Sunday, March 16/2014

Bus along the waterfront to Valetta. We remember a Sunday market here, but maybe that was morning. It's warm in the sun, though still a bit. Hill in the shade when the wind comes up. St George's Square has a St Patrick's concert in progress. And the singer accompanying himself on his guitar is pretty good. Fair crowd gathered, many wearing green.

Outdoor cafés are busy but not crowded. Prices seem to be no higher (or perhaps lower) than in the fast food places elsewhere in Malta; one place advertises pasta with rabbit plus a drink for €4.95 (rabbit being the national dish, appropriately for such a tiny country). 

Have been reading bits of An Account and Appreciation of Malta by Sir Harry Luke, picked up at book sale at St Helena's in Larnaca. Luke was the pre-war lieutenant-governor of Malta and the book has a lot of nuggets of historical information. Plan of reading a chapter a night and then proceeding, knowledgeably, to visit relevant sites seems to be faltering, though, due either to soporific qualities of very worthy book (so that chapters are rarely finished) or general indolence. Can't even pretend that it will be a good summary and reminder when we get home, as we don't plan to take it with us, considering the luggage weight problem.

Saturday, March 15/2014

Take the bus to the nearer Lidl in San Gwann. Theory, at least. Actually end up in Mosta, which we recognise from years back as the place with the enormous church dome modelled on the pantheon. Decide to save it for better appreciation on another day. On return bus actually spot Lidl at an impossible angle to see while travelling in the opposite direction. So milk, oranges, apples, aubergine, lettuce, cheese, honey, peanuts, mushrooms, coffee, pesto, oatcakes, courgettes, muesli, wine. The basics. 

The bus network pretty well covers the island and in a country that is 17 miles by 9 there's nothing that's more than a day trip. Actually Sicily is a day trip, but a pretty long day - up at five and home about midnight, so we're wavering. Spent six weeks in Malta eleven years ago, so no compelling need to revisit everything. Significant changes this time. Many new highrises of no particular aesthetic merit and many of the older buildings in dire need of repair. Charm still there but at risk.

Friday, March 14/2014

Early this morning the relatively useless Sky News channel, hitherto obsessed with highly repetitive info on the Malaysian Boeing 777 disappearance and the Oscar Pretorius murder trial (flavours of the day as Ukraine largely and Syria more or less completely disappear from their radar), brings us the news that Tony Benn has died. Not totally unexpected but sad. So glad now that we saw him in November, being interviewed by Owen Jones at Bishopsgate. We knew then that we were lucky and that it might well be our last chance. A beacon of the left, yes, but beyond that a man of overwhelming personal integrity. No quiet retirement, though he would have been 89 next month. Certainly no ossifying of ideas or principles. As Harold Wilson quipped, he immatured with age.

Thursday, March 13/2014

(www.piwigo.com - a vintage Maltese bus)

To Valletta, the capital. Somewhat accidentally as the bus we are on changes route number along the way and heads there. Which is fine as we have week passes. Many changes here too. There are still buses just outside the city walls, though not the old ones, of course. They were smaller and they weren't airconditioned, but they had personality, individually owned and operated and customised by the owners.

The buses aren't all that's changed. The tunnel type entrance through the city walls has been opened up to the skies and a new parliament building is being constructed just inside the city gate. We're not here for long - well, long enough for a coffee - today, but we'll be back.

Wednesday, March 12/2014

Back to the airport by "express" bus. Three reasons: we get to time the trip for our return flight, there's a tourist information office there, and we noted on the way here that the bus stopped at a Lidl store so we can get a few groceries. Timing proves to be a little over an hour. The tourist office is reasonably helpful and we have a longish chat with Caroline, who once visited Vancouver Island. And the stop at Lidl gives us as many basics as we can carry. Prices somewhat higher than Cyprus, but lower than the tiny supermarket round the corner from us. Though that shop does have surprisingly sophisticated offerings, probably because of the international nature of the clientele.

We're opposite a building that's being demolished. Less noisy than we first expected. I'd ticked the "sea view" box on the registration form but more or less as a joke as I knew the building wasn't on the sea. The shrouded demolition isn't very aesthetic but we're a block away from the sea and much of the coast has beautifully maintained walkways.

Tuesday, March 11/2014

Monday night or Tuesday morning? Well, technically Tuesday morning. About five o'clock we hear the man across the hall calling his partner to let him in. He seemed a nice enough bloke when we met him yesterday as we tried to get the key fob to turn on the electrics in the flat. (The fob had seen better days but J's substitute of a spoon handle worked well). He's not really losing it now, alternating between pleading and shouting Natalia, Natalia. Knocking, then pounding. Silence and more pounding. She's not in, or she's OD'd or she's punishing him. Almost I'm tempted to offer him a kip in our spare room. Then, as J has predicted, he breaks the door in. No sound from Natalia, who is presumably not there, and, admirably enough, some sound of repairs being made. So back to sleep.

The theory is that we share wifi with Berlitz language school in the same building and reception, on the fourth floor, gives us the code. Available in the tiny lobby by the always open front door. Reviews have said that it's available - and also that the availability is a lie. Not quite either. Berlitz seems to have pretty limited hours, but there are also some unsecured wifi sources around, of varying and uneven strength. So not cut off but not entirely satisfactory either. Many hotels in various countries seem slow on the uptake re wifi. It's rapidly becoming like hot water or television - should be standard.

We're in St Julian, or more accurately in Paceville (Pace bit not pronounced as it looks but as in the Latin for peace, paw-chay). It's one of the most densely populated places in the world at about 10,000 people per square kilometre (assuming it's more or less the same as adjoining Sliema). Most of them young, it seems. Vibrant, multi-ethnic and lively. Colleges, restaurants, bars, tiny shops. A happy feeling, studenty - so far - rather than the holidaying football yobs we'd been led to expect.

Monday, March 10/2014

Sleep with the curtains open, though we haven't yet (knock on wood) missed a flight, and this one isn't until 11:30. Can't tell within half an hour when the bus comes, but it's the Vlachos one going the opposite way. Takes the full half hour but arrives, with Elena, who used to be receptionist at the Eleonora aboard. She's on her way to wire money to her daughter who is starting work today as a teacher in Bucharest (tried working in Cyprus but fell victim to the old problem of being paid very little and having trouble collecting it).

Check in with Emirates. Originally booked on Airbus but switched to 777, much like the Malaysian Air one that has just vanished into thin air. Our current problem is all too solid, though.  J's suitcase is an unprecedented (for us) 24.5 k. I have my mouth open to suggest we repack - not easy as the chief problem is heavy bottles that can't be moved to the carry-ons - when J gives me a look and my mouth closes. And the woman at the desk tags his suitcase without comment. Which is all the more interesting because a robed Franciscan at the next counter is being asked questions about liquids, and even powders, and asked to weigh his carry-on as well as his suitcase.

Plane not full, lunch light but decent. Wine pretty fair too. Entertainment system the most sophisticated we've seen - takes us half the flight to figure it out. Just under three hours until we land in Malta. One week bus passes €6.50, which is hard to argue with. Pretty comprehensive network of buses, though they're now a modern Arriva fleet and not the motley collection of individually decorated 1930's British Leyland buses we remember from pre-EU days. But more efficient, I suggest to the young man who sells us  the tickets. He rolls his eyes. And indeed the express bus takes us over an hour to reach St Julian, which can't be much more than five or six miles - the island is only 17 miles long. 

Identifying our hotel isn't easy. There's a streetside map, but it's primarily an advertising venture, not that helpful for detail. I spot a florist shop and think that florists deliver everywhere, and indeed the florist, using his smart phone, and a customer, looking at the smart phone photo, get us pretty close. Then a passing young man with a painter's bucket suggests that the keys for Dragonara Court are usually given out at a hotel round the corner - as proves to be the case. We can see that it's probably not a place that gets many floral deliveries.

Our key is for 414 but the fourth floor proves to be entirely offices (as well as an area labelled reception with no desk or anyone looking receptiony. Eventually we ask. Oh, 414 will be on the third floor. Why not? And it is. It's a big flat. Main room 33x13 feet with kitchen at the entry end and beds and dressing table at the balcony end. Surprisingly, or "studio" has a small second bedroom, complete with two single beds, a desk, and a wardrobe. Two heaters, a two burner cum oven cooker, small fridge, and a reasonable assortment of dishes, though one pot and a frying pan have had violence done to their teflon and there is only one bowl, though lots of plates and glasses as well as two big mugs. We have a new home.

Sunday, March 9/2014

Packing day. You wouldn't think it would take all day, but there's a Chinese puzzle aspect to fitting things into small suitcases that is as difficult as moving house. Then there are the things that are almost left behind inadvertently because they look like part of the flat itself, like the thermometer tied to the balcony rail or the suction hooks on the wall or the small wash tub in the bathroom. Plugs that come and plugs that stay. Spices that go in the boxes but a starter amount of cheese and olive oil (rebottled in a small plastic wine bottle saved from Air Canada). The almonds come but the luggage is getting heavy so the raisins stay. A hundred little decisions.

Jane and Bill drop by with a print from the photo Jane had a waiter take at Vlachos on Friday. Came out well - everyone's eyes open and mouths all shut. Lovely memory. They stop for a cuppa and it suddenly pours outside, but we're done washing and drying clothes anyway. But pull the drying rack inside to keep it dry - it's ours and stays with the boxes. Then it's back to serious packing. Tapes, CDs and dying radio boxed, so we're down to Euronews for entertainment. Not much focused on entertainment anyway.

Then Maggi in late afternoon to say her goodbyes and take custody of the mini carnation plant, which has finally decided to bloom.

Boxes safely stored on the mezzanine - rather inconveniently as the lift stops at ground and first but not mezzanine and some of the boxes are heavy, e.g. The one with three bottles of wine. Some Norwegian neighbours' boxes there already. Bed at midnight. Packing all done so we can leave in the morning.

Saturday, March 8/2014

Know better than to complain about heat in the sun, as it's frigid in northern Ontario and won't be as warm as this in Malta, let alone London. But when we meet for coffee give serious, if brief, thought to choosing ice cream (excellent here) or beer instead of Greek coffee. In fact M does have beer, which comes with a large dish of nuts, and despite our having ordered only two coffees, there's a plate with three chocolate biscuits. Not much saving of calories by forgoing the ice cream.

Quite a lot of plastic bags plus a very fat book of Lillian Beckwith's Hebridean memories to the animal shelter charity shop. When they have to buy the bags there's less money for dog food and we're pleased to have something to do with the excess other than pollute the environment.

Then home to begin packing up after three months. Five boxes get to stay. Everything else comes with us or is given away or ditched. A bonus, of sorts, is that we're now using a hotel microwave as ours gave up the ghost this winter. Which means that we can keep using it until the last minute rather than packing it away. Down to say goodbye to Kiki in reception as she won't be on again until after we've gone. Hugs and a gift. She's brought us some halloumi and five huge lemons from her tree. Beautiful lemons and so kind - but impossibly heavy to add to the suitcase.

Friday, March 7/2014

Last visit to Vlachos for the season, with Jane and Bill, Ailsa and Harry. Will miss them and also Vlachos, a restaurant in the old expansive pre-tourist Cypriot style, where the starters could be a meal in themselves and two hours is considered a minimum for a decent dinner.

Thursday, March 6/2014

The man at the next outdoor table at coffee tells us that the sixtyish woman exercising on the beach at the same time as J's morning walk/jog represented Russia at the Olympics as a sprinter some years back and took silver.

Wednesday, March 5/2014

Bus travel in Cyprus is an exercise in patience. There is a fairly good looking website, modelled on impressive ones like Travel for London, with theoretical timetables, routes, journey planners, etc. looks good until you try using it, when you discover that the timetables give only starting times on two hour routes, leaving no way of assessing arrival time at any particular stop. Journey planners also are most impressive before use. Streets turn out to be unrecognised and times refuse to enter correctly. Estimated journey times involve routes even we know better than to take. We also know better than to ask at the tourist information office, source of laboriously slow misinformation. The maps are quite good, showing every bus stop - all run together until you zoom out. The best plan used to be to walk over to the dispatch centre and take the advice of whoever spoke English but a few weeks ago we saw that the office and accompanying yard had moved, and our Greek isn't good enough to figure out where from the sign on the gate of the old premises.

Stop to talk with the Ukrainian girl (well, showing my age - she's in her forties) who makes and sells jewellery near St Lazarus Church She's a Cypriot resident, married to a Cypriot, but has family, including her parents, in Ukraine. Not impressed with the Maidan demonstrators and depressed by the feeling that each new regime repnlaces one set of corrupt thugs with another. The family is Russian speaking, lives in central Ukraine, and just wants to be left to live and garden in peace.

Tuesday, March 4/2014

With X to hospital surgery/clinic (bilingual variants). Much like a Russian store of Soviet times. Initial queue about twenty patients long to register at one of two wickets. Residents all have orange folders with medical info inside as well as blue prescription books with counterfoils - one copy for the pharmacy and one for the records. Many patients go privately - these are the ones who don't, mostly I suspect for financial reasons rather than on principle. Though it 's not free - there is an up front fee of €3 ( approx £2.40, $4.50 CAD). Patients are assigned to wait outside the door of one of the two or three GPs in attendance ( five doors but not all concealing doctors this morning. An (inexplicably) shorter queue appears to be for approval of prescriptions, in advance of the actual prescribing. Each costs €0.50 regardless of what is being prescribed when the prescription is taken to the dispensary.

Then a more disorganised queuing outside the door of the assigned doctors. No handy butcher's take-a-number but there are little numbers on the assigned paper work, so a little comparing with the others does it. Assuming one speaks a little Greek. Today unusually busy as it follows a long weekend but wait only fifteen or twenty minutes.

Final step involves taking 50 cent receipts plus prescriptions to dispensary to exchange for medication - further queuing similar to that at parts counter at busy automotive supply.

 Whole organisation highly reminiscent of Soviet era shopping, when any purchase seemed to involve at least six interchanges, employees, bits of paper, etc between inquiring after the item and leaving with same plus receipt.

Monday, March 3/2014

Green (or, depending on who's telling it, clean) Monday. The Monday before Lent begins.  Always a holiday here, celebrated with picnics in the country, featuring seafood, fish and greens. Traditionally a day for kite flying as well. And mini carnivals in places. Children usually wear their costumes down on the promenade. Still pretty high dust content in the air, though.

Sunday, March 2/2014

Should normally be an outdoor day, despite wanting to hear the continuing updates on Ukraine, unhappy though they are. However there's an enormous amount of dust in the air, blown in from Africa. Dust storm sounds more dramatic than what's happening - shades of Lawrence of Arabia and camel treks with zero visibility, but it is windy and the particulate levels in the air are obviously undesirable. Shame, because this is "carnival" weekend. That too will be a bit of overstatement, in Larnaca at least. It's the weekend before Lent begins and the children would normally be down at the promenade in their costumes. Temperatures are warm, but it's not very nice in the dirty wind.

Saturday, March 1/2014

Coffee with X and Friend and the final (?) instalment of the story. Friend indeed arrived yesterday, accompanied by two suitcases and prepared for the week's visit X had suggested. Meanwhile X had remembered the lunch appointment but had had no idea she'd issued any invitation at all. Some laughter. Seems all right now but has agreed to see doctor.

In the evening begin research. Soon learn to avoid using terms like memory blackout, thus avoiding stern suggestions re drinking less. But amnesia does it. Descriptions of temporary global amnesia just about spot on, and much less horrific than other possibilities. Apparently variously triggered, less than 24 hours, and not usually repeated. Narrative accounts match amazingly closely. So, fingers crossed.  

Friday, February 28/2014

Check with X in morning. All well. Yes remembers about meeting Friend at 12 for lunch, although not, worryingly, about having been with us yesterday.

Lift with David and Susan, expats recently back from visiting family in Australia to Pyla for lunch at Jane and Bill's. Lovely, with the six of us outside round the table on the south side of the house, with ripe tomatoes on the vine, flowers growing, and the little park on the other side of the wall. Beautiful meal with homemade tomato soup, amazing fish and seafood pies baked in individual clay pots, and apple and almond tart. Then inside for coffee in the sitting room with Jane's paintings on the wall.

Thursday, February 27/2014

X phones as we get back about 12:30 to say she's been feeling ill and would like to come over. Is she all right to drive? Oh yes. She arrives, and thus begins the strangest afternoon of our lives, and no doubt hers. She has no memory of having visited us the previous evening and flatly denies having gone to the cinema at Dekhelia, last night or at any time. Much worse, she's unsure whether her husband, who died over a year and a half ago, is still alive, and is under the impression that she is still living elsewhere and only visiting Cyprus. We talk her through the last couple of years only to have the process repeat more than once. No signs of stroke - no skewing, strength good in both hands, etc. Get her to phone her friend, who spends the winter up the coast in Paralimni and visits occasionally. Yes, Friend will come tomorrow and stay for a couple of days.  Reluctant to let her leave, but now seems OK, and have trouble imagining what local emergency services would make of it all. Prudently text Friend to say there are memory problems. X calls to say home safely and Friend due tomorrow at 12. Agree on a good restaurant for her to lunch with Friend and Friend's friend, who is supplying the lift from Paralimni.

Wednesday, February 26/2014

Jenny has emailed to say they can fit in the trip to Yorkshire after all, so both simpler and more fun - and am now proud possessor of detailed plan of Leeds railway station for future reference. Nobody provides more accurate and complete information than the British (perhaps unfair, as I don't read German - or actually a great many other languages). But never any unresolved ambiguities. Will enjoy the ride up with J&D.

X over in the evening on her way back from seeing Twelve Years a Slave with some marinated strawberries, that turn out to be not as sweet as hoped. Small glass of brandy for X, J and I having a wee dram in memory of John K, James having messaged to say that he died on Sunday.

Tuesday, February 25/2014

Sussing out the train connections from London to Harrogate for the end of March, as it looks as if Jenny and Doug are unlikely to be able to go, since they are leaving beginning of April for Cyprus and their cruise to Haifa and other points east. Not difficult to find fairly good connections and even good prices but all involve changing at Leeds and none allow more than twelve minutes to do this. Probably adequate - after all they're not in the business of trying to make people miss trains - but an unfamiliar station and all our winter luggage (admittedly not that extensive) with us. The annoying part is that it's only British helpfulness that creates the problem. There are half hourly trains to Harrogate from Leeds but through tickets are booked to the next connection, not the one after. It can be booked as two separate trips, but for more money. However, the helpfulness does extend to making available a plan of Leeds station, including platforms and it does look possible.

Monday, February 24/2014

Can finally post again. For a week couldn't access the blog. Only a little graphic with Greek explanation. Eventually, through other routes, got the explanation in English, but it only really amounted to sorry, there's a problem - try refreshing and then see if anyone else has the same problem. Answer was yes, but not everyone. Not really much help. The info in Greek is a real nuisance - and I'm not the only one with that problem. Google being helpful, having noted that the access is from a Greek speaking area. Similar complaints from Africa, etc, where assumptions about the language spoken by a user must be even more presumptuous. Easy to find oneself unable to sign in to a Google function because it's impossible to identify which word to click on. Especially problematic with very tiny fonts. Sometimes helps to use google.co.uk, but by no means always.

Sunday, February 23/2014

Watch the Canada/Sweden Olympic hockey game on the ipad mini down in reception. No nailbiter, but 3-0, so pretty satisfactory watching for Canadians. Then closing ceremonies, not highly language dependent, on Greek Cypriot tv. The real nailbiter has been following the Ukrainian situation on Euronews.

Saturday, February 22/2014

Can hardly tear myself away from history as it happens. Following BBC's Kevin Bishop (acting bureau chief, BBC Moscow) who is tweeting from inside the Ukrainian presidential palace, which has been deserted by Yanukovich et al. Due to meet J and Maggi at eleven though, and can scarcely text to say that I'm riveted to the ipad.

Coffee at Harry's, but it's really getting too hot in the sun and tables in the shade always nabbed as there are only two. Very tempting to get lager instead of Cyprus coffee. Sun must be over the yardarm somewhere - probably here. Plenty of vitamin D anyway. M to dinner in the evening.

Friday, February 21/2014

Interesting conversation with the man sitting at the next table on the deck at coffee, who, unlike us is getting the free wifi. Not that we really need it but, bizarrely, the ipad won't give us a place to put the password - though it used to. Not only a mind of its own but a malevolent one. The man has some fairly shocking, though not exactly surprising, examples of Cypriot tribalism in the government bureaucracies.

Thursday, February 20/2014

Jane and Bill and Harry and Ailsa to dinner. About as far as we can stretch the two-burners-and-a-microwave facilities. But extensive meze including J's labour intensive specialty, sautéed artichoke as well as goulash and vegetables. Six is a good number for round table (well, round coffee table, as we don't run to a large table or appropriate chairs) conversation. About the most you can do without the conversation breaking up into sub-groups. No gaps at all in the conversation.

Wednesday, February 19/2014

Cook most of the veg for tomorrow's dinner - two burners not really adequate for last minute prep. Have acquired two more table knives and a dinner plate for full complement. One plate is chipped, but ok as long as one of us gets it. Strawberries at Prinos smell wonderful - they're local - but will wait until tomorrow.

Tuesday, February 18/2014

Last day to use up remaining time on old SIM card and switch to new as of tomorrow. New one has top ups good for a year, so if used as little as we tend to it costs €10   (About £8 or $15 Canadian) to use it for three or four months. Nothing comparable in Canada! But everything comes with codes. This SIM is set to use 1234 to turn the phone on. Advised to reset but I won't as can barely remember that. Besides, anyone who stole it would only get what remains of our €10 and would then replace the SIM.

Monday, February 17/2014

Have been saving the little liquid milk containers from our morning coffees as they can be handy for guests who take milk in coffee. We don't put milk in coffee and only have skim milk in the fridge. Have collected to the point of making custard though. Time to stop!

Sunday, February 16/2014

Article in today's Cyprus Mail on Cypriot DNA, referring to the numbers of countries where Cypriot DNA markers can be found. But what is Cypriot DNA? Study a couple of years ago showing that Turkish and Greek Cypriots have more in common DNA-wise than either do with Turks or Greeks. Not surprising, but distressing for many incredulous Cypriots.

Saturday, February 15/2014

Usual Greek coffee at Harry's. There's always a little something complimentary with the coffee. Sometimes nondescript packaged biscuits but sometimes much nicer. Today's offering is three slices (one each) of an apparently home baked loaf of bread with large pieces of halloumi cheese incorporated. Very nice.

Finally book a studio for the Malta stay. With some misgivings as the reviews aren't very good, though the price is. Problem is that you have to go to much more expensive places to get good reviews and even they seem mostly to charge for wifi even in public areas. (One even has the cheek to say there is a surcharge for dial up!). Also some of the usual difficulty in decoding reviews. One person's "filthy and disgusting" is another's "cleaners a bit casual". Best with specifics: "one fork, three spoons, a dirty frying pan and no plates" would be quite clear, where "inadequate kitchen" isn't. Often the specifics are quite comforting, as in clean towels only twice a week, which is pretty common for self-catering studios, and better than some. There is definitely a choice to be made. We like central and so do the football teams, stag parties, etc, largely because of the proximity of bars and casinos. So the north of the island would be quieter, but we're pretty sound sleepers.

Friday, February 14/2014

M to dinner for spaghetti. Would have been her wedding anniversary had Magne still been alive, and Valentine's Day of course. In aid of which I go over to Prinos in the afternoon to get a couple of courgettes to add to the sauce now simmering. Forecast is for a passing shower and it does start to drizzle so I take an umbrella. Bit of thunder and lightning but not much rain. Decide that I am unlikely to be a lightning rod with plenty of higher spots around to draw fire. Am all the way there when it occurs to me that the unaccustomed lightness is down to not having taken a handbag. Fortunately there are 67 euro cents in my pocket and two courgettes at €1.59 a kilo come ti €0.55, so that's all right. Just get back with courgettes and umbrella when the deluge hits, with heavy sheets of rain and violent wind, followed by hail. Some passing shower! Umbrella would have been useless.

Thursday, February 13/2014

Sink in the loo very slightly tilted ever since the earthquake. Probably about a centimetre out of level, making the soap race for the drain if not anchored. Drain itself slower and slower, which Maria, who has already done a fairly ineffectual job of unblocking it once, affects not to notice.

Wednesday, February 12/2014

Go with Jane and Bill to a dinner at Al Sultan restaurant near the fort. It's a gathering of Jane's U3A Epicurean club. U3A standing, more or less, for university of the third age, and serving as an umbrella organisation for a set of clubs and interest groups, some educational and some mostly social, for retired people. Al Sultan is a Lebanese restaurant and we have lots of time to study the menu as we're fairly early, having allowed for the usual problems of parking in Larnaca.

 The waitress recommends the meze as a variety sampler, and kindly says that we need only order for three as there's quite a lot of it. We opt for meze for four, but the girl was quite right - three would have been quite adequate and we might well have managed with two! Interesting meze, and quite different from Cypriot meze, though with some overlap, like the humus. Baba ghanoush decorated with pomegranate seeds, another aubergine starter (delicious!), a lovely okra dish (MUCH better than okra I've tasted earlier), tabouleh. There are sautéed green beans with a taste that is familiar but elusive. Bill identifies it as cinnamon. Of course! - but in an unexpected place, and, surprisingly, extremely good. After a suitable, and much needed gap for digestion, these are followed by plates of mixed grill, with various forms of chicken and lamb. We're valiant but full. Only J and I opt to try the dessert, and really only because it's included so we want a taste. He orders semolina cakes with coconut (ok) and I a rosewater custard (amazingly good!). We do only taste and then share with others along the table. 

The others at the table haven't ordered the meze and haven't done nearly as well, largely because their meals take almost two hours to arrive, by which time they must have vowed never to return. Rather belatedly we realise that we might well have shared the meze in order to ward off starvation at the other end of the table! Even the entertainment by the belly dancer is insufficient distraction and we speculate that the volume of the music is designed to drown out complaints. No complaints from us, though. We had a lovely meal and at a very fair price. Would happily go again, and know what to order.

Tuesday, February 11/2014

Finally come to a decision on what to do when our 90 days in Cyprus are up.  We're booked one way to Malta, March 10. Then one way to England March 27. Air Malta so no nonsense about cheap flight but £30 for the suitcase and forget lunch; you're too heavy anyway. And no landing at Gatwick after midnight - do you want to get a hotel for three hours or sit in arrivals until the trains start running? We were last in Malta in 2003 when it voted, narrowly, to join the EU. Should be interesting to see the changes. And it's easy to explore, as it's only 17 miles long and has a good bus network.

Monday, February 10/2014

We have only another four weeks before our 90 days in Cyprus is up. Our usual course is to take a side trip but this year it seems that all the obvious candidates - Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Israel - are disqualified. They're too expensive, or too unstable, or we've been recently. Don't really want to spend several hundred euros just to prove we've been out of the country. I devise cunning plan for leaving without leaving. Book cheapest ticket to away (one way will do). Go through security and get exit stamps in passports - now officially out of the country. Claim to have developed sudden illness making flying impossible and insist on returning (having providentially taken only hand luggage). Re-enter via immigration, obtaining new stamps in passport valid for another 90 days. Home for a self-congratulatory drink. Think it might actually work - once if not annually - but J appears not to be taking it seriously, probably rightly.

Sunday, February 9/2014

Sunday brunch with the English Cypriot paper. And for the first time an op-ed by a Greek Cypriot, Loucas Charalambous, suggesting that the hostilities between Greek and Turkish  Cypriots were historically at least as much the fault of the Greeks as the Turks and that it is wrong to distort the facts. Very brave indeed of him - people have been killed for less.

Saturday, February 8/2014

Coffee at Harry's. A bit delayed as we stop to show the way to Micro Supermarket to an American couple. I'm about to avoid them as I have an instinctive sense that we're about to be handed a tract. Not at all, although my sixth sense is not entirely wrong as he's a minister from Idaho (or is it Iowa?), come from three months in Lebanon to spend three months "helping out" in Cyprus.

In the evening there's an exhibition opening at the Gallery Kyprianou Gonia, about a mile and a half from us, fairly near St Lazarus Church. Five Cypriot naïf artists are being shown   and some of the pictures on the small advertising brochure look attractive. Besides openings are usually fun. So we arrange to meet Maggi at the gallery. The show is uneven, with the best of Pelekanos' work having a compelling vibrancy and happy nostalgic quality - scenes of peasants harvesting in rich, warm colours - and the paintings of Tornaritis (if I have the transliteration right) looking a little like a very poor man's Munch. Surprisingly few paintings in total, considering that five artists are represented. Perhaps my expectations are too high, but we've been to openings in Larnaca before, and they're usually pretty lively - more paintings, more people, more hype, more buzz, more wine. And we  wander out to the back courtyard where there is wine (one bottle anyway - is there another in reserve?).

There we meet a couple, Roman and Companion (don't seem to get a name). He's looking for work and getting depressed over his lack of success. Of course there's a high unemployment rate among Cypriots, so his odds aren't good. He and J chat, mostly in Polish. His companion is highly voluble. Canada? Yes, she lived there and knows it well. Terra Santa (the local Roman Catholic Church)? I am establishment, she claims. I went every day. Right now I'm taking a holiday; I haven't been for two months. But you'll see me back there in May - I'll be talking about the episcopacy. We have no television - HE forbids it (but, two minutes later she is agreeing that the Olympic opening ceremonies were impressive). As we leave, M says that Companion told her that she had lived in Scotland for three years, and we wonder, probably quite unworthily, if she would have lived in Serbia too had we mentioned it.

Friday, February 7/2014

Looking for where to go next. Actually we're not really keen to leave as it's been the nicest winter we can remember here and pretty stormy in much coastal Europe. Our usual course would be to take a short side trip and come back here for a bit but there seems to be a shortage of obvious destinations, between politically dicey destinations and overpriced packages to places we're not desperate to visit. Don't want to leave the bookings so late that the prices soar either.

Opening ceremonies for the winter Olympics on telly tonight. Commentary in Greek but the ceremony not really highly language dependent. Could be getting a lot more tv on the internet - and still can in reception - but the wifi on the fourth floor, always weak, has almost disappeared. Possibly as the hotel fills up the extra users are the kiss of death. So any serious use is now from the lobby. Although we get assuming very quickly: it's not many years since the existence of internet cafés seemed amazing. (Just discovered how to put the accents on letters with the ipad mini keyboard!)

Thursday, February 6/2014

To Vlachos by bus. Buses here always a bit of an adventure. There are printed timetables but they can't always compete with reality. The bus may be late, or equally well arrive early. So we go out early and catch the first of two heading out Dhekelia Road. The driver kindly watches out for the restaurant for us, but we're fairly good at spotting it after dark ourselves now. Result is that we're about three quarters of an hour early, in preference to arriving ten minutes late. Time for a stroll first.

The occasion is Ailsa and Harry's anniversary - which was actually on Tuesday, but this is the first convenient dinner day. Should have been ten of us but three can't come, which leaves A and H, Jane and Bill, and Jan, who went to Morocco with Jane a couple of years back. Vlachos outdoes itself. And we benefit from being polite about changing tables in favour of a larger party, with extra starters. Halloumi and artichokes as well as the usual array that would be more than a meal in itself - enormous Greek salads, dips, kohlrabi sticks, beetroot, pilaf, warm pita breads, olives, an egg dish. And this all before our main dishes, which are, variously, moussaka, rabbit stifado, liver and onions. And pork souvlaki. Unordered dessert as well - Greek pasteries.

Wednesday, February 5/2014

Kobo ereader keeps track of my latest reading with interesting stats. Two percent read - it will label a book that I've opened to look at the table of contents. Or 7.5 hours left, it announces, of a book I'm currently reading. No idea whether it has adjusted the estimates to what it observes to be my reading speed and whether this takes into account books I've fallen asleep over. 

Tuesday, February 4/2014

Tuesday, February 4/2014

The walk down to the waterfront is in itself an interesting commentary on the state of Cyprus. Pass eight shops in a row that are empty, vacant. The ninth is a place offering to pay cash for gold. Best prices, they claim, but it seems unlikely. Opposite the big parking lot where buses as well as cars park a young woman accosts me. Presumably she's asking for money, but as she isn't speaking a language I understand we get no further. 

Yesterday I was stopped here by an older woman. I'd just noticed some of the little hard white plastic pipes which we've found here in the past. They're about five inches long, light and hollow but strong. Perfect for putting through the handles of plastic grocery bags to prevent them from digging into your hands. And easy to slip into a pocket in case they're wanted. We'd used bits of dowling before, but these are smaller and lighter but just as efficient. I'd picked up two of these little white cylinders, examined them and slid them into my handbag. The woman, who'd been some distance away, came up to me and began speaking in Greek. I shrugged my incomprehension and she mimed someone smoking. Thinking she wanted a cigarette, I shook my head sorry and we parted. Seemed odd, though. Seventy year old women don't often try to scrounge cigarettes from strangers. In retrospect, I can only assume that she had taken the bits of white plastic to be cigarettes. And then what? Was I really being told not to smoke what I found on the ground? 

In the evening with Jane and Bill to the cinema to see Twelve Years a Slave. Extremely comfortable seats but film far too riveting to fall asleep. First time in ages (decades?) we'll have seen an Oscar nominee on the big screen. Only a dozen or so people in a cinema that seats 200. Then back to our place for coffee.

Monday, February 3/2014

Having coffee this morning when we notice a large military ship, improbably cruising our shallow and most unmilitary bay. Close enough to shore that we speculate on whether it will hit ground, it heads back and forth, holding its course in very heavy winds. 

The mystery is solved with the evening news. It was a Danish naval frigate, with the Cypriot foreign minister, Ioannis Kasoulides, aboard being shown a demonstration of the decontamination procedures to be used on Syrian chemical weapons.

Sunday, February 2/2014

New set of reading. Well, not entirely as we're still doing a chapter aloud most days from Lillian Beckwith's Hebridean memoirs. But also reading Decline and Fall, the second volume of Chris Mullin's political diary. So much more modest than Alan Clark's, not that that would be difficult! And so much more concerned with how issues affected people other than himself. And the humour conscious. And as well as that Jeremy Paxman's The Political Animal, an entertaining view of what makes politicians tick by a man who has spent many year's interviewing them.

Have largely given up on TV, though we do watch some on the tablet. There are films in English with Greek subtitles, but disproportionately they're grade B action films. Tonight's film looks not bad but in this case the dialogue is not English but Italian. 

Saturday, February 1/2014

Stop at the little pharmacy near the Eleonora and chat with the pharmacist. Not a particularly good year. But it's recession proof - people always need medicine? Yes, but they can't always afford it. Pharmacies here are very European. They may carry hand creams but not magazines, toys, toilet paper, etc. presumably they survive in large part on over the counter medication as residents usually pay 50 cents per prescription at the hospital pharmacy. Or maybe that's not true of those who go to private doctors.

To Carrefour in the afternoon. It's not what we went for, but we're unable to resist the celery. An enormous bunch for €.0.45 (£0.37, $0.68 CAD). Then the question of what to do with such a huge tree. J dehydrates the leaves to season soups and sauces, but that leaves a great deal of stem - and we have only a bar sized fridge.

Friday, January 31/2014

Stop at Micro, the shop that replaced the smaller Orphanides. Pick up a pair of shoe liners for a euro and forego more tins of John Smith ale. Very good price, but a limit to the ale - or for that matter gin, whisky and brandy - one wishes to consume regardless of price. Favourite sign of the day (not handmade) is the one advertising frozen chicken stripes.

Thursday, January 30/2014

A little early going to meet J and M for coffee so stop to investigate the sale signs at Marks and Spencer. Not with high expectations, as there is never much selection and the prices are always noticeably higher than those in London. This shop doesn't carry the sweets and biscuits that might redeem it either. And, Maggi has pointed out, the two Larnaca M&S establishments are unrelated franchises: You can't use vouchers from one at the other. My initial suspicions/biases are confirmed. Do, though, spot a shirt in a lovely pale aqua hanging on the wall and go to investigate. Turns out the shirt is actually white but lit by a small recessed aqua lamp. Seems rather pointless as those interested in aqua are likely to be disappointed and anyone wanting white will probably not have a second look.

M points out a man having coffee near us and says she met him a long time ago and had a disagreement with him in which he was unpleasantly aggressive. He's talking to his companions now and gesticulating. Looks quite a nice man, don't you think, says Maggi. But by now I've seen him through the lens of unpleasant argument and he doesn't look nice at all.

Wednesday, January 29/2014

Book sale at St Helena's in the AM. couldn't remember the time and the internet was no help as the latest bulletin posted was too old, but hit it lucky and came away with half a dozen books. Should really have made a donation as the money goes to their food bank and there's a pretty specific accounting of it at their website. Basically they have stepped in where the Cypriot government has failed to process any paper work at all, leaving three immigrant, one of them a refugee, unable to work or eat. Appalling, and unfortunately all too believable. The tribal system (one has to be generous and assume it's incompetence rather than malice) simply fails to complete a great many bureaucratic procedures, heedless of distress and even death.

Tuesday, January 28/2014

Unemployment in Cyprus at the end of December was 17.5%. Plenty of underemployment as well. There is no overall minimum wage but it is fixed at €870 (rising after six months to €924) for shop assistants, clerks, personal care workers and child minders. Shop assistants should only have to work 38 hours a week. However 48 hours or more seem to be common with employees reluctant to complain lest they lose their jobs in a tough market.

Monday, January 27/2014

Plan is to meet for coffee after J's beach walk but the forecast is, at best, unhelpful. It will shower but as many suggestions of when as we have weather apps. J leaves with umbrella and I say that I will be on time or not there at all. Plan to go but as I get ready the sky turns black, the drizzle steps up the tempo and thunder and lightning start. J back an hour later, having valiantly gone a mile out of his way to pick up our favourite dense rye bread from Perseus Bakery. He's wet. Well, yes, he says. But not from the rain - it's the Cypriot drivers speeding through puddles with no thought for pedestrians. Bit of xenophobia there? Pedestrians are almost always immigrants, expats or tourists.

Sunday, January 26/2014

Rain. Well, as they always say in Cyprus, we need it. So lots of reading done. Which is good because Mantel's Wolf Hall is excellent and will vanish electronically from various devices in a week's time when our fourteen days are up. Ready or not. Still, it's amazing that we can borrow books this way.

Saturday, January 25/2014

Overcast, though not actually raining. J points out that coffee outside at Harry's will be less pleasure than it ought to be, so ask M to come over here in the afternoon instead, which means that coffee runs to Jaworski meze as well. Maxi doesn't get to come - no dogs allowed, though she would be quiet and good. Give some unworthy thought to smuggling her in the back way, but discover that the back gate is padlocked. Not ideal for fire exit, though better than the door being locked.

Friday, January 24/2014

Stop at St Helena's charity shop, usually open 10 to 2 three days a week. It's tiny and crowded, but friendly. A chat with a man called Mike Bailey, who's there on his first stint. He suggests Oman as a travel destination, having served there in the army. We talk about the Middle East and he seems surprised and impressed when I mention the Sykes Picot drawing of the map and the troubles arising therefrom. Surprised because I'm a woman, or just generally? Do have to admit that J is much better informed than I re Middle East in general, as well as on most historical matters. The Sykes Picot moment, though, is symbolic of the moment of pleasure when one discovers a totally unexpected shared viewpoint or interest with a casual acquaintance or a complete stranger.

Thursday, January 23/2014

With Bill and Jane and Harry and Ailsa to try out a new restaurant a bit further out the Dhekelia Road. Well, new to us and to B and J - H and A have beeb before and,min fact, Harry produces two free glass of wine vouchers which the waitress uses to top up our carafe. Starters not a patch on Vlachos, though the dips are a pretty contrast in tiny dishes, accompanied by pitas and toast. Menu fairly ambitious - H and A have swordfish - and the service friendly enough, but there isn't Vlachos' overwhelming Cypriot hospitality. Still, an interesting change and the same excellent company. Ailsa with the usual actual doggy bag to add excitement to the dinners of their many dogs.

Wednesday, January 22/2014

Dental appointments, fortunately only for cleaning, so not too scary, although Xenia does give a small filling as well. So two cleanings and a filling for €120 ($181.64 CAD, £99.43). There may be an advantage to female dentists - smaller hands filling your mouth.

Walk out along Mackenzy (accurate local spelling) to inspect the new road works. They will be impressive eventually, but have been going on well over a year now and nowhere near completion. The former road, now dug up and impassible, was crumbling alarmingly at the edges, so that pulling left to park always seemed hazardous. It hasn't been widened, but between the road and the sea a lovely wide walkway is in the process of construction, its seaside wall suitable for seating. The restaurants which were located (illegally?) on the sea side have been forced to move and those on the land side must be desperately waiting for better patron access. But the walkway will stretch for at least a kilometre and be very attractive once it's finished - which won't be soon. Where is the money coming from? Or is was it all earmarked before the financial crisis?

Our walk ends at the Flamingo Hotel, where we have our annual look at the paintings on the wall, several of which are by our friend Jane. One of her artists' groups meets here weekly and their works grace the walls, mostly for sale, a benefit to both hotel and artists.

Tuesday, January 21/2014

Coffee at waterfront with Maggi. Then a stop at the charity shop. The animal one. Run by a British couple, now Cypriot residents. We try to remember to take our used plastic grocery bags down as each roll of bags that doesn't have to be purchased represents more dog food for rescued animals. Sometimes interesting buys there - shirts or books or the occasional cd - and each essentially a donation to a good cause. This is where we bought our first (hardcover) volume of Tony Benn's memoirs, as well as the Ian Rankin that we're currently reading.

Monday, January 20/2014

This is definitely the warmest and sunniest January we can remember. Cyprus is not a rainy country, but what rain there is falls mainly in the winter and there have been years when it seemed to fall part of almost every day in January. The year, for example, when it was impossible to get within a block of what is now Carrefour without wading ankle deep through water. That a question of poor drainage rather than simply excess rain, admittedly. But this year has been stunning. May bode ill for water rationing this summer of course. As does the fact that it often takes up to fifteen minutes running water to get it hot enough to shower.

Sunday, January 19/2014

Begin reading aloud Wolf Hall, Mantel's book. Immediately obvious why it won the Booker. It's astonishingly well written. None of the phoney characters and stilted dialogue that mar so much historical fiction. Also, there is a remarkable flow that makes it extremely easy to read quickly aloud. Which is good because we have two weeks to read 1600 pages of it - admittedly ipad mini size pages.

Saturday, January 18/2014

Coffee at Harry's. Sunny and warm. The kind of weather in which one is tempted to order beer instead of coffee, but it's a bit early in the day for that. 

Download notice from the Ontario Library for Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, Booker winning novel about the life of Thomas Cromwell, with Cromwell cast as hero and Thomas More as villain. Apparently Mantel is a scrupulous researcher, although interpretation and slant are, of course, her own. We've been in queue waiting for the book and will get it for two weeks, so will postpone the download for a couple of days hoping that when we do get it fourteen days will be long enough to read it aloud, as we won't get to renew without a wait.

Friday, January 17/2014

Maggi invites us to her flat for lunch. But first a walk, the one she and Maxi take regularly, through the old leper colony by the salt lake. The colony is deserted now, but the houses are still there, and a little hospital and the recreation areas? Overgrown now, and unoccupied, except possibly by the odd squatter (M reports having seen, and then not seen, a pair of shoes outside one of the doors, as if waiting for a night porter of old). It's a rather haunting scene, despite the inevitable broken glass and discarded appliances. Easy to imagine it as a little community with some charm, other than the obviously uncharming aspect of the leprosy itself. We're reminded of that by the presence of a large white bell, this one obviously not worn by lepers but possibly used to summon the community. There's an attractive, not-so-little church as well that looks like it's still used on occasion. And we're only metres away from the salt lake - just off the dirt road where a ten foot high tumbleweed marks the edge and past some even taller pampas grass to the beach. More beach and less salt lake than usual as there's been so little rain but the flamingos are back on their winter route north, dozens if not hundreds of them in the distance. Maxi has a lovely time, off the lead and following endless scents.

Then back to M's flat for lunch, beginning with homemade soup followed by snails in the shell, oozing garlic butter. Then a meze of dips and pate and cheeses, including my favourite dark, sweet Norwegian goat's cheese. Ending with Greek coffee and little Battenburg cakes. By which time we really need the long walk back and, in any case, none of us is in any shape to drive, thanks to G&Ts. Merlot and liqueurs. 

Perfect day, and supper, oddly enough, surplus to requirements.

Thursday, January 16/2014

Just leaving the bakery with a loaf of our favourite sesame studded rye bread still warm in its paper bag when a young woman steps out of the shop next to it. It's Elana, the Romanian former receptionist at the Eleanora. Must be about six years now since we last saw her. She says that she has spotted us before but always when she was busy with a customer. Now she's working a twelve hour day but, as she says, she has a job. And her friends in Romania who thought she was crazy to leave a good government job have watched as corruption and austerity have taken their toll with jobs disappearing and salaries and pensions cut back to unsurvivable levels. She's the second Romanian this month to admit to us that in some ways it was better under Ceaucescu. Maslow's hierarchy of needs: not much value to democracy if you starve to death.

Wednesday, January 15/2014

We pass on the way to the waterfront a small shop that rejoices in the name of Tony's Alcohol Paradise.  Opening time is eleven and we're usually a little earlier than that, but recently there's been no sign of activity, so we've wondered if, improbably, Tony had fallen victim to the recession. Today, though, he's open. No, he hasn't been away, but he's on his own and trying to keep it open from 11 AM to 11 PM, so sometimes he's a little late starting. It's an interesting shop with everything from cheap litre boxes of wine to high end single malts. Which was his undoing a year ago when thieves broke in and stole fifteen bottles of whiskey worth about €10,000. As he says, they knew exactly what they were doing.

Tuesday, January 14/2014

Have now added an Ian Rankin novel (mystery, set in Edinburgh), courtesy of our favourite charity shop, to the regular reading aloud. Rankin and Lillian Beckwith (Scottish islands, fictionalised autobiography) are the daytime reading as they're "real" books. No glowing in the dark and no ability to change font size, as with the ebooks. Meanwhile Alan Clark's diary has reached the end of 1990, and therefore the end of Thatcher's prime ministership. His book is regarded as a primary source for the coup and is indeed interesting. Also the source of a fair bit of dramatic irony, as we know with hindsight a great deal that Clark doesn't know as we follow the calculations and predictions re the leadership ballots. Also, we know, as Clark doesn't, that a decade later he will no longer be alive.

Monday, January 13/2014

The official day of VAT increase (to 19%). Go to Carrefour thinking they might have a new sale flyer out - although food is taxed at a lower rate. Far from it - there's only massive restocking of shelves going on as well as a notice saying that temporarily the price on the shelf may not match the price at the till. In which case the price at the till rules.

Sunday, January 12/2014

M here in the afternoon for nibbles and wine - really our supper. First sauteed artichoke hearts of the season. They're labour intensive (J's labour, and he can never die because there are too many things I wouldn't know how to do) but SO good. He's also done humus with caramelised onions, and a mackerel spread, and olives, and cheeses, and toasted pitas. I've cut up veg and made tzatziki. Nice leftovers, except for the artichokes, which predictably aren't left over. One of the nicest things about Cyprus is the year round supply of really fresh fruit and vegetables.

Saturday, January 11/2014

Regular Saturday coffee with Maggi, this time at Harry's by St Lazarus Church.  M has been talking to Martina, a Slovak girl who works at a travel agency we have sometimes used. When the banking crisis hit Martina had recently bought a flat, which she is now desperately trying to hang on to. First her hours were cut drastically as the business went downhill, so she asked the employer to lay her off so she could get benefits. He wouldn't and she finally found a second part time job in a betting shop. Then got laid off in the travel agency. Or nearly so. She still gets €20 (£16.66, $29.88 CAD) for coming in Saturdays to do the week's clerical/computer work which the old man isn't really up to. Those little travel agencies must be a dying breed. They actually only act as rather slow agents for larger travel companies that sponsor the packages. It usually takes them a couple of days to find out "if there is availability" - and this in an age in which it's easy to do instant (and often cheaper) bookings on line. So Martina is just one sad story of many in Cyprus's new economy. 

Friday, January 10/2014

Stop on the way home at the Elephant Store, formerly Sarris Supermarket. Sarris went out of business after the financial crisis last spring. Have no idea who bought it and some things are still labelled Sarris, some Elephant Store? Wouldn't become our main grocer's but there were some very good buys. Notably an enormous 3 kilo glass jar of sundried tomatoes for €5 (£4.16, $7.47 CAD). Can only think that they'd decided to stop carrying them and were disposing of what remained. Seems a shame that here we have no use for the jar here.

Thursday, January 9/2014

The government owns two tv stations, CYBC 1 and 2. They're supposed to be privatised although it's not clear that they'd be a desirable buy. Their chief attraction for us used to be evening movies, especially on the weekends, subtitled in Greek but almost always in English. We'd be grateful that they were subtitled rather than dubbed, but they had an astonishing number of grade B films - or worse - and often repeated the same film a few days later. They also had a ten minute evening news broadcast in English. Actually they still have it, but it's almost too annoying to watch. The presenters are no longer shown, though still recognisable by voice, and what is seen is a series of news clips, some local and some international. It's a poor source of international news and an annoying source for Cypriot politics. Anything concerning relations with the Turkish speaking north of the island is full of clumsy references to their "so-called" president, government, etc., with analysis in the same vein. And now there is a sort of background music, more repetitive single note sound, throughout the whole broadcast. The only purpose that springs to mind would be to drive viewers away so that the station could reasonably claim that they needn't provide an English news as there are no longer any watchers. 

Wednesday, January 8/2014

Arvid and Eva, the Norwegians in the next flat are back. Hear Norwegian being spoken in the hallway and then see the pile of boxes outside the door as I'm leaving to meet J. Take the lift down and there's Eva on the ground floor with more cases. All the things they stored from last year. We wish each other Happy New Year and then hug. Funny, we don't really spend much time with them when they're here but there's a nice congenial feeling. They do speak English and if this were China or Egypt we'd probably hang out together, but here it's much simpler for them to socialise with fellow Norwegians. 

Tuesday, January 7/2014

M and I drive down to the waterfront to meet J for coffee. M is so busy trying to see where the traffic lights got knocked down by the police station that she starts through the red light. Two policemen are standing outside counting cars or something but not interested in us.

Monday, January 6/2014

Epiphany. Couldn't for years figure out why the feast that I had thought was all about the three wise men should here seem to refer to the baptism of Christ. The answer is in the word itself, ephiphaneia, or appearing., better translated as "striking manifestation" - and therefore the manifestation of Jesus as divine. Clumsy, but with some logic to it. Also known in Greek as fota, or light, day. Candles are lit at church and take home to burn in front of icons for the next forty days. There's a parade from the church to the waterfront where the bishop throws in a cross and the young men dive to retrieve it. It's never lost as it's prudently tied to the end of a string. We don't go down in time for the parade (which always seems pretty militaristic, with cadets and soldiers actually carrying weapons) but do go down later to enjoy the crowds and collect some of the aromatic branches strewn on the pier. The road is blocked to traffic and it's all festive, families strolling and booths selling everything from icons to helium balloons to hot dogs. Lovely warm day and we buy ice creams - J's caramel and mine lemon.

Sunday, January 5/2014

Wake up as J puts on Everly Brothers cd in honour of Phil, who died Friday. Elizabeth Jane Howard died on Thursday, just after I finished reading All Change, the fifth (and now obviously last) volume of the Cazalet Chronicles. I had been saying to J, that I thought her a much better writer than Kingsley Amis, to whom she was at one point married, and that perhaps, as she was now 90, I should not delay over writing to tell her so. Well, of course I did, and there's not much point now in saying that she was interviewed only two weeks ago. She was talking to James Naughtie, and sounded pretty feisty. Still writing (well, All Change was published only two months ago) and saying that writing was what gave her reason to get up in the morning.

Saturday, January 4/2014

Beginning of a long weekend, with Epiphany celebrated on Monday. Walk down to the waterfront and find that the sidewalk immediately in front of the police station has been,  rather inconveniently, cordoned off, forcing us into the road at the corner where we turn down to the pier. Then we see why. Someone has crashed through the metal barrier and come across the pavement, knocking down a traffic light on its standard and damaging the tall artificial Christmas tree. An awkward place to have that sort of accident, although we joke that the police must have a hard time if they followed their usual practice of ignoring Cypriot lawbreakers in case they should prove to be influential or relatives of friends. They should adopt the three monkeys as their logo: see no crime, hear no reports, make no charges.

Friday, January 3/2014

Another reminder of Cyprus's financial woes. As of January 13 VAT will move from 18 to 19 percent. A pretty hefty tax rate. Some significant reductions and exemptions though. Food is taxed, but at 8% (not including alcohol which is the regular) as are books and newspapers. Assumed that the increase would be effective January 1, but it seems not. Some truly ugly measures as well, though. Foreign domestic workers, who had their salary reduced by 5% from €484 to €460 are going to see it reduced again as part of the austerity plan. From this is deducted an employment tax and their room and board. And a depressing number of them have difficulty in collecting even what they're owed by comparatively affluent employers. A Sri Lankan friend of Maggi's has just had to threaten to quit if she was not paid, as she had not been for the whole time she had worked for the family, looking after an elderly woman with dementia. She was alone in the flat with the woman so got no time off and the family kept fobbing her off, saying that it was inconvenient or they were saving the money to give her later. Like most of these women M's friend relied on the money to send home to her family. 

Thursday, January 2/2014

Venera comes to clean the flat a little earlier than usual, though still close to noon. It's a job that usually takes her less than five minutes, and consists mainly of emptying the garbage, cleaning the toilet and sink and washing bathroom and kitchen floors. We're sitting about reading the papers electronically when, instead of leaving, she comes through to say something that sounds like cravat. We follow her through to the bedroom where she is pointing at the unmade beds, obviously asking if we want them made. No, no.  Usually I have them done earlier and usually she comes later. Maggi later identifies the word, transcribed more or less as krevvati. 

M has invited us out to dinner at the Ocean Basket. Was meant to be New Year's Day but they weren't open then so we all settled for the 2nd.  Joined by her friends Pat and Andrea, both retired to Cyprus and both dog lovers/walkers. The restaurant is a chain, originally started in South Africa. Specialty is kingklip. It's actually a form of eel, which sounds offputting but turns out to be moist white fillets, available either dreaded and fried or grilled and very nice. Nice getting to know M's other friends as well. She and Andrea have a cruise in the far east planned for March.

After the meal we take the enormous bag of leftovers that Pat has persuaded the waiter to retrieve from the next table and head off to feed the harbour cats, a regular task that Pat has set herself. Calling would be closer to the mark than task, for it brings her here more than once a day and there is more than one feeding station. And she's out of pocket on a fair scale for cat food. So down we go to the end of the pier, opposite Europa Square where the Christmas tree is, and the buildings picked out with Christmas lights. When they hear (smell?) her coming the cats appear out of the darkness, squeezing through the marina fence to share the bounty. Six here and more will be waiting by the tourist office. The town used to be willing to neuter them but that service fell victim to budget cuts.

Wednesday, January 1/2014

New Year's Day. Temperature in Sioux Lookout -41. No windchill involved, just the ugly basic official Environment Canada temperature. Unpleasant storm warnings in the UK as well. Seems indecent us luxuriating with coffee in the sun with Maggi and dog down on the waterfront. M has forgotten her house key and is hoping the next door neighbours return soon so she can climb in from their flat. As today is as important a feast as Christmas (perhaps more so as we got maid service on Christmas but not today) we can only hope that M's neighbours won't be out visiting until midnight.

Day ends happily. We make a spaghetti with shrimp in the sauce and Maggi messages to say that her neighbours returned as she got back.

Tuesday, December 31/2013

New Year's Eve. Already. In the morning to visit Betty and John, whom we met Friday. After retirement they lived for some time on their boat, now sold. Then in Cyprus and now in Turkey. They're making a Christmas visit to Cyprus, where they've kept a house and car. The house is tiny but stunning. It was originally a disused end unit in an old traditional Cypriot building, with thick stone walls and had been used for storage. No indoor kitchen or loo. John and Betty, with help from a son, have turned it into a little jewel of a place. There's a small sitting room with high ceiling and a loft with fitted bedroom and loo. Small kitchen added behind the sitting room. It's all beautifully done with glowing woodwork and indirect lighting, a tribute to John's skill in previous careers as electrical and building contractors.

Nice visit as we sip tea, sample the holiday goodies and talk about their life in England and East Africa and. Friday they're off back to Turkey.

It's New Year's Eve and for us a quiet one. We do watch the fireworks from our sitting room. A pretty good view but they don't last more than a couple of minutes. Wouldn't have been worth walking down for, though as J says it's about more than the fireworks - there's also the festive crowd, and he's right. There's also free wine, though it's not a patch on the wee dram of whisky with which we welcome in the new year.

Monday, December 30/2013

Usual problem with Cyprus booze buying. Good sales (although not quite up to standard this year) from a little before Christmas until New Year's, or maybe Epiphany. Good enough that it would be best to buy the supply until mid-March now, if only one could estimate it accurately. Brand name whiskey blends for as little as €8 (£6.65, $11.60 CAD) a bottle. So how often will we entertain, who will it be and what will they drink? Our own needs a little easier to predict. Would be lovely to take lots with us but between weight and Canadian customs not highly practical. Lidl has quite good sales on young but perfectly drinkable French and Italian wines at under €2 a bottle (£1.66, $2.90 CAD). And their sales, happily, not limited to Christmas run-up. Their liquor is another matter. Tends toward Brand X - names along the lines Glen Tartan, aged 3 years. And not even desperately cheap. 

Sunday, December 29/2013

Rainy, windy day. But we're retired. Plenty to read. Alternating, in the read-aloud department, Lillian Beckwith's fictionalised memoirs of life as an Englishwoman relocated to the Hebrides (1950s) and Alan Clarke's political diary, or one volume thereof. Both very funny, in entirely different ways. Clarke is the man who came up with the 4 I's of the (would be published) diarist:

You need to make your diary immediate; write it on the day, because even on the day after you begin to think, "I can improve history a bit." Be indiscreet; as Chips Channon said, there's nothing more dull than a discreet diary; you might as well have a dull or discreet soul. Be intimate; those intimate details are very important. And make your diary indecipherable, so that if somebody chances upon it, they cannot quite read what you have said.

Clarke is indiscreet, both about colleagues and about his eye for women, but he's also quite funny, with adolescent ego and quite a lot of charm mixed in with his insider view of the Thatcher era Tory party and the downfall of Thatcher.