Saturday, November 3/2018

Breakfast with J&D. Laura comes by later with Cody, who has just been to gymnastics. He’s quiet at first, but warms up quickly and examines a key I have unaccountably found in my handbag. Suspect myself of kleptomania, but think it must have been with a couple of items left in our hotel room Turns out, oddly enough (as Jenny discovers via google) to be the key for a trigger lock on a gun. Some joking over who stayed last in the hotel room - terrorist, MI5? - and my odds at security at Gatwick. 

Take advantage of the wifi to book the shuttle from Faro to Albufeira on Tuesday. The site refuses to complete the booking without mobile number, so I provide the one for the UK sim, but have no real certainty that either it or the Cypriot one will work in Portugal. Yes, they should. Doug kindly prints the transfer voucher, which “they” insist must be not merely downloaded but both printed and signed, presumably to prevent imposters taking our place on the bus, though see no way of their authenticating the signature. 

Lentil  soup and baguettes for lunch and then home.

Friday, November 2/2018

To Thames Ditton in the afternoon to visit Jenny and Doug and the family. Emma and her girls are already there full of energy and information. Then Giles, who is setting up to do the lighting for the Guy Fawkes fireworks evening at the girls’ school. After they leave, drinks and dinner and lots of catch up chat.  Some of our very favourite people to visit with. And relaxed, because we stay the night, so no need to hurry with the meal or be off to catch the train.

Thursday, November 1/2018

Rainy morning, but we have umbrellas. Coming back from coffee cum internet at Pret A Manger J leans over someone dossed down in a sleeping bag on wet pavement. Rough sleepers in this part of the city is a pretty recent phenomenon, though the tunnels leading to Charing Cross Station have always had an unhappy blend of homeless sleepers bedded on newspapers with the smell of piss. New also are notices posted on many shop windows stating that begging is illegal, that asking for money is punishable by fine. No doubt a nuisance for shop owners and a deterrent to  their customers. It hasn’t prevented people from sitting on the pavement with collecting cups and signs announcing their hunger or need, the distinction perhaps being that it is illegal to solicit donations but not to accept them from generous passers by. 

To West Harrow in the afternoon to visit Jean and share a bottle of wine and samosas. Jean is waiting for back surgery, probably after Christmas, for a congenital problem, but seems pretty cheerful about it. 

Wednesday, October 31/2018

Wednesday, October 31. Hallowe’en, and there are a few goblins and such on the street, though Guy Fawkes Day, November 5th, commemorating the 1605 plot to blow up parliament - also known as bonfire night - is traditionally the more important celebration, as an occasion for fireworks. Take a bus up to Camden Town. Much less change along Camden High Street than on Queensway. Still a mix of pubs, pound stores, cafés, charity shops, and similar. Good street for buying toiletries, batter, and such. Once the home of Inverness Street market and corner barrows, but fruit and veg sellers seem to be dying off around here, though there is an M&S, and a Sainsbury’s just off the main street, and an empty shop displays a sign announcing that it will soon be an Aldi.

Tuesday, 30 October, 2018

Pret a Manger for coffee. A little farther than Starbucks and coffee less potent, but large, cheerful, and with good wifi. Suspect it’s picking up a few of Starbucks’ walking wounded. There’s one young woman with her head down on the table and two shopping bags full of the essentials of survival. But mostly it’s cheerful bustle. 

Do  google the Samsung difficulty and conclude, as eventually suspected, that it’s a North American model that won’t work elsewhere. A fairly common problem with phones other than iPhones (5 and later). Lucky the old Nokia still works. 

Up to Kilburn High Road, which, happily, has changed much less. In fact is rather like Queensway used to be twenty-five years ago. Chain stores, yes, but tiny independents, pawn shops, supermarkets, local cafés, pubs, and fruit and vegetable stands as well as a small market. Originally an Irish area, successive waves of West Indian and Asian immigrants have made it a vibrant, mixed community, with the latest influx seemingly Middle East. Stops at Poundland and Aldi’s, and then an early fish and chip supper at Roses, home of the best cod we‘ve ever eaten. The owner always remembers us, rather surprisingly as there are months between visits. And we recognise at least one of the “other regulars”.

Monday, 29 October 2018

Overnight flight from Winnipeg via Montreal. Roughly over Kilkenny, we get what passes for breakfast. Slice of dark, sweet bread - banana? And Juice. Too bumpy for coffee. Remember previous years when it used to be a large ice cold muffin. But that was a significant come down from years ago with fruit and - what? Hot breakfast before that - or am I remembering BA, which did a pretty fair full English in the days before they decided London to Cyprus, though fractionally shorter than London to Cairo, was not long haul, and didn’t require sustenance? What next? Would straight bread and water shame them - we’re nearly there.

Twenty minutes in the queue at Immigration at Heathrow. Post-Brexit will all except Brits be in the Liberians and others line? Then tube to Bayswater. But changes are in the brickwork as well as the air. We’re too early for the hotel but still have money on the Starbucks card. Queensway Starbucks another matter. Undergoing renovation and closed. Looks major. So a coffee at Macdonald’s across the road. Coffee not bad but atmosphere no hell and can’t make the wifi work. So define ourselves as on time for Barons. Which turns out to be completely surrounded by scaffolding. But still operational, fortunately. Major roof repairs, but our usual room, and if we keep the curtains closed the workmen won’t be looking in. So not up for sale anyway. Last surprise of the day is that Whitely’s - grand old lady of department stores (dating from 1911) now turned little mall - is undergoing transformation once again., as part of a major upscaling of Queensway. All business will cease as of November 30, and Marks and Spencer is already gone. Nothing stays the same forever. And finally the sim card I buy for the Samsung doesn’t work, despite the efforts of the girls at 3. I assure them the phone is unlocked and they kindly agree to retemplate  the new sim to micro size so that it will fit in the old Nokia, and not be a waste. 

Since you’re here....It’s just about time to wind up the blog for the season. I usually run it right to the last day in London. 

However, there is a difficulty. One of my readers has reported going to the blog site and finding a virus or similar. Cleaned up by virus protection program, but obviously undesirable. I’m not in a good position to investigate thoroughly, having only coffee shop access to wifi at the moment. And don’t actually know how to investigate it thoroughly later, for that matter. 

Blogger/blogspot is a free site hosted by google - not a company known for answering individual inquiries. If I read a relevant forum answer correctly, the site itself can’t be virus infected, and all I do is add individual posts to an existing format. 

I am using an antiquated ios app called Blogger. It is no longer supported, and in fact only works on the oldest of our three ipad minis - the ipad mini 1, which is too old to be updated.  It was a very handy app as it allowed me to prepare blog entries offline ready for instant posting at connection and also allowed me, as the website does not, to post photos directly from my ipad album. 

But that was handy, not indispensible. If that is the problem, it’s posted its last. If the blogspot website is itself the problem, I’ll have to find an alternative. Unfortunately, easier said than done. Most sites either have rather limited storage or are not genuinely free - or both. 

If you have experienced problems accessing the blog, my profound apologies - and I’d really like to know what the difficulty was. And if you haven’t that would be useful to know as well. Apart from that, any helpful suggestions welcome. I’m no techie, and it’s difficult even to know what angle to approach this from. Would be grateful to hear from you. Cheers 🍷🍷

Thursday, April 12/2018

Former Chancellor George Osborne, never my favourite Tory - and yes, I do have some - was not Theresa May's favourite either, and got promptly moved to the back bench in the new regime. As did Michael Gove, of course, but he crawled back as rapidly as possible. George had other options - no point in being an old Etonian if it doesn't leave you with friends - and resigned in order to become editor of the Evening Standard. Somewhat short of a quality paper, but a cut above the tabloids and pretty widely read in greater London because it's free and an obvious choice to read on the way home. And it does allow George the odd bit of revenge. Thus the headline today, in enormous black capitals,  is 'War-War And Not Jaw-Jaw', inescapably recalling that Churchill - the epitome of a strong Conservative prime minister - had famously said 'jaw jaw is better than war war'. Yes, rhymes better with a non-rhotic accent.

Wednesday, April 11/2018

Bizarrely, BBC's compromise with reality is to refer to 'alleged Assad chemical attack' while discussing the probability of a very physical military response. Though what's a PM to do? Theresa May had referred to the Salisbury attack as involving a 'weapon of mass destruction' but with the Skripals apparently recovering from the deadly nerve agent - a microdot to kill? - public interest apparently flagging slightly. The Syrian chemicals somewhat more complex. The white helmets scarcely disinterested accusers but almost worse is the difficulty, referred to as discreetly as possible by the BBC, of co-ordinating retaliation with Trump, whose tactics change with every tweet. More hand holding in order? But when has anyone last mentioned Brexit?

Tuesday, April 10/2018

Some readjustment of our means of satisfying our news addiction. There was a time when I bought at least one paper a day in London and went home with an armload of same day papers from the most vulgar tabloid to the most sober broadsheet. Remember a student asking if the British were allowed to put porn in their newspapers. Porn proved, on investigation, to be a page three girl wearing, admittedly, not very much. Student less shocked by the photo than by my saying 'I don't really think that's porn, do you?'. 

Now we seldom buy a paper, opting instead for a selection of downloaded articles. A Sunday Times is moderately expensive (£2.75, i.e. €3.15, $4.94 CAD) and, more to the point, contains massive amounts of material - on the housing market for example - that we have neither the time nor the interest to read. This involves a fair bit of skim and download during morning Starbucks sessions but gives a broader range of viewpoints and only articles of interest. And even more selectivity with those articles recommended by a tribe of trusted Twitter posters. An excellent referral system. 

Miss the twenty-four hour wifi access, but there is the compensatory better tv and radio news. And a sort of feeling that London is a hub of news, although rather cynical about how that works. May is not Thatcher and Russia is not the Falklands, but difficult for her to dismiss a gift poisoning. Continuing reminders of the book Events, Dear Boy, a compilation of British diaries of those in power or near to it throughout the twentieth century. The overwhelming, if not entirely deliberate, message was that those one would suppose had inside knowledge, if not wisdom, frequently had highly limited understanding of events and their context and looked at the world through a flawed prism of ideological bias and - worse - ego. Well, nobody thought Blair's invasion of Iraq was unique. But interestingly the lessons of the Iraq war have not only failed to chasten Theresa May, they haven't done much to persuade the general public to half the degree of cynicism I was born with.

Monday, April 9/2018

Starbucks office seems a bit unbusy. Very good in terms of getting a seat in the quiet lower level, but a little worrying with regard to its continuing existence. Just too many coffee shops in the area? UK coffee shops expected to outnumber pubs in the near future. The HSBC bank across the road closed over a year ago and the building is still empty. On the whole the street has gone upscale considerably in the nearly thirty years we've been coming here. Which sounds positive, but it's lost much of its character, and more of the shops and restaurants are now chains. Well, there's Starbucks.

Sunday, April 8/2018

Two hour time change has me awake at 5:30. No wifi here, but tablets well stocked with reading material. TV does supply radio, but 5:30 does seem a little early to inflict it on other rooms. 

Back to Starbucks office. Not raining - more heavy mist - though it has rained in the night and there's a brooding darkness to the sky. So perhaps not the day for the Sunday morning paintings displayed along the railings along the Bayswater Road adjacent to Hyde Park. Home in time to watch Dateline London. Then checking out our neighbourhood. Always some small changes. The waffle shop must be new, surely. Fish and chip place never seems very busy, but perhaps they rely on takeaway. They say you can eat in, but that seems to be three or four chilly looking minimalist tables by the order counter. Whitely's, famous for closing down sales has a large sign advertising a GENUINE closing down sale. And maybe it's true, as a couple more shops there seem to be empty. Marks and Spencer and Costa Coffee now seem to be the mainstays. M&S happily not quite out of hot cross buns - my favourite of the supermarket ones. 

Watch telly in the evening. First English tv we've has in months other than Cyprus broadcasting' ten minute English news and bits of streaming on occasion. Plenty of channels, but a few of the basics seem to be missing, most sadly Channel 4, which carries better news than BBC. Watch what I take to be the first hour of a film from the 40's on Talking Movies, only to find that it's an episode in a serial. Reminded of getting family Christmas parcels from Scotland as a small child. They usually included two or three Scottish comic books, made up of a number of different comics, some of which were serials, so I'd read the second and third in the lot, having been hooked by the first, knowing I'd be left hanging and never know the ending. If indeed there was an ending and they weren't like Orphan Annie, going on forever.

Saturday, April 7/2018

Bill and Jane kindly take us to the airport. We're early but our organisation is superior to that of Cobalt, the Cypriot airline we're flying with. No, can't check in for Heathrow flight until 10:25; we're checking in for Manchester now. And we realise that they're not set up technically to check people in for more than one flight at a time. In fact for about ten minutes preceding 10:25 three rather bored looking clerks sit at the desks  doing absolutely nothing, hands on chins. Then brief meeting with a young man, shuffle of papers, and desks open for Heathrow flight. Non-EU queue already longer and slower than EU queue at immigration. Will be interesting post-Brexit. Forget to take small plastic bag of liquids out of carry-on bag at security, but they, being busy with other concerns like removal of shoes and belts, appear not to notice. 

Larnaca airport notorious for exorbitant food and drink prices - even by airport standards. Cheapest bottle of water €2.50 ($3.88 CAD, £2.19). On board, water is €2. Have to admit that if plane tickets had been two or three euros more we'd have paid it without thinking twice, but there is something essentially wrong about ripping people off for water. And many airports now do supply free tap or fountain water. Here the lavatory taps - as often in Canada - supply hot water. However, our departure lounge turns out to be in the basement and the tiny loo next to the lift turns out to have a normal old-fashioned tap with hot and cold water. No non-potable warning, so our water bottles filled, contributing to neither corporate greed nor plastic environmental tsunami. 

Plane fairly full, and we have, as requested, aisle seats opposite each other. No one occupying the middle seat next to me, so I trade with J. Five hour flight to Heathrow Terminal 3. Fairly warm, though well short of the Cypriot sun we left behind. High teens. 

Tube to Bayswater. Greeted at the hotel by Genie and Nick with the sad news that G's mother died on Thursday. After a very short illness. She was ninety-three but had been mentally in good shape and mobile, if not in perfect physical health. G very distressed and, of course, funeral plans and all the practicalities still to deal with. 

Friday, April 6/2018

Rather strange. Good Friday here, so fortunately bread and pitas collected yesterday, more by good luck than good management. Finish packing, which involves leaving less than previously but more than we'd hoped boxed and labelled here - radio, CDs, a few clothes, two pots, a few glasses, the cafetière, an extension cord, a couple of books. And etcetera. Not too bad considering we've spent parts of the winter in Cyprus for eighteen years now. After the boxes have been stashed, everything else has to go in the suitcases (20k limit tomorrow) or the carry-ons, or be thrown out. Not sure organisational skills are improving much with age. Jane and Bill pop in for coffee and, happily, take a few books with them. Fair bit of overlap in taste.

Thursday, April 5/2018

Two conference pears, 500 grams of strawberries grown in greenhouses in a village a little to the north of us, one red pepper, a few small onions, a few tiny new potatoes, a few cherry tomatoes. It's hard not to overbuy here, but we've reached the point of not buying any food now without knowing which meal it is slated for. We're going to miss the variety of super fresh (and inexpensive) fruit and veg.

Last meal out with friends. Rather appropriate timing on a last supper, as tomorrow is Orthodox Good Friday. With Jane, Bill, Ailsa, Harry, and Maureen to the Ocean Basket. Prawns and mussels are surprisingly good. Shouldn't be surprised, but shrimp that have been frozen - which is most of them - often disappointingly tasteless. But beautifully buttery. The place is very busy, with quite a few families. Noisy but cheerful. 

Wednesday, April 4/2018

Two conference pears, 500 grams of strawberries grown in greenhouses in a village a little to the north of us, one red pepper, a few small onions, a few tiny new potatoes, a few cherry tomatoes. It's hard not to overbuy here, but we've reached the point of not buying any food now without knowing which meal it is slated for. We're going to miss the variety of super fresh (and inexpensive) fruit and veg.

Tuesday, April 3/2018

J with Harry in the jeep to collect a sofa bed from Bill,s attic and transfer it to the loft in Harry's cabin. I, coming back from post office, miss a call. Can never hear the mobile in traffic. Eventually suspect it may be from the bus company - certainly from a Larnaca landline. So call, and phone answered to immense background noise, suggesting pretty accurately several fairly loud men of the sort who do not habitually lower their voices just because someone in their small room has just answered the phone. So who have I reached? Just barely catch one word relating to bus company. Eventually some heavily accented and fairly incoherent references to hat. Was mine a man's or woman's. Relatively gender neutral shapeless cotton sunhat, but our combined communication skills are failing us, what with vocabulary, accents, and background uproar. I say I'll come down and look, and do. And indeed there is a hat, found on the 425 bus on April 1, but it's a baseball cap with team logo. Right bus, right day, even right colour - but wrong hat. Thanks anyway. Actually had had no expectation at all of their attempting to reconnect me with the hat.

Monday, April 2/2018

Plastic bags - or a lot of them anyway - to the animal shelter charity shop. Free plastic bags are being phased out in Cyprus. Should now be 2 cents and 5 cents by summer, but no supermarket wishes to be the first to experience the wrath of its customers so they're still free and accumulating, despite our fabric bags. But the charity shop can use them. 

Stop at the bus station on my way to inquire about the hat I left on the bus yesterday. Hadn't been optimistic about recovery but the level of dysfunction here is ridiculous - and actually funny. Yes, I know which bus number (425) and which road and which direction the bus was going. And yes, I also know the time - quite precisely in fact. (And yes, with all this personal precision one would have assumed I could have managed not to drop my hat). Consultation  between two of the three men in the little bus station office. Followed by much shuffling of paper. And two telephone calls, also in Greek, of which I understand only the word "oxi" - no. Slowly I realise that my man has been searching for the phone numbers of the drivers most likely to have been on the 425 at 12:45 yesterday. There is no lost and found box, there is no end of shift procedure, there is no assured way of identifying vehicle or driver. Any sixteen year old girl could have set them up in a day with a better system than they have been able to devise over the past several years. He does, kindly, ask for my phone number - in case - and I give it, but have clearly seen the last of the hat. 

Stop at the little jewellery shop owned by the jeweller, Natalia, our Ukrainian friend, and meet up with J who's been on his own errands. Always a lovely place to visit. And she points us, after a discussion on Slavic food, to a tiny café recently opened by a Georgian girl and serving Georgian fast - and not so fast - foods. Not very different from Ukrainian. So we find it and go for coffee and try a couple of her small deep fried "pies" - one mushroom and one potato. Comfort food rather than health food, but nice. The café is called Titanic. Hope it doesn't go under.

Sunday, April 1/2018

Easter Sunday, but not for Cypriots, and in fact the Catholic Church in Cyprus follows the Greek Orthodox calendar out of consideration for local customs and mixed families. Last Sunday lunch out, this time at Cambanella's, our default. Then coffee on Jane and Bill's patio. Too hot in the direct sun so awning down. Flowers and tomato plants now convinced it's spring, if not summer.

Cyprus Sunday Mail has a nearly full page article on small diameter particulate matter in the air - dust. The nearly full page not quite as dramatic as it seems as the slim edition is always looking for fill - and running to repetition. Interesting though. Confirms our understanding that the source is mostly the Sahara, not, as widespread rumour apparently has it, the war in Syria. Hadn't heard the rumour and wouldn't have believed it in any case for a number of reasons, chief among which is that Syria, while close, is to the east of us, whereas the prevailing winds, as in other places, are from the west. The next question, as J had wondered, is whether excessive dust events are becoming more frequent. The answer is mostly negative. They are tending to last longer, and desertification is a factor, but the main change is in the frequency and detail of information being given to the public. In other words it used to be this bad but we didn't know it. Unfortunately, while ignorance may feel like bliss the minute particles (and they really are minute at under a hundredth of a millimetre) are not filtered out easily, ending up deep in the lungs and, furthermore being associated with higher incidence of heart disease. As a bonus, the particles can carry bacteria. Very cheerful. 

Friday, March 30/2018

                 Harry's cabin - Jaworski file photo

Good Friday in the Western Church, but not here, where the Julian calendar is - this year but not always - celebrating Easter a week later. Thus we leave Cyprus before Orthodox Easter but arrive in London after Catholic Easter. 

J out with Harry to Harry's little cabin, beautifully crafted in Finland and a continuing well loved (by Harry, not so much Ailsa) work in progress. Today they're painting. And, J reports, feeding cats, which come from all directions when H arrives, knowing the tender hearted rescuer will have a meal for them. And they're right - he keeps cat food in the cabin.