Usually there´s not much historical context to reports (we´re largely dependent on Euronews and BBC, but there are worse sources). However on BBC World radio the other night we listen to Robert Fisk, experienced and prize winning journalist with the UK paper The Independent, for incisive and courageous analysis.

Meanwhile it´s hard to know whether the second Cypriot boat is being sent with any realistic hopes of getting through or on a mission that is symbolic only.

About 5, just after I´ve put the rice on, we hear car horns outside. A wedding? A celebration after a football match? We go out on the balcony and look down on a parade of honking cars festooned with Palestinian flags. Check down at the waterfront but no demo, though the restaurants and cafes are fairly busy and there are still children at the merry-go-round.

J still has with him his little pin with the entwined Canadian and Palestinian flags that he got in Bethlehem last year, though we left our Free Palestine shirts at home.

Saturday, January 10, 2008

Snake down through the wavering line that is the Saturday market. Inger, the Swedish woman who lives on the 2nd floor, has painted it, and the postcard sized version lives on our desk at home. It´s such a sensual pleasure - bags of oranges still with the leaves on, artichokes, radishes the size of tennis balls, fresh wet cheeses, bundles of cut narcissi, tomatoes with garden earth clinging, kohlrabi with flags of leaes sprouting, rough local wine in plastic water bottles, buckets of eggs (buy the number you need not a dozen). At one stall a man is running a small gambling enterprise involving a little roulette wheel and various bottles of liquor as prizes.

We meet Maggi who has cycled in and have Cypriot coffee behind "our" cafe. The tables in front spill into the market proper but those behind catch the warm sun. J´s butcher, whose shop also opens onto the market, leaves the door open and lovely smoked ham smells emerge. Loops of sausage and smoked tenderloins hang in the doorway. We resist, but do round the corner for 6 eggs from the egg bucket. And i get a half dozen onions as well. At one time the market was the cheapest, or at least inexpensive and the freshest place for produce. Sadly, this isn´t always so now, so each purchase has to be weighed on its merits and the days of our going home with 20 different coloured plastic bags and the week´s fruit and vegetables seem to be over. But we seldom miss going.

Friday, January 9/2009

Maggi picks us up and we go to suburban Livadia to check out the supermarket there. Nice to pick up the bottled water there (what comes out of the tap being suitable for cooking) as it's heavy to bring back when walking. It's a beautiful day - M has been swimming this morning - so we sit in the sun at the corner where the fivew roads meet and drink Cypriot coffee - always served with a glass of water on the side. Like most Cypriot cafes the tables spil out across the sidewalk and into the road.

Now reading, alternately with the Chaplin autobiography, Ann-Marie McDonald's prizewinning Fall on Your Kneew. Very powerfully written.

I learn never to try to roast garlic in the microwave. We have no oven and it seemed like a good idea. I oil the garlic and put it in a cup copvered with a saucer with water in it. However, the result is not glorious pasty roasted garlic but a microwave filled with smoke which J removes to the balcony. So, open patio doors, scented candles and, fortunately, no fire alarm. And the corn on the cob J has bought at Prinos greengrocers is boiled not microwaved as J prefers it. (It's good enough corn, but not a patch on fresh August corn at home).

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Down on the lift to get a litre of milk for breakfast. At 8 o´clock the lobby is not quite dressed for the day, as the cleaners mop down the floor. The manager and another man are behind the counter and in front of it stands a man wearing shorts and t-shirt and holding a plate of what I take to be his beakfast on raised palm, waiter style. He´s singing, in English, with indeterminate accent and a pretty good baritone. The shy manager has a look somewhere between amusement and embarrassment and I listen, unsure whether my acting as audience is appreciation for serendipitous entertainment or just encouragement for a drunk.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Thunder and lightning, visible through the curtains at 6 a.m. this morning, but by the time we get up the sky is an innocent blue. And the temperature rises to 20 degrees - 26 in the sun - though it does cloud over later.

I stop at the charity shop, presided over by a large and motherly englishwoman. A customer, a thin middle aged woman with blonde hair, possibly not naturally so, asks tentatively if she could dye her hair grey by using household bleach. "Somebody said yo could and it would be inexpensive." I´m still wondering why one would choose to do this and only two possibilities come to mind - returning it to its natural colour or playng an elderly character in a play. The mother figure is firm. She definitely cannot use household bleach; she´s to go to the Smart store where she can buy hair colouring for only three euros, very reasonable. The timid woman continues: would jewellery be ageing? No, no, says Mother; it brighterns you up. As I leave she is studying the plastic earrings wistfully.

I come in to the flat as one of the cleaners is leaving. The other, not hearing me, continues taking advantage of the good natural light on the dressing table mirror to examine her spots at length.

Construction in Cyprus often uses quite different, even baffling methods. So, out the window we see a fork lift affair loading gravel into a flat via the first floor (read 2nd floor in North America) balcony.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Feast of the Epiphany, which in Cyprus seems unrelated to the Magi. Religiously, it commemorates the Baptism of Christ, but culturally it´s a carnival style family day. There is, in every Cypriot city (near the water at least) a parade from the principal church to the sea. In Larnaca this is from St. Lazarus Church, the crypt of which is said to have been the burial place of the Biblical Lazarus following his second death (in fact the name Larnaca means coffin).

The parade is a rather unsettling mixture of Orthodox Church clergy in full regalia and the military, cadets as well as weapon bearing soldiers. Greek flags much in evidence. The bishop throws a cross off the pier (prudently tied to the end of a string - the cross, not the pier) and teenage boys dive to retrieve it. It´s an honour to be the successful diver but it´s no polar bear feat. The high temperature today is close to 20 degrees, warmer in the sun - and the water will not be terribly cold. The pier is strewn with aromatic leaves from the mountains which we, along with others, gather up afterwards, as they smell lovely in the flat.

There are crowds for the parade and the waterfront is bright with helium balloons and full of children eager for the bouncy castle or ice cream or popcorn. And plenty of people of all other ages as well. We stand on a low wall at the edge of a bed of petunias to get a better view. Then Maggi texts "where r u" and we meet up. Impossible in the crowd without directions. Back to our place for tea and cake.

In the evening J does swordfish for dinner. And then the terrible contrast with our day as the news brings ever more horrific scenes of Gaza, such a short distance away, sharing our eastern end of the Mediterranean. And last January we were in Palestine.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Trips to bakery and supermarket as tomorrow, Epiphany, is a holiday and nothing will be open. It´s the fifth holiday in 13 days as on the days after Christmas and New Year´s most things are shut. Some enterprises - building construction projects for example - seem simply to close for the entire period.

Jenny texts to say that her daughter Laura has just had a boy. Exciting times as her other daughter, Emma, is also due in January. The UK has been very cold and she says that at 6 this morning there was an inch of snow in Thames Ditton - suburban London.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Rainy a.m., so back to the books and the Sunday paper. Learn on the news that there was a shoot out on the street in Agia Napa last night. Here we thought it was semi ghost town when the truth had more of the wild west about it.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

In the evening we join M&M and drive up the coast to Agia Napa to have dinner at Tony´s, an old haunt of M&M´s in the days when they wintered there. It´s too dark to see the sea, but there´s still the romance of the lights strung out along the bay, backed up by the light romance of Maggi´s new Mantovani cd´s.

Agia Napa is quite different from Larnaca. Once upon a time it was a humble fishing village. Now it has ballooned into a commercial resort, booming and relatively vulgar in high season but semi ghost town in low. Little raffic and many shops and cafes closed for the season. There remains a small community of off-seasoners though, many of them Scandinavian.

Ton´s is nearly but not quite full and Toy himself, a short man with a waist length white beard, does greet Maggi with a hug, but she´s not sure he actually recognises her. The menu is typically Cypriot but also what J and I refer to as a "Polish menj" (as in Poland menus list all the dishes that are ever on offer, many of which may not be available on any given day). Thus the stuffed vine leaves that Maggi´s mouth had been ready for are not on, but she has moussaka and Magne giant shrimp, both of which they say are good, while J and I both order beef stifado - the nicest I´ve had and very generous portions. So while M&M regret the lively venue they remember - open 24 hours and a live band at night - we do have a very good meal.

Friday, January 2, 2009

No man´s land between holiday and ordinary time. Sale signs have begun appearing in shop windows, some advertising 50% off, interesting in itself as sale times used to be controlled by legislation. But most shops have not reopened yet, extending the New Year´s holiday. Even the supermarkets are still closed J finds. I pass a large flower bed shared by snapdragons looking sadly tired but still faintly aromatic and three dark green artificial Christmas trees.

The Dubai television chanel, which usually features the most vapid American programming imaginable, along with brief and superficial local news reports and the occasional film, now has several hours of a robed man in a chapel like room mournfully chanting from the Koran. Have we failed to remember an important Moslem holiday? Is this a lament for the fate of Palestinians? No, it seems a council member has died and displaced regular programming. But the dirge continues for enough hours that we begin to speculate on possible arrangements for bathroom breaks. How does he manage?

January 1, 2009

New Year´s Day. Still chilly but we wake to that cloudless dark blue sky that is so very Mediterranean. Walk out along the seafront for our now traditional New Year´s meal with Maggi and Magne. There aren´t a lot of people out in the cool wind, though the man who sells hot chestnuts is there. Once the wind drops the sun is quite warm though. Lovely meal from a beautifull lemony shrimp cocktail and roast pork to Christmas pudding and brandy sauce. The sun still streaming in from the balconyas we start.

Wednesday, December 31,2008

New Year´s Eve. We´re reminded of the old Cypriot custom of barbecuing on the street. Shopowners used to barbecue meat and halloumi and share it, along with wine and spirits and pitas and salad with their customers. One still passes the occasional shopfront barbecue but mostly they´re just intended for staff now.

Buying frenzy in the supermarkets, both for New Year´s meals and because the annual sales on liquor are coming to an end.

We work a bit at staying awake through the evening but 11:45 sees us bundled up - it´s an astonishingly chilly +5 C and windy - and down to europa Square on the waterfront. It^s only a block away, so we don^t need much time to get there. Plan B would have been to watch from the roof as Inger said she would do, but the waterfront is livelier and, as J says, it´s probably warmer at ground level. Crowds as usual. There is free wine, beer and zivania, all in plastic cups, but the disincentive is the need to remove a hand from a warm pocket to wrap it around a cold drink. The first salute comes from the deep tones of the ships at anchor in the bay as their horns greet the New Year. Then the fireworks, accompanied by terrified cross-flutters of birds that had thought themselves safely at roost for the night efore the big bang. The fireworks are set off on the beach and we´re standing about 200 feet away, so the bursts of colour and light are almost above our heads and we´re looking straight up at the cold black velvet sky. We don´t linger long when it´s over. Back to the warm studio and a New Year´s rusty nail.

Tuesday, December 30-2008

Meet M&M at student internet so they stop in for tea.

PM begin reading aloud Charlie Chaplin^s autobiography. Absolutely fascinating and, somewhat to our surprise, very well written. His early childhood was spent in the Kenington road area of South London, very near the Imperial war Museum. As he was born in 1889, his memories are of a Victorian London, and one in which his family was so poor that he spent time in the Lambeth workhouse. Any real pretence of education had ended by the time he was twelve and his stage career had begun. Amazing the changes in his world as he went on to become an international star, a thorough cosmopolitan, and, in 1975, to be knighted.

Monday, December 29/2008

Cyprus's mild version of winter - temperatures in mid to high tens Celsius and the occasional shower. Euronews shows only European weather, the camera moving across the map at a speed that makes focus a tricky eye exercise. BBC World attempts to cover the whole world in the same inadequate time, so that North America is represented by little more than half a dozen cities. The two chosen Canadian cities are Winnipeg and Quebec, an odd choice but reasonably interesting for us. Presumably Winnipeg occupies a spot on the map for which there is little competition.

Sunday, December 28/2008

Lazy day for us, but we're an hour away from Gaza (by air) and the utter misery is intensifying as the Israelis play tough for a pre-election audience.

Nice bits of year end retrospectives beginning. Gwynne Dyer's look at the year in today's Cyprus Mail is disappointingly thin on analysis - looks like he suddenly realised it had to be done by five o'clock - but BBC World shows some of its best documentaries of the year, including a couple of excellent ones on China, a contry that has changed enormously in the almost 20 years since we were there.

Saturday, December 27/2008

Coffee with Maggi at the market - a smaller market for the Christmas meal but we don't need anything. Then in the afternoon we walk out to M&M's. The road has been eroded a bit by the sea during the last storm - undercut as well? G&T, melon and parma ham on the balcony overlooking the sea. It's hot as long as the sun lasts.

Woolworth stores in the UK began closing their doors today, early victims of the recession. They've had a long history. My father used to tell us about going to Woolworth's with his brothers and sister to buy Christmas presents. They would take turns having one wait while the other four went to buy his presents.

Friday, December 26/2008

Boxing Day and would have been my grandfather's birthday - I think his hundred and twenty third. He never knew any of his grandchildren and we have - the oldest grandchildren at least - a few distilled sayings and memories of him through our parents. In the Depression, for example, he wouldn't let his sons caddy because there were grown men trying to feed their families by caddying. It was also Grandpa who, early in his marriage, made the mistake of telling my grandmother that the cake she had just made was as good as a store-bought one.

Shops closed and we, like many others, tourists and locals alike, walk along the beach front promenade (named Finoukides after the date palms that line it) and the pier. It's warm in the sun and everyone from babies to grandparents is out, the children displaying Christmas presents. A little girl is unsteady on her new roller skates and helium balloons in animal shapes are much in display. Popcorn, roasted corn on the cob and ice cream on sale. One brave man goes for a swim. The water is probably quite warm, but there is a bit of breeze across the beach.

We stop to examine the new large abstract sculpture at the pier end of the beach. Tell me, I say, that it isn't something horrible like a monument memorialising victims of some Turkish atrocity. Well, not quite - but sort of. It's not Cypriot victims anyway. Loath to miss any chance to demonise the Turks, the southern Cypriots have erected a monument in memory of the victims of the Turkish massacre of the Armenians. It's true, of course, that the massacre occured, though not recently and true that Turkey has not taken responsibility and that many Armenians took refuge in cyprus - but all the same it seems like an opportunity they just couldn't let pass. But there is also on display along the walk winning entries from a Cypriot art contest with multicultural emphasis. Some quite impressive works and a sign of hope. They don't seem to attract as much attention as the sculpture though.

Thursday, December 25/2008

Christmas Day. Traditional and not. We go to Mass in the moroning, stopping for koulouri at the bakery on the way back. Bakeries and news stands are open (and newspapers published) but not much else. No one condemned to day old bread or news.

J has outlined a Christmas tree shape about five feet high on the front of the wardrobe using tinsel made from silver paper donated by Maggi. He's "hung" baubles (saved from last year) on it with bluetack, decorated it with curls of paper chain and cut a gold star for the top - and all of this in two halves so that the wardrobe doors still open. He's also draped coloured foil curls and balls made from chocolate wrapper across the arch in the middle of the room and we have a couple of christmas posters, full broadsheet size, courtesy of the December 10 and 11 Guardians. As well as our menorah style five candle wrought iron candelabra that J rescued from the street two years ago.

M&M to dinner for what is now our 7th Christmas together. This time we have a leg of lamb, largely because it works better with the large pot but no oven facilities. And because Cypriot lamb is so good. Just after the vegetables are on the table and J is finishing making the gravy, the two burner hot plate blows, audibly. As Maggi says, pretty good timing. Dinner is done, and we can still make the brandy sauce and heat the Christmas pudding in the microwave. Lovely lamb and good company.

Wednesday, December 24/2008

Christmas Eve. There is a Christmas farmers' market today, and the rain has stopped, but we head north instead to Carrefour and collect a few more bits for dinner tonight and tomorrow. The queues are horrific, especially at the butcher's counter - easily fifteen people deep. At Prinos greengrocers I watch a young mother hand her daughter, aged maybe 4, a juicy peach as a reward for watching the shopping basket in the queue and am not sure whether I am more shocked by the casual acquisition without payment of a large out-of-season fruit on behalf of a child or by her handing the girl unwashed fruit to eat. I tell Joe, who says he just watched a woman in the supermarket put in her cart a carton of coke with attached free toy bus. She then tore the bus out of its plastic, handed it to her young son, and returned the coke to the shelf.

Lovely walk back. The rain has freshened things up and we pass bouganvillea, and flower beds, trees laden with oranges and palms swaying in the breeze. Very busy with traffic backed up and store aisles jammed with shoppers.

Christmas for me begins with the broadcast live of the nine lessons and carols from King's college, Cambridge. Or does when we're in this part of the world, anyway. In central Canada it would be at 9 a.m. but here it starts at five pm, always with a single boy soprano singing the first verse of Once in Royal David's City. They've been holding the service for 90 years and every year since 1932, with one exception, the radio World Service has carried it live. Time to sit down, pour a drink, and know that Christmas has begun. King's College chapel itself (not that it shows, this being radio) is lovely - a Gothic chapel dating back to Henry VI, and memories of it mingle with the music.

And on a more secular plane we pick up, later in the evening Ricky Gervais in some slightly edgy comedy with Swedish subtitles on the Swedish chanel.

Tuesday, December we/2008

The television weather map of the Mediterranean shows the eastern end concealed by bluish cloud. It's not a satellite map - just a representation - but it matches the alternate drizzle and heavy showers that happen.

Monday, December 23/2008

Wake to the swish of cars driving on wet road. It's rained in the night, though not enough to do a great deal of good. Cypriot reservoirs are said to be at 3% of capacity and progress with desalination plants hopelessly behind. More rain, and hail and wind, in late afternoon, with attendant damage and flooding. As always, the storm sewers here are completely inadequate. so much of the rain that falls is wasted.

There's a Christmas concert on tonight. It's free and the standard is usually pretty high, but given the uncertainty of the weather and the certainty of flooded streets we give it a miss.

Sunday, December 21/2008

Last Sunday in Advent. At Mass there are two separate, though intermingled groups. The Europeans - mostly English or Irish expats with a sprinkling of Italians, Poles and others - and the Asians - mostly Filippino or, in lesser numbers, Sri Lankan, household help. While clearly in the laid back european camp ourselves, it's hard not to admire the liveliness, enthusiasm and open affection of the Filippinas especially. They don't make much money here, are often badly treatd by their employers, and, in many cases, have left small children behind with grandparents as they search for jobs that will allow them to send money home but the hug as they meet, sway to the music and are all smiles. It's very humbling.

Find a Chinese delivery menu that had been thrust into my hand on the street. See that it features "pecking duck with 4 pancakes," "half pecking duck" and "whole pecking duck," at eight euros fifty-five, sixteen euros ninety and thirty-three euros thirty respectively. For those feeling peckish?

Saturday, December 20/2008

The American Academy has a car boot sale in the morning. Pick up 4 paperbacks for a euro. Then market for oranges, cucumber, courgettes, cauliflower, kohlrabi and eggs. Coffee there with M&M. Good Cypriot coffee with the glass of water on the side and a nice breeze blowing.

In the afternoon to Carrefour. Still getting stocked up. Last time J spotted a Cypriot woman checking out the liquor. She opened the caps of two different fancy for Christmas bottles of vodka, sniffed them, returned them to the shelf, and bought neither. Today we check the meat counter. There's a sign with a price for lamb, but all that appears at that point under the glass counter is thirteen sad looking sheep's heads, eyes glazed, and beside them a pile of miscellaneous offal. No sign of the better bits. What would one do with a sheep's head if one were inclined to cook it? Not that I am.

At Prinos, the greengrocer across the road I get a huge bunch of dill - almost the size of the bouquets of roses in grad photos - as well as lemon, garlic, and onion. A man comes over to offer me a small white paper bag. Turns out to contain 5 hot chestnuts that he's just been roasting, so J and I stop at a park bench to eat them while they're still hot.

BBC World TV shows a circle of policemen surrounding the Christmas tree in Syntagma Square, central Athens. Its predecessor was burned by rioters and t he protests continue. We have fond memories of sitting in Syntagma Square in mid-December the year we retired, pleased that we could leave our jackets open in the winter sun (before we'd first come to shirt sleeve Cyprus). It seemed so exotic then seeing both Christmas lights and oranges on the trees of the square. Now, unfortunately, we've become blind to the miracle, walking past laden orange trees in December without really seeing them.

Friday, December 19/2008

Maggi and I have a drink at the little market cafe with her friend Dino, a British born Cypriot. We drink zivania, a clear Cypriot liquor. I've had it before but this is nicer. Zivania in one glass and ice water for diluting it in the other. Still shirt sleeve weather, so lovely for outside cafes.

Stop at the Frangiorgio and collect the Christmas card Rachel and Dave have sent with Kieran and Katy's school pictures, both of which turned out really well. There's a broken cable beneath the Mediterranean, affecting both internet and telephone communication. It's somewhere near Alexandria but affecting countries as far away as Singapore. Hard to know what the local effect is - it could easily be confused with the usual apalling performance.

Thursday, December 18/2008

Pre-Christmas sales at the supermarkets and we get our exercise as they're not all in the same direction and none are very close. The priorities are interesting. Carrefour's flyer, for example, has 13 pages of food ads, 13 pages of wine and liquor ads, and 5 pages of miscellaneous - soap, ipods, whatever. Anything with sugar is ridiculously expensive, but alcohol often quite cheap - e.g.700 ml. Drambuie at ten euros forty-five cents or a litre of local vodka at five euros fifty cents.

Wednesday, December 17/2008

M&M drop in for tea in the morning so Magne gets to see our studio as well. Maggi says temperatures have been so warm that there are snake warnings out. Datime temperatures about 22 in the shade, much warmer in the sun, and the snakes have not hibernated as usual. Contrast with the -35 and wind chill warning in Sioux Lookout when I checked at the internet yesterday. The bad part is the drought. Our hotel is only granted water from the municipality 3 days a week. The rest it brings in by tanker. Local residents have similar problems - water rationed and not available every day.

Tuesday, December 16/2008

Meet Maggi at student internet. Had forgotten how maddening it is. Three out of four computers "working" though unbelievably slowly and with periodic crashes and, in at least one case, a mouse that leaves the user feeling neurologically disabled. Increasingly frantic attempts have slow and inconsistent results. Astonishingly little achieved in half an hour, which is the maximum allowed, regardless of whether anyone is waiting for a computer or not. Sourpuss, in charge today, takes a particular grim pleasure in pointing out that one's time is up.

Haircut in the afternoon, put off since back in tunisia. I wait for the man who usually does it well. Not a lot of language in common so it's a more unnerving prospect than usual. Show him 2 fingers shorter and say "layer." He nods and sets to work. Basic "shorter" don and he explains that he will now "layer everything." I have horrible visions of a vicious shingling, but it's fine. He's never given me a bad cut - though the price is creeping up. Nine euros now, and the euro itself is creeping up. Worth roughly $1.50 when we went to Paris, it's now $1.70

Monday, December 15/2008

Wake up in our new home. No couch here, but there are 2 armchairs and a proper kitchen table with 4 upholstered chairs, and lots of light. Maybw we were lucky to have the bed beetles as an excuse.

Free bottle of wine at Metro with 65 euro purchase, but we don't have a hope of carrying that much. Must be at least a kilometre. Would have gone on to the student internet but Maggi texts to say that it's closed for the funeral of former president Papadopoulos. Never speak ill of the dead, but he, an old EOKA man, did as much as humanly possible to prevent the reintegration of south and north cyprus, spending his presidency persuuading the citizens that whatever they were offered they deserved better.

Sunday, Deember 14/2008

Mass at 9:30 with the usual enthusiastic Filippino singing. Father Wilhelm, giving communion, says "the body of Christ" in Polish, so back home.

After brunch we decide to make the move. Frangiorgio not exactly happy and suggest that on the daily rather than long term plan we owe them money on top of the deposit from last spring. But after the bugs they're not in a strong position and we call it quits. Do a flit, as the Scots say, to the Kition, fortunately only two blocks away. Maggi, out for a bike ride, comes to help. There's our suitcases, a bit of food and the three goxes we left in the storeroom last March, as yet unpacked. We'd also left a drying rack for clothes and a wheeled cart, both scrounged/inherited. Dryer there, wheels gone - taken by someone who must have taken some time to untape our name. Good thing it's only two blocks.

But our new home is light, happy and warm, and we're instantly glad we've made the move.

Saturday, December 13/2008

Market morning, and on the way over we meet Dougie, the bus driver, who asks how we're settling in - we spare him the details - and says he's brought Maggie and Magne in. If Cyprus is, as J contends, a tribal society, it's nice to be in Dougie's tribe.

Cyprus coffee with M and M in a litle corner behind the market. Near the rubbish piles, but sunny, nice management, good company and good coffee. Then the basics - if we manage to move we don't want too much to carry. So a couple of onions and some tiny tomatoes and the rest from Carrefour in the afternoon.

Friday, December 12/2008

So after coffee the agenda becomes a search for alternate accommodation. We're a bit put out because the promised CNN has disappeared from the TV offerings. Not our favourite chanel by any means, but still constant English language news, which is in short supply here. There's also a separate charge for heat that was not the case when we booked, and heat is a definite necessit in a north facing flat - and in the evening anyway. But the creepy crawlies are the biggest concern.

Check at the Achilleos and at Petrou Brothers. Achilleos ridiculously overpriced and Petrou sparkling clean, professionally run and with good TV, but still pretty high, as always. Off to M and M's for lunch - after telling Francis at the Frangiorgio about the bugs. Apologies, new flat - next door - OK not to move until after lunch - which we discreetly refer to as an appointment.

So lovely and welcome interlude with M and M, gin and tonics, spaghetti bolognaise and mince pies with custard - and lots of catch up talk and laughter.

Walk back along the seafront and, seeing the Kition Hotel, decide to check. The manager is in at 7:30 and we look at two studios. There is a one bedroom but its fairly expensive. The studio is a last minute bit of inspiration but proves to be lovely - 3rd floor corner and 3 large windows and two patio doors to a balcony gong the full length of the studio. Tons of light and a penthouse feel. It's not large and storage is pretty limited but we're taken with it - and it does have BBC. Forty euros more than the Frangiorgio. So back to think it over.

No bugs in new Frangiorgio apartment.

Thursday, December 11/2008

Up at 4:40 and mini cab to Heathrow 5 - 23 pounds, a fraction more than our joint train and tube fares from Gatwick. Heathrow 5 huge and glitzy but no long queues. Amazingly long bus ride out to the plane though, feels like heading for another town. SMall delay while they find and unload the cases of two people who have not shown for the flight. Undoubtedly not terrorists but Cypriots, who very frequently come late and with staggering amounts of hand luggage, used, we suspect, to a system that runs less on rules than on favours. Huge brunch and lovely crew, especially the young man wh hands us each an extra brandy, saying in confidential tones "one is never enough, is it?" He'd also come up with larger cups for coffee at breakfast with similar sympathetic clucking. BA seems no longer to run to newspapers, but this time we're prepared and have exchanged our overweight British coins for three newspapers in preparation. And the flight's half empty so there's lots of room to spread out and read them.

Maggi meets us at the gate so hugs and then we're just in time to get the bus in. Dougie, the bus driver is into high welcome too, with a handshake for J and kisses - les deux smack - for me. And he refuses to take any fare - oh not the first time!

Out to get enough for a meal of the beans on toast and cheap wine variety. I'm fairly early to bed with The Times - and then the discovery. First a small beele, about the size of a ladybug, crawls past - but perhaps it fell off the newspaper? But there are more. Two or three at a time, clearly visible against the white sheets, appearing endlessly from where - the mattress, the carpet? A half dozen of them, when squished in a bit of toilet paper, have mosquiteo sized amounts of what can only be human blood, though we're not aware of being bitten.

Wednesday, December 10/2008

D-Day. And a few auf widersehn's (sp?). J talks to our friend of flood night, who says that he makes 3 winter trips - to Tunisia, Egypt and Turkey - going back to Germany in between. British Air allows seat selection online 24 hours before departure. Useless yesterday as the internet was closed for the holiday. They're not open today when I check at 9 and 9:30, but are at 10, giving me time to pick good seats on tomorrow morning's flight, though no time to see about today's, which matters less as they're all in banks of 3 anyway.

The transfer is there promptly at 10:30. We're alone in the van until Hammamet, where we pick up another half dozen holiday makers. Past olive groves, in some of which there's a bit of picking going on, with blankets spread on the ground, as efficient a collection method as any. Sheep and goats graze, often it seems on nothing but sand. There's a fair bit of land reclamation going on, tree planting to stop the erosion of grassless wastes. The settled areas are spreading with a lot of buildings in the local mud brick, looking half finished as further storeys are added as money allows, leaving many people living in what looks like - but isn't - bombed out ruins. Gardens and groves are often fenced in quite effectively with cactus plants.

No queue at the airport and no one mentions the fact - or used to be fact - that one is not supposed to leave with Tunisian dinars. We've got a very few and I'm hoping for something in the way of reading material, even old. But once through security - no questions re liquids, mobiles, etc - there's only the big Duty Free with ridiculous prices. Gin about the same in euros as Air Canada charges in dollars. Do you take all currencies? Not dinars. Pounds, euros, dollars? Oh yes.

In the departure lounge a young Asian woman walks round with what looks like a menu, but what's on offer is Chinese massage, behind a not particularly concealing screen in what looks like a nor particularly comfortable chair. Ten euro for ten minutes.

An hour's wait at Gatwick for the luggage, then train to Farringdon and tube to west Harrow. There's frost (snow?) in trace amounts on the platform, but cosy, warm, and a bottle of wine and some Bombay mix waiting at Jean's, to say nothing of a warm welcome.

Tuesday, December 9/2008

Phone after breakfast to confirm the transfer for tomorrow. AOK. A few more cafes and shops are open today, though by no means everything. Sort of a Boxing Day selection. Internet closed though. Stil a small amount of lamb's blood in the gutter.

Packing night. Leaving Newsweek and Mrs. McGinty Est Mort *the Agatha Christie in French translation I've just finished reading( at the hotel. But what about the others? All very well to say, to begin with, that we can leave them behind, but when it comes to it I hate seeing books consigned to the rubbish bin. They're not ideal ones to find a home for here either. Mordecai Richler's St. Urbain's Horseman would simply be considered pornography in a country where it is forbidden to access hotmail on the internet. As for the other two, a travel book featuring Central Asia and the biography of a Trappist monk are probably minority taste and tough going for most Arabic speakers. But they're too heavy to take.

Monday, December 8/2008

The dining room looks like a series of short stories in the making. There are the four people at the next table, all German, who look like two sisters, the husband of one of them and a friend or possible sister-in-law. They seem on quite friendly terms but appear to be on independent schedules, arriving for meals singly and leaving when finished, regardless of whether they leave a lone person eating. The diets range from that of the one we call Jane (because of her resemblance to Jane McGill), who eats enormous amounts of salad and fruit but little or no meat, to that of the sister-in-law character, a large blonde woman, immaculately dressed, with a cane and a taste for comfort food, who keeps a plastic bag in her handbag to load with pastries at dinner. And the couple at the next table - she middleaged, a plump, wistful redhead who always says good morning in German and he an Arab, German speaking, but possibly a local, a little younger than she - and not always there at meals. She wears no rings, and she's happier when he shows up for meals, which he does more tha half the time, sometimes at breakfast. And the story is?

Out for a walk and the city is utterly deserted and shuttered, apart from the magnificent tomb of former president Bourguiba, where we seem to coincide with some Bourguiba family members. The tomb looks a bit like the Taj mahal, and is at the end of a quarter km walk made of paving stones. On each side of the walk there is a cemetery. Quite interesting, with rectangular white sarcophagi marking each burial spot - the richest of them in white marble, most in white concrete, and the occasional one in white tile. One is actually in chequered blue and white tile. There's no surrounding grass, just earth, butmany of the white coffin sized rectangles have sprigs of green leaf on top. There's the odd tourist and very few locals, but nothing open. Then, at the marina hotel complex, we spot a shop saying closed Sunday-Monday-Tuesday. TUrns out it's Eid, the feast commemorating God's sparing of Ishmael (Isaac in the Judaeo-Christian tradition), celebrated with each family killing a lamb - and we remember that the gutters were, as we set out, running red. We had joked about its being blood. No wonder the sheep I saw Saturday was so reluctant to accompany the woman.

In the evening the bubbly woman in the next room asks if we have heat. Actually, no, and it is starting to get chilly. She speaks 6 words of English to our 6 of German, but she manages to convey an amazing amount with sign language, laughter, and sheer determination and even hugs. They'd better fix it - otherwise she's off to Sousse, good hotels with heat and bigger pools, same price. She writes out 3 names (all this expressed without language in common!) A cheerful young man comes to check the heating and gets results with ours but not, unfortunately, hers.

Sunday, December 7/2008

A man rides a motorbike down past the bank, one hand on the handlebars, the other gripping the edge of a large rectangular tray full of pastries balanced on his head. We stop at a shop in the medina to browse. On a shelf at the back, a small television set is showing the Hajj, so J's curiosity is aroused. In Tunisia (98% Moslem) what percentage are observant, that is atttend the mosque? Not a large percentage - mostly the old.

The numbers seem to be dropping in the dining room as winter comes on and tonight a number of the dishes appear to be recycle versions of last night's fare, so it's tempting to ask if we don't finish it tonight will we have to eat it again tomorrow.

BBC's weather report refers to Manitoba and Ontario as "perishingly cold."

Saturday, December 6/2008

Coming back from the internet cafe I see a young woman in a hijab with a sheep on a rope lead. She's talking to a young man and also trying to persuade the sheep to come along with her, but the sheep is having none of it, digging in its hooves as she tugs and backing away like a dog trying to slip its collar. A cruising yellow taxi passes and the woman pjuts up a tentative hand. The taxi slows, then the driver seems to size up the situation and speeds away. Can she really have been going to try to force the sheep into the cab?

Friday, December 5/2008

Attempt to mail postcards to the grandchildren. The post office is standing room only, and there must be at least fifty seats occupied as well. A young woman shows us where to take a number. Our number is 022. The electronic number currently being served is 667. Do they start over at a thousand? We leave.

For the first time the tourist information office in the medina is open as we pass. A petite young woman is in charge, a little shy. Do they have information in English? She searches in a large cupboard and in her desk. There isn't much there at all. Or French? Ah, here we are a little lucker and get a brochure about Monastir and road map of Tunisia. We ask about the price of stamps to North America and louage trips to Kairoun, but her answers seem both improbably high and like random guesses. I'm ready to leave but J, as usual, is thirsty for information - about the economy, health, education. I jokingly apologise: "Il a toujours des questions." But she's warming a little and becoming more fluent as she continues, mostly in English. Turns out, rather disturbingly (as she can't actually come up with a full grammatical sentence, though she's a lovely girl) that she teaches English to students of 18 or 19. But there's not much chance to practice. French is coçmpulsory from age eight and English at the secondary level. Other languages are senior secondary options. An initial doctor's visit is 35 dinar ($31.50 CAD or £17 UK), but dentists are not expensive.

Walking back, pass a small truck parked on a main business street with a placid sheep in the box. J talks to it and it looks silly and interested.

Thursday, December 4/2008

Try to catch up on the Canadian political scene at the internet but the consultation with the governor general scheduled for later today. BBC World, which doesn't usually mention Canada, has it pretty well summed up when they say that Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper has taken the unusual step of asking to have parliament suspended in order to avoid defeat.

Over past the mairie to the post office. Dark blue sea and tall palms, red Tunisian flags much in evidence as always. Post office inaccessably crowded and outside there is a fair sized streetmarket taking place over block or so. Mostly local supplies - clothing, kitchen knives, mobile phone chargers. There are some fairly attractive salad bowls close to 2 feet in diameter and a sort of tin hibachi affair. I finally acquire my comb, a not particularly nice pale aqu one. I buy it from woman at a table outside the supermarket but all the other sellers are male, as they seem to be in all but official goverment shops or little family run ones or supermarkets. One stall at today's market includes, amongst other unrelated objects, 3 padded bras of different colours in the care of a man no woman would dream of consulting about measurements. Nearby a boy about the size of Kieran is shouting enthusiastically "one dinar, one dinar" as he offers a variety of things for sale at 90 cents CAD each.

The male dominance is even more pronounced in the outdoor cafés, which are many and often large. Among the dozens seated at one of the biggest - men of all ages wearing fezzes, baseball caps, woollen hats, the occasional Arab headdress or bareheaded - we only once spot a female, a very small girl with her father. In the more touristed spots there is very occasional woman. But unemployment is fairly high and men have quite a bit of time for coffee, even young men.

We're about to go down to dinner when BBC World announces that the governor general has agreed to suspend parliament. So there we are in the BBC news along with the international drug cartels and the war crimes of former African presidents nd Khmer Rouge leaders. Somehow "suspend parliament" has the sound of suspending democracy, a deprivation not implied by the faintly ridiculous "prorogue." So we're back to the Stuart kings who would much have preferred not to deal with parliament at all, were it not for the grubby necessity of getting money.

Wednesday, December 3/2008

Morning starts with dark clouds and white caps on a grey-blue sea. Very windy and no hardy German sunbathers in evidence, but not actually cold. Text message from Jenny saying she's back from Cumbria and awaiting the birth of the grandchildren - due next month.

Try the internet but it's ridiculously slow - "plus tard" we tell him. Walk down to the souk. Horrifically windy but still not cold.

J chats in the lift with the German of lst night's flood watch. He and his wife go away for the winter - 6 weeks here, then Egypt, then Turkey. At dinner the German lady at the next table says tht they are here until January 13. The conversation is partly in English and mostly in French, and she seems also to have said that Cyprus gives her a headache, so there may have been some degree of miscommunication.

Tuesday, December 2/2008

Check at the louage station re trips to Tunis and Kairouan. Yes, continually. From "trois heures le matin" - much earlier than our most ambitious thoughts.

Decide in the end not to go to Tunisia - given the louage time and a preference for being back before dark - and then it begins to rain, hard and with accompanying thunder. Having a glass of wine and a read in the room when I check the stairwell door in the corridor, which has been banging. There's a German guest in the hallway who has spotted a leak in the ceiling. As I turn round we realise that the room is filling with water coming in from under the balcony door. Reception promises help, which takes some time to arrive. The German spreads his hands - this is Africa. But eventually a man comes with long squeegee, mop and pail and it's habitable again. Evening's drama over.

Monday, December 1/2008

December already. Not that it feels like it in Tunisia. A little cooler than when we arrived? Maybe, but yesterday we abandoned our light jackets by late morning - while locals passed us in coats and often woollen hats as well. Curious - one would have thought that biology more than culture would determine sense of cold and heat, but it's clearly a mixture.

This morning J shows me the footprint on top of his shoe where a man at the Medina yesterday stood on his foot, firmly and unapologetically - presumably to allow his knife-wielding companion time to slash J's bag.

Make our visit to the ribat, a large sandstone complex, walled fortification originally defended by warrior monks who slept in small cells around the central courtyard. Great views from the ramparts and tower and reminiscent of Life of Brian which was filmed there. Makes, as Zeffirelli found, a better Jerusalem than present Jerusalem for film purposes. There's not a great deal in its little museum, but some of the antique embroidery is lovely and the picture of Monastir 150 years ago is interesting - an Arab village.

J chats up a young man as we're leaving about the present state of Tunisia. Things are difficult economically despite the signs of construction. Monstir itself he says is a university town - faculties of pedicine, pharmacy, health, agriculture. Do they pay for university or health care? Not for university, except accommodation, but they do pay for medical care, though not a lot.

To the internet café. Fascinating Canadian political/constitutional situation but ot easy to follow via the internet glimpses, especially as it's still early morning in Canada.

Sunday, November 30/2008

Market day in Sousse, so after breafast we take a louage (shared taxi). Holds 7 plus driver, though rather packed. One dinar 30 each to Sousse (about $1.15 CAD, 62p UK for a 24 km trip). Close to a km walk when we get there, from the bus/louage station to the medina.

This medina is much older and bigger than "ours" in Monastir. It's about a km across diagonally but a labyrinth of passages enclosed in ancient walls except for the northern entrance where the wall was blown away by the Allies in 1943. The medina includes 24 mosques and several hotels, but mostly it's shops and stalls selling everything, like a Middle Eastern souq: the obvious leather goods, jewellery, tiles, pottery and kaftans; food of all sorts from fast food to sweets to huge open sacks of spices to whole fish and live hens; ordinary clothing, socks, underwear, etc. as well as general necessities - plasticware, batteries, watch straps, etc. It's crowded in places and in the prts with more tourist goods (including towels featuring various English football teams), there's fair pressure to buy. A man approaches, determined to sell us some Viagra. Very cheap, he insists, but gives up when I say "pas necessaire." Through the crowds an occasional cart or even car makes its way, unbelievably, and more than once two or three sheep on a lead.

We take some time to look at the port - a working port with some pirate style tourist day boats as well - and the southern end of the beach, with beautiful fine sand.

Come back by train - even cheaper than the loge and from a handier location by the port. As we're waiting for the train J discovers that the leather bag he has been carrying has been slashed by a sharp knife, presumably in the crowded medina lanes: It's wrecked the zipper of the front pocket and cut the lining through to the second section. Nothing missing - actually there was nothing in the front section except plastic cutlery for picnicking, but it leaves an unpleasant feeling.

Saturday, November 29/2008

Back to the market. An amazingly large fish section, including whole tuna and swordfish as well as steaks of same. Three sheep's heads in a row at a butcher's stall, looking pathetically small without the large fluffy bodies. The cow's head has lost its dummy pacifier. The pressure of salesmen in the medina isn't overpowering but there is sometimes an edge to it - it's not very much for you; a cup of coffee. As the man selling cigarettes who is disgusted when J points out he doesn't smoke - it's very cheap so buy them for someone else. Of course we must look as if we're going back to Europe at the end of a week's holiday with a suitcase full of souvenirs.

Friday, November 28/2008

The BBC chanel is prone to sudden pixillation and disappearance, especially in the early morning and around dinner time. So as it disappears this morning we scan the other chanels for news. We're not much good at following the Italian or German news and the French chanels seem to be broadcasting advertising and children's programming. The two Tunisian chanels, which seldom have much content of consequence even when it isn't the Moslem holy day, are no use. One is, oddly enough, showing a Canadian program on ice climbing, dubbed in Arabic and featuring information on technique and desirable ice climbing locations from Quebec and Banff to Nipigon, Ontario. Written advice of the "wear a helmet" variety appears in a sidebar. One wonders what on earth the Tunisian watchers make of it.

At breafast a German lady uses her few words of English to say she regrets not being able to converse with us. But turns out she does speak some French so we have a brief discussion. Join the sunseekers outside where the sun is certainly hot but the wind is strong enough that it is only just a pleasure, although several determined Germans are in bathing suits.

Mark Abell, the British man we listened to on BBC yesterday is on again today, now no longer barricaded in his Mumbai hotel room but free to go home to his family. And how had he spent his time, apart from keeping in touch with his Blackberry? "I had one of the Ladies Number One Detective Agency books to read." As have we in our hotel room, though fortunately with no need to barricade.

Drinking a not bad Tunisian red wine - Grand vin de Mornag (2005). Much better than the red J bought at the bar. But J finds a small shard - it looks like glass but we think plastic - in the bottom of his glass.

Thursday, November 27/2008

Wake to overcast sky and rough sea, although the wind is a fairly warm one. Mumbai hostage taking continues (we listen to a remarkably controlled mobile phone report from a man barricaded in his hotel room without food, much water or tv as a news source. And in Bqngkok protestors have occupied the other airport as well.

Good drying weather for the wash - the clothes dance wildly above the balcony. Go for a walk in the mild wind. The café round the corner has a number of men drinking coffee and smoking water pipes (sheeskas), including one of the German men from our hotel, answering in one case the question of where the others go and what they do when it's not sunny by the pool. Past the drugstore where we first bought bottled water. Nothing would look less like a drugstore. The local pharmacies are European drugstores with pharmaceuticals, skin creams and such, mostly behind the counter. This 'drugstore' however is a grubby cubbyhole about 6 by 8 feet, with dusty cardboard boxes and grimy jars, looking more like a disused toolshed - the proprietor pleasant enough but the last person one would think to consult on a medical problem.

Discover the local covered market, a lively place full of fruit and vegetables - heaps of oranges, pomegranates, bananas, purple-black aubergines, cauliflowers, lettuces, courgettes. The central area is a huge square composed of tables covered with fish, whole fish of a variety of shapes and sizes. We must look impressedas a man tries to sell us some. There are also alcoves selling eggs, cheese, and meat, some with carcasses hanging above the counter. Next to small carcasses of lamb or kid, there hangs the full unskinned head of a cow, facing into the market, a baby's dummy pacifier in its mouth.

Wednesday, November 26/2008

We've been here a week and a high proportion of our fellow guests are no longer the same as at the beginning of our stay. I'm now writing the journal aware that the keyboard for which it is destined is different; the most difficult letter to get right is the 'w', placed in the usual spot for the 'z'. (There are 5 w's in the last sentence). Will I begin to write like a stutterer, choosing phrases that avoid problems? A little inattention and witty becomes zitty.

Temperature still about 35 in the morning sun but 22 in the morning shade with enough breeze that the sunbathers look for sheltered spots. We sit mostly on our balcony, having a large fourth floor one overlooking the sea.

Both BBC and French television have scenes of Bangkok airport, taken over by protestors and effectively closed to flights. Usually both sides in Thailand knoz the value of tourism but isùs a good time to be planning to fly from Tunis rather than Bangkok.Then in the evening Bangkok is knocked off the news by live coverage of violence in Mumbai, with more than 80 dead and guests held hostage in luxury hotels.

Tuesday, November 25/2008

Our regular wander includes a search for the railway station, which we find after a couple of false starts and debates with a minimum of acrimony. Astonishing how remembered maps and the reality on the ground can fail to match up in one brain let alone two. The man we ask appears to be explaining in Arabic that he doesn't speak French, but points in response to "la gare?" Monastir is on a spur line, but there are several trains a day to Sousse, and several a day from Sousse to Tunis.

Through the medina on the way back. Fast food prices don't seem expensive but goods aimed at Tunisians are not cheap. A small and quite basic microwave, for example is about a hundred dollars (£48 UK). We are passed by a calèche, a horse-drawn carriage for tourists, decorated with artificial flowers. Most horses we have seen here are small working animals pulling carts with sacks of goods. Sometimes donkeys do the same, competing with vehicular traffic on the less busy streets.

Monday, November 24/2008

It's rained in the night and there's enough mist to obscure the usual clear line between light blue sky and dark blue sea. By the time we finish breakfast it's burned off and the balcony floor is dry. Quite a windy day, though warm enough in sheltered spots.

Two minarets are visible from our window and from the nearer we can hear the call to prayer five times a day. Monastir has not always been Moslem of course. It was originally a Phoenician trading centre and in Roman times was Julius Caesar's headquarters when he defeated Pompey who was based at nearby Sousse, after which Monastir became the Roman town of Ruspina.

Sunday, November 23/2008

Say goodbye to Sandra and John after breafast - S not looking forward to Edinburgh's temperatures after Monastir's. Wander about the town. The central area isn't large but the streets are all curves and angles so it's easy to get confused. Mostly overcast but still warm. On the way back we follow the sea and then turn in toward our hotel. See man with a dozen or so sheep grazing by the side of the street. A curious mixture of urban and rural; roosters crowing and grazing sheep in a residential area blocks away from the university hospital and the banks.

Saturday, November 22/2008

Discovery - the key to getting wholemeal bread rather thn baguettes is to get up a little earlier before the German contingent has made sandwixches to be smuggled out for later.

A walk in the non-tourist streets to the south-west of our hotel. They're much more interesting than the touristy medina. It's a residential area with small shops and other businesses, such as a bakery (identifiable by loaves of brfead painted on the outside s well as, one presumes, by the Arabic writing beside the door). It's a windy day and there's plenty of loose rubbish blowing about but there are quite attractive houses, many with shapely pillars and arches, decorative wrought iron work and pretty Islamic tiles. The area doesn't look rich by any means, but there are new buildings under construction as well as those being renovated and extended. A sheet of paper taped to a shop wall is advertising for a 3rd girl to share a furnished flqt with 2 others (and it's a desirable area near the university medical faculty) but at the same time we see a small number of sheep disappearing round the corner near the closest of the mosques that we can see from our window. Later we pass a man with 2 sheep on q long rope. He's letting them graze on a vacant lot full of rubbish and bits of scrub growth - admittedly a better source of vegetation than many of the hills of Israel and Jordan. There is a girl wearing a hijab with an armful of bqguettes, two young men playing football, children coming home from school with their books. Not a great deal of vehicular traffic though. Laundry hangs from the windows and carpets are airing.

We stop at a couple of small shops as I look to buy a comb, mine having unaccountably disappeared in transit leaving us one b etween us. No luck though, although the shops do carry shampoo, styling gel, and even hairbrushes and I have remembered the French for comb. Interestingly there are large bottles (2 litre perhaps) of various colognes filled to varying levels, from which it appears possible to buy 100 ml portions.

Then J back to the hotel and I to the internet. A somewhat frustrating experience for a touch typist as the keyboard is quite different - for example the a and q are reversed, as are the m and the comma. Some characters, such as double quotation marks, I never do find. Sky overcast when I leave, and the sea, which had been green streaked with indigo in the shallows, is now dqrk grey with whitecaps. Huge local interest in a televised football match for an African regional cup. The locals support the team from Sfax, down the coast, rather than the nearby city of Sousse - perhaps too local a rival for their allegiance. Victory greeted with much shouting, singing in the streets, car horns and - we note from our balcony young bloods hanging Sfax's colours from the roof of a tall neighbouring building.

After dinner a farewell drink with John and Sandra, who leave tomorrow. I go back to our room for a pen to give them our email address (John has a card featuring his Zimbabwe wildlife charity). Searching for the pen, I leave the door to the corridor open and then remember our reading of last night. In Journey to Khiva, author Philip Glazebrook recounts his experience stying t the National, a major Moscow Hotel. He had left the window of his room open and lso the door to the corridor in order to get some fresh air. A man armed with a knife rushed into the room and attacked him violently, holdintg a chloroform pad as well as the knife. Glazebrook, who had quite a bit of money with him by Russian standards (in 1990) fought for his life. Suddenly the assailant left, perhaps having heard someone coming. When the author attempted to complain to authorities, both hotel and police, he zas met with incredulity that anyone could have been stupid enough to have left the door of his hotel room open to the corridor.

Friday, November 21/2008

Take our coffee to the lounge at the end of breakfast and sit overlooking the pool. A woman with a cane gets up to shut the door against the breeze and we meet Sandra from Edinburgh. A lucky meeting as we might well have assumed that she and her husband were German and not have opened a conversation. They're here for 2 weeks but unfortunately will leave on Sunday. An interesting conversation with her husband as well. He's sunning himself by the pool and chats with us for a half hour. He lived in Rhodesia at one point and they still go back regularly to Zimbabwe to holiday and because he is involved with a charity tht supports an enormous game reserve there entirely run by volunteers.

Further explorations in the midday which is very warm in the sun but with a bit of breeze from the sea. We're even closer to the centre of things than we realised yesterday. We're within 500 metres of the ribat (a ribat is a fortified monastery). This one dates back to the end of the 8th C and has a giant fairy tale sandcastle look. The complex has appealed to others as well, as it was used in the filming of Monty Python's Life of Brian and Zefferelli's Life of Christ. We'll definitely go in another day. We're a similar distance from the tozn centre and well under a km from the train and bus stations. We stop at the Monoprix Supermarket. It's not especially cheap by our standards, although most of the people shopping there are local. Prices at the little restaurant cum café we pass on the way back are pretty reasonable though - espresso at about 55 cents a cup (25 p) and crèpe suzette at a dollar thirty-five CAD or 65 p UK.

After dinner have a drink in the lounge with Sandra and John. Hebuys the first round when we have the local Celtia beer, a pleasant enough light lager, so we have no idea what beer costs. However the bottle of Tunisian red wine that J buys for us to share is 15 dinars - about 13.60 CAD of £6.50 UK. Admittedly less than one would pay in Canada or the UK in a bar, but a pretty fair mark-up locally for a wine that was nothing like as good as home made, despite its being one the AA Tunisia guide refers to as drinkable and despite its 2003 vintage - not enough people over the past 5 years have cared to drink it? Good conversation, though. And John points out that Johnnie Walker in the supermarket is £80!

Thursday, November 20!2008

A long night's sleep and we wake to the dark blue Mediterranean (why aren't other seas that colour?) and the repeated crow of a rooster somewhere to the west. Two of the German women outside by the pool are already, stereotypically putting markers on their sun loungers to reserve them for later. Breakfast buffet is quite good and coffee very welcome.

A day of quiet settling in. Exploratory walk along the corniche by the seafront and the streets near the hotel. Some shops seem closed for the season and we don't pass other tourists (most of those at Monastir Centre are turning toast coloured around the pool). We pass the university hospital, a small internet cafe, pizza places, little greengrocers and magasins alimentaires. We buy 2 1.5 litre bottles of water for a Tunisian dinar (88 cents CAD or just over 40 p UK) to take back to the room. Also wash a few clothes and hang them out on our balcony to dry. Make tea using our immersion coil and sample each of 3 books we've brought with us. Two of them, Monica Furlong's biography of Thomas Merton and The Number One Ladies' Detective Agency, are divided into 20 or 21 chapters - exactly right for our 3 week stay. The other, Philip Glazebrook's Journey to Khiva, is an intelligent and sometimes humorous account of a trip to Uzbekistan via Moscow in 1990, shortly before our own trip to Moscow and Leningrad. It looks very interesting.

Not quite as many people at dinner and no overlap with the contents of last night's dinner except for the Tunisian soup. The chef will fry a small fish as you wait. Quite delicious. Not much selection for dessert but what there is is quite good, though the oranges are underripe.

Wednesday, November 19/2008

Up at 4:15. We've set the alarms on both mobile phones and J's watch, just to be sure. And they all go off. Pretty well everything done last night. Take sandwiches and leftover salmon cakes for breakfast at Gatwick. Also remaining blue cheese. Leave 3 onions, a banana and a pint of vanilla yoghurt for the cleaner.

Just make the 5:16 underground train but it's a quick and peaceful time of day to be travelling. No problem catching the 5:50 train to Gatwick and ze're there at 6:20 - having allowed for all public transit contingencies we're much earlier than necessary.

Plane not full and the middle seat remains unoccupied. Allows for some manoeuvering room as party ahead - two very loud German men with a quiet Asian woman - is quite exhuberant. The girl is attached to a man with a hangdog face and a large moustache sitting in the window seat ahead of J while the tall man in the seat ahead of me looks quite a lot like Boris Karloff. They're not bad really - just very loud - and each time Boris Karloff throws himself into the seat my tray shakes and the wine wobbles. But we've learned one of the lessons at Monday's lecture on happiness - think of the alternative possibilities. Yes, we might have had quiet and considerate people ahead, but then again the 3rd seat in our bank might have been taken by a large person with a bad head cold instead of remaining vacant, so we're doing well.

As with Air Canada on our way to London, there are no newspapers - and British Air used to provide a choice. There is wine though, and a pleasant cabin crew, though lunch is a rather skinny sandwich. Across the aisle from us is a father with a lively, inquisitive 6 year old boy interested in everything after "we blast off."

Flight a little less than 3 hours and there's an hour's time change. We're met by a rep from A2B, the independent transfer company we booked online - 30 pounds return for the two of us, and it's about 150 km each way, so it's pretty good value, not much more than a return trip by taxi fro, home to the train station be. Knowing that it's cheap by western standards they've put a collection plate at the door as we board: "English money no problem." There are several of us, including the bright little boy and his father, but the others all get dropped off at hotels in Hammamet, a beach tourist resort town 63 km south of Tunis.

We're at the Monastir Centre Hotel, advertised as being central but not far from the beach as I googled for central. Actually some of the beach hotels are about as central, as we're only about two blocks from the beach. We had just feared being stranded on an isolated strip of tourist beach hotels outside the city. Fortunately these people also recognise our voucher, booked with a different firm online. We're on the fourth floor (out of 5) and in an end room with stunning views in 3 directions. The balcony doors are on the east, looking out over the Mediterranean, as dark blue as only the Mediterranean can be, and from the large balcony (15x15 feet) there is also a view to the south. On the other side of the room the window looks west, over the swimming pool and sun loungers to the city proper with apartments and the minaret of a mosque. As we enter the room the sun is poised as a red ball on the horizon, just about to set an hour later than it would have done in England.

The room itself is irregularly-shaped but big, with bunk beds tucked in a corner for the children we didn't bring. The shower is in the middle of a long bath and has surprisingly good water pressure for the fourth floor as well as plenty of hot water. Most tv channels are French, Arabic or German, but we do have BBC World, so we're in touch with English news.

Dinner (we've opted for half board) is from 6:30 to 8:30. Most of the other guests appear to be German. J, harking back to Yugoslavia 30 years ago, has always said that the Germans had a good eye for a bargain. Dinner is a varied buffet - fish, chicken, lamb, coscous, salads, soups (including a Tunisian one flavoured with a fairly ,ild harissa, or chili paste), salads, oranges, pears (a little underripe) and dates still on the stalk, as well as sweet biscuits and a pudding with a flavour we can't quite pin down which J remembers eating as a small child in Germany. Dishes are somewhat uncertainly labelled in three languages, and include chiken, lamm and fische.

We've been up since quarter past four so it doesn't take us long to fall asleep.

Tuesday, November 18/2008

Last day. Over to the Barbican to choose seats on tomorrow's flight. They're in banks of three on either side of the aisle so we ga,ble and opt for the aisle and window seats. Either no one will choose the middle or one of us will offer to trade. Check out the ti,ing on tomorrow's underground trip too. First train from Swiss Cottage leaves at 5:16 and takes about 20 minutes to reach London Bridge Station. Should give us plenty of time.

Trafalgar Square to post office - long queues as always - and Canada House to print boarding passes. And back to Trafalgar after dusk (and sunset is about 4:10 this time of year) to see the interactive art project of a Mexican Canadian. A nu,ber of projectors project film images of people, more or less full size, from a cache of hundreds onto the pavement at the north end of Trafalgar Square. Intriguingly the images are activated by the shadows cast by the observors: They seem to come alive, struggling to sit up. It's temting to offer a hand so that they can emerge from the pavement and become fully real. Meanwhile the images make eye contact and even the security people seem quite taken with them.

The evening spent packing. How will it all fit back into our little suitcases? The saddest is throwing out all those lovely newspapers - many of which have excellent bits that there hasn't been time to read - with English language reading on our winters it's always feast or famine.

Monday, November 17/2008

Note: Entries now being made on Tunisian keyboard. Some characters impossible to find!

Barbican library internet and check the terminal for the Cyprus flight - terminal 5. The Tunis flight is fro, Gatwick. Leaves us just time to get to Hanover Square for the Gresham College free lecture. This is the church that Shelley got married in, a pretty sqare church with balconies on three sides. Paul and Jill are there already and we join them. The lecture is on what makes people happy and is given by a visiting professor of psychiatry. It is interesting, informative, and quite witty. Gresham College in the Inns of Court has a wonderful and varied series of free public lectures zhich Jill and Paul put us on to: A tradition of lectures that goes back over 400 years.

Then we realise that we are quite near Farm Street. Farm Street is often ,entioned in literary biographies as a Catholic centre and I am curious. Turns out to be a lovely little neo-Gothic church with beautiful vaulting and stained glass. It is officially the Church of the Immaculate Conception, run by the Jesuits and familiarly known as Farm Street - a treasure tucked azay in a quiet corner of Mayfair.

By bus to Trafalgar to pick up our new debit cards at Charing Cross. On the way to the bus stop we pass, within a block, the former home of Florence Nightingale and the former abode of Skittles, apparently the most famous courtesan of Victorian London. Then up Charing Cross Road where we find a small French dictionary at Blackwells - unaccountably half price. By now it is raining so umbrellas out and home.

Last of the spaghetti for dinner. Jenny calls to chat. She is to be off work for another two weeks and has decided to go to Cumbria to visit Jane.

Monday, November 17/2008

Barbican Library internet and check the terminal for the Cyprus flight - terminal 5. The Tunis flight is from Gatwick. Leaves us just time to get to Hanover Square for the Gresham College free lecture. This is the church that Shelley got married in, a pretty square church with balconies on three sides. Paul and Jill are there already and we join them. The lecture is on what makes people happy and is given by a visiting professor of psychiatry. It's interesting, informative and quite witty. Gresham College in the Inns of Court has a wonderful and varied series of free public lectures which Jill and Paul put us on to. A tradition of free public lectures that goes back over 400 years.

Then we realise we're quite near Farm Street. Farm Street is often mentioned in literary biographies as a Catholic centre and I'm curious. Turns out to be a lovely little neo-Gothic church with beautiful vaulting and stained glass. It's officially the Church of the Immaculate Conception, run by the Jesuits and familiarly known as Farm Street - a treasure tucked away in a quiet corner of Mayfair.

By bus to Trafalgar to pick up our new debit cards. Then up Charing Cross Road where we find a small French dictionary at Blackwell's - unaccountably but happily half price (£2.25). By now it's raining so umbrellas out and home.

Last of the spaghetti for dinner. Jenny calls to chat. She is to take two more weeks off work and has decided to go to Cumbria and visit Jane.

Sunday, November 16/2008

Go out to the newsagent's for the Sunday Times and find that there is a fine rain, one step beyond mist. So we take our umbrellas with us to Finchley Road tube station and off to Jean's. STill mild. THere are leaves all over the pavements, mostly from the plane trees. They have leaves that look like giant maple leaves, the largest of them about a foot across.

There's a bird bath in the back garden at Jean's and J watches the birds enjoying a bath. Jean says that she spotted a dead rat there earlier. She called the council who say that they charge to remove a corpse from private property, though not from the street - from whence it probably came. Their advice is to wrap it in paper and put it in the rubbish bin. She does, and says the bin is due to be emptied tomorrow, but if it happens again she'll put it in the gutter and then call. They say that in London one is never more than ten feet from a rat, though it seems (and one hopes is) unlikely. We have seen them by - and in - the bins in Belsize Park though.

Shanthi joins us after a weekend visiting relatives in Surrey. Lots of lively chat. We discuss David Hare's Gethsemane. Predictably given a good review in the Guardian and a poor one in this morning's Times. The characters are, of course, scarcely disguised at all, and one recognises Tony Blair, Lord Levy, and - by dilemma at least - Tessa Jowell. Now, apparently, rumour has it that Blair isn't putting much energy into doing his new job; he's too caught up in the world of well paid speaking engagements. Shanthi has friends in the court system who say that the current economic situation has seen a surge of City wives from the world of finance filing for divorce beofre there is an end to the huge payout bonuses as companies fail and banks lay off executives. Meanwhile Shanthi's concern is for families losing their homes in record numbers as the banks repossess.

Fragrant rice and curries for dinner. Little pavlovas with fresh strawberries for dessert. A lovely treat. Jean and Shanthi reminisce about Singapore, arranged marriages, family. Jean's grandfather was born in London in the 1820's and lived as a bookseller in the London in which Dickens was writing. Quite amazing.

Saturday, November 15/2008

Paul arrives with a bag of brochures, etc. just as we're leaving. Take the Northern line tube. Two women (mother and duaghter?) sit opposite in animated sign language conversation, laughing as they talk.

We do a bit of theatre checking and then wander down to Covent Garden. There are open air performers to admire, including a pearly king and queen collecting for charity, their black clothing studded with pearl buttons in traditional Cockney style. Check for Christmas cards at St. Paul's Covent Garden, the actors' church. The garden behind the church is a little oasis full of memorial benches. A lovely spot to have a snack, though unfortunately others seem to have thought so as well and left their rubbish, despite the bins provided.

Tube out to Shepherd's Bush to check out the new Westfield Mall, supposed to be the largest in Europe. Pretty upscale - forty restaurants but no plasticland, chandeliers much in evidence. Home via Camden Town. Check for a French dictionary but the shop where I got the last one seems to have disappeared.

Friday, November 14/2008

Sort out the best method of getting to Gatwick on Wednewday. Settle on train from London Bridge Station and buy the tickets. It means we can get the tube from Swiss Cottage without changing and has the advantage of no stairs at the other end. Pamphlets at the station explain the "fall leaf" timetaboles. Autumn leaves on the track are mulched into a slippery coating that forces the trains to slow slightly for safety. The same problem occurs (as the leaflet points out) in North America, but I'm quite sure Canadian trains don't adjust the timetable. They just unapologetically arrive late.

From Southwark we walk over to the Imperial War Museum. There's an exhibit on the Great War in honour of the 90th anniversary, complete with photographs of the three surviving British veterans, now aged 108, 110, and 112. It's a very moving exhibit - letters from the front, photographs, newspaper clippings. A letter fragment reads "I doo not want to die...If it be that I am to go, I am ready. But the thought that I may never see you or our darling bby again turns my bowels to water." There is a photograph of the little family and a note to say that the soldier, Captain Charlie May, did not survive. There are paintings too, including a large one by Stanley Spencer and a Roualt. There are letters and paintings representing the German side as well and a German bread ration book next to a photograph of malnourished children. Also the reminiscences of a soldier who said that, to the dismay of the officers, soldiers from both Allied and German forces joined in games of football on Christmas Day, between the trenches.

Meet with the other Canadians staying in a Welby bedsit for a drink. Their first choice pub is too full, but we find a quiet if unatmospheric hotel nearby. They're leaving London on the same day we are but already making plans for next time. We exchange experiences, tips and email addresses and Paul promises to give us his stash of brochures and leaflets for museums, free events, lectures, etc. It's too late to use most of them now, but the website addresses will be handy in the future.

Thursday, November 13/2008

Barbican in the morning. Booksale still on and get a Lonely Planet Tunisia, as well as a biography of Thomas Merton - both hardcover, unfortunately.

Wednesday, November 12/08

Theatre day. Concession prices at the Vaudeville Theatre on the Strand for a matinee performance of Piaf - as rough and crude and energetic as Piaf herself, with Elena Roger's powerful voice sounding uncannily like Piaf.

Across the Blackfriar's Bridge to the Tate Modern to inspect the new installation in the Turbine Hall, a sort of giant spider thing with matressless double bunks and film in the background - must be explanatory material that we've missed. Then walk along the south bank to the National Theatre to see Gethsemane, a clever play by David Hare about party funding and political compromise - pretty close to the bone.

Tuesday, November 11/2008

By tube to Jean's in West Harrow. Far more than our share of Bombay mix as we sip Merlot and talk in the sitting room. Jean warms herself by the radiator and I can see Siva there in a sarong, glass of wine in hand, watching his quiz parogram on television. It's different without him. Shanti and Antony are to join us for curry but that falls through unfortunately. They miss a great meal with fragrant seasoned rice, mutton cury, and all kinds of vegetable dishes. We've come early in order to leave early, but that's not what happens - 11:16 train home.

Monday, November 10/08

Jenny would have liked a walk in Bushey Park (she's off work this week) but it's wet and windy, so we settle for a cooked breakfast and a chat. J goes with Doug to see and admire the flat that Doug has been doing up for sale with his usual perfectionism, despite the unfortunate timing of the credit crunch. Train back from Surbiton.

Sunday, November 9/2008

By train from Waterloo to Thames Ditton where Jenny has invited us for Sunday lunch. It's a lovely traditional lunch with roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and Jenny's mother is there as well as daughter Emma (now expecting) and her husband Giles and Doug's sister Kathleen and her husband. Good to see them all again. We stay the night.

Saturday, November 8/2008

Visits to St. Paul's Cathedral are free today in honour of the new Lord Mayor of London's installation. As it is usually £10, we take advantage of the opportunity and head down early. The architecture is beautiful, with the dome the second larget in the world, after St. Peter's in Rome. There is to be a dramatised reading of the Dick Whittington story, accompanied by organ music, in the afternoon, but we have the benefit of the rehearsal in the morning. The script is witty and the cat particularly well played. We take some time to explore the crypt, an interestingly secular and military place, final resting spot of such famous military men as Nelson and the Duke of Wellington. Then we walk up to the whispering gallery. The circular gallery has holes opening in the wall through which whispers travel in a circular pipe. It also has an impressive view of the floor below. Another set of steps (making 448? in all) leads to the stone gallery. We look down on the Lord Mayor's parade but it's raining quite hard by now. Once we leave the rain stops, and we do get a glimpse of the gilded carriage as the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress stop at the steps of the cathedral for a blessing, complete with boys' choir.

Back to the south bank at 5 for fireworks above the Thames to finish the day's celebrations. They're quite good and there's a big crowd. The trees along the south bank are covered with blue and white fairy lights and by 5 it's quite dark.

Friday, November 7/2008

Down to the Barbican for email, and in J's case magazines. They're having a book sale as well, and we, naturally, cannot resist and end up buying a travel book and a biography of Thomas Merton - unfortunately hardcover.

Docklands light railway to the ASDA at Crossharbour where we acquire an ASDA UK sim card. Texts 4p and calls 8p, which is better than bouncing everything through Cyprus - although not as good as Cypriot rates. The sim card is free. The lady at the electronics counter is very kind - they're sold out but she finds a card without a package and eventually comes up with a package to scan for the price.

Thursday, November 6/2008

Pass Paul and Jill on our way down to the tube. They're on their way out for a Burmese lunch. Then down to Earl's Court to visit the mobile shop J found last spring with the cheap sim cards and friendly proprietor. It's gone, as is the big, cheap internet. There's a new Philippine bank though. So we try a few more places, acquire a fair bit of misinformation, and rediscover the area, which seems more Asian and less Australian than it used to.

Trafalgar Square for Charing Cross bank and the event info from the Portrait Gallery. Email check at the Canadian Consulate and a bit more shopping in Camden Town. Try phoning Jean but not much luck with the phone boxes and a puzzling "restricted access" message when I try using the mobile.

Wednesday, November 5/2008

Short night as they turn on the cabin lights at 5 a.m. GMT, which is only 11 p.m. in Winnipeg. There is news, though: the unofficial results of the American election show an overwhelming Obama victory. And we sit, a planeload of self-contained Canadians and Brits, all interested in the outcome and not a murmur aloud in response.

In London the newspapers are picking up the excitement as well: the transit system's Metro headlines read @History in the Making@ as we get on the underground at Heathrow, but a stop or two later people are boarding with an unusual second edition saying "Good Morning Mr. President" in enormous letters. We reach the Welby long before it opens and, taking the advice of a cheerful middle-aged resident with a Canadian (or American?) accent, go round the corner to the little coffee shop with the outside tables. A pleasant place to wake from jetlag in a little alcove of Belsize Village. Deliverymen for the pharmacy and the restaurant, mums and prams with toddlers hanging on, a steady stream of customers at the bakery. At ten we pick up the keys for the bedsit and at the gate we run into our Canadian friend of the coffee advice with his wife, Paul and Jill they are, and from B.C> They're finishing six months here and are enthusiastic, especially about their great discovery of high quality free public lectures at the London School of Economics, St. Paul's, the Inns of Court and other places. We tentatively agree to meet for a drink at some point.

The afternoon is for supplies - stocking up from the 99p store on Camden High St. and Sainsbury's. Veggies and grapes from Inverness St. market. The market vegetables are half the price they'd be at the supermarket and lovely.

It's Guy Fawkes night and the sound of firecrackers in the dark streets. Lambeth Council has arranged fireworks on Clapham Common and two other parks, so we head off, along with half of London it seems. The tube is jam packed with people, most of them younger than our children. Someone says they've closed Clapham Common Station because of crowds, but we only get as far as Kennington when we're told to evacuate the station "due to a reported emergency." So up in a crowded lift and onto the street. We follow the crowd and eventually work our way to Clapham Common Station - then notice the crowd thinning and falling away to pubs as we walk. We've followed Clapham High St. instead of cutting across to the common. But we've had our night's excitement and a taste of fireworks. A long day, and we're ready for home.

Tuesday, November 4/2008

Our D-Day - and American election day. Bus to the airport, Winnipeg being one of the few Canadian cities where the airport is on the local bus route. Then up over the patchwork of prairie on our way to Toronto, where we have a very short wait for the trans-Atlantic flight.

Newspapers seem to have disappeared in the general economy measures Air Canada is practising, along with vegetables and hot breakfasts, but the wine is not bad and we brought our own Globe and Mail.

Monday, November 3/2008

Errand day. And off to see Mum at the nursing home, taking the customary bag of sweets. Winnipeg buses are some of the politest in the world. The drivers are helpful and a fair proportion of the passengers say thank you as they get off. A stunning day - it reaches nearly 19, with a pleasant warm breeze. And we note the exchange rate on the pound is the best it's been in years - about $1.87. Hard luck for the British, of course, but good for us in the next couple of weeks.

Sunday, November 2/2008

All Souls Day. And D-Day for us, as we leave for the winter. Fortunately, it's also time change day, so we manage to get up in time for the last minute tasks - draining the water, putting the anti-freeze in the plumbing, packing the lunch, etc. There's a very plump partridge in the driveway when I take the water pots out to empty them. And the bluejays and whiskeyjacks show considerable interest in the final scraps of food from the fridge. Shirley kindly takes us to the train and we're off.
Plenty of the room on the train and we settle back as the alpha rhythms begin. Quite good coffee which we take up to the observation car. It's mild and sunny and many of the cottages still have boats in the water. A number of people from other countries enjoying the wilderness and spotting the eagles. The woman behind us is from Ohio, and very interested, asking questions. The man across the aisle, hailing from Saskatchewan, is a mine of misinformation on everything. We're early, which allows us to pick up the return ticket at the wicket, as we're travelling with an electronic voucher.
Ian and Susan pick us up at the station and Janet and Dave, Judy and Dino, and Jennifer and Brian join us at Ian and Susan's for Chinese food. Good to see everyone and get caught up. Susan's niece Kristin and Trevor are there too.