Saturday, November 19/2011

Spectacle shopping day. What rapidly appears is that almost any of the offers is much better than we could do at home or probably in Larnaca. But the deals are all different. Thereès the offer with a second pair, or the one pair from the man who actually knows something about eye problems and sounds as if his lenses are better, or the place that offers, rather embarrassingly, to send a taxi to pick us up and spare us the fifteen minute walk. Of course if only one of these places existed we would probably be delighted and place an order.

Friday, November 18/2011

Take  the alternate walk today to Paphos town, not much farther than the harbour walk, but uphill. The town centre isn't big but it is busy, with locals and tourists. The views of the harbour below are striking and there are some good coffee spots looking down. There's a covered market as well, with fruit and vegetables - elderly women pressing us to sample the oranges and guavas. There are also leather goods, jewellery and souvenirs.

Stop on the way back at a Russian shop (there are enormous numbers of Russians in Cyprus) where we find pepper and aubergine spreads and also at a greengrocer for oranges, grapes and coriander. There's a little charity shop on the road as well, but it's deciding whether to rain, so we head back.

In the lobby we use the earphones with the netbook to listen to the National - the first Canadian news broadcast in two weeks.

Thursday, November 17/2011As soon as we set out for the harbour, the sky darkens, and in fact it rains while we are in the supermarket but has stopped by the time we come out. Stop at one of the many optical shops on our way back. cyprus has a reputation for inexpensive glasses and it seems that this harbour ara is more fiercely competitive than Larnaca, perhaps because it's more touristed. It's quite easy to get a pair of vari-focals (progressives) with frames for €149 ($207 CAD, £125) - or less. We can't get BBC radio here - it's too far from the British base - but can and do download some BBC radio progrms to listen to later in our flat.

As soon as we set out for the harbour, the sky darkens, and in fact it rains while we are in the supermarket but has stopped by the time we come out. Stop at one of the many optical shops on our way back. cyprus has a reputation for inexpensive glasses and it seems that this harbour ara is more fiercely competitive than Larnaca, perhaps because it's more touristed. It's quite easy to get a pair of vari-focals (progressives) with frames for €149 ($207 CAD, £125) - or less.

We can't get BBC radio here - it's too far from the British base - but can and do download some BBC radio progrms to listen to later in our flat.

Wednesday, November 16/2011

Jenny and Doug arrive about quarter to twelve, having been delayed by a puncture before they set out and by the inaccuracies of the map.  It's a lovely day, though Doug says, disapprovingly, that this is not in accordance with the forecast.  Nice that it is, though, because we take the old coast road back and it is stunningly beautiful, with rugged cliffs above multicoloured sea.  Aphrodite's birthplace, a breathtaking mix of rock and foam. We drive through the British sovereign area, which contains the military base on which Jenny and Doug, as well as Jane and Dave (now retired in Cumbria) were living when we met on a Nile cruise. Then on to look at the ruins of a roman stadium as well as stopping at the beach below Curium (also very good Roman ruins). Jenny's a good guide because she remembers many of the places from 30 years ago and can chronicle the changes.

Jenny's father and his wife, Sam and Paddy Taylor, live in Erimi, a village a little south of Limassol. It's a lovely house and the back garden is beautiful, with a swimming pool, trees, flowers, statues, and tiled sitting areas for sun and shade.

And a lovely lunch as well - with chicken and mushrooms on basmati rice and a choice of apple tart or creme caramel - we're encouraged to try both and find it impossible to resist. It's a real pleasure to listen to Jenny's father's reminiscences - he's philosophical, knowledgeable and soft-spoken - and we could do so for much longer. He was born in Palestine of an English (Irish?) father, a military man who went in with General Allenby in 1917, and a Palestinian mother, and has spent much of his life in the Middle East. His second wife is Irish and turns out to be from Enniskillen, birthplace of my great great grandparents, in honour of which she gives me a copy of the Book of Kells.

J and D drive us back to Paphos and come in to see our flat. We have tea and coffee but no biscuits. Doesn't matter as no one has room anyway.

Tuesday, November 15/2011

Rain. Not quite what we signed up for, but always needed in cyprus so might as well be philosophical. So down to the waterfront again and second round of groceries.

Try to co-ordinate tomorrow with Jenny. She can't get her father's phone to text and the netbook (or the wifi?) refuses to send an email. So we hope that between doug's map downloading and our texting we'll link up.  We do  have a fairly good map - but it's downloaded onto the netbook with its tiny screen and we don't have printing facilities. And so it goes.

Monday, November14/2011

Ironically, we leave London on a warm sunny day and wake to clouds and predictions of rain - though it is warm, warmer than England. And there is bougainvillea blooming deeply pink beside our first floor (North Americans read second floor) balcony. Thereès a pair of sparrow-sized birds enjoying themselves among the blossoms, damp with last night's rain. so we venture forth ourselves, umbrellas prudently slipped on wrists.

We're about a kilometre from the seafront and the temperature is about 18 - maybe a little more as we do see some tourists in shorts, but then some Brits who have booked their fortnight in the sun dress for it, whether or not the weather co-operates. And the British are everywhere in Kato (lower) Paphos, the tourist area near the sea. A little like Albufeira's old town, with cafés on the pavement and plenty of signs advertising full English breakfasts or pints - the latter only €1.75, €1.69, €1.50. English is the predominant language of the passers-by, but J's eagle eye spots locals carrying bags of groceries. And soon we too find the supermarket, a relief after the insanely priced peripteros (often also styling themselves supermarkets), mainly featuring overpriced liquor and crisps.

So we begin with the basics, mindful that we're not here for much more than 2 weeks and it all has to be carried back to the Paphiessa. Tomatoes, passata, onions, garlic, courgettes, Spanish wine (on sale for 89 euro cents a litre, so why not gamble), lountza (smoked pork tenderloin, also on sale and beautifully lean), streaky bacon, extra virgin olive oil, eggs, mushrooms, fresh green beans, tomato paste, milk, bread and a tin of baked beans. We have cheese and peanut butter and coffee and tea with us, so it's a start. The real prize, when we get it home, is the bread - whole grain and heavily seeded - though with none of the usual North American/EU warning on nuts, seeds, etc - in fact no mention of same.

Get a bit lost coming back - between the winding roads and the inadequacies of the map - and it starts to rain, but we have umbrellas, and it's not cold.

The tv is a mixed asset. reception of BBC World and Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation and Sigma (private Cypriot) are very good - but the second Cypriot public station (which carries brief English news) is missing as are some local chanels. the good news, though, is that there is free wifi in the lobby. We ask about a password and the receptionist writes it out for us, but it turns out none is needed. 

Note that our chocolate bar nibbler of Saturday night may not indicate that we were living on the wrong side of the tracks.  Ten Downing St has acquired a cat - said to be a good mouser - after a rat was observed crossing the doorstep. Elevated, if not good, company.

Sunday, November 13/2011

Moving day. We take the bus from Bayswater to King's Cross - not crowded and moving freely on a Sunday morning - and then the train from St. Pancras to Gatwick. The suitcases felt heavy, but they're only 15½ to 16½ kilos, so we`re safely under the 20 kilo max. Even when J brought back two bottles of wine from Portugal, the case wasn`t overweight.
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Thomas Cook seems slightly more civilised than either EasyJet or Ryanair, although this may be because I booked a package that included a meal and choosing our seats as well as a texted info pack that never seems to have materialised. Actually the seats, as J points out, wouldn`t have been much worse if we hadn't picked them - middle and aisle and pretty narrow. But they're together. The meal is better than anticipated though, with chicken fillet and a chocolate pudding. Surprisingly, when we land the pilot warns the passengers that Paphos airport food is quite expensive and they may wish to acquire their food in advance when returning. Surprising not because it's not likely to be true, but because ppilots don't usually concern themselves with passengers' budgets and he wasn't even recommending purchasing food onboard.

Our transfer bus is a bit hard to find - a minibus hiding behind huge coaches - but it's there as promised and we are delivered to the Paphiessa where we've booked a studio. The studio turns out to be a one bedroom with fair-sized living/dining area, a microwave oven as well as the standard two burners, and full size bath and shower. There's pretty good furniture and drapes and a balcony accessible from both sitting area and bedroom. All for nine pounds 33p ($15.11 CAD, €10.91) a day.

Saturday, November 12/2011

Back to our Starbucks "office" - all working well now and wifi connectivity "excellent". The seating downstairs is comfortable and the music  mostly a pleasure - though it's a little unsettling to hear a sprinkling of Christmas carols in the mix when it's not quite mid-November. J brings the last of his coffee back to the room and Murphy's law strikes. He takes a sip and the lid falls off, causing curses and enough widespread coffee that my first thought is that he's spit it out. Hard to cover as much territory - shirt, quilted vest, carpet, bedspread - if trying. But several paper napkins and one wet bathtowel later, not bad.

Down to Bayswater for 5 o'clock in the hopes that the fireworks in honour of the new Lord Mayor will be visible. They're not (should ideally havebeen viewed from the Victoria Embankment) and they close the park at 5, as it's getting quite dark and presumably they're not keen on preventing drug dealers and campers from doing their thing.

We meet Alexander and Flora at Bel Canto (the Corus) at Lancaster Gate. It's next door to the Swan, a pub that is over 300 years old and, located as it is near the Tyburn gallows, gave many last drinks to those about to be executed. We're there for a dinner that includes arias presented by opera singers who double as waiters and waitresses.  they're very good and the basement restaurant not really quite large enough to hold their powerful voices. The food is good as well.  Champagne and starters and then A,F, and I have the duck's breast and J the seafood dish of the day with prawn, scallops and salmon in lobster sauce. So we have a visit to the opera as well as a first class meal. Popular arias from Carmen, etc. - and acted as well as sung. Excellent. It's fun and very nice. And so it should be too - for a total bill of £270 ($437 CAD, €313). We expect to follow the opera singers whose careers we've been underwriting as their careers blossom. Alexander tunes the piano here and the pianist is a pleasure in between the operatic offerings as well as when accompanying them.

Would have been good to have chatted a little more, but Flora is suffering from a miserable cold and the quality of the music makes talk difficult - as well as indecent.
Back to the hotel to find that the drama is not quite over. J has left a packet of Snickers on the bed and something has nibbled into the end bar. No other signs of infestation, but....

Friday, November 11/2011

Remembrance Day. Canadian commemorative poppiesare different from British ones - brilliant red felt covering over plastic rather than a faded red paper poppy with green plastic leaf and stem. The British ones are much closer to the colour of real poppies, so it's hard to decide whether the Canadian ones are more vibrant or simply vulgar.

The queen is laying a wreath at the official ceremonies, but eleven o'clock finds us at the Paddington Library for our two minutes of silence - and some internet access. The second time in two days that our path and her majesty's don't quite cross.

In the afternoon we walk along the Bayswater Road to the Tyburn convent and shrine. The chapel is serene, with ivory coloured walls and ceiling and clean lines. The cloistered Benedictine nuns sing an office and then file silently out of the other half of the chapel - behind the grille. The convent itself is early 20th century, but close to the site of the Tyburn gallows where Catholic martyrs, amongst others, were executed. If memory serves, the actual gallows were in what is now a nearby traffic intersection. But which one? More googling required.

Back along Edgware Road and Praed Street from Marble Arch. Edgware Road has become very middle eastern, with almost as many Arabic signs as English ones on shops. There are bakeries with plates heaped with pastries like the ones we buy in Damascus and Beirut in the windows. And there are many cafés and restaurants, customers smoking water pipes much in evidence at the outside tables.

Supper at a pub at the top end of Queensway. Nice chicken, ham and leek pie and good bitter. A German family are seated next to us, with no food or drink for some time until it occurs to us that they probably don't know they have to go to the bar to order. So J explains. There are  quite a lot of tourists about in Bayswater. Not entirely happily, for us, as it's a large part of what keeps pub and restaurants higher here than, say, in Kilburn.

Thursday, November 10/2011

Quite a bit of messing about with the netbook, which probably boils down to uneven connections in the free wifi spots.

Take the bus over to King's Cross to visit the British Library. It's the same bus we'll take on Sunday, as there are tube disruptions for maintenance on the weekend. The bus route seems fine. Forty-five minutes (not including a bit of shopping along Oxford Street) and it will be less congested on Sunday morning. The British Library, though, isn't on. Actually, it's completely roped off and surrounded by security men. It seems the queen is coming for the royal opening of an exhibit and the plebs will have to wait.

In the evening we meet up with Susan and Ian's niece, Kristin and Chris, her new boyfriend in the Tabard pub in Chiswick.  Lots of catch up with Kristin, who's about half way through her year here, and we enjoy Chris as well.

Wednesday, November 9/2011

Coffee and email at Starbucks on Queensway. Very civilised start to the day.

Out to Jean's in West Harrow. Our umbrellas do an excellent job of warding off rain and it's lovely and balmy. Shanthi is joining us but has been delayed by a signalling failure on the underground so we have time for some wine and a good chat before dinner when Shanthi and Priya join us for chicken and prawn curries. Lovely. And chocolate brownies with ice cream. As usual, we're spoiled.

Jean's been busy, not only with preparing the meal but with her choir, which undertakes such ambitious projects as Fauré's Requiem and works of Bach.

Tuesday, November 8/2011

Wake up about 9:30 - so much for closing the curtains at night.  So write off the early stop options and instead have breakfast at Subway and go over to the Paddington Library to check the email and get the news on the Saskatchewan election. Looks like James and Raye have jobs that are safe for a while yet.

Then by tube to Waterloo. Check out the National Theatre - sadly, Lenny Henry is playing in what looks like a marvellous production of A Comedy of Errors, but not until after we've left.  Along the Southbank to the Tate Modern.  The Turbine Hall installation is a film, about which we really know too little, though it does draw us in as we watch the 35 mm looking strip and its varied still and moving images.  No post production, its maker says. But how? As we leave, we notice that the repaired floor still shows the scars of Shibboleth, the shocking installation that produced an enormous crack in the cement floor of the building.

By bus to St. Paul's and the Occupy London encampment on the surrounding pavement. Too many tents to count, including large ones labelled Info and Occupy London University - where a man is seated on the ground holding forth to a half dozen listeners.  It's getting dark and fairly hard to see. Plenty  of notices and signs on every vertical surface. The tent interiors, of course, have no electricity, although a few candles flicker dimly.  There is electricity for the amp, though, and an open mike hour is just beginning on the steps of the cathedral.  Some level of disagreement within the Church of England over the protesters, with two of St. Paul's clergy already having resigned. One newspaper pointed out that if the occupiers remain they could conceivably cause distress to Church goers on Christmas Eve. Regular Sunday attenders, it would seem, are made of sterner stuff.

Back to the Old Bell on Kilburn High Street for a vegetable curry with rice (two for six pounds fifty and surprisingly good - and hot) and a pint of bitter each.

Monday, November 7/2011

Down to Charing Cross to do the banking.  Our money order should take between six days and six weeks to actually appear in the account. Do we get a vote on bankers' bonuses?

Next stop should be Canada House on Trafalgar Square for a quick email check. But it's boarded up and closed for renovations. Probably not a permanent cutback though, as it seems to exist mainly for business people and not the plebs. So on to the third item on the list - tracking down the location for tonight's lecture at the London School of Economics.  Good thing too, as the school sprawls across a number of lanes and the building we want is not on Houghton, as advertised, but on the corner of Sardinia and King.

By this time we're not far from a William Morris exhibition on Temple Place. Two Temple Place is considerably more than a building housing works by Morris.  It's a tribute to the aesthetic movement and Morris's belief that people should live surrounded by beauty. And beautiful the house is, with elaborately carved wood on benches, ceilings and staircases - the main staircase incorporating two-foot high carvings of figures from The Three Musketeers.  there are also beautiful tapestries designed by Morris and Burne-Jones, several of them illustrating The Romance of the Rose, as well as stained glass panels on walls and skylights and elaborate mantelpieces and fireplaces. At one point the house belonged to Lord Astor, but it has long been held by a trust. There are quite a few viewers, including small groups of children aged about eight, intently making copies of some of the works.

Back in Bayswater we visit the Paddington library to take advantage of magazines (J) and wifi (me). A quietly busy place with plenty of serious students. Then back to the LSE for the lecture on the recent Arab uprisings. It's an hour's lecture by Dr. John Chalcraft, held in a very full and hot room.  J is disappointed in its content - long on theory and short on specific current information. He's right, but I'm pleased with the slant, and some of the comments are interesting. For example, MI 6's advice re Libya, ignored by David Cameron, was to stick with the devil he knew. And the cheers with which Egyptians greeted the army were not simply politically discreet - the Egyptians genuinely believed (and correctly it seems) that the soldiers were their brothers. But so many unanswered questions. Why is Bahrain different, and who are the Libyan rebels? And, and..? J  is probably right - this is a lecture the speaker has given before.

Sunday, November 6/2011

There's a major exhibition of the paintings of Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven on at the Dulwich Picture Gallery.  The gallery itself is southeast of Brixton, a longish bus ride from Oxford Circus past Brixton's rough shabbiness and into southern parks and schools.  It has quite a history, beginning in the early 19th century, and is in fact in delighted possession of a guestbook signed by Vincent Van Gogh.

The Canadian exhibit is a large one with quite a few cnvasses of Thomson, McDonald, and Varley, as well as a number of the other group members. As always "live" canvasses are so different in effect from the reproductions. I'm struck by an odd echo of Gauguin - something in the colours and the rawness, though many of the smaller (and later?) ones have a much more Group of Seven feel.  It's difficult to talk about early or late Thomson when he died at 40. I grew up with the reproductions on the wall, though, courtesy of Thomson's nephew, who was a friend of my parents'.

Several of the artists, including Thomson, have twinned pictures, small and large, with the small picture (8"x10"?) functioning as a sketch done in oils, though perhaps with a limited palette.  Probably a way of rememberingcolour.  One small Thomson, though with no accompanying large version, has glowing tamarack trees. We're also taken wit a large canvas by Johnston showing Kenora from the water, its profile in the distance.  There are a few of Lawren Harris's paintings as well, some of them looking a generation more modern, with simpler colours and cleaner lines. There are quite a few viewers at the exhibition - a mixed British and Canadian lot, judging by accent.

Outside the Dulwich Gallery, the grounds are treed and the leaves echo the autumn paintings inside, especially the red maple lea shaped ones of some young gum trees.

Saturday, November 5/2011

This is Guy Fawkes Day but we opt not to head for the official celebrations as the early forecasts suggests drizzle.  Breakfast at Subway on Queensway: toasted subs with egg, cheese, turkey rashers and veg, along with pretty good coffee for two quid each ($3.20 CAD, €2.30), eat in or at the little table outside, which it's warm enough to do with a light jacket on.

Bus from the Bayswater Road to Trafalgar, a tantalising mini tour in itself.  Just west of Marble Arch we see Tyburn Convent and, next to it, a shrine to the Tyburn martyrs, and mark it for later investigation. Is this the site of the old Tyburn gallows? The bus does a bit of detouring and we pass iconic streets - Wimpole and Harley Streets and Savile Row and Berkley Square - before abandoning the bus to congested traffic near Piccadilly Circus. The detour seems to have been occasioned by a demo representing the 99% who aren't wealthy, as proclaimed on their signs, and we meet up with them, drums and all, near Trafalgar.  As we head off along Whitehall near the Banqueting House, site of the execution of King Charles I, a young man strides past in cape and Guy Fawkes mask, bearing a sign announcing that The Rebellion is Coming.

It's getting dark, although not late, so we go by tube to Kilburn and reacquaint ourselves with the high street.  It's not quite as busy as Queensway, but more real in a way, as the people in the restaurants and pubs and street markets are local - possibly recent immigrants or temporary workers, but not tourists.  Baskets of seafood and chips and a pint of bitter each at The Old Bell. Prices are good and atmosphere friendly, although there never seem to be more than three women in the pub at a time.

Home with a fat Saturday Guardian and brochures for theatre and exhibitions to read. We're back before the fireworks start but hear them sporadically throughout the evening.

Friday, November 4/2011

To Jenny and Doug's in Thames Ditton for lunch. They're preparing to leave on Sunday for two weeks in Cyprus staying with Jenny's father.  By seeing them now we can also see Jenny's mum as well as Emma and her girls, Leila (born two weeks after we were here last) and Jasmine, now close to three.  It's Laura's birthday and she is here with Cody (same age as Jasmine) and later Kai, who gets picked up after a school trip.  So, luckily, we get in on the birthday cake, a Victoria sponge made by Jenny with decorations courtesy of Jasmine.

Dark by the time we come back in the laate afternoon, a reminder that London is well northof most Canadian locations.  Quick look along Camden High Street but things are shutting down, so we take the tube home.  quite a few people with oddly coloured hair - emerald green, pink, violet.  Is this for Hallowe'en, Guy Fawkes' Day or just part of the great pantomime of life?

Thursday, November 3, 2011

We should have left at ten minutes to midnight (technically yesterday), but as we are queuing at the gate we see the pilots and cabin crew leaving the plane - not a good omen.  We ask the pilot as he passes: no, it's all right - we will go but they're checking out a water leak.  If they can't fix it we'll go on a different plane.  Meanwhile the crew is off for coffee.

So shortly after 2 a.m. we are underway on the new unleaky airplane.  Dinner at 3 a.m. - or 8 a.m. GMT if you prefer.  Which puts us  at the hotel about 3 p.m. GMT. It's just off Queensway in Bayswater.  Fairly basic, but the ceiling is over twelve feet high and gorgeous (Victorian?) with an elaborate plaster braid around what is clearly the original perimeter. There's more plaster decoration around the ceiling light fixture, and an oval mirror over the sink and a second one in the door of the old wooden wardrobe. Sink in one corner and loo in another are much later additions.

Not doing our own cooking this time, so over to Queensway to explore local options.  Humming as always and some OK choices at fast foods as well as a fairly good Tesco and some Lebanese and Asian spots. Also the full size Marks and Spencer in the four storey "mall" made out of the classic old Whiteley's Department Store - 19th century and still with traces of its original grandeur.

Tuesday, April 19/2911

We're booked to go to a presentation of short war films at the War Museum this morning. We're expecting a bit of a mix, including some period propaganda. What we get is so much more. Many of the shorts are silents (more properly known as mutes, as they were never actually shown in silence). They were accompanied by music, often ad libbed by a piaist who played while watching the screen. Sometimes the film came with a suggested medley with cues on where to change to the next bit.

Luckily for us, we have a wonderful pianist, Stephen Horne, here today. He has 25 years experience with playing for mute films and is quite amazing. Also we're fortunate to have Toby Haggith as presenter. He's passionately engaged, as well as knowledgeable. Interesting contrasts as music accompanying WWI tank sequence very cheerful - Entrance of the Gladiators (Entrance of the Clowns) - quite shocking to modern sensibilities, but reflecting a buoyant sense that the tank would bring a triumphant end to the war. Also some quite humorous, as well as other perfectly serious, government messages on things like composting or using grated potatoes in place of suet in puddings. Actually quite a variety.

Stop briefly on the way back at Camden High St McDonald's - not our favourite, but we do have vouchers and by now we're hungry. There aren't many seats to begin with, but four are being occupied by a woman and her daughter, aged about six. They are consuming a commercially prepared sandwich and two drinks, none of which were purchased at McDs. Fully ensconced when we arrive and showing no signs of leaving when we go.

Get a quick hair trim on Kilburn High Road. The evening spent packing.

Monday, April 18/2011

Down to Piccadilly to the retro shop on Great Windmill. Lots of fun amidst the old posters, film star photos, etc. Carnaby St not at all what it was in the sixties (not surprisingly) or even retro. Liberty's what it always was - beautiful and expensive.

Then out to say goodbye to Jean. Wine and lovely Asian snacks and talk, and Shanthi comes over as well. Jean off to Fredericton next month.

Sunday, April 17/2011

The Shanghai Grand Prix. Fortunately at 7 rather than 6 a.m. - much easier to stay awake. Hamilton wins. A good race - not simply decided in the pits.

In the afternoon over to Jenny and Doug's. Emma now two weeks away from due date and Jasmine now an articulate and charming little girl, about to become a big sister. Doug and Jenny just back from a two and a half week cruise of the eastern Mediterranean, which seems to have been a good one. Jenny's mum there too, so we get to visit, and Giles comes in from house renovations. We stay to tea (good samosas) and Jenny and I get a bit of catch up time in the kitchen. Doug and J get to catch up as well - from plumbing to the economy. So nice we didn't miss them.

Saturday, April 16/2011

Out to Hammersmith, along King's Road. A keeper for next year. The Oxfam shop has books we'd love to take but have no room for. Next year must come with empty suitcases!

In the evening meet Alexander and Flora for tapas at Tierra Brindisa in Soho. More or less kitty corner to the John Snow pub, site of a large protest last night, billed as a kiss-in, following the eviction the previous evening of a gay couple caught kissing in the pub. Lots of people drinking outside tonight and no commotion. Lovely seeing A and F again - in between their trips to Antigua and Cuba. Food known for its quality not its quantity - but very nice. J with scallops and I with prawns and shared potato tortilla. A and F with lamb. Also herbed toast. Very good. Then to Italia for coffee. Soho alive and humming. We don't go out enough at night! Brief panic as I think I've left the new mobile behind but no - it's in my handbag all along. Could the confusion have anything to do with the two bottles of Spanish red?

Friday, April 15/2011

Up to Hampstead to Keats' house, the place where he lived from 1819 to 1821, at a time when Hampstead was mostly fields, accessible from London by stagecoach, the nearest stagecoach stopping point being the location of the present Royal Free Hospital. Keats had moved there to nurse his younger brother Tom who was dying of TB - and contracted it himself. The house, to which he moved after Tom's death, was owned by a friend, and was originally divided into two houses - the other part being occupied by the Brawne family, including young Fanny Brawne, to whom he became engaged. Very informative guide, and a moving experience, especially after yesterday's talk. Keats came down with TB here and left from here on his trip to Rome in the hope of a cure in a warmer climate - though no one who has been in Rome in midwinter would have held out a great deal of hope.

Thursday, April 14/2011

Talk at the National Portrait Gallery at 1:15 by Oliver Herford on a Keats portrait by Severn. Very good - careful, scholarly and moving. Easy to forget how very young Keats was - died in Rome at 25. Severn, his friend, accompanied him to Rome and stayed with him until his death a few weeks later.

Supper at the Old Bell in Kilburn. Curry night. Curry and a pint for £6.

Wednesday, April 13/2011

Down to Oxford St. by bus. Lilacs now out as well as cherry blossoms. Selfridge's is always a pleasure to stop at, though we seldom buy. Three pounds for a very small but no doubt exquisite petit four. It's really pornography of the very nicest sort.

After supper over to Angel to meet Kristen. First pub we try is too full, too loud, but the next is good upstairs. On Upper Street - but what was it? K enjoying London and now has flat share.

Tuesday, April 12/2011

Cooler, but despite threats from the weatherpeople it stays pretty fine. Go up to Haverstock Hill where a man is trimming a tree. Very brave of him too, as the tree is a good 50 feet high, taller than the surrounding houses. He's tied to the trunk, but the distance from the man to the knot is greater than that from the knot to the ground, so....Then down to the Embankment, and we walk along the Thames as far as the Temple, grounds of the legal profession. Lovely gardens and some of the buildings are very nice too. Then along Fleet Street and up past St. Paul's.

Then across the Millenium Bridge to the Tate Modern. The exhibition in the Great Hall is Ai Weiwei's Sunflower Seeds - hundreds of thousands of them, all made out of ceramic, individually crafted and hand-painted. A little uninspiring initially, if impressive in sheer quantity. But interesting metaphorical implications in terms of the concept of the individual and the effect en masse. Worryingly, Weiwei was stopped at Beijing Airport on April 3 by authorities and has not been seen or heard from since. Authorities have referred to suspected economic crimes - probably read tax disputes - but his family believe that pro-democracy activism is the problem.

Monday, April 11/2011

Walk from Notting Hill back along Kensington Gardens and then up Queensway. Is it just imagination or is it going, happily, a bit downscale again? A bit more in the way of shops spilling out onto the sidewalk and a bit less in the way of chains. More like we remember from 20 years ago? Or is this wishful thinking? Stop at Baron's hotel. Are they still there? Yes, and still remember us. We'll be back.

There's a little Tesco there that always has excellent mark-downs - things with absolutely nothing wrong that they're clearing - so we get some strawberries and blackberries. Beautiful looking - and tasting too, it turns out.

Sunday, April 10/2011

The morning begins with the race. As it's Asian, we're much luckier than North Americans. Nine a.m. here is 3 a.m. Central Daylight. Plenty of passing room on the track but no one passes young Sebastian Vettel.

In the afternoon we decide to walk King's Road, Chelsea, home of all kinds of creative ferment in the sixties. Tube to Sloan Square - and wonder which hotel it was where Oscar Wilde was arrested. We're right by the Saatchi Gallery, so stop. It's always an interesting visit, and today is no exception. Fascinating exhibit by Tessa Farmer. A large rectangular glass container holding a number of miniature sculptures. The figures are less than a centimetre high and made of "dessicated insect remains, dried plant roots and other organic ephemera" with real insect wings. Fairies, perhaps, but dark fairies indulging in a "microscopic apocalypse." Quite amazing. http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/tessa_farmer.htm

A summery walk down King`s Road, but sadly the repairs to The World`s End Distillery Pub are not quite finished. J finds a man having a smoke in a back doorway and inquires. It will reopen April 18. So it's still in store. Former Labour Home Secretary Alan Johnson, interviewed soon after his appointment to cabinet, suggests that his recent appointment to a high cabinet position didn't quite live up to his youth on King's Road, Chelsea:

I went to school on the King’s Road, Chelsea, in the Sixties. We used to sit at lunchtime outside the World’s End pub because that’s where Mick Jagger and Keith Richards drank. It was just a buzz, a real buzz, a really exciting time. I’ve never [recaptured] the excitement of playing in a band. Nothing has re-created that for me and I did it when I was really young, I was playing in pubs I was too young to drink in. [New Statesman interview]

So home by bus, one that crosses through Kensington and Notting Hill to Kilburn.

Saturday, April 9/2011

Start by watching qualifying for tomorrow's Malaysian Grand Prix. So, lazy start, which is a shame really, because the weather continues to be lovely - the pink magnolias now out. We walk up the hill. Charing Cross Road becomes Tottenham Court Road, which becomes Camden High Street, which becomes Haverstock Hill, which becomes Rosslyn Hill, which becomes Hampstead High Street. We join it at the Haverstock Hill bit. The cafés and pubs are all spilling out into the sunshine on the pavements - or in the gardens for those lucky enough to have them. Lots of boutiques and little upscale shops and restaurants. Then down to Camden Town by tube. Inverness Street Market humming. Used to be market stalls with fruit and veg, and there still are, but now also clothing, football souvenirs and trendy fast food. Also hit the stores along Camaden High Street to top up the groceries - spaghetti, onions, cherry tomatoes, peppers, seeded wholegrain bread.

Friday, April 8/2011

Another warm, sunny day, so we take the bus up north Finchley Road to where it becomes Regent's Park Road. This takes up through Golder's Green and up to Finchley Central tube station. It's a mixed area - Jewish, Iranian and Polish, amongst others. There's a Polish shop that J spotted in one of the Polish newspapers. It's not bad, but probably not as good as some of the more accessible ones.

Then back to Kilburn, rapidly becoming our favourite multi-ethnic corner of the city. It's hot in the sun so, vitamin D not withstanding, we take a break in the shade in a large park just behind the Black Lion Pub. There are young families and sunbathers and a few boys with a football. A couple of dogs getting in on the action and plenty of room for everyone. We're sitting near some friends who are sharing a chat and a drink. They're young Caribbeans and one of them, dressed in yellow team shorts and shirt, is putting on an impromptu performance, part rant and part song, the song bit fairly good and probably consisting of off the cuff variations on existing songs. He's a philosopher, an entertainer and a wit.

Back on the street and past pound shops and pubs. There's an Afghani restaurant (Ariana II) and Roses with the Polish food, not to be confused with the Najlepsy (Polish for best) Halal (Moslem equivalent of kosher) Food - that's the nearby butcher. Butchers have meat on tables outside the shop. Good prices on eggs. And there's a fishmonger's. Most shops have open doors so that the line between shop and street is blurred. Plenty of places to unlock phones and a few to place bets. Fruit and vegetable stalls on some of the corners with baskets of oranges, peppers, strawberries, tomatoes.

We wind up at the Old Bell pub. Menu full of specials. J goes for the steak and chips and veg with a pint of beer for £5.95 ($9.30 CAD, €6.70), but you can also eat two meals for £6 - beer not included - from a fairly wide range of dishes. And there`s an old couple there having pasta with wine - pay for two large glasses and they give you the rest of the bottle.

Back along the east side of the street - now no longer in the full sun. A large man walking ahead of us with a stick such as one might use for street cleaning scoops up an apple, tosses it about and then eats it. J, who has a better view than I of the performance, says that it was actually more core than apple. We see the man briefly a little later, sitting on a sofa ouside a furniture shop and drinking a bottle of water of unknown provenance.

Home in time for double Coronation Street.

Thursday, April 7/2011

The temperature yesterday must have been something like 23 - and sunny. Lots of vitamin D absorbed. Today is nearly as warm Nineteen or twenty but warmer in the sun. First down to Buckingham Palace in order to see the Canadian War Memorial in Green Park. It needs major repairs, which Canadian Veterans Affairs has agreed to as Conrad Black, who had been seeing to its upkeep, stopped paying as he hit other difficulties. However the workmen there now explain that the pumps for the water that runs over the surface are rusted out and need replacing - seems relatively poor engineering for something created in 1994. The replacement is on hold now, though, and it's being cleaned up so that it looks presentable during the Royal Wedding festivities.

Then we set out to sun ourselves walking along the south bank, perhaps as far as the Tate Modern or even the Globe. But we get just past the National Theatre and as far as a sign advertising south bank events where we see that the BFI Cinema is offering a showing of Anatomy of a Murder free to people over 60. So we go. Queue for returned tickets and are lucky. It's a large comfortable theatre and there's an intro by a Duke Ellington expert (re the soundtrack). Lovely afternoon. It`s really too nice to have been indoors, but tomorrow should be sunny as well.

On the way home J and I get separated - for the first time ever on the tube. Must have happened on the escalators at Waterloo - and we never do figure out how. The standard arrangement is that the one who gets on the train gets off at the next platform and waits - but this assumes that one person has got on a train and then the doors have closed before the second person boards. There was no clear plan for a situation in which both of us claim "but you were right behind me on the escalator and then you vanished!" Separately we check around the escalators, get on the train, alight at Westminster and check the platform, and then take the next train to Swiss Cottage - where J is waiting for me on the platform. Mystery unsolved but happy ending.

Wednesday, April 6/2011

This is our day for lectures. Over to the Wellcome on Euston Road in the morning. There's an exhibition here on dirt - everything from women sweeping in Dutch paintings to photographs of low caste people in India cleaning out human waste with their bare hands. The question of what dirt is receives the answer "matter out of place." We've picked today to visit because at lunchtime Dr. Adrian Martineau, a medical researcher is presenting information on his work on Vitamin D. Very interesting. Basically he describes the relationship between Vitamin D and higher immunity to quite a number of diseases, from TB to type 2 diabetes to some cancers, and suggests that current recommended daily requirements are quite a bit too low. There are other exhibits in the permanent collection here as well - some more interesting than the dirt one, including some stunning electron microscope photographs and displays of early medical instruments, including more bizarre items, such as an undoubtedly politically incorrect shrunken head.

In the evening we go to Westminster Cathedral Hall for a talk on faith and diplomacy by Francis Campbell, a young man just finishing five years as UK Ambassador to the Vatican and about to be reassigned to Pakistan. Very diplomaatic and discreet (for a former aide to Tony Blair) in his answers to questions, but a nice self-effacing style and view of the value of friendship and relationship in diplomacy in counteracting inevitable differences.

Tuesday, April 5/2011

Visit to the National Portrait Gallery. Spend time in the Tudor gallery and also looking at the portraits of 18th century arts figures. Now quite a few of the paintings have analyses posted next to them explaining how recent research and computerized studies have dated pigments or wood and shown earlier work that has been painted over. Quite interesting.

Then out to Asda in Greenwich. Top up card for the UK mobile as well as buying Chianti, yoghurt and sinful sticky toffee puddings.

Monday, April 4/2011

Exploration of Hammersmith, some deliberate and some accidental as we can't find the Polish Cultural Centre but find other things we didn't know existed, like the Spitfire Restaurant, serving Polish food and commemorating Spitfire fighter pilots. Eventually after some first class charity shops we do find the Polish Cultural Centre and stay for an enormous and very good cup of coffee. Go home with kapusta and grzyby (sauerkraut and mushroom) perogies from the little Polski sklep.

Sunday, April 3/2011

Mass at Westminster Cathedral. Lovely music though the boys' choir isn't singing this week. We've taken the tube, although that nearly didn't happen. When we got to Swiss Cottage the trains had stopped running - as a person had gone under the train at Finchley Road Station - the next one up the line. (London Underground gets about a hundred suicides a year). The trains start again but with delays. I love watching the variety of people on the tube. Would be best sketched. Opposite me on the way home are two men in football club shirts and trainers standing on the right, and a father in a football club shirt sitting with his son in a performance motor oil sweatshirt on the left. In the middle is a small man in black, wearing brown oxfords and reading Virginia Woolf's essays.

Then out to Jean's in the afternoon. Shanthi is delayed so we have time for quite a visit before she arrives. Jean has prepared a lovely meal - and has had us over the day after her choir has taken part in a performance of Handel's Messiah.

Saturday, April 2/2011

Kilburn High Road day. There are a couple of pubs we want to check out for future reference, as well as Tricycle Theatre and a collection of shops and market stalls. It's a rough and ready but vibrant place, reminding us a little of Queensway twenty years ago.

It's as multi-ethnic, certainly, with a minority of people speaking English on the street. There are quite a lot of cheerful young Islamic people handing out information, and hairdressers specialising in African styles. Many of the pubs are Irish and there are signs in the windows in Polish. My favourite is in a restaurant window and reads:

NAJLEPSZY KEBAB
[unknown word in Arabic writing] HALAL

Najlepszy is the Polish word for best. Wonderful!

There are charity shops, hardwares, supermarkets and pawn shops. European grocery stores and coffee shops. It's probably a mile from Kilburn tube station south to the railway tracks butit always feels like less because there's so much live street theatre as distraction.

Friday, April 1/2011

Set up day, with supermarket and street market stops. Lovely cherry tomatoes at Inverness Street Market. Jean calls while we're out and asks us to come to dinner on Sunday. The internet is handy for checking on what's going on around the city and we've noted a number of free lectures and looked up the theatre reviews.

Thursday, March 31/2011

Set the alarm on the mobile, though the transfer man is twenty minutes late. No great rush at the airport though and, fortunately, J's suitcase weighs in at 17 kilos something despite the weight of two bottles of wine - hard to estimate in advance. Plane lands at 2:15, on the train from Gatwick at 3:15, and on the tube at 4:15. This allows time at London Bridge tube station for buying seven day tube passes and putting them on the Oysters. There's only one wicket open and the people queuing are entirely those who can't, or don't want to, use the automated machines - those who don't know the city or don't speak English well or have questions - and the man behind the wicket is endlessly patient, helpful and good humoured.

At the Welby before 5. The good news is that we get the wifi for free instead of the standard £10 per week/£25 per month. The bad news that they've raised the weekly rates again - this time dramatically, so we may have to rethink future stays here. So meanwhile, we'll enjoy.

It's warm (although not as warm as Portugal) but mild breezes and flowers everywhere. The daffodils a little past their prime, but cherry blossoms and mimosa and magnolias are magnificent.

Wednesday, March 30/2011

Last day - and we're even more reluctant than usual, though cheered by the thought of the pleasures of London. Plenty of things we haven't done but it's pretty clear we'll be back.

Tuesday, March 29/2011

Our second bus tour. This time with Paradise Tours, which, it turns out, offers the same tours as Follow Me for about 60% of the price. Tickets from The Ticket Shop, so no commissions. This time our tour is of the Eastern Algarve. The first pleasure is the tour of Albufeira's hotel areas, as we and a Dutch couple are picked up first. This takes us through the full horror of endless hotels, bars, restaurants, etc., many of them scarcely hiking distance from the seal, and leaves us very happy with our quiet little old world corner - we see nothing we would have traded it for.

Our first real stop is in Old Faro, where half our number promptly disappears on a half day shopping tour. Mostly Faro isn't old word at all, but there is a cobbled area, a cathedral (didn't pay the three euros to look inside) and quite a few storks' nests. The nests are protected so some, like a large one on a very modern lamp standard, are probably inconvenient. We sit by the harbour eating pastries from a little patisserie until the bus is off again.

Olhao, farther along the coast, has storks too, one nesting on a chimney by a large salt pile. Salt isn't all they harvest. There are large covered markets with organic fruit and vegetables and fresh fish and seafood. The most striking fish are the espada - long, flat fish of an artificially bright silver colour. Turns out they're called scabbard fish.

Tavira, a little inland, is a beautifully picturesque vilage on a river, though the arched bridge touted as Roman isn't Roman and is quite a bit later than 4th century. J and I have a nice lunch in a little pizza restaurant. Then on to Réal St Antonio. Another little harbour and tiled main square. Meet a Canadian (she)/Scottish (he) couple who live in Sterling but own a place in Tavira for winter getaways and golf. They seem quite happy with the arrangement.

Our final stop is Ayamonte in Spain,largely to cross the newish international bridge and say we've beento Spain in case we hadn't previously. And, for the first time in the guide's experience, police do board the bus at the border and ask to see passports. When one passenger unwisely tries to take a photograph of a policeman he is told no photographs as "I'm risking my life." Are all policemen drama majors? The Spanish side is, at this point, pretty uninspiring. Huge housing developments. No one house ugly until mass multiplied with no room for landscaping. The hotels are bigger too. Portugal has very benign legislation. Individuals can't own seafront land without providing public access and seafront buildings can't be more than three storeys high. Very civilised.

Home by about 7:30. Nothing wildly exciting but storks and bridges and pretty harbours. A good day.

Monday, March 28/2011

Stroll again through the square and surrounds, and stop to buy tickets for tomorrow's tour of the eastern Algarve, now that rain looks unlikely. J asks the woman at the ticket office how business is. Much worse than last year - fewer people for shorter periods and spending less whilst here. Stop on the way back for coffee and almond tart at Sir Harry's (good Portuguese name?) in the square. Would have defined the sweet as cake rather than tart, but it's very good - not overly sweet and surprisingly large, with whipped cream. Coffee very good as well.

Down in the afternoon to Ali's supermarket for more oranges, following Rua Sir Cliff Richards (cantor). A lovely view of the sea and we follow the sea road back. The architecture is lovely - even more recent buildings have the same square white lines, blue trim and Mediterranean red tile roofs. J points out the fascinating little chimneys - small, pointed white ones with little domes or shaped like miniature Greek parthenons. Walk down cobbled paths edged with limestone rocks pitted like skulls and look out over the Atlantic and the resting gulls spacing themselves over the fine sand beach.

Sunday, March 27/2011

Time change to daylight savings across Europe, so back to 6 hours ahead of Central time. The sports bars aren't open at seven for the Australian Grand Prix, opening race of the season since Bahrain had to be cancelled. They are open for the afternoon replay though so one o'clock sees us at Eddie's Sports Bar, a five minute walk away, for a pint and the race, which is interesting despite knowing in advance who won. It's a fairly big bar by local standards, all dark brick and wood, with football jerseys decorating the ceiling. Only half a dozen of us there, but a nice atmosphere - and nice smells of the Sunday roast and Yorkshire pudding as well. Good thing we have spareribs to look forward to at home.

The dinner wine is, happily, the best of the buy-two-get-one free at the wine shop. Gran Toc Hill reserva 2000. It's a Tempranillo, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon blend. It's a Tempranillo, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon blend from Spain, and very nice.

Lilly emails to assure us that they are fine in Lattakia (Syria), and to say that the chaos is being created by outside, non-Syrian elements and that there is a great deal of support for Assad and hopes for reforms in the near future.

Saturday, March 26/2011

Stroll through the old town spotting the ticket office and the bus shop for future reference. We've been told that they're near the former site of the bus station = "anyone can tell you where the old bus station was." Sounds probable, but it's always a little unsettling to steer by a landmark that's no longer there. Just as Rachel used to complain that people in Sioux Lookout always gave directions using the former names of local establishments rather than the ones posted on the buildings. But we do find the offices. And we also pass a small stall with the heavy Portuguese cardigans that we admired on the day trip. Here we're in luck, as the charcoal coloured sweater that I favour is clearly not one of the more interesting ones to the woman who owns the stall and she's happy to make a deal. In fact we're both happy. Stop for coffee at O Alentejano on the way back.

Friday, March 25/2011

Early in the morning (sixish?) feel an earthquake. J still asleep.

Meet a couple from Thunder Bay, of all places, when we're up near Modelo. She's on antibiotics with some kind of respiratory infection, rather spoiling her holiday, but they've booked a two night trip to Gibraltar and Tangiers. Meet them a few minutes later in the pastry cum ice cream shop.

Out to dinner at O Alentejano on the little Rue de Liberdade. It's a tiny place but has excellent online reviews - and well deserved. J has sole meunière, beautifully succulent with garlic and lemon. I have Bacalhau a Bras, Portuguese cod, a lovely peasant dish of salt cod sautéed with onion, grated potatoes and egg. As usual we share so that we each experience both. The coffee is a pleasure in its own right. And such a pleasure after Cyprus where the normal alternative to Cypriot (Greek) coffee is Nescafé. And the price for a beautiful cup of Carmelo coffee is the same as that for instant in Cyprus! The owner asks if we felt the earthquake this morning.

Thursday, March 24/2011

The (Follow Me) bus picks us up at the green statue, the statue of the patron saint Vicente de Albufeira, along with a young couple from St Vicente Hotel. Surprised to find the bus, which probably seats 80, is almost full. The young couple are stuck in the back width-of-the-bus row. The tour is in English, French and German, with the guide switching fluently. So out past what I take for tall, sweeping mimosas but turn out to be luxuriantly golden acacias. Also olives, grape vines and orange groves. The oranges aren't native to Portugal, nor are the acacias or the ubiquitous eucalyptus (both from Australia) but the figs and almonds are.

Then up into the hills to Silves, the old Moorish capital. There's a cathedral and a castle (dark red like the iron rich local soil). Would have liked to go in the castle, but apart from the admittedly modest entry fee (€2.50, or €1.25 for the retired) there's a queue and we're not really here long enough to waste it all standing in line. The castle is at the top of a roughly cobbled road leading past buildings with nice 18th century iron work balconies. The settlement is much older than that. Both Romans and Phoenicians mined the iron and copper rich area, but very few buildings date from before 1755, the year of Portugal's massively destructive earthquake. There is a second century bridge though, a small Roman arch across the river still used by pedestrians. And halfway up the hill there are storks' nests, at least one clearly occupied by a nesting bird with young to feed. The nests are huge and look quite capable of holding human infants.

And further up into the mountains to Monchique. It's too cloudy, almost foggy, for good views here. There's an over-organised stop for wine tasting though - choice of port, a fairly uncomplex almond liqueur, wine or the local "fire water" (read schnapps?) all in glasses not much bigger than a toothpaste cap - moving right along, there are 80 people filing through in ten minutes. The shop is actually quite interesting, with heavy handmade cardigans and ponchos (€25 to €30 - can't be a great deal more than the price of the wool) as well as colourful tiles and various things like trivets made from the local cork. We've passed quite a few cork oak trees, many of them "naked" to the branching point as the outer bark, the cork, has already been harvested, hacked off in sheets an inch and a half thick or more. This is quite sustainable, and in fact the forests are ecologically valuable. The cork is harvested every nine years and the tree thrives, with the protection of its substantial second inner bark. In the air is the scent of smoke from the cork processing plant. Our lunch stop is in the mountains. J and I pass on the arranged meal and picnic near a stone wall, watching a man nearby working on his garden and listening to a rooster's call by the side of a quiet road.

After lunch is Lagos, with its protected harbour full of yachts. It's nice but somehow seems a little more cosmetised than "our" old town. Funny how any place we've stayed in and done our own cooking we feel like we've lived in - e.g. Rhodes, Krakow, Albufeira - whereas places we may have stayed in for as long or longer, such as Sousse or Bangkok, we feel we've only visited. Lagos has lots of little restaurants and shops, including more with the heavy Portuguese sweaters. This is an historic city - explorers sailed from here to the new world in Portugal's golden age. In the centre of the town there's a spot that once was a slave market. Indeed a dark skinned woman walks slowly past with a large basked balanced perfectly on her head. Not by chance, though, as she stops for coins from the first of our number to step forward with his camera.

We go past Sagres, now a surfing centre but historically home to a navigation school. At the photo op stop one man loses his camera, so the coach turns back - fortunately only a couple of minutes on. One of the other passengers finds the camera in the long grass, amid cheers by the rest of us. Last stop is Cape St Vincent, the southwest corner of Europe. On one side of the lighthouse - second strongest lighthouse light in the world - the Atlantic leads to Africa, on the other side to the Americas. The cliffs are formidable. A few men can be seen fishing from craggy ledges. Not a spot where one would wish to do battle with a fish with any fight to him, and apparently fishermen are occasionally lost here.

It would have been nice to have stopped at Portimao on the way back, but it's been a long day. Half past seven when we get home.

Wednesday, March 23/2011

The Accuweather site shows no rain for the region tomorrow (as previously predicted), so we book a tour for tomorrow with Follow Me Tours. Billed as the Historical Tour, it's a full day tour and covers most of the western Algarve.

Find Modelo, the supermarket up past the city hall. A good find as it has fair variety at much cheaper prices than the little shops. Knew the locals had to survive somehow, and things are tough here - in the evening the prime minister tenders his resignation when there is not enough support for his minority government's austerity budget.

Tuesday, March 22/2011

We take a look for a tiny restaurant that had excellent reviews - finding it in a little cobbled lane - for future reference. Sign on a nearby restaurant: Touts Wanted. It is, of course, what one calls them, but sounds a little insulting for a help wanted notice. Stop at the square for a beer - pints for €1.75 ($2.45 CAD, £1.55). Start by sitting in the sun, but it`s just too hot.

Email from Dino asking what country we`re in - the blog doesn`t say. Surely it must, I think - but no, he's right of course. There we are flying off from Gatwick and then landing with no country mentioned [since amended]. Probably foreshadowing the day when I'll have to search through the stamps in my passport to decide where I am - or look at the photograph to decide who I am.

Monday, March 21/2011

Now officially into spring, though it's mostly a state of mind and a question of location. We've really had nothing but spring since November. Read the restaurant reviews online and start on the first of the three bottles of wine from the shop on 25 April Street. Turns out April 25 (1974) was the beginning of the Carnation Revolution, leftish military coup leading to democracy. But 1974 isn't really all that long ago. People like Emilia must remember it well.

Sunday, March 20/2011

People on the sun loungers outside our patio, but never more than half a dozen. It is, as Emilia at reception says, very calm. Morning stroll and we take the escalator up from the heart of the old town to the cliff top overlooking the Fisherman's Beach. It's a very long escalator, actually two stage - maybe ten storeys? Saves a really intimidating climb.

Pass all sorts of coffee and dinner spots, mentally marking them as well as we can for future reference in the maze. Meanwhile J makes amazingly good spareribs for a man with two burners and no oven. Quite as good as barbecued. We're reading at night - alternating an Ian Rankin novel (detective fiction set in Edinburgh) and The Bookseller of Kabul.

Saturday, March 19/2011

Sunny and surprisingly hot in the noonday sun. We take a morning walk along the sea edge of the old town. Albufeira is not only hills but huge sandstone cliffs towering above the fine sand beaches. It's a little reminiscent of Cornwall. There are massive cliffs - and plenty of restaurants and bars atop them, but not blocking the view. Lots of lookouts and the beaches occupied but not crowded. Back through the lanes around the square.

Also trek up above the old town to Lidl to get a few groceries at more normal prices. It's at least a mile, though, and nothing in Albufeira is on the level, quite literally. Like all Lidl stores it's a mix of international and local goods - local in this case including three foot long slabs of dried cod. We're more modest in our purchases - grapes, yoghurt, onions, lettuce, tomatoes, and a package of amazingly lean spareribs (€5 - $7 CAD or £4.38 - for 1200 grams).

Friday, March 18/2011

Wake up to see the rest of our surroundings. We're on the ground floor with a little patio overlooking the pool. There aren't many flats but they're all white and tile, and a few sun yellow sun loungers by the pool. Gulls overhead.

We're in Albufeira old town and a five minute walk from the beach and the tourist streets around the square. There's a tunnel through to the beach and several streets and lanes, cobbled, some with little Moorish looking arches and restaurants, bars and tourist shops. Sunny and any number of places to stop for coffee or beer.

Ask at reception about supermarkets, having seen the high prices and pathetic produce at the corner shops. Well, there's one near the cemetery; sometimes open, sometimes closed. It's open, but we seem to be the only customers and we can see why. The prices are horrific and not really compensated for by quality or variety, unfortunately. but we do get a few things as a start, and on the way back stop at a little shop for what later proves to be a perfectly drinkable bottle of red for €1.95. There's no sign of a clerk at the till here so I gesture with the bottle toward the two old-timers sitting warming themselves on a bench outside the door, thinking one is the proprietor. He's not, but when he bellows "Joao" a bald man shuffles in from an adjoining room and takes my money.

Thursday, March 17/2011

Wake up knowing there's all kinds of visiting time - flight not until 5:10 - but where does it go (the time, not the flight). Tea and Chelsea buns and talk. And we do book Jean online on a trip to New Brunswick in May.

Then off by tube and train to Gatwick. Was one o'clock early enough to leave? More than. EasyJet flight is due to leave at 5:10 and gets off the ground at 7:10, en route to Faro, Portugal. Usual herding and squashing. but the little man (honestly, shorter than me) with the transfer van is there, and, half an hour later, we're at the hotel in nearby (half hour drive) Albufeira. And reception has stayed open half an hour past their 10 pm closing time, so we're not standing in the street phoning them on the mobile.

The studio is large, airy and very clean. Massive bed turns out to be two singles pushed together and covered with a magnificent bedspread. There is a quite decent small fridge, two burners, a small microwave and a tv with a fair bit of English. And we have free wifi in the room with a fairly fast connection - so our alternative to CNN is BBC World or Al Jazeera on the netbook. Very nice.

Wednesday, March 16/2011

Moving day. The packing is basically done, but there are always the sorting out and bits to do. Too many grapefruit, and jars to the recycle bin. The calendar with the old photos of Larnaca that nearly gets left behind because we're so used to seeing it on the wall that it looks like it belongs there.

Then with Maggi out to the Tekke - the mosque on the salt lake near the airport. It's high on the list of Moslem holy places, being the burial place of Mahammed's aunt/foster mother (depending on whose account you read). But it's a lovely spot on its own with light breezes off the lake and bird song. A young hawk sits on a tall post and there are the usual hopeful cats. There are bits of exposed stone wall which we find following a sign for the remains of an ancient settlement but no further info. How ancient, who lived here by the lake listening to the ancestors of these birds? In the distance there are pink birds on the lake, but they aren't the flamingoes that winter here. Something smaller and a more delicate pink.

M drops us at the airport. The flight's an hour late, leaving us lots of time for people watching, though as with most airport renovations (in this case a whole new airport) the point was to find more ways for you to spend your money not to find more places for you to sit. It's hot but we spot one woman wearing suede winter boots with pink "fur" trim. It's interesting. One would have thought that culture and habit notwithstanding, perspiration would have the same trigger temperature.

Nice dinner aboard - moussaka, Greek salad and an ok Argentinian wine. OK that is until my newspaper knocks J's glass off the tray and he's wearing an amazing amount of it, pinkly there covering both front and back pockets even after a trip to the WC.

Terminal 5 is efficient if soulless. Twenty-five minutes from landing to boarding the tube, suitcases and all, so we're at Jean's just before 10. Tea and chat. There are samosas and curry? No, we're full - though tempted. But we do put J's trousers through the wash - and the wine vanishes.

Tuesday, March 15/2011

Coffee at noon with Margaret, from Terra Sancta. She and her husband moved to Larnaca 20 years ago, after he retired, but he died two years ago. She shows us a pendant he gave her - a hundred dollar Canadian gold coin, which he got in his sailing days and she had mounted. We are joined by her friends Helen and Richard, expats living in Kiti, just south of Larnaca. Then Margaret off to work at the animal welfare charity shop and J and I back along the beach.

The flowers are just bursting out now. They're there all winter but getting pretty shopworn by the end. Now the bougainvillea has new life and along the promenade there are beds of marigold, snapdragons, and petunias. Geraniums here are bush height.

To dinner at Vlachos with Maggi, Jane and Bill, Harry, and Jan, a friend of J&B whom we haven't met before. Elsa is in England, so Harry's holding the fort with the 6 dogs and 15 cats. Never any problem what to do with the leftovers from dinner. The food is so good that there shouldn't be any but so generous that there always are. Jane's moussaka would have fed at least two.

Monday, March 14/2011

Day one of packing - the easy stuff. Three months lets us get far too comfortable. lso trying to download bits of useful stuff on the netbook - like bus info on Albufeira. Predicting no free wifi.

Unsolicited email which I don't open headed "God will appreciate it if you help me relocate to your country."

Sunday, March 13/2011

Warm and suny. To 9:30 Mass, and ashes for those who weren't out on Wednesday - like us. Out in the afternoon to the promenade, which is beginning to pick up now with more tourists arriving. Coffee outside the café on the beach, with a bit of a concert in the background at the bandstand

Lauren's baby was born last night - a boy called Dallas.

Saturday, March 12/2011

Sun and warmth back. J and Maggi and I back to our regular café for Cyprus coffees. Maggi takes the red wrappers from the little Italian biscuits to use as a shim under the wobbly table leg. Sad thinking it's our last market Saturday.

Friday, March 11/2011

The coldest morning of the year - seven and a half degrees when we wake up. January was much warmer. It eventually struggles up to 16, but there's not much sun. Usually the official high is misleading as it's much hotter in the sun.

Thursday, March 10/2011

Jane, Bill and Maggi to dinner. So back to our student days as far as space and crockery are concerned. As far as actual cooking facilities are concerned too. We have a hot plate with two burners. One and a half really, as one starts malfunctioning midway through preparations. No oven. We do have (our own) microwave, though, unknown in our student days. Bill and Jane have spent several years living on their boat (catamaran now up for sale) though, so they're well used to cramped space and limited facilities.

J braises a nice beef roast (sold as beef blanco at Metro, so we have indeed taken pot luck) and slow cooks it all afternoon in our big soup pot, while I make red cabbage with bacon, apple and balsamic vinegar and carrots with orange zest. Then we start with veggies and dips and drinks when people come, which gives us time to boil the potatoes and reheat things. Our last bit of entertaining as we're about to start using up and packing up. Good company and interesting conversation.

Wednesday, March 16/2011

Final visit to the dentist as I get the replacement bridge put in and J has fillings to build up his lower front teeth. Happily there are old National Georgraphics as well as Greek magazines in the waiting room.

Sign near Carrefour advertising an interesting range of services:

EMPLOYMENT AGENCY
MARRIAGE AGENCY
GREEK LESSONS
TOURIST SERVICES
SINGLES CLUB

Something for everybody!

Tuesday, March 8/2011

We're about to go out when the black clouds roll in and it pours, so a reading afternoon, Ian kRankin alternating with Colin Thubron's Journey into Cyprus. Then, on the weather, we see the big blotch of cloud covering the eastern end of the Mediterranean, and at night the thunder and lightning follow. Then hail.

Monday, March 7/2011

The threatened showers never quite happen but dark clouds scud past, are replaced by sun and well up again from the hills to the west. But it looks clear enough to walk down to the beach, though too windy to bother taking umbrellas, which would be useless. We take filter coffees out to the small pier at the south end of the beach and drink them while watching boys flying kites on the beach. One lands in the sea and a father carefully reels it in. It's mostly tourists and immigrants, as the locals will have taken their picnics to the countryside, or at least as far out as the Tekke, the mosque on the salt lake, out near the airport, which honours the foster mother of Mohammed.

The Clean Monday picnics will feature vegetables, especially greens, and seafood. Lent begins today for the Orthodox, and fasting in the Orthodox Church means no dairy as well as no meat. there are certainly people who take the fasting very seriously, but in general the mood is the antithesis of Ash Wednesday. It's a joyful holiday and the preceding Saturday a very busy one in the supermarkets as people stock up for their picnics.

And we note an article on page five of yesterday's (Cyprus) Sunday Mail, headed "The Guilt-free Treat for Lent: Platres Shop Makes Handmade Chocolates Without Dairy Products." Apparently a box of chocolates for Lent can be had for €15.

Sunday, March 6/2011

After Mass there's a bookstand available outside, second hand books selling for 50¢ each. Quite a lot of light romance but we pick up a copy of The Bookseller of Kabul, an account written by a Norwegian woman, a journalist who had lived with the bookseller and his family.

On the way home we`re passed by a Cypriot woman, probably well into her seventies and dressed in the traditional black skirt and coat. She`s sitting ramrod upright on a motorbike, rolled stockings coming just below the knee and white helmet on head, unsmiling. Far better captured on film than in words, but we have no camera with us and could hardly have asked anyway.

Saturday, March 5/2011

After coffee - guess we can call it our café when the owner sees us sit down and says automatically two sketo (unsweetened Cyprus coffees) - we wander through the market. There's a large blue plastic vegetable bin with live snails. Cypriots gather them on the hillsides. J buys a big bag of grapefruit (he counts 21) for €1.70 (£1.45, $2.30 CAD). I stop at Prinos greengrocers on the way back. It`s crazy busy, since Monday will be Clean Monday. This is the day when the Orthodox clean the house and also cleanse the body of meat for the beginning of Lent. It`s not very penitential though, compared with Ash Wednesday in the western Church. Usually marked by countryside picnics featuring vegetables (especially greens - hence the crowding at Prinos) and seafood. Also by kite flying. A major public holiday.

Friday, March 4/2011

M off to Rome for six days, though she texts from the airport to say that the taxi she had booked failed to arrive and had to be reordered. Taxis in Cyprus are expensive, apart from the reliability factor. The standard price for a taxi from the airport to town is €15 (£12.75 or $20 CAD). For 50% more you can get a minicab from Jean`s in West Harrow all the way out to Heathrow 4. That`s much farther and furthermore both the price of petrol and the cost of living are significantly higher in London. But then the price of a slow-crawling taxi from the train station in Sioux Lookout to Moosehorn Road is well over $20, and petrol less than anywhere in Europe, so obviously there are other factors at play.

Thursday, March 3/2011

Stunningly beautiful day. J comes home in the morning with a large bag of fresh oranges but we wait until early afternoon to walk along the beach and over to our café to avoid the hottest sun. Maggi and Dino already there so we join them for coffee. Stop at the bakery on the way home and our favourite magro (black) bread, a dense rye with sesame seeds is still hot, so at home we start the meal with warm bread and salad, the bread still scenting the room.

Wednesday, March 2/2011

How did Gaddafi, with all the ability and inclination in the world for self-aggrandizement, only rise to the rank of colonel?

Tuesday, March 1/2011

Home from Damascus late last night, and this morning a dental appointment to have the bridge removed where I have a single missing tooth, as it's beginning to deteriorate. Feel a bit like a bit of antiquated plumbing or an old engine with rusted clamps as Xenia first tries hammering to dislodge the old bridge and then, with the hammer blows still reverberating in my skull, resorts to a miniature saw. Note the advantage to having a female dentist - less fist occupying the overstretched mouth. And her observations prove right: there are large holes in the metal of the bridge and it wouldn't have lasted much longer. I save it to show J.

To M's for g&t in the afternoon - the solace of a liquid diet after dental work.

Monday, February 28/2011

Last day, and as always too little time. Have to work out a way of getting a longer visa. Back to the endlessly fascinating souq. Yesterday we spotted what seemed to be several cafés with free wireless signs, so that seems like a good idea. though as soon as we start looking they seem a bit thinner on the ground. But we find one on Bab Touma, just off Straight Street in the Christian quarter, and even think to check as we go in that they do have wireless.

We turn down the Turkish coffee, as the accompanying water seems a bit suspect. Filter coffee seems incomprehensible to them, but Nescafé, unfortunately, doesn't, so we settle for it. However, the wifi simply doesn't happen. The young man suggests it's our computer or the weather. No - we have an excellent connection but no access. Ah well, the coffee is served at a table with a brocade cloth. It's a remarkable place - cave-like with rough stone walls and an interesting combination of ancient and new. As well as the dysfunctional wifi there's an excellent flat screen tv in one arched niche, the sound muted so that the picture of a singer contrasts oddly with the songs playing on the radio. There's a big open stone wall oven, now filled with more modern kitchen items. Up winding stone stairs to the loo. The ladies' is identified by a Minnie Mouse doll on the door, but the basin is handbeaten copper.

An early dinner on Straight Street. The restaurant doesn't look ancient but it's busy at four o'clock. All locals. We're first given a black seeded flatbread with two unidentifiable but delicious dips. Then leg of lamb with a bulgar and chickpea pilaf and seasoned ground chicken shaped around pistachios and sautéed, as well as rice with pine nuts. As we're leaving, saying no time for coffee or dessert, a huge tray of pastries are put in front of us - and our selections don't appear on the bill.

The Syrian guide reappears at Happy Nights to accompany us to the airport, this time on a bus with returning Greek cypriots. Everything at the airport is x-rayed, hand luggage twice. Queueing for boarding passes, J witnesses the Greek Cypriot guide asking an old man what he's doing in line. He says that he's not well and was told to go to the desk. No, she says, nobody told you that - go and sit down. And he does, reappearing later on the plane.

Once through security, we try to change money, but find it must be done before security. However a girl at one of the shops is happy to find a friend to help. It's technically illegal but there's so much giggling as we negotiate the rate that it's impossible to suspect undercover police. My comment that in renovations Duty Free comes first, well before WCs proves true. The loo is mixed gender and chaotic, the Duty Free state of the art. In Duty Free we do buy a mobile, Nokia 2700 Classic, a quad. Payment is in hard currency and change in US notes. If 50¢ is due you get a KitKat bar instead of coins.

The flight is posted on the monitor so we head to the departure lounge. Then, after queuing to have boarding passes checked and hand luggage through another x-ray (here, for the first time, a sign saying no liquids appears, but no one seems concerned), we are all asked to vacate - the flight is late. And twenty minutes later we`re called back. So home to Cyprus.

Sunday, February 27/2011

Walk around the central area, reorienting ourselves. Where did the Catholic Church go - the one we went to seven years ago? You could see it from the Fardoss, now being renovated. Check in the bookstore at the five star Cham Palace Hotel, but Lonely Planet is no help. Spot our old restaurant, Abou Kamal, on Azem Square, but its sister restaurant, Ali Baba, on the ground floor, has its windows covered with newspaper.

Then down to the souq. You could get fat on the way, as admiring the Syrian pastries and sweet preserved fruit in the shop windows leads to generous and delicious free samples. Hamidiyeh Souq, the main old market, was ancient when St Paul was in Damascus, and it sells everything from gold to perfume to school supplies to socks. There's an ice cream parlour that, Lilly told us, has made its owners billionaires. But we always seem to leave it for a later that never comes, as the souq is a huge maze and we never quite retrace our steps, even when we try. It's bigger than the souq in Sousse (Tunisia) and much more fun. Shops with gold and brocades gleam jewel-like and while offers are constant they're often half-hearted (how many tourists really buy socks?). There's none of the hard edge, almost harrassment.

We circle slowly round the ancient lanes, some covered and some not, toward the old Christian district and Straight St, mentioned in the Book of Acts as the site of St Paul's conversion. As before, the new jostles comfortably against the old, with satellite dishes topping crumbling ancient buildings and tipsy old balconies overhanging shops selling mobile phone cards. But J laments the disappearance of many of the oldest building fronts as the centuries old woodwork is covered with plaster or sometimes wide strips of metal. Will the metal protect the wood? No, he says, water will get between the metal and the wood and the wood will rot faster.

In the evening to Abou Kamal restaurant for dinner. As we leave "Trevor" is watching the unfolding drama of events in Libya and comments on the number of Arab countries in revolt. We're interested in the range of tv chanels that seem to be freely available. Al Jazeera is particularly uncompromising in presenting material that one might have supposed Arab dictatorships were not eager to have citizens view. Syria is a comfortable and seemingly stable coutry, but it's not a democracy - it's illegal, for example, to criticise the president in public. Though there's a fair bit of toleration for religious minorities. Also, interestingly, while the GDP per capita is lower than Egypt's, it seems to be more evenly distributed. Begging is probably less common than in Toronto, and there aren't visible extremes.

We're a bit early at Abou Kamal and it's not terribly full yet, but the other diners are all local families. Snowy linen cloth and a night view of Azem Square. The menu is a delight and we remember it from previous visits. For example the griled bird - further explained as griled local bird. Urban pigeon? Perhaps best not to order, but what might we be missing? There are some partial explanations too. Motable is defined as griled egg plant, yogurt and sesame, while Mahamara is mushtast, red pepper, sesame and oil. These from the dips on the mixed appetizer tray. Delicious, but we never do sort out what they all are, other than the very good humus.

We order a chicken dish with a cheese topped sauce and a mushroom fricassee with bits of lamb. Pass up the "tournedoes (ceeseoregy, or Plin)" - which I eventually translate as "cheese, or egg or plain." No rice included, though there's lots of pita bread and the appetizers were pretty filling. The total doesn't come to much more than the sum of the parts, despite the ominous warning on the menu that "this price doesn't include consumptive fees." At tip time we get two hovering waiters watching as we decide how much to part with. Must have been satisfactory as I get helped on with my jacket.

Back at Happy Nights we ask "Trevor" if there have been any more revolutions. "No," he says, "I think that's enough."

Saturday, February 26/2011

The day starts with ominous spatters of rain on the window, but bits of light sky as well, and breakfast - brought in on trays. It's substantial enough - hardboiled egg, large roll, cheese triangle, apricot jam, synthetic juice (remarkably reminiscent of flat orange crush), slices of tinned peach and pre-packaged pieces of cake and chocolate croissant. Not precisely what we would have chosen to eat, but certainly more than enough. We each get a tea bag and a small packet of Nescafé as well. So we attempt to heat a small pot of water on the flat electronic burner. Looks obvious but the burner doesn't begin to heat. Turns out that the stove is smarter than we are - it won't come on until there's a pot on the burner.

Lilly and Steven arrive about eleven to meet us in the lobby. Lilly and I met online pursuing overlapping genealogical interests. We have shared (Manning) ancestry, but you have to go back to the early 1700's along the Hudson River to find it. Lilly is a Californian married to a Syrian and living in Lattakia on the northern coast. Steven, her 18 year old son is a very pleasant young man and has accompanied Lilly on the five hour bus ride from Lattakia, lured in part by the opportunity to buy DVDs.

It's lovely meeting them after years of emails, and we're lucky to have them as local guides to some of the spots we haven't visited before, Lilly filling in background information and Steven fluently reading the Arabic explanations and negotiating local prices.

We start with the tomb of the chivalrous Saladdin (literally Righteousness of the Faith - Salah ad-Din, a description rather than a given name), who recaptured the Holy Land from the Crusaders - respected opposite number to Richard the Lionheart.

Then to the Umayyad Mosque, also in the old city, considered the fourth holiest site in Islam. It was completed in 715 on the site of an earlier Christian basilica dedicated to John the Baptist, whose head is believed to be in a shrine within. For years Christians and Moslems shared the building but eventually the arrangement broke down. The buuilding itself is huge and classically proportioned (based on the temple of Jupiter which preceded the basilica - itself a replacement of an earlier temple to the old pagan god Ba'al). There's a spacious courtyard and Lilly and I don long hooded cover-up coats before entering. There is a stunning gold mosaic over the outside entrance and beautiful mosaic work and carving inside - as well as a lot of high ceilinged space and white walls giving a sense of peace. Women pray on one side and men on the other, but there are no dividing walls - just Corinthian columns.

The mosque is also a sacred place for Shi'ites as it marks the place where the head of Mohammed's grandson Hussein was previously displayed. He's regarded as a Shia martyr (long story, best googled) and many Iranians visit the site. Lilly points them out in the mosque and in the souk, recognisable by their black chadors, worn by young women as well as old. We spend some time outside the shrine of John the Baptist, all pillars and coloured glass and metal grillwork, through which can just be glimpsed a coffin-like object - much bigger than a head.

We stop for lunch at a restaurant in the old city - accessed through a long passage with ancient doors leading to houses still occupied. The restaurant is in an old house with tables in a spacious courtyard. It's a beautiful spot and Lilly and Steven explain the menu to us, describing the various Syrian dishes. Seems it's a bit like a Polish menu though. (In Poland a menu lists everything that might ever be on offer - you have to ask which of the items they actually have). So we end up with beef (J) and chicken (Lilly and me) in a tasty tomato and pepper sauce over rice. Steven orders a dish in a yoghurt sauce. All very nice and in an amazing spot. A good chance to visit as well. And the bill is interesting too - featuring not only the sour pickles and the bottle of water and packet of pitas, but also the box of tissues. A lovely experience.

After lunch we visit the Azem Palace, built in 1750 for the Ottoman governor of Damascus, and consisting of several buildings around an enormous courtyard. Steven and I estimate that one servant would have had to do nothing but sweep. It's done in limestone, sandstone, basalt and marble, giving a patterned effect, and features ceilings with painted wooden paels in rooms that have been restored to display period furnishings and costumes. Most impressive is the family baths, though we're up against closing time and a little in the way of baksheesh is required to let us stay. But Lilly is right - it is impressive, a smaller version of the public hammam with baths of different size in its various rooms and a complex water delivery system. Lilly has a friend who is a member of the Azem family. The family lived in the palace until the 1920's, and her friend's father was actually born here. Impressive to us, but L says the friend's teenage children are completely uninterested in this bit of ancient history.

We separate outside the fountained courtyard and Lilly and Steven leave to pursue more modern shopping spots. We have a brief conversation with an American woman who looks about our age. She's ordinarily resident in France but has a visa to stay in Syria for three months. She's a confirmed traveller and likes the Middle East, but backs up our perception that accommodation is expensive in Syria. She's paying 300 euros a month for a small apartment, but says it's pretty basic. Food, though, is inexpensive, and the city is interesting.

We get lost, as one ought, in the maze of the souq, and then head back to our hotel. Here we meet the owner who, Kiki has told us, stays at the Sunflower when visiting Cyprus. The theory is that we'll rest a bit and dthen find something to eat, but we lose our initiative as we relax in front of the television updates on the Libyan revolution, and settle for tea and biscuits.

Friday, February 25/2011

We're meant to be leaving Larnaca at 18:30, a late change from our 21:50 departure and, as the girl at the agency points out, an improvement. But we notice that the arrival time in Damascus is 21:15 and ask how a flight that should be an hour has stretched out to almost three. Turns out that someone has helpfully switched us to the milk run - Damascus via Aleppo with an hour's stop. So switch back to the original, and M kindly drops us at the airport. We're early and have lots of time at the departure lounge - number 23 according to the monitor - until boarding, when the person checking tells us it's the wrong flight. Brief panic. Seems they've changed the deparature gate and we, sitting in the departure lounge, haven't kept rechecking. But it's a smallish airport so no big problem - we're saved from going to Athens.

Flights to the middle east from Cyprus are all ascent and descent - an hour to Damascus. We're on a group visa but the group actually consists of the two of us, so we're met by our contact, who shepherds us through immigration. And past the cash point where we withdraw Syrian pounds - roughly 50 to the dollar. Despite the many warnings online about its erratic performance, the machine delivers crisp new S£500 notes, with our guide being helpful to the point of leaning in and indicating on the screen the amount we should withdraw - less, actually, than we intend to.

It`s a half hour drive north to the city, home to 6 million people by day and 5 million by night. We`re at the Happy Nights Hotel, just off Martyrs' Square and not much more than a five minute walk from the ancient walled part of the city. A rather grotty entrance area and a tiny lift with a non-automatic door that takes us to the third floor and the little lobby. There a young man with the same laugh as our nephew Trevor presides over the night desk. Our room is one of nine - small but newly redone with fresh carpet and tiles so shiny they look wet and the thickest towels of any place we've stayed. It's billed as a studio and there is a bit of a kitchen in the entry with microwave and a single electronic burner and minimal dishes, as well as a bar fridge in the main room.

There's a small flat screen tv fixed high on the wall at an angle more or less impossible to appreciate from the bed. J discovers the method in the madness - the screen is easily viewed in the dresser mirror, though of course all words are in mirror writing and weather maps downright confusing. News tickers and subtitles pretty useless too. But there are well over 400 chanels, all with excellent picture and sound, including BBC World, Al Jazeera, Euronews and CNN - all in English.