Friday, March 4/2010

London's temperature hits double digits so there's some hope at the end of their worst winter in 30 years. And not a moment too soon, as we're to fly back there in ten days. Fingers still crosse that the threatened cabin crew strike at British Airways won't intervene. They have to give seven days notice, so if we make it through to Monday evening without strike notice we're in the clear. Actually there would be no difficulty about staying on here, probably in the same flat, and we're not booked in the bedsit util the 23rd. What's at risk is our much anticipated trip to Cornwall with Jenny and her mum.

Watch Gordon Brown testifying before the Chilcot inquiry into the invasion of Iraq, carried live by BBC World television. While in theory Brown's testimony ought to be as interesting as Blair's, this doesn't prove to be the case. Of course Blair testified on what ws a rainy day in Cyprus, whilst today is sunny, so there were fewer alternatives to viewing, but it's more than that. There's no performance art about Brown's delivery - just a bull ahead monotoone for hours, the gist of which is that the invasion was the right thing to do and the army was always as well funded as they wished to be during the invasion and occupation. The two positions are probably equally subject to dispute and equally lacking in humility, but with Tony the fascination (and much of the annoyance) was always in the dance, which earned a certain admiration despite any disapproval.

J, coming back from the bakery, squeezes his way past a parked car and finds himself facing the back seat, where a woman wearing a hijab is uncovered to breast feed her baby. J says her mouth opened in shock - and she instinctively covered her face.

Thursday, March 4/2010

We find Maggi's little old lady (probably no older than we are) who does dressmaking and repairs in a little shop near the market and she agrees to turn the collars on three of J's Tilley's shirts for €5 apiece, giving them a new lease on life. Ready tomorrow.

Wednesday, March 3/2010

We have new neighbours in the building opposite, seen only, of course, when they are out on the balcony. The previous tenants had two cute little girls who appeared on weekends, sometimes permitted to use the laptop, which spent most of its time outside next to the ashtray. The new people have no children in evidence and fill the balcony with amazing amounts of wash. So far I haven't subscribed to J's suggestion that the woman takes in laundry, largely because I can't imagine there being any profit in it in modern times, but I'm beginning to think he may be right. It's hard to imagine how one small household could generate three or four lines of wash a day, day after day.

We walk out to M&M's in the afternoon. It's windy, but a warm wind and a lovely walk along the seafront. The waves are high enough that we get a little of the splash. There are plans for a new walkway out along Makenzy (spelling correct by local custom) and it will certainly make life safer for pedestrians, as for most of the way there is no sidewalk and walkers are caught between speeding cars and the crumbling edge of the roadway. Lovely and sunny on their balcony drinking g&t and looking at the shifting colours of the sea.

Then with Maggi over to the Flamingo Hotel, which is displaying the work of local artists, including Jane Curtis, whom we saw at Saturday's coffee. She has a number of paintings on the Cypriot theme, including a small water colour of a coffee spot in a typical Cypriot village which we all like . there is also a batik artist, identified only as Breda, with intriguing pictures, J's favourite being one called Lefkara.

Jacob Zuma, South African president, is visiting the UK, staying at Buckingham Palace with the newest of his three wives - leaving one to wonder what the facilities are at the palace for accommodating heads of state choosing to travel with more than one wife.

Tuesday, March 2/2010

M&M arrive unexpectedly mid-morning, having just delivered back their hired car after 3 months of freedom and mobility. So tea and biscuits and chat. They're not here much longer than we are - another week.

Lovely weather - sunny and warm with light breeze. Always the nicest weather is just as we're about to leave, though of course the better way to look at it is that we miss the nastiest weather elsewhere. J says many more tourists down at the waterfront cafes now that the spring weather is here. And the flowers are looking somewhat refreshed, though there have been beds of petunias, snapdragons and marigolds all winter.

Monday, March 2/2010

J home with bags of grapefruit and oranges, the oranges with dark green leaves still attached, so we can sit in the flat and inhale citrus. It's spoiled us for oranges in England and Canada - they're so disappointing by comparison.

The storm that devastated Madeira has moved northeast through Portugal and Spain and into France, with heavy rains, coastal flooding, and winds as high as 175 km an hour. At least 45 people died in France, and the newscaster refers to them as having, in the majority of cases, drowned in their sleep. A chilling image, but the reality must have been so much more horrific.

Sunday, February 28/2010

Wake briefly in the early hours to an horrific storm. Can't tell whether we're hearing hail or heavy rain, but the winds are violent and the lightning non-stop. Still wet and windy in the morning, so out to the nearest bakery for a loaf of round village bread, sprinkled with sesame seeds and still hot, and back with the bread and the Sunday paper.

Saturday, February 27/2010

Jimmy's Café for morning coffee/beer. M&M are there as well as Jane and Bill Curtis, a retired English couple who live in Pyla in the winter and on their boat in the summer. Lovely letting the sun sink in. M&M back later for tea and the second half of J's cake. by two the dark clouds are moving in from the north and later the rain starts.

We watch a BBC documentary on a re-emergent Stalinism in Russia and Georgia. New school textbooks ignore stalin's crimes and vastly underestimate the number of his victims in the interests of inculcating "positive history." And many citizens are happy to rethink the past in order to have heroes to admire rather than villains to regret. Thus the past is rewritten in accordance with a Russian saying that goes "You never know what is going to happen yesterday." And we remember driving across Moscow in 1991, three weeks before the coup attempt, and seeing an enormous bust of Lenin being carted away in the back of a truck.

Dubai news reports items seized by customs, including drugs and "materials used in witchcraft."

Friday, February 26/2010

Starts out a cool but dry day, long enough for J to get in his exercise at the beach and for us to head over to the student centre for the internet and a look at the Friday paper. While we're at the student centre - umbrellaless - the rain starts, and the rest of the day is nasty, wet and very windy. A good day to hunker down with soup and television documentaries and reading. Now alternating our last two books, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude and Robertson Davies' Fifth Business. Happily, we're across the road from a little charity shop, so it's impossible to run out of books entirely - but that road quickly becomes three inches deep in water during heavy rains. Suitable only for waterproof boots.

Fall asleep watching the late night film on the swedish chanel - the original Little Lord Fauntleroy with Mickey Rooney - subtitled in Swedish.

Thursday, February 25/2010

Meet Maggi over at student internet and she and Magne come back for tea - until J suggests impromptu lunch with vegetable soup, Danish blue cheese and mackerel spread. They leave for supermarket and promised rain starts, violently with thunder and lightning and heavy waves lapping over the sidewalk and into the covered passageway of our building. Maggi says deep water and abandoned cars further up Gregori Afxentiou Street toward the internet. It's a spot we regularly saw flooding from our fourth floor vantage spot the year we lived in the Chryssopolis Hotel.

Wednesday, February 24/2010

Packaging much the same here as at home. J breaks a shoelace and finds that he can buy a packet of ten at the discount shop for only a euro. thus he is now the proud possessor of nine pairs of shoelaces surplus to requirements, including a pair of orange ones and a pair of pink. The problem, of course, being that a single pair of black shoelaces costs noticeably more than his multipack.

We get two weather forecasts here in English - or actually, in the case of Euronews, in silence. CYBC, the government chanel, provides a brief forecast at the end of its short evening English news, while Euronews, in the morning, pans quickly over a map of Europe, allowing little time for a focus that would, in any case, be wasted as the map itself is slightly out of focus. Neither forecast extends beyond 24 hours, which is perhaps a blessing - as I look at BBC website's weather at the internet and find heavy showers predicted in Larnaca for the next four days.

Tuesday, February 24/2010

Sort out the implications of British Airwayss strike possibilities. They must give 7 days notice of a strike and must strike, if they are going to do so, within 28 days of a strike vote. This gives them a 3 week window - with our flight to London in the middle.

M&M round to dinner as we all reflect how little time is let. Coq au vin and the fruit cake which J has been carefully feeding with brandy for weeks, along with a little brandy sauce.

Monday, February 22/2010

Maggi drops in for a cup of tea and a game of Scrabble - and we think of how much easier this will be if we're in the same building next year.

British Air cabin crews complete a strike vote with over 80% in favour. They're committed to not striking over Easter, but we're scheduled to fly with them three weeks earlier, on the 15th of March. Mixed sympathies, as the cabin crews are the nicest thing about BA.

Sunday, February 21/2010

Still some haze, but it's warming. Temperature in the mid-twenties as we head down to the waterfront. Children, tourists, balloons, ice creams muchin evidence. One stall has a huge variety of inexpensive wares for sale including the pseudo-spiritual - Bob Marley t-shirts, a large dream catcher, and a fluorescent crucifix.

Saturday, February 20/2010

Quick trip down to Sunflower to book the 4th floor flat for next winter. A thirteen minute walk from here. So we're committed- and happy about it. Then back to the market place. M&M areat Jimmy's Cafe drinking Cyprus cofee while we take advantage of the hot sun and split a large beer.

Look up Thursday's "gifthead fish" via Google and find that the only good hit is a reference to my own blog entry. So clearly there is a problem with the name. Accepting Google's suggestion that the fish in question may be "gilt-head", I pursue this and find that gilt-head is a particularly nice tpe of bream, and further that Greeks and Cypriots know it as tsipoura. So presumably Berlitz's entry has relied on poor handwriting or enunciation at some point, l and f not being very near each other on the keyboard.

Friday, February 19/2010

With M&M to check out Sunflower hotel apartments, J having spoken to the manager yesterday. The only downside is location, a bit north of the central area and promenade. On the positive side, the flats we're shown are sunny (southern exposure), clean and well-furnished and the price is good (€510 a month). We're all impressed.

Thursday, February 18/2010

Ask J if the naked woman was at the beach today when he went for his morning exercise. No, but there was a woman who walked the length of the beach backward while chanting.

J back from Carrefour with three lovely looking fish. He says there was a huge heap of them fresh in, and as fast as they arrived customers swooped on them. The fish was only identified by a Greek name - tsipoura - which means nothing to us, so we look it up in the little Greek Berlitz, which translates it as gifthead fish. Interesting, if not especially helpful. Food terms are actually one of the things the Berlitz does best. Many of the phrases seem not likely to be needed - "can you find me a secretary" - while others are rather horrifying - "can you give me an anesthetic?"

The fish proves to be lovely and we have just finished dinner when M&M arrive for a visit - unfortunately for them in time for fish smells as well as tea and biscuits.

Wednesday, February 18/2010

The evening news predicts Saharan dust haze will continue until Sunday and says that hospitals are prepared for more people with breathing difficulties. We must have good lungs because we never notice the difference.

And also re the news, the prize for the most blatant nerve goes to the Israeli government. In response to speculation that they are responsible for the murder of a Hamas leader in Dubai. As forged european passports were used by the assassin crew, four of them stolen identities of British citizens living in Israel, and as the whole operation was complex and sophisticated, suspicion has naturally fallen on Mossad (motive plus modus operandi). The Israeli government's reply is not that they are not guilty but that it "can't be proven." And, they add, that in case they prefer ambiguous statements.

And in the "only in Cyprus" category, a man in his 30's has been arrested and charged with firing his gun in the air at a Cape Greco picnic site on Green Monday, causing minor injuries to two people.

Tuesday, February 16/2010

J, out for his early morning exercise, passes a middle-aged woman emerging onto the beach from her swim. She strips naked to get dressed. When J completes the half kilometre length of the beach she is still not dressed.

M&M back from their silver wedding anniversary trip to Athens and over to have a drink and share their experiences - from marble bathroom (in the hotel off Omonia) to funicular ride. A lovely long weekend it sounds.

Monday, February 15/2010

Very quiet on this holiday morning. No traffic heading to work, and last night's revellers no doubt enjoying a lie in. Warm enough, but the sun a pale disk seen through pervasive dust haze, presumably from the Sahara again.

The promenade active but not nearly as busy as yesterday, costumes somewhat thinner on the ground and the ice rink not quite as full, although still doing business at €10 per person. The booths are still set up as well - roasted chestnuts, popcorn, nuts, cotton candy, astonishingly tacky jewellery. The local artist still has her table with small paintings of traditional houses and flowered archways, but the bouncy castle has gone. The cafes are still busy though, as is the beach. In one corner a net has been set up and a volleyball game is in progress. Nearby a football (soccer) game is taking place with foreign students or workers, one man stripped to the waist and others in shorts and shirts. A number of fathers and young children with brightly coloured kites, Green Monday being the traditional day for kite flying. Yesterday one kite was a distant speck,held by what seemed like a half mile of line. Today's are more tentative. Dogs and children explore the rest of the beach, and in the bay there are three ships at holiday anchor.

In accordance with local custom, we have fish for supper, though no picnic this year.

Sunday, February 14/2010

Find out at Mass that the lovely old lady who always sat a few pews ahead has died during the week. Her husband is there alone. For two years now she has been looking more fragile by the week, in the end barely able to stand,but with thehelp of her husband and an extremely attentive Sri Lankan maid, she was always there, though for some time Fr. Wilhelm has gone to the pew to give her communion, rather than have her brave the queue.

After brunch we go down to the promenade. Pass the ice rink, busy with children and adults skating in counterclockwise circles - the centre of the rink occupied by three short palm trees - permanent and immovable parts of the square on which t he rink has been made. Everyone wears the same bright blue plastic skates - no temptation for theft here - and many of the kids do fairly well, considering how little opportunity for practice they must get.

The promenade is busy too. It's sunny and over 20, as well as being a long weekend. Many ice creams in sight as well as candy and grilled corn on the cob. Quite a lot of the children are showing off their carnival costumes, with princesses and spermen muc in evidence, the youngest of them barely upright, unsteady legs hurrying to catch up as they hurtle forward.

Must be parties in the evening, as the streets are just crazy with non-stop traffic, roaring motorbikes, singing and whoops out of the dark - all long into the night.

Saturday, February 13/2010

Down to Prinos greengrocers, and the customer chaos there is like the last supermarket day before Christmas. Thetraditional food for Green Monday is fish, or seafood, and green vegetables and carts are heaped high. We come home with large bags of oranges and grapefruit as well as a few tomatoes and cucumbers. We're always saying that it's surprising there aren't een more car accidents here (and it is one of the worst countries in europe) and sure enough as we cross the road between Carrefour and Prinos we skirt an accident that must just have happened - damage to vehicles only. Driving while on the telephone is illegal here, but almost universally practised. Although the high accident rates pre-date mobile phones.

Friday, February 12/2010

Heading into a long weekend as Green (or Clean depending on tradition/translation) Monday approaches - a day of picnics, kite flying and carnival activities before Lent begins on Wednesday. It's warmed up too - 20 degrees and the breeze is mild.

Quotation from our current reading, The Day of the Scorpion: "Compulsively tidy people, one is told, are alwas wiping the slate clean, trying to give themselves what life denies all of us, a fresh start."

Thursday, February 11/2010

Reading Hello, new free magazine J has brought home. And it should be free as it's mostly advertising, thinly disguised and otherwise, although it's possible to subscribe to it for €25 a year. Despite being written in English, it seems to have heavy Russian input (thus all the photos entered in the most beautiful girls contest are Russian or Ukrainian), and some phrases that seem to have suffered in translation. For example an article on Home Spas begins with the following advice -

After drawing the face and neck with a small amount of fat cream you can proceed to the following movements: Attach 4 fingers of the left hand and 4 fingers of the right hand to the corners of your mouth.

By the time we reach the legs, it's:

Use your towel or massage gloves to mash hip and thigh.

And there's information on water treatment as well:

For example, bath salts, which not only makes the water smell, but also reduces stiffness, or drugs from plant extracts.

Or alternatively there are herbs:

Bath with rosemary extract has a calming and refreshing effect and besides that cleans the pores. After such a bath you can't take a shower but should immediately go to bed.

And this evening radio and television celebrate the 20th anniversary of Nelson Mandela's release from prison - beginning his most impressive contribution to South Africa at 71, an age when he might so reasonably have retired to some post incarceration peace. It's very humbling.

Wednesday, February 10/2010

There's an exhibition of paintings opening tonight at the Kypriaki Gonia Gallery on Stadiou, so we go. The artist is Yianis Pelekanos, and we know nothing about him, but our social calendar is not too full for such little interludes, nor is Maggi's and she joins us.

the paintings are a delight - naive scenes of pre-industrial rural and village life in Cyprus - warm, nostalgic and busy, with a strong narrative element. So there are scenes of farmyard activities, complete with household tasks in one corner of the picture and field work in another. And there's the scene of the young Cypriot man arriving home from abroad - to the consternation of his parents and former girlfriend as he is accompanied by a blonde foreign wife and small children. The previous sweetheart stands to the rear, her welcoming bouquet bitterly discarded on the floor. And there's even a political painting - a record of protesting women being removed from the railway tracks outside a trai station, complete with British soldiers and a union jack. (There is now no railway i Cyprus, as it was removed after the end of British occupation).

The artist is there, and another man (gallery director?) white haired and affable, greeting arrivals, chatting and stopping to explain one of the paintings to us. We also meet another artist - a Cypriot living in Exeter with his wife and six children, who is here doing a fascinating job making painted records of archaeological artifacts, capturing qualities the camera misses.

Maggi back afterward for a game of Scrabble.

Tuesday, February 9/2010

Showers off and on - more off, actually. Walk out to M&M's for late lunch. Pork roast with the lovel Norwegian sauerkraut - softer and sweeter than German and with a little caraway. Must try it at home some time. Marinated strawberries and melon after. And mellow chat.

Sunday, February 7/2010

The tourist organisation info lists today's beach entertainment as jazz, so we duly head down to the stage for eleven. It's not jazz but Cypriot country music and dance. Still quite interesting though, as J picks out the agricultural contribution to the choreography. Closely related to both Turkish and Ukrainian styles. And the sea as a backdrop.

Saturday, February 6/2010

Chill beginning but the sun is warm enough that we shed jackets and soak it in at the market coffee place. In fact warm enough for beer instead of coffee. J off to the beach for his morning walk - usually a rapid 5-6 miles. He says one day he spotted the pigeons in a flock on the ground all paying him special attention, cocking their heads to follow him, and realised that their real interest was soprano Emma Shaplin on his MP3.

Friday, February 5/2010

Interesting internet info on Jerzy Kosinski, author of the astonishing book The Painted Bird, which we are now reading, as well as of Being There. Turns out he committed sicide in 1991 with his literary reputation greatly tarnished. There are claims that Being There was plagiarised from a pre-war Polish book (though there must have been significant changes as there can't have been television in pre-war Poland). As for The Painted Bird, it seems that Kosinski relied heavily on translators and assistants to the point that one poet claimed he should have been given credit as author, though others could have said the same. And, in some ways worst of all, The Painted Bird is not at all autobiographical, though Kosinski - who admittedly never said it was - had encouraged people to believe it was based on his life. It turns out that far from spending his early years surviving on his own in German occupied Eastern Europe, he lived with his parents in a Russian border town in the east of Poland, admittedly told never to say he was Jewish.

While the quality of fiction is not dependent on the life of the writer, there is nontheless a problem. When some events in the book seemed not credible, the reader extended credit - after all Kosinski should know as his childhood was spent in the same horror. That authority is gone, and there is a certain sense of betrayal.

Thursday, February 4/2010

Down to Prinos fruit and vegetable market near Carrefour. Confirm what we observed earlier in the week and at the Saturday market - vegetable prices have risen. Some have held almost the same but others are up anywhere from 100 to nearly 400%, especially broccoli, cauliflower and courgettes. Hard to imagine why in a country that grows produce year round. Are we just at the end of a particular harvest cycle?

Purely by chance, we spot Larnaca's carnival parade. We pass it at the square (triangle really) where the Laiki bank is. Or more accurately stand as it passes us, the way being cleared by a policeman, all flashing lights and redirection. There are some good costumes but it's all a bit bedraggled - and over in about 90 seconds. Guess this isn't Limassol.

President Christofias shown on the news engaged in one of those embarrassingly long handshakes, suggesting superglue and serving as a multiple photo op. Back at work after being briefly hospitalised for exhaustion on Monday at the end of Ban Ki Moon's visit. A thankless visit for Ban, of course, as the only thing that makes Greek cypriots angrier than being ignored by the outside world is not being ignored - interpreted as interference, despite the UN chief's skill at walking on eggs.

Wednesday, February 3/2010

Kieran's twelfth birthday - the last of the winter ones.

We're reading Jerzy Kosinski's The Painted Bird, an amazing novel about a small boy wandering across Eastern Europe on his own through forests and often hostile villages, much as Kosinski himself survived the Holocaust that took the lives of most of his family.

Maggi over in the evening for a game of Scrabble and glass of wine.

Tuesday, February 2/2010

Pass shop window displaying carnival costumes - similar to North American Hallowe'en costumes - in sizes from small child to adult. Limassol is the place for the biggest parade but there will be a smaller one here as well just before Lent.

Monday, February 1/2010

February, and it feels as if spring is here, the sun warm in the morning. take a very quick look at places in the Canary Islands re next year - and see prices similar to here but with much better facilities. quick calculation: price increase over 9 years at our old home, the Eleanora is 157%. There have been some "improvements" there, but not ones that make it much more attractive to us - and they include decreased cupboard space.

Dinner at Militzi's with M&M - though it's an early enough dinner that Cypriots might well regard it as late lunch. Magne has beef kleftiko - a week's meat on the plate it looks like - and the rest of us beef stifado, with a side order of pilaf to share. Huge portions, and, when Maggi mentions that the stifado had a little too much vinegar (as indeed it did) we find ourselves treated to free liqueurs (for the women) and brandies (for the men).

Sunday, January 31/2010

Sunny and warm winds and everyone out on the promenade. The scent of sugar announces the cotton candy booth before we can see it and there's also a stall where they're grilling corn on the cob and roasting chestnuts. The ice cream kiosks are also seeing queues. Take a walk on the pier. The boat with a bar on deck is doing a fair business. there's now a tent-style bar on the beach itself - not bad and chairs outside as well as in. It does seem the beginning of the dividing out of the beach by the various commercial interests, though. Already there are large areas staked with skeletons of beach ubrellas and a huge stack of chaise long frames looking like an industrial recycling tip, as well as fairly unsightly corrugated metal storage sheds advertising hotel and beach umbrella hire. How much longer until it looks like the south of Spain, with only narrow public paths leading down to the sea between the large tracts cordoned off by hotels and their deck chairs.

M&M stop for tea on their way back from Limassol, bringing a lovely herbal tea mixture with them, courtesy of Maggi's friend Anita, who is studying Greek with her.

Saturday, January 30/2010

Overcast, and still windy. We have only to glance out the window to see the small palm trees whipping round - our weather vanes. But it's warm enough and rain not in the forecast, so we meet for coffee as usual. Then go to view the sample apartment for rent at Petrou Brothers. It's nicely designed as a summer hotel room. Pointlessly large kitchen with little cupboard space and bedroom with no chairs - only the bed to sit on whilst watching the flat-screened but too small television fixed to the wall in the corner. So the extensive renovations are essentially redecorating aimed at creating spare and cool rooms for the summer beach crowd.

Friday, January 29/2010

BBC World carries live the Chilcot Iraq inquiry today as Tony Blair testifies. And then it rains, so I get drawn in and watch pretty much the whole six hours. J waits for a weather break and heads to the beach for a walk (and I to the internet, passing a dead rat on the way back, outside the new restaurant that opened last year). But it's on until 7, given the time change.

Gives rise to images of Blair at confession:

Bless me Father for I have, I have...yes, well it's impportant for you to understand what a very difficult time it's been, and of course there are things that seem clear in hindsight that just weren't the chief concern when I...no, of course I did have plans, there was a great deal of planning...it's just that in the event the things I planned for were not the same as the ones that transpired. Could I have planned better? Well no, I genuinely believe that I planned extremely well - it's just that wicked people came and spoiled my plans. A firm purpose of amendment? No, if I had it all to do again I wouldn't change a thing.

Thursday, January 28/2010

Our flat faces a little back street. Opposite us a large building housing offices and the little charity shop that supports animal rescue on the ground floor. Above, there is a mixture of flats and offices. This morning a man in business suit comes out onto the balcony across from us and lines up on the railing a small cup of Cypriot coffee, the requisite glass of water to accompany same, and an ashtray.

There are many people smoking outside these days. A smoking ban for restaurants and bars came in January 1st amidst the usual grumbling - though the climate makes outdoor coffee pleasant most of the time. Thus a commentator tells of the man who always sat on the bar stool nearest the window, where he could see the television screen and blow his smoke out the window. As of January 1 he has moved his bar stool just outside the window, from which place he can still see the tv - and blow his smoke in through the window.

The Swedish chanel rebroadcasts Obama's state of the nation address, complete with subtitles. It's a good speech of course - from a speaker who's always excellent - but what fascinates me is the stagecraft, almost choreography. The applause and even standing ovations at the end of every second phrase. It's obviously the convention, and of course the Republicans aren't cheering, but the co-ordinated bursts of enthusiasm are so utterly foreign to either Canadian or British mentality that they'd be impossible to organise. Maybe in the Middle East.

Wednesday, January 27/2010

Maggi over in the evening for a drink and a game of Scrabble. Just like old times.

Tuesday, January 26/2010

Recovery of bodies continues from the Ethiopian plane that crashed shortly after take off from Beirut. Dismissing terrorism, spokespeople all point to the fact that the plane - which went down in a ball of fire, breaking up before it hit the sea - took off in a bad storm. A probable lightning hit is mentioned. This is disturbing with regard to other flights - are lightning hits frequent and should all planes be grounded during electrical storms? And if it isn't highly hazardous to fly through thunder storms, why is everyone so certain it was ligntning and not an explosion?

A young drunk comes into the student internet, first identifiable by scent. There's a free computer next to mine and he pulls up a chair, talking first to the man on the other side and then to himself. Briefly he puts his head down on his arms and appears to sleep - then stumbles out.

Monday, January 25/2010

The Finns have created a new human right - to the internet. They have guaranteed to bring high speed broadband to every household in a country with fairly low population density. Canada please note.

Sunday, January 24/2010

Rainyish day - well, January is when the little rain that cyprus gets does fall. So reading and telly. We're now reading Julian Rathbone's A Very English Agent. Spy fiction set in the early 19th century. Well researched and as interesting for the social background as the narrative.

The Doha Debates are on BBC World tv in the afternoon. Today's resolution: the present government in Afghanistan is not worth fighting for. (Resolution passes 51:49). The Doha debates are mainly impressive for the caliber of the debaaters they are able to attract - high level UN representatives, ambassadors, MPs, etc.

In the evening we watch a french film on Dubai television - a good film and, interestingly, subtitled in both Arabic and English. Film punctuated by loud singing outside as groups (of sports fans?) return home. It occurs to us that public singing is virtualy never heard in Canada any more - we pay people or electronic devices to do our singing for us.

Saturday, January 23/2010

Gloriously sunny at our market coffee spot, though the night rain still spots the table and chairs til they're wiped. Quite bus this morning as everyone seems to emerge from the past showers into the sunlight.

In the evening M&M come over for supper - fish chowder.

Friday, January 22/2010

The news of the day is that a woman has been arrested and accused of the recent killing of the head of the Sigma television station and various other media enterprises. The theory is that she hired the hitmen who actually did the deed as an act of revenge. It seems she had been a tv presenter at Sigma and had been sacked by the boss - the murder victim. It's hard to know which is the more astonishing - that an ordinary person should wish to hire contract killers (and for such a trivial reason as having been fired) or that she should have the money and the contacts to do so.

Thursday, January 21/2010

The censorship program on the student internet computers functions like an old nanny who is well-meaning but hopelessly out of touch. Thus keeping track of world currencies - or things that affect them, like the price of crude oil - is made more difficult as I am protected from (shudder) "investment" and many of the world's most reputable newspapers are banned because they contain sports news.

This morning I have a few extra minutes and decide to look up one of my ancestors - Hannah Odell, born 1798 - to see if I can spot any new information. One site looks possible but turns out to be forbidden. Grounds cited: match making.

The English news is not on the cypriot government television station when I check. The television station has a nightly English language news broadcast lasting less than ten minutes. Tonight it is displaced by a tennis match from Australia featuring cyprus's beloved Marcos Baghdatis - obviously a replay as it's the middle of the night in Australia. Baghdatis is pretty likeable, and a good player, heavily supported by fans who, J points out, are carrying far more Greek flags than cypriot. Eventually replay ends and news follows. cypriots with video recorders suffer much more than we do from the frequent unannounced program changes - shows occasionally starting earlier than scheduled as well as later.

Wednesday, January 20/2010

Malcolm's eagerly awaited 12th birthday - eight time zones away.

Buying toothpaste at Elomas, we check out the various teas - including a herbal one called cinnamon and gloves. Outside Elomas there is a small free English language magazine - mostly advertising - called Larnaca News. Not much content, but a small news item mentions the fact there was, on the morning of December 22, an earthquake measuring 4.9 on the Richter scale. And we remember waking early in the morning and being aware that the building was trembling - slightly but unmistakeable, and more than momentarily.

Tuesday, January 19/2010

There's nearly 3 inches of water in the red bucket when we get up in the morning. The ceiling in our top floor flat leaks in the same spot as last year and began doing so last night in the downpour. Far from being distressed, we had positively welcomed the leak, remembering that last year we acquired a shiny new red plastic bucket to catch the drips - and that it made an excellent washtub later for handwashes, bigger and more convenient than the kitchen sink. This bucket, though, is a grubby mop pail, fit for catching drips but not for clean clothes. But the rain has stopped so it should soon be gone. Maggi quips "life's tough at the top."

Finish reading Good and Faithful Servant - unauthorised biography of Maggi Thatcher's press secretary. Quite an interesting study of how a neutral civil service job became an instrument for pushing Thatcher's personal views - and sometimes even the press secretary's own views , even when they were not shared by cabinet. Also an early but notable step in the vesting of authority in unelected advisors rather than cabinet - now of course standard practice whether in tory Canada or New Labour UK.

Maggi's text re the sheep's head she ate at lunch in Nicosia: the eyeball was surprisingly tasty. J shudders and says he's glad he heard after he had finished eating.

Monday, January 18/2010

Umbrella day. The worst of rain in Cyprus - or Larnaca at least - is that there is nowhere for the rain to go except in sheets down the pavements and deep puddles at the corners. The country is chronically short of water but a shocking amount of the rainfall is simply taken down to the sea in the storm sewers. The problem is coompounded by Cypriot drivers, many of whom are pedestrian blind and feel compelled to race up to the intersection spraying widely before waiting for a light to change. So a ten block walk is a minor obstacle course, dodging gutter hoses jetting onto the sidewalks, jumping metre wide puddles and aiming for the least flooded paving stone in a passage. A fair workout.

Sunday, January 17/2010

Warm, but windy and sunless. With the weather report the explanation emerges - the sky is full of dust blown north from the Sahara Desert, so the sun is mostly invisible - occasionaly seen in faint outline - and those with breathing difficulties are told to stay inside.

Saturday, January 16/2010

Meet M&M at the market for coffee. It rained a little in the night, so the chairs need a wipe down, but it's sun and warmth now. And all the colour of market stalls. We only need eggs - seldom bought more than 6 at a time here, as they should be fresh. We wait our turn for the eggs, watching as the green olives in a bucket are mixed with slivers of garlic, oil and lemon juice. J manages to get one to taste before the lot are scooped into a plastic bag for the enthusiastic purchaser. It's hard to walk past the fresh fruit and vegetables and herbs without discovering things that we need - so broccoli spears and carrots by the time we leave - though we're passing everything from shiny blue-black aubergines to an enormous round of halvah.

Meet Berndt and Britta on the way back. They're now happily ensconced in the remodelled - and repriced - Eleonora. Britta speaks no English, but her fingers quickly simulate bugs crawling as Berndt remembers that he last saw us as we were looking for an alternative after our disastrous introduction to the Frangiorgio. We say we like the Kition, but then everyone sighs as we think of it's being torn down.

Friday, January 15/2010

Stop at MTN, the mobile phone place to buy a €10 top up card. Referred by person A to person B and then back again. Much shuffling about, rifling through desk drawers, etc. Small red metal box containing cards opened with key, then abandoned for search of back room. return to re-examine contents of red box. Finally I receive a card - which turns out to be a €20 top up. I point out the error. Don't worry about it, he says.

Maggi texts at noon to say they're driving up to Pyla, the mixed Greek and Turkish village just south of the border to have an Efes (Turkish beer) - would we like to come? So out along the dhekelia Road and north, then inland, to Pyla. On a whim, Maggi suggests we leave the car at the border and walk over to the Turkish village on the other side. There we stop on the main street and share two Efes, as men help us find chairs at the little plastic outdoor table. The sun makes a weak appearance, so it's just warm enough. Maggi buys six Efes to take back and J has a brief chat with a man selling sacks of potatoes by a huge fragrant rose bush. Does he think things will be better now with the Greeks? He does, but doesn't have the vocabulary to elaborate. At the border M compliments the young Turkish officer on his aftershave, to his embarrassment, and we tease her about having discovered a technique for bringing things through customs.

Thursday, January 14/2010

The day starts with rain and before my eyes are open I can hear that the cars on the streets are driving through puddles. It continues intermittently through the day, though it's not cold. M&M stop fo tea on their way out for groceries.

Wednesday, January 13/2010

Wake to news of Haiti's earthquake - and like the tsunami of five years ago, the news only gets more horrific as the day goes on.

Pick up the price sheet on mobile phone charges. The cost of sending a text is 2 cents EU (or 3 cents Canadian) - more or less nothing, on the basic pay as you go card. And nothing at all, of course, to receive texts. Canadians overpay so badly.

Notice on the dubai chanel advising watchers that it is time for Dhur Prayer - one of the five prayers of the Moslem day, regulated by the sun. There is, however, no prayerful break in regular programming, which continues as usual, diverting the faithful. J says this is a shift from their earlier practice of providing Moslem prayer interludes.

Tuesday, January 12/2010

Walk down to Smart, Elomas and Carrefour, starting off past the huge Nicolaides City building that was under construction all last winter. It's finished now, but not very full. J peeks in and says that the ground floor offices don't seem very populated. Certainly there is no sign at all of occupation on most of the higher storeys - 12 plus a penthouse above the ground floor. Is it a symbol of a breaking construction bubble?

Elomas has had less and less of interest as it has moved increasingly to frozen food, but we see a new acquisition - bottles of Spanish wine at €1.19 ($1.80 CAD, £1.10 GBP). Later proves to be young and undistinguished, but perfectly drinkable.

Monday, January 11/2010

J observes the body language as the traffic police pull overlocal motorists in presumably random road checks - smiles, handshakes, pats on the arm, chit chat. It's no wonder that tickets go disproportionately to the tourists.



The weather forecast for tomorrow shows some clouding over with possible showers in parts of the island, which could probably use the rainfall as water reserves are a perennial problem here. BBC's international weather map shows the same predicted high for Winnipeg and Atlanta tomorrow - three degrees.



Pride and Prejudice finished. Our copy made rather difficult reading as it had been previously owned by a student of diligent habits but no especial insight. Thus each page features much underlining as well as extensive highlighting in a variety of garish colours, some of them remarkably difficult to read through. All this accoompanied by the most obvious of commentary in a childishly rounded hand. Not, unfortunately, a book in good enough shape to donate to the charity shop.

Sunday, January 10/2010

Katy's birthday. The only downside to winter travel is how far away we are from family - but the grandchildren live in three different directions and the nearest of them 600 miles away, so visits would never be winter anyway.

Sunday treats of brunch with the Cypriot smoked tenderloin best done by J's favourite butcher - no doubt all the health hazards of any cured meat, but a little of this carries a lot of flavour. And the Sunday Cyprus Mail, complete with radio and telly guide and puzzles - though J grumbles that the actual content is pretty thin.

Saturday, January 9/2010

Market day and unseasonably warm - but we meet a bit early for beer. there is a treat in store though, as Maggi invites us back for lunch - beautiful oven-cooked lamb which she collects from her favourite take-away spot. Leisurely lunch and then walk along the beach as far as the barrier where the airport land begins. The beach is much sandier here than the main beach in town - a proper holiday beach, but nearly deserted as it's off-season. In the distance we can see the little dragon-shaped fishing boats. Above, planes take offf from the airport and we try to identify the airlines. Then walk home along the seafront.

Friday, January 8/2010

Second day of the traffic police making themselves important on the main thoroughfare outside with much whistling and waving. Not entirely clear what the objective is as motorists are pulled over - checking papers? What they're not doing is worrying about illegal mufflers or excessive noise, so when we watch films whole snatches of dialogue disappear, victims of the motorcycle cowboys, leaving us sorry we're no good at reading the Greek subtitles.

Maggi and Magne stop ini the late afternoon with Ellen, the travel rep that was with us in Israel two years ago. She's been giving a talk on a forthcoming trip to Jordan. Some talk of ex-president Papadopoulos's still missing body. Ellen's teory is that the objective was ransome, and she cites a Balkan precedent involving a lawyer with some ties to P.

Thursday, January 7/2010

End of the holidays and back to ordinary time. Another warm and sunny day, as we awake to news of closures and cancellations due to snow all over Europe.

J sautés the nicest salmon fillet I've ever tasted for dinner. We have it with mushrooms, bulgur pilaf and a salad, juggling the timing around Lost in Austen, the four part serial based on interaction between the characters of Pride and Prejudice and a girl from present day London. In honour of which we are reading Pride and Prejudice aloud - though the television serial is progressing faster than our reading.

Wednesday, January 6/2010

Epiphany. The holiday begins gloriously sunny. When we wake up it's 13 in the shade but by mid-morning when we go down to the beach for the festivities it's hot - we check the little travel thermometer from our spot in the full sun by the petunias opposite the end of the pier. Forty-two in the sun - over 107 Fahrenheit!

The focal point is the parade. The red-coated band is nice, and the gold-crowned archbishop impressive enough, but the militarism, from dozens of cadets to soldiers with fixed bayonets, seems distressingly incongruous. The parade moves, carryiing a sacred icon, from St. Lazarus Church, traditionally considered to be the second burial place of the Biblical Lazarus, down to the pier, where the waters are blessed in commemoration of the baptism of Christ, and a cross is thrown in the water for the young men to dive and retrieve. It's prudently attached to a string lest they miss it in the sand. Maggi laughs and says "Oh ye of little faith."

We meet up with M&M and Maggi and I gather some of the aromatic eucalyptus-like leaves that have been strewn on the pier to take them home. Then we wander along the front, enjoying the crowd - children with ice cream or candy floss and animal-shaped balloons, stalls selling sweets or jewellery and toys, tourists and local families in carnival mode.

Back to our place for lunch. We're ready for cold beer and have some meze style snacks. Our holiday meal.

Tuesday, January 5/2010

Maggi texts in the morning to see if we want to go to Livadia (Larnaca suburb) as they're on a grocery trip, so we go along for the ride. From the car we spot a forklift hoisting new mattresses to the first floor of the Frangiorgio hotel Apts, where they are being taken in from a balcony. A nice replacement at the scene of last year's beetle infestation.

Interesting linguistic point above. I note I have said the mattresses were hoisted to the first floor. In Europe (UK included here) the floor you enter from the street is the ground floor and the one above it the first. An occasional disappointment to North Americans who think they have only 3 storeys to trudge up and find they have four. As with many other usages, though, it seems we adjust without thinking about it. Or not, on occasion. There was the time that J, looking at a Cypriot street, said that the pavement was new and I, looking down at the sidewalk (British English read pavement) said I didn't think so - there were weeds growing in the cracks.

The end of the Christmas season, as tomorrow is Epiphany, a major holiday here. So our homemade decorations will be coming down, along with the public decorations and those in shop windows, some of which are very nice. And interesting, from a North American viewpoint. There is some use of red and green, but much more of gold or ivory and gold - much classier. And St. Nicholas/Father Christmas/Santa Claus is often clad in gold, occasionally in other colours like blue, and is not necessarily rotund. Leading to the somewhat annoying realisation that the common western stereotypical Santa image owes its origin to Coca Cola advertisements and not to any more historical tradition.

And as I walk home with the eggs, crossing the parking lot behind the market place, I see a Santa Claus in a wheelchair. He's nearly life-sized and red-suited, being wheeled across the lot in a red satin covered armchair on four small wheels. Off-stage now for the season.

Monday, January 4/2010

The Dubai chanel much taken up with the grand opening of the new Burj - tallest building in the world by far at 828 m (the exact height having been kept a secret until the final moment). The tone of the commentary is incredibly self-congratulatory and utterly untempered by any suggestion that the sands on which it is built mayhave shifted with the financial winds. Worse than the threat of fiscal bankruptcy is the moral bankruptcy that underlies the whole state. Much of Dubai's construction has been achieved at the expense of virtual slave labour provided by men from countries like Pakistan who leave their families, pay to acquire jobs, and live in work camps, often going without the pay they were promised and unable to afford the fare home without it. All this to provide an obscenely luxurious tax free haven in the midst of a region that includes the very poor. It's hard to look at the new tower as anything other than a monument to vanity - tempting the fates of fire and disaster. A tower of Babel?

Sunday, January 3/2010

Warm enough that we're pleased to take the shady side of the street coming home from Mass. Not everywhere, though. BBC World's weather map (never its best offering) shows 2 weather spots in Canada, one of which is Winnipeg, with -25 forecast for Tuesday. And then we see clips of Beijing where snow has filled the streets and halted flights - very haard to imagine for anyone who remembers sweltering in China.

Saturday, January 2/2010

An odd sort of day - middle of a four day weekend for some purposes and ordinary Saturday for others. The shop where we intend to buy eggs is closed - so one each tomorrow - but J's favourite butcher shop is open, the doorways heavily hung with sausages and the air heavy with their lovely smoky aroma. As I walk in, my hair brushes against some cured meat hanging in the entry - and how many others have done the same? We buy a smoked pork fillet - much nicer (though more expensive) than the supermarket ones.

Only one market stall is open, and reasonably busy, so we get bananas, mushrooms and courgettes. Text from Maggi asking where we are. At themarket - does she want coffee: So we meet at our regular cafe - but it's sunny and quite warm, so we opt to split a large (66 cl) abeer 3 ways instead of coffee.

Midafternoon M texts again to say that she hasn't seen Magne for hours, actually since morning, and has checked his usual haunts as well as the promenade - twice. she waits until four and then, with darkness coming on, goes to the police station, kitty-corner to us. Somewhat to our surprise, the police are quite good about it, checking the hospitals for accident victims and having the regular patrols keep an eye out. And it pays off when, a couple of hours later, the policee return him home, apparently after his discovery in a cafe near St. Lazarus. Maggi says the police were "kind and efficient." Interestingly, their weakness as a force is also their strength. Because they are relational rather than official, they are reluctant to deal with driving infractions when they may end up prosecuting friends of friends, and thus we all suffer from cowboy drivers with illegal mufflers and there is a shocking rate of road death. On the other hand, they seem able to take quite a familial approach to an elderly man gone astray, and all ends well.

Friday, January 1/2010

Stunningly lovely day - the thermometer reads 18 in the shade but it's clearly much warmer in the sun, and there's plenty of sun and mild breeze. We walk out to M&M's along the promenade and past the old fort and the restaurants. Militzi'as crowded as one would expect and doing a brisk business, the outside tables crowded with families out for New Year's lunch.

We're out for lunch ourselves, and Maggi's made a lovely one, starting with Parma ham and melon and moving through Stroganoff to creme brulee. Beautiful way to start 2010 with friends. Check out the view from their roof, which is amazing, out over the bay. And we remember living at the Athene watching the shifting colours of the sea and listening to the waves at night.

Thursday, December 31/2009

New Year's Eve. A day in which regular activities don't so much finish early as drift into celebration. There's a market on, but a rather smaller version of the regular Saturday market, with some of the larger stalls missing. We meet M&M at our usual coffee spot, actually rather behind the cafe and a bit littered, but deliciously warm in the sun.

By the time we go home, about noon, some businesses have begun their traditional New Year's Eve barbecues, once upon a time events that were open to customers and passers by alike. We pass a long cypriot style barbecue - rectangular trough with a dozen spits durning a row of browning birds, surrounded by employees on the street corner.

The main New Year's Eve celebrations are at the north end of the beach, the stage on Europa Square only a block away from us. We wait until about half past eleen and head over to joiin the crowd. There are singers on stage and a sound system designed to cause hearing impairment. We thread through the crowd lookiing for the booths belonging to the breweries and wine companies, which dispense beer and wine in plastic cups, ignoring the tables with pretty picked over plates ofnuts. As always, the beer and wine are free - though the wine is a prett young domestic - and there's absolutely no sign of drunkenness. In fact large numbers of people, the majority probably, are not drinking at all, and some are drinking soft drinks.

It's a very mixed crowd - predominantly young adults but also old people, children, and quite a lot of babies, some of them fast asleep. There are a surprisiingly hign number of Moslems - many families with young mothers in hijabs, babies in pushchairs and small children in tow. some revellers have clearly come directly from indoor parties and we're passed by a sparkler of young women, one a girl in a short black off the shoulder sequinned dress - fetching, but probably freezing. We ourselves have bundled up warmly for temperatures probably in te low teens. We sit on a bench on the promenade watching the throng - some tourists, some local, probably disproportionately resident foreigners.

The birds are uneasy about disturbed roosting, and as they flit past we hear the first of the New Year in the deep tones of the horn of the ship anchored in the bay. Then the sky is alive with fireworks and we watch, standing on the beach. As they finish, J points to the sky where first one and then a second small fire-lifted hot air balloon drifts through the dark sky and out to sea - Thai style balloons like the ones we ourselves sent off last year in Chiang Mai, little skyward signs of human hope. As we leave the beach we pass a stack of empty sparkling wine bottles, neatly stacked for disposal by peaceful celebrators. Avoid stepping on a small white dog out on his lead and a bit overwhelmed by the festivities. Ahead of us are two seventyish couples, the women doing a few jive steps together as they leave. They turn out to be Scandinavian residents of our hotel, and we wait while the tiny lift takes them up first. Then home for us. It's 2010.

Wednesday, December 30/2009

Last day of regular business before the New Year's shut down and frenzied activity at the supermarkets. Last day at student internet too before 4 day holiday. Steady stream there of genuine students, free of classes now, mostly engaged in highly unacedemic pursuits. Games are forbidden on these computers but the tell-tale sound effects are unjistakeable. There is a censorship system installed which works rather unpredictably. Maggi reports that it denies access to OANDA's foreign currency exchange site, and I struggle to remember whether one can use the site for speculation as well as information. More annoyingly, the Globe and Mail's website is verboten. The reason given is that it is, or may be, a sports site. Of course it does, like any newspaper, have a sports section, but that's scarcely a defining feature of what is, arguably, Canada's most serious newspaper. But no point in arguing with a computer - or in this case with computer centre staff.

Tuesday, December 29/2009

Christmas season wine and liquor sales still on, so while I go to the internet J walks over to Orphanides supermarket to stock up on our favourite of the local vins tres ordinaires, the ones that come in litre boxes - unexciting but perfectly drinkable, and, at the moment, going for 1.39 EU a litre (2.10 CAD or 1.54 GBP). We travel now with "the sticks" - small pieces of wooden dowling that enable one to hang the plastic grocery bags from them, thus grasping the dowels like handles instead of having the bags cut into one's fingers. A handy trick we learned a few years ago from Jim McGill.

We're reading Ingenious Pain, an astonishingly good first novel by Andrew Miller, set in the mid-18th century in England and Europe - rich enough it can only be read in moderate sized chunks. The reviewers have scarcely been able to find enough superlatives - "A true rarity: a debut novel which is original, memorable, engrossing and subtle" (the Guardian).

the evening news in English opens with a story about a Limassol taverna owner being killed by a car bomb. The interesting thing is that I do not immediately reach for my notebook. Car bomb killings, while not exactly common, are not unusual enough to excite much interest either. They are always related to underworld rivalries or - less frequently - family feuds - in other words nothing that would ever, except by the worst of bad luck, have affected a Cypriot family or foreign tourist innocently going about their business. All the same, it is an interesting cultural commentary. A car bomb is the essence of premeditated crime and doesn't seem to fall in the unthinkable category here. When did we last hear of one in Canada, or even in London?

Monday, December 28/2009

M&M stop by after their trip to Malta - good weather and hotel and the little buses running even on christmas Day. We have tea and catch up on the news. Maggi lends us a little booklet of tributes to Lydia by various church people which, she points out, says repeatedly, that L washed a great many church dishes.

Sunday, December 27/2009

Sunny, warm (21) and the town coming to life after two days' holiday. The supermarkets open again - smaller shops hit and miss. We come home past the bakery with a fresh loaf of the sesame studded dense rye bread that we love. Surprisingly, the barber shop on the next block is open - a shave in progress - but the "Hair Saloon" further along is shut. Until recently hair salon opening times were regulated by law - they all remained closed on a Thursday.

One of the happiest things about living in Cyprus is the provision of BBC radio - BBC World and periods of BBC 4 and 5 - by the British forces. The other places we could get this - Iraq, Afghanistan, the Falklands - are not nearly so inviting. There's Gibralter, but it's prett expensive. So we listen to a panel of foreign assignment reporters discussing their profession. Alan Johnston provides a particularly nice explanation of journalistic objectivity. If a reporter were to go into a abar and hear a fierce argument as to whether two and two make four, claimed by one, or six, as another insisted, the proper course would not be to assume that the truth was in the middle but to look for corroborating evidence. All the same, BBC reporters and others, do sometimes get caught accepting the frame of reference provied by one side or the other. Thus the optimistic "coalition" provided by the US and UK in the Iraq invasion suggested a much wider backing than had in fact been achieved, as well as having the happy connotation of "allies." US-UK, especially if pronounced U-suck - would have had a quite different effect.

Saturday, December 26/2009

It's twenty years since the first Christmas we spent together, and this is our tenth Christmas in cyprus. There's sun when we wake up, but by eight o'clock the sky is overcast. Shops are open on a hit and miss basis, and there's no market, presumably because there was one Christmas Eve. Good leftovers though.

Friday, December 25/2009

Awake early and it's sunny. Christmas mass is full, though probably not as full as midnight mass last night. The nativity scene - a large, sprawling amalgam of several crib sets of differing scales, which somehow works - has been moved to a front corner. Is this to keep the cattle out of the hands ofthe small boy who used to take them to play with during mass? The usual enthusiastic Philippino choir, and the standard Christmas carols with a slight twist. The Philippino pronunciation never quite anticipates slurred joining of syllables - as in "th'incarnate deity" - leading to lines of music ending before all of the words have been fitted in. However, a line with "Emanuel" in it has the opposite problem. Every Philippino knows that this is three syllables, pronounced Spanish style as "E-Manuel" - thus the words finish before the melody. But iti's all heart - and pretty good melody too.

Afternoon walk along the waterfront. What we first take to be the three ships of Christmas song at anchor turns out to be a single three masted ship broadside at a distance. Some families and tourists, but fewer than most years. The man roasting chestnuts and corn on the cob to order is doing business, but an elaborate toy display attracts little attention. The crowds haven't moved to the square by the Eleonora, either. It has a giant christmas tree sheltering a large and remarkably ugly nativity scene - still always a creche to the Quebecker in me, but that's not a usage the Anglo world seems to recognise. But no crowds, no people at all.

J does a chicken whole in the large pot and makes very nice gravy, so a lovely little Christmas dinner a deux, with surprisingl good cabernet. Followed by Love, Actually on the Dubai chanel. I've seen it before, though J says he hasn't, but I'm a Hugh Grant fan. Interesting ads accompanying it, Middle East style: garnier cream makes your skin two degrees lighter.

The other Christmas treat acquired yesterday at the charity shop across the back road is Alan Bennett's novella, The Uncommon Reader - just the right length for a little gem of a Christmas read.

Thursday, December 24/2009

The bakery and then the supermarket. Fr. Wilhelm comes along as I'm sitting on the wall outside, waiting for J, so kisses - and yes, we will go to Christmas mass. The store is busy, especially the butcher's counter, but the chickens are pre-wrapped, so it doesn't take us too long. Not a cranberry in sight though.

Five o'clock and we get the nine lessons and carols live from King's College Chapel, Cambridge, courtesy of BBC World radio. It's become our marker for the beginning of Christmas. Then, after supper, the Dubai television chanel brings Gone With the Wind, not Christmassy but full scale romantic and the first time I've actually watched it start to finish, though J says he has, once.

Wednesday, December 23/2009

J has the flat all decorated for Christmas - the few baubles we picked up at St. Helena's a few years back, the strings of new decorations he made out of candy foils, the modernistic outline tree of tinsel with tiny foil ornaments, the silver and fold wrapped candles. he's also taken a couple of christmas cards and made 3 dimensional pop-up cards decorated with coloured foil. so we're all ready except for buying the chicken tomorrow.

Tuesday, December 22/2009

Very busy around the hotel as the cleaners prepare for new residents. They don't show up at our flat until after one and then only to take the rubbish and deliver toilet paper. Would have been a good time for clean floors as M&M are coming to dinner but it's a poor dinner party that focuses on the floor. In the interests of dinner, I head downstairs to try to scavenge a couple more coffee spoons as we seem to have only one, but on the way to the lift pass the manager pressed into service wheeling the cart of kitchen odds and ends from its usual hiding spot behind the stairs to a flat that's being cleaned. Not a good time for surreptitious acquisition.

So we dine with only one coffee spoon - but a beautiful leg of lamb with a mushroom wine sauce and little new potatoes. The lamb, surprisingly, is Irish, a whole leg whih the butcher has kindly cut in 2 so that it would fit in the pot. good company too. this is our pre-Christmas meal with M&M who are going to Malta for 4 days over Christmas.

Monday, December 21/2009

The translations continue to provide entertainment. Thus the sign outside the Avenue Apartments, professionally produced, offers office and apartment space for rent "SHORTOIL LONG TERM". One can imagine a Greek speaker hearing the translation thus, but it's hard to think of him writing it down for the sign maker with no further confirmation.

Sunday, December 20/2009

Fourth Sunday in Advent but we're up a little late for our regular Church. Will have to check later for Christmas times. so begin the day lazily with the Sunday Mail, and bacon and eggs.

Down to the waterfront in the afternoon. We're expecting the customary crowded promenade with touriss and local families out for a Sunday walk, cotton candy and ice creams and balloons everywhere and the cafes spilling out onto the pavement. there are some tourists and a few locals, a scattering of balloons and the odd ice cream, but the numbers are small and the cafes not full. What's happened? the chairs are still set up in front of the beach stage, so there will have been a concert this morning, but there aren't many booths and they're not busy.

We stop to look at the Athene - our old home of 3,4, and 5 years ago. It's been under construction for 3 years now, ever since we moved out. It's been resold and is now boasting six full floor flats for sale. They'd be huge, each comprising a previous four flats plus some hall space, and the view is stunning from the higher ones, but there hasn't been much progress. The building is still totally gutted, the floors open to the elements. Since we're close, we take a quick look at the Augusta. The views are good there, but it's not, as we knew, cheap. One bedrooms 900EU - studios 800EU and 850EU.

At 6:30 there is the nine lessons and carols at St. Helena's. We neet M&M there, Maggi bearing a sample of fruit from Chris's orchard. the parish is between priests and has a "resident locum", Rev. rajinder Daniel, retired, late of India and now of Birmingham. He chats with us afterward upstairs where the parish is hosting its usual generous refreshments - mulled wine and sausage rolls and minced pies - a cheerful, open, cosmopolitan man.

Saturday, December 19/2009

Market morning. Start with Cypriot coffee with M&M. Maggi full of spillover news forgotten at our Wednesday night meeting, including the sad news that our hotel, the Kition, is apparently to be demolished. Prices seem up a bit - or is it just our fading memories? Buy 6 eggs from the egg lady's daughter, as well as broccoli, tomatoes, mushrooms, tiny potatoes, carrots and a large bag of oranges (53 actually!), the last for a euro seventy.

Still stocking up with basic supplies as well as for christmas, we go shopping in the afternoon as well. First stop the Polski sklep (shop). J finds a bottle of black currant syrup - though he would rather have had cherry. Smart Store for liquor. Unfortunately the liquor sales are all in the lead up to Christmas and New Year, so we have to guess what we're likely to use in the next 3 months in order to take advantage of the special prices. So we acquire a litre of Famous Grouse whiskey for nine euros ninety (15.15 CAD or 8.80 GB) as well as a local apricot liqueur and a domestic liqueur intriguingly entitled Scotish Legend. The spelling makes it clear that it's no Highland import, but it's cheap enough that we buy it hoping for a palatable Drambuie knock off. No such luck. It turns out later to be an undistinguished but drinkable Cypriot brandy style drink. Mark down a litre bottle of vodka at 6 euros for later collection when we're not carrying so much.

Friday, December 18/2009

We're right across from the main post office which is extremely busy as I go in. Two women seated at a table furiously addressing christmas cards, chinese girls sending a huge parcel home to china, and the usual business at the wickets. Busy at the student internet as well. The computers have been upgraded and not yet ruined by the users - though one of the four isn't running. My half hour is enough to read the email and get a bit of the blog online. I also take a quick look at the cyprus Weekly, as we're quite behind in Cypriot news. The "Cyprus problem" seems, like the poor, to be always with us. There is startling news though. The body of former president Papadopoulis has been stolen by modern day grave robbers and the police forced to let their 3 suspects go as all had alibis. Only in cyprus.

Text from Jenny saying that London is snowy and we had left just in time. In fact the radio has cited snowfalls of up to 8 inches in the southeast part of England. she also says that tesco has reissued Doug's washed vouchers.

Thursday, December 17/2009

the cleaners open up the store room and we find the rest of our 'stores' - one box having been deliverd to our room before we arrived. The microwave is there and the folding rack for drying clothes, as well as a large box tied with a bungee cord and full of surprises. Well, some we remember leaving - like the radio, the large pot and the metal toasting rack for the cooker burner, and our black coffee cups. But there are plenty of other things - the table cloth, our candelabra (menorah style and made of wrought iron, salvaged by J on the street one year), the greek dictionary and the homemade christmas decorations which J soon has untangled for stringing from the lamps and in the archway.

Over to the cah point which (unlike last night) is working and then to Metro supermarket to begin stocking up. The pre-Christmas liquor sales are on, so we treat ourselves to a celebratory bottle of local brandy. The girl who works at the bakery remembers us and finds one of her few English words - welcome. After lunch we go to the shops north of us - Smart for wine, Elomas for almonds, and Prinos for fruit - clementines, bananas, apples and a lemon - and vegetables - onions, broccoli, courgettes, aubergines, carrots, peppers and mushrooms. So home to make a curry. It's all right, but much too soon after Jean's for us to think it's really good.

Eleven fifty-two p.m. receive a text from Maggi, dater 6:30 a.m. today, suggesting we all go to dinner. Lost in some telephoic limbo, as she no doubt wondered at our rudeness.

Wednesday, December 16/2009

Alarm at 3:30 and we're out before 4. It's cold - though no minus 40 - and there's frost on the windscreens. And I'm grateful for the heavy tights which I had considered leaving in winnipeg until susan and Ian started talking about the possibility of moving during the winter. Swiss cottage bus stop is a bit of a surprise. for one thing, it's not truly dark: as with all of London, street lights and other light pollution see to that. And plenty of people are up - twenty-four hour buses, but also cars, taxis, and pedestrians. It's not, as I feared it might be, scary. And the bus, when it comes, isn't empty. Ending the night shift or beginning the day, people are on the move.

We change at charing Crosss to the Heathrow bus, N9, so busy that at times it's standing room only. a few air passengers but mostly the early workforce heading out. arrive at Heahrow 5 at about six o'clock and it's still early enough to be pretty relaxed, despite the strike vote that may have the cabin crews out next week.

Calm flight with huge carnivore breakfast. Fall asleep over wine and newspapers. The flight isn't full so J and I each get 2 seats - very relaxed. Fly in over the mountains and villages, then up the coast, and land at the "new" Larnaca airport - bigger if not better. Through immigration almost quicker than I can get the passports out of their pouch, but the luggage is slow despite extra new and improved carousels. Taxi to the Kition where our old semi-penthouse (2 slides glass and balcony) is waiting.

Text Maggi and she and Magne arrive for a glass of wine - stored from last year, so vin de maison tres ordinaire, but now vintage. M full of news of local updates and the death of old Lydia, who wandered away from the home in which her daughters had placed her in Nicosia, lost her way in a field and was found dead 3 weeks later. Very sad

Monday, December 14/2009

By train from Waterloo to Thames Ditton to see Jenny and Doug and the family. Jenn's mum is here and Doug and Emma, with Jasmine, now 11 months rather than the 3 months she was when we last saw her, round faced and happy, beginnin now to talk. Jenny comes back with the grandsons, Sam and Kai, collected from school, and cody, a week older than Jasmine and as interested in everything.

We have tea around their huge dining room table with salads and sausages and a large gammon and dundee cake and custard tarts. The babies are curious about the taste of everything. Laura and Nathan arrive back from Nathan's grandfather's funeral - and Cody immediately lifts his arms to be picked up by Laura, athough he's been content if sleepy with us.

The others are packed off home and Doug is dismayed to find he has left his wallet in the pocket of his trousers when he was persuaded to add them - at the last minute - to the wash. Predictable jokes about money laundering as he lays the contents out on a towel in front of the fire. The real loss, though, would appear to be several pounds worth of Tesco vouchers which have vanished. As we leave for the train he is examining the interior of the washing machine with a flashlight.

Tuesday, December 15

Down to Canada House. British Air lets flyers choose seats 24 hours before take off, so we plan to check the email and use the computer to check in. But when we arrive the place is closed, more or less. The rates are shut but a whey-faced man comes out to ask what we want. "We're closed. Emergencies only." Two men collecting passports are allowed in. We ask why they're closed. "It's an emergency." Well, clearly the place isn't on fire. Unfortunately the mumbling about emergencies is fairly unconvincing - rather like the implausible excuses of old East European functionaries - but there's nothing to be done but head for an internet cafe. Fifty p later we've booked the seats and had a quick glance at the email at a cafe near Finchley Road Station.



Out to Jean's in the afternoon. The visit would have been Sunday but work on the lines would have meant two different replacement buses - awkward at night. We have a good chat and a lamb curry lunch. Jean's been very busy, mostly with a choir she belongs to that has just held its Christmas concert o Saturday evening. Short phone conversation with Jean's brother robert, who tells us that the temperature in Edmonton is minus 40 - with a windchill of minus 56!



On the way home (not that it is exactly) we stop at the travel centre at victoria Station to check the timing on the night bus toHeathrow. I'm hoping that we'll end up at a wicket staffed by a middle-aged man. They usually seem to know the timetables almost by heart and have a passion for detail and accuracy. We get a cavalier young chap with dreadlocks who says that the night bus takes "about 2 hours." We know this to be wildly inaccurate, which casts suspicion on the rest of his info - and is annoying as well. So through the queue again (going in the door past Dreadlocks who is now enjoying a smoke break). this time a middle-aged man who looks up the timing on a computer program and announces "73 minutes from Charing Cross."



Finish packing and set the alarms on both mobiles.

Sunday, December 13/2009

Third Sunday of Advent. We head for Westminster Cathedral where the boys' choir is lovely as usual and we light the third candle on the Advent wreath. The parish Christmas bazaar follows and J scores a large beeswax candle from the Church candle ends on sale. A pound for the candle (J says they used to be much less) and another pound for 3 fat used paperbacks. They're 50p each, but the ladies, teetering between desire to raise more money and desire to sell all the books, say that they will sell 3 fiction books for a pound "if they're not the really big nice ones." Mine are quite big, but one (a Gabriel Garcia Marquez) is a bit water damaged they note, so the three are good for a pound. Pass up Edwina Currie's memoirs, presumably featuring her affair with John Major. Well it's not fiction anyway - is it?

A nice fat Sunday Times on the way home to go with yesterday's Saturday Guardian, not yet finished. It's a nippy day out, with a chill breeze and possible frost tonight - though not cold by Canadian standards!

Saturday, December 12/2009

Check out the options for leaving on tuesday. Heathrow Express is the only public transport possibility with any hope of getting to terminal 5 on time. The difficulty is getting to Paddington on time, and the extra distance to Termiinal 5. In the end we decide that a minicab would be as cheap and much simpler.

Over to Asda to get a top up for the mobile. Spot an ipod touch 32 gig for 227 pounds, tax included and refundable. We're planning on going downtown to admire the lights but acquire a cooked chicken and postpone our light tour.

Friday, December 11/2009

London overground from West Hampstead to Hackney to Alexander and Flora's place where Dorothy is staying for Christmas. Off at Dalton and Kingsland and we walk south on Kingsland. It's rough and real in the way that Queensway used to be twenty years ago, shops spilling over into the street; fishmongers, butchers with whole chickens hanging, an outdoor market. Rather like Bethnal Green.



Alexander and Flora live in a square set back a couple of blocks west of Kingsland, a solid corner terrace house, formal and high-ceilinged on the ground flor (full of Alexander's pianos). Below stairs it's a different world, mostly enormous low-ceilinged kitchen with a long scrubbed wood table, all warmth and busyness. We have tea there and then leave A and F and their dogs and head up Kingsland.



The area is mainly Turkish, with turkish shops and signs. I recognise "eczane", the Turkish word for pharmacy, and we stop at another shop to look at Turkish spices. We're hoping to eat at a Turkish restaurant that flora has said is very good - a valuable opinion D points out, as F is a cordon bleu cook.



We stop first at a tiny pub which we share with the other non-Moslems on a street rather short on pubs. Most of the other drinkers are Caribbean in origin and clearly know each other, though they're friendly enough to us. I'm puzzled aby a sign on the door: PINTS ONLY SERVED DURING FOOTBALL MATCHES. But I want a pint now - why on earth should they object? Will I have to settle for a pint? But J returns with 2 pints of bitter and D's passion fruit drink (a request for soft drinks elicited a choice of orange, cranberry and mango, or passion fruit). The sign, of course, should read: ONLY PINTS SERVED DURING FOOTBALL MATCHES - a deterrent to cheap drinkers who might monopolise the telly.

There's intermittent entertainment from the Wurlitzer but lots of opportunity to talk in between. I get an old fashioned key for the loo (we keep it locked because of drugs - though J says the men's is open) but it's pretty peaceful, though not quiet. I step outside, pst the replica pages of newspaper featuring Edward VIII and Mrs. Simpson, to answer a phone call from Jean.

Dinner at Mangal, the award winning Turkish restaurant, is amazing, in quantity as well as quality. We've asked for the dinner for 2 to be made for 3, but needn't have, although it does give D a bag to take home. There is a basket of pita and 3 platters - large round ones of meze (after which we're moderately full) and salads, as well as a giant oval one with a variety of lamb, beef and chicken, rice and bulgur. Delicious. It's a good thing we were there by seven, because business is non-stop. There's rarely an empty table for more than a couple of minutes.

We walk D back and hop a bus to Liverpool Street station where we get the Metropolitan home.

Thursday, December 10/2009

Wake at 9:30. True, it's 3:30 a.m. Canadian central time, but a shocking waste of London time. Over to the Welby office to ask for plates, etc., J having made do with a pot lid for his fish last night. One lawn sports a single metal crutch abandoned near the pavement. A nearby beer bottle may provide a partial explanation - but how did he get home?

Bus to Westminster Cathedral for Christmas cards, then to Trafalgar Square where we do the banking and stop at Canada House to check the email. British Air informs us that our country of destination wishes to have passport information. Emulating the Americans or admitting to their immigration problems? Then to Camden High Street and Inverness Street market. Iit's mild and the streets are full of life. Already growing dark before four, but Christmassy.

Dorothy calls in the evening and we arrange to meet tomorrow at Alexander and Flora's.

Wednesday, December 9/2009

Wake not long after going to sleep it seems. Breakfast is a large, cold muffin which J declines. We fly in along the Thames, spotting the London Eye and other landmarks. Tube to Swiss Cottage. The lawns are bright green and not only the roses but even the fuschia are still blooming, as well as winter pansies and holly. No need for coats- light jackets are fine. We stash our things at the bedsit. They (the bedsits) are always an odd mixture of assets and non. On the pro side, there are plenty of pots, a microwave, and an iron (not that I intend to waste London time ironing), a clothes drying rack and (this is unprecedented) a toaster. And the place is very clean. But there's only one plate, no bowls, and one glass (though there are three mismatched cups).

So down to Sainsbury's to find something for dinner, and home with fresh fish, bread, tinned beans, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, clementines and peanut butter. But not the toilet paper, so we'll be heading back tomorrow. We'd thought of going out again in the evening as we're here for such a short time, but jetlag wins.

Tuesday, December 8/2009

Phone Janet to say goodbye and she offers to take us to the airport so we can have a brief visit. She and Dave are just back from Mexico - in time for the deep freeze.

We're not together on the plane - J has the window seat behind mine - because of the late booking. So I have the pleasure of sitting next to a man who sneezes -twice- into his hand and then is all over the touch screen in front of him. We haven't remembered the headphones for ours. They do sell them on domestic flights (and give them away on international ones) but I've lost my enthusiasm.

Four hours wait in Toronto. There's a storm coming in but we're off before it arrives. Was that really -34 on the airport weather screen as Regina's temperature tomorrow?

Dinner close to midnight. Fortunately we'd taken cheese and ham sandwiches with us to eat in Toronto because the dinner is horrible. Probably the worst we've had on Air Canada. Chicken with dried out pasta protruding from a bland tomato sauce. And a salad combining peas with diced fruit that I can't identify.

Monday, December 8/2009

Technically it is Monday morning, although it still feels like Sunday night as we take the truck in to catch the midnight express - well, VIA 1:16 - to Winnipeg. And we're lucky it's only to Winnipeg, as a derailed freight train is still smouldering on the Saskatchewan/Manitoba border and those going farther are dispatched to buses - a slow and uncomfortable way to reach Vancouver.

Portage and Main is not, according to Ian, the windiest spot in the city - honours go to Portage and Memorial - but it's still enough of a contender that, with a -20 Celsius temperature, we know why we're heading for the Mediterranean. But the house, and later the welcome, are warm.

Sunday, June 28/2009

Don and Patty have spent the night on the way up to their cabin for the season. The weather has been horrible - rainy and not warm - but it has given us a little longer to chat and to play with their new puppy, Maggi, as we wait for it to clear enough to take the ATV in to the cabin.

Advertisements on the BBC news home page look amazingly tailored to have been designed for a general audience. For example:

Winnipeg Downtown. Competent therapists a short walk from the office - help is close by.

This is the international version of the page, but it seems rather close to home. Do the same messages appear on the screens of viewers in South Africa of Finland? Even worse, have "they" been observing my viewing history and concluding that therapy is in order? But if that is the case, they have failed to note that I am retired and not at the office. Perhaps it is random after all.

Monday, June 22/2009

Dinner at Skip and Caryl's. Their son Kurt is up visiting for a few days' fishing so we get to visit with him as well. We eat on their porch facing the lake - and see a beaver swimming purposefully toward our house - where he has already felled a tree, damaging the roof of the pump house.

Saturday, June 21/2009

Awake early to watch qualifying for the British Grand Prix. This year, of course, the political juggling as the series threatens to split in two (so some sportscasters put it, though the reality is more like a hijacking than a split, as the majority of teams are threatening to leave, with some justification).

Stop in town at the drugstore to pick up some tinned salmon, on sale in this week's flyers. No, none left. And the sale was last week. I protest that I'm certain I saw them earlier this week. But it turns out that the fiscal cum flyer week begins on Saturday. So it's now next week. J is waiting outside in the car, chatting with friends. A young man joins the group and admires our car. The car, though, is only an excuse to begin conversation. What he really wants to tell us, his speech a little slurred, is that he has been learning the art of sell-leb-acy. Accent on the second syllable. Tough going, it seems, as he adds "but I still want a woman."

Friday, July 19/2009

We have a second free dump pass, so off with the half ton loaded with everything from the old kitchen stove from the rental (from which J has carefully removed everything of value from burners to fuses) to broken window glass and miscellaneous packing foam. It was all covered with a large blue tarp tied down tightly yesterday to protect it from rain, so today all we have to do is drive off - after stopping for coffee at Robin's with Caryl and Skip. The ten mile drive from town is usually not busy but there's fairly steady traffic today as the free passes end tomorrow. Strange smell in the truck - did some small animal die in the ventilation system? Ugly thought.

Dump, of course, is not what it's called as I've noted before. Nor tip, nor garbage disposal. It does appear in the town directory under waste management, fairly enough I suppose. The actual place itself being Hidden Lake Landfill Site. In the age of politically correct wording, it's become almost impossible to look up facilities. And sometimes there doesn't seem to be much actual change. Thus the term "retarded" has become so thoroughly offensive to many people that I haven't heard it in years. Yet literally all that it means is slow or delayed. As in the French "en retard." Which sounds a great deal like the currently acceptable "developmentally delayed." Both of them implying an optimistic assumption that the development will eventually occur. Then there's the replacement of disabled with "differently abled." That makes a fair point, perhaps, but at the cost of a fair bit of awkwardness.

But I digress. We reach the dump, and the expected queue is down to one small truck. There's a spectator gallery of gulls lining the peak of the roof of a storage garage, hoping, no doubt, for smellier and more interesting goods than one is allowed to bring here on the free pass. On the left is an enormous collection of blue and clear bags full of recycling. All the containers that we put out on alternate Wednesdays cheerfully assuming that they are being reprocessed for a guilt free existence. And some year this may happen. The centre mountain is "general," with a separate, slightly smaller white mountain of appliances. And spots for wood, used batteries, etc. The cathartic effect of disposing of a truckful of refuse somewhat diminished by seeing it added to the enormity of everyone else's grubby mattresses, dented fridges, broken bicycles and plastic toys.

June 8/2009

Funeral of M.E. today, and exactly what a small town funeral should be. Standing room only, which in Sacred Heart Church means well over 300 people. A wife, four children, seven grandchildren, and dozens of friends, relatives, and former colleagues. Interesting that a former conservation officer (read game warden) should be beloved of so many people. But then he wore many other hats - from volunteer fireman to credit union board member, and at the reception after the service the hats themselves with their various logos are on a table next to the photographs recording a lifetime.

Cremation had taken place before the memorial Mass, and the priest uses, more than once, the term cremains. The meaning is obvious enough, but the word itself unfamiliar. At home I check it on the internet and find, as well as the expected definition, the following:

Carbon copies: Pencils made from the carbon of human cremains. 240 pencils can be made from an average body of ash - a lifetime supply of pencils for those left behind.

It seems it's a bit more than waste not, want not. More of a memento, or even memento mori, with the name of the deceased stamped on each pencil.

May 23/2009

Drive to Kenora to visit with Susan and Ian. It's finally starting to look like spring, especially toward Lake of the Woods, where the trees are in bud. We're crossing the second bridge on Storm Bay Road when I spot what looks like swans and persuade J to stop. They're not swans, of course. They're pelicans. Nearly the size of swans, though with less neck and more bill, but almost as magnificent. Six of them sailing white against the dark blue water. In the afternoon the four of us go fishing, trolling through silent bays and listening to the white throated sparrows calling. We hear loons, but don't see them. We do see the beautiful pelicans again, taking off, landing, and sailing proudly by.

Wednesday, May 13/2009

Perhaps non-travel time should be a separate blog, but I can't be bothered, and, existentially, I'm not sure that the summers here are any less a part of our travels than the winters when we are on the move.

Right now it seems unlikely that we will ever see spring, let alone summer. The ice is, as of this week, gone from the lake. We had been hoping to take a load of general clean-up rubbish to the dump (conveniently located only 25 km away, following a five year study of where, on this bit of northern shield wilderness, a garbage dump might appropriately be situated). I check online to see when the dump is open - a task made somewhat more difficult by trying to guess what name it is likely to go under. Sanitation? Waste management? Rubbish disposal? Environmental engineering? Landfill? Obviously not simply garbage dump. Eventually it transpires that the information on the town website is wrong. Yes, they know it's wrong but the correct information is to be found elsewhere. The town's website is not easy to change, but they're working on it. All of which reminds us of the time when John D borrowed a friend's half ton to do a major clean-up and haul the lot to the local dump, then normally open on Sundays. When he arrived there was a sign on the gate saying "Dump closed today - open yesterday." But today the dump is open, and J and Klaus manage to dispose of our junk between showers, rather than having to wait for Friday, when snow is forecast.

Monday, April 20/2009

Heathrow by tube. The return trip is perfectly set up with early afternoon departure and supper time arrival, but that is dependent on an hour to make the connection in Ottawa, so when we leave the tarmac 45 minutes late, we know it's plan B. Landing cards have got bigger - but warn that they're not to be folded. As everyone is carrying coats and hand luggage it seems to leave little option but the teeth. And they seem to be primarily obsessed with what food we might be importing. Never mind the gold, laundered money, even drugs. I confess to chocolate bars and they let us through - to wait for a later flight to Toronto and thence to Winnipeg.

I try to phone Susan and Ian to let them know that we'll be late, afraid that they might simply go to the airport straight from work. I'm quite pleased with myself for having prepared months earlier for this eventuality by buying a phone card, supposedly good for six months from first use. I find a pay phone and dial the number on the card, in order to be told that the number is not good - complain to the seller of the card. A helpful young woman in hijab is in charge of the information desk and I ask about pay internet terminals. She shows me one that she has discovered in a corner, and I later decide that well might they wish to hide in a corner. Two dollars for ten minutes. Sounds not unreasonable. In ten minutes I should be able to send the same message to both Ian and Susan, at home as well as at work to be on the safe side. Think again. In slightly over ten minutes - therefore slightly over two dollars - the computer has failed to make any kind of contact with the outside world at all. It won't even load google - which I finally try as a test. In fact the only thing it does at all well is process the credit card. With no real hope, I try the Air Canada desk. As the plane failed to make its connection, could I possibly telephone? Terribly sorry, they're not allowed to make long distance calls, but they do sell phone cards at the little shop. They don't, actually, but what they sell, the shop assistant explains, is receipts. She has to explain it more than once, as the receipt seems to me to be what one receives after a purchase, not instead of one. But essentially it's a cardless card. You pay for the number that you are to use to make the phone call - printed on the receipt. Fine. Five dollars - though I've forgotten that in Canada that means five dollars plus tax. All right, $5.65. I go to make the call, using the number provided. The recorded message on the phone says smugly "This card is not valid. Goodbye." Back to the shop, where the girl is horrified and tries the number herself. On her phone - possibly not Bell - it works, so I quickly take the phone from her before she can feel obliged to say that it's not a public phone, dial Ian and Susan's number and leave the message, and thank the girl profusely. Done.

Flights to Toronto and then Winnipeg. Not sure whether S&I will meet us at the airport or never speak to us again. Fortunately they got the message and all is well. We're home.

Sunday, April 19/2009

Awake early - more or less awake that is - to watch the race, and it's a good one. And out to bring back a fat Times to spend the day with. Fighting off a cold and have decided that it's a sedentary day, wasteful though this is in London. But it's also packing day, and, one way and another that seems to take all day. Mostly because it's a weeding process, disposing of all the things that cannot possibly fit in the little suitcases.

Telephone call from Alexander, friend of Dorothy, saying that Flora has just pointed out it's our last day, and can we go out for a meal. We'd been hoping to meet them, and had spoken on the phone earlier. So they pick us up and we stop on Haverstock Hill at a pizza place. Nice thin crust pizza - ours with caramelised red onion, spinach and fetta. The onion is a definite keeper. A bottle of red, and getting to know each other. They both went to music school at the old Regina Campus of the University of Saskatchewan, where they met D. Flora originally from BC, but having spent more than half her life in England now, and Alexander originally English. Promises to meet again next time - in fact they're insistant that we should stay with them!

Saturday, April 18/2009

Try to find THE Abbey Road location, which I have assumed is just off Belsize Road. But when we walk over, the address simply doesn't exist, and, worse than that, the spot where it should be doesn't have the right sort of street number - should be much lower. More research required. Meanwhile hop on a bus headed to West Hampstead. Poke about a bit, but not much going on. Pass a Chinese medical clinic, San Ling, advertising cures for:

Impotence
Stiff Neck
Insomnia
Frozen Shoulder
Indigestion
Stress
Anxiety
Arthritis

All listed on the same large sign. An impressive offering.

Afternoon we take the tube out to Jean's, where we visit until Shanthi arrives to share supper. A nice visit and lovely food. We couldn't pass up the final opportunity, but probably should have done, as Jean has been under the weather all week and really isn't feeling well now.

Friday, April 17/2009

Heading into the last weekend. We stop at Canada House to check the mail. Most of the computers are in use, and they try to speed people up by providing only two computers that can be used while seated. The other four are stand-up for the user. I take a stand-up computer and am not particularly annoyed until I notice that the man next to me, who seems to have been sent to amuse hiimself while his wife does the family business on another screen, has given up whining that he can't find AOL and is now playing solitaire. I refrain from pointing out, accurately enough, that he is doing nothing while there is a queue! Cardinal sin. His wife finishes and tells him that he has been talking about. He complains that it's over now. "Well you did want me to check about the tickets, didn't you?"