Wednesday, February 25/2015

J's glasses are ready, so down to collect them. He's mostly happy but not sure about the focus on the left eye. They say try it for a day or two and come back if there are problems. Optician checked that they're made right - so fingers crossed.

Dinner at Vlachos tonight. Bill and Jane pick us up and we notice that Bill is wearing jacket and tie. All revealed when we arrive and realise that it's in honour of Jane's birthday (actually a few days earlier when they were away). Joined by Ailsa and Harry and also Keith and Villi (sp?), friends whom we've not previously met. As usual, the meze starters alone would have made a super meal. Can't resist the moussaka, but really must vary it next time as there are other very good things on the menu. Tiny sweet spring roll sized pastries at the end in honour of the birthday. As we're leaving with H and A, watch B and J strolling hand in hand to their car. Lovely.

Tuesday, February 24/2015

M phones to see if we're up for coffee. Too late, as J is back from his beach walk already and we're not going back again, so she comes for lunch and a drink instead. As she's off to America Thursday to visit relatives.

Monday, February 23/2015

Green Monday. Pretty overcast, which is hard luck on those planning the traditional kite flying picnics. Not including us, as we've been invited to join the community of Norwegian winter stayers. Two couples are staying here at the Sunflower and two other couples used to be here but have found other accommodation, but there are, amongst the various hotels in Larnaca, quite a few Norwegians, all of them here today, it would seem. There are thirty of us, including J and I as honorary Norsk. 

Knut and Rigmor, who invited us, seem to have done the arranging and persuaded Mr Andreas to let us use the large dining room in the hotel's currently unleased restaurant and to order a catered meal, leaving us to each bring our our own wine or beer. Lovely meal and tons of it - skewers of chicken, Spicy Cypriot sausages, meatballs, Cypriot pasta, salad, and more. We'd been feeling sorry for the unlucky Norwegians who ended up sitting next to us and had to speak English throughout the meal. But as it turns out it's OK. Those sitting near us speak very good English, and in one case worked in England. Everybody very friendly. Meal stretches from 2:30 til nearly seven as it moves to coffee and pastry and then on to comic readings (with some later attempts at translation for us) and then singing, as Tore, who used to stay at the Sunflower until the distances became too much for his wife, who uses a cane, plays the accordion.

Interesting comment on the Cypriot tribal trust - and on the trustworthiness of the Norwegian tribe. We spend four and a half hours in the unleased restaurant with our food and wine, and on the wall behind the bar are the usual bottles of liquor. None of us, of course, would have dreamt of touching them - and clearly the hotel management trusts that this is the 

Sunday, February 22/2015

Rereading (after 40 some years) Anthony Grey's Hostage in Peking. Reminded of it by Peter Greste's comments on his methods of remaining fit physically and mentally while in prison in Cairo, which were somewhat similar to Grey's during his 27 months of captivity during the Cultural Revolution. Happily, found the book online at the Open Library, and am reading it aloud with J. Interest enriched this time by having been in China - and probably by other things across the years.

Saturday, February 21/2015

Warmth is back - at least in the sunshine. It's a long weekend, in that Monday is a national holiday. It's Green Monday, otherwise - and perhaps more accurately - known as Clean Monday. It marks the beginning of Lent in the Orthodox Church, which follows the Julian calendar. This year Lent and Easter are a week earlier than on the western calendar, although they're often later and occasionally coincide. Clean Monday is a fast day, although of a pretty cheerful nature. In keeping with the eastern tradition, meat and dairy products are not eaten. Traditionally greens are eaten, and - less explicably - sea food, though not fish, which is reserved in Lent for major feast days. Picnics in the country are common and kite flying is traditional. 

Today we're back at our favourite café by St Lazarus Church, enjoying the sun on our backs. 

Friday, February 20/2015

Start with J's dental appointment to replace a filling broken last week. And book appointments for teeth cleaning next week. Not beautiful Thai prices, but not bad. This trip €40 (£30, $57 Cad). Wind still pretty cold this morning but ok anywhere that's sheltered. We've been going to Xenia for years now.

Found Anthony Grey's Hostage in Peking at the Open Library online and promptly borrowed it. Think that the accounts of Peter Greste's attempts to stay mentally and physically fit while in prison in Cairo reminded me of Grey's memoir of his long period in solitary confinement in 1967 during the Cultural Revolution. Read it a very long time ago, probably shortly after it was published in 1971, and it's stuck with me. Have always wanted to show it to J and now can.

Thursday, February 19/2015

Billed in advance as the coldest day of the winter, it probably is - and a fair contender for the coldest day we've ever experienced in Cyprus. There are a couple of reports of actual snow in Larnaca, lasting only minutes but almost unheard of here, though common in the mountains. Pretty windy too.

A good day for making marmalade with some of the remaining bergamot oranges. Without a blender it's amazingly labour intensive but a sharp knife and a lot of fine cutting do it and the recipe is more than satisfactory. Seeds have to be put in a cloth bag and retrieved at the end, as they're essential to the setting. Apart from that all the fruit and peel are eaten, as well as quite a lot of sugar and, at the very end, a touch of whiskey.

Wednesday, February 18/2015

Back to the best of the optical shops to order glasses for J. Seem very professional. They tell us that the new specs will be in by Monday, but we realise after leaving that Monday is a national holiday - Green Monday, preceding Ash Wednesday in the eastern Church calendar - so Tuesday or Wednesday seems more probable. 

Call London and book with our usual for April 1-22. Book somewhat more expensively than intended as each of us thinks the other has "hung up" the mobile, which continues to be connected to the UK for much too long.

Tuesday, February 17/2015

The day begins.

Me: This is Shrove Tuesday

J:  What, already! - I just woke up.

Comparison shopping for glasses for J. Getting pretty informed on what he wants. Know a lot more about lens indexes (indices?) than we once did. There are quite a few optical shops in Larnaca but only two labs in Cyprus that make lenses, one in Nicosia and one in Limassol. Would have thought that with all the competition prices would be similar, but not a bit of it. The best quote on frames with high index lenses comes in €165 (£121, $233 CAD) under the highest - comparable quality. Even allowing that the highest might have been prepared to move a little if nudged, that's quite remarkable.

Monday, February 16/2015

M has been looking at a side by side house in Mazotos, a village about 20 km south of Larnaca, so we drive out with her and dog to check it out. Turns out it 's in a little enclave outside of the village, beautifully landscaped and with lovely views over the fields to the sea. Not quite a gated community, but protected, maybe a dozen and a half duplexes, with a swimming pool and gym and a little snack place by the pool. Kitchen and sitting room on the ground floor with a large window looking toward the sea and two bedrooms up, the larger one and its balcony with sea view as well. It's furnished and the management seems very good about maintaining things. They offered it to her for €384 (£285, $543 CAD) per month - four euros more than she's now paying for her flat. She has a friend living a few doors down as well. She hesitates but then, rightly we think, goes for it.

Stop by a field on the way back and pick wild mustard, which then adorns the salad with tonight's meal. Still using the beautiful syrupy pomegranate vinegar in the dressing. Then spaghetti carbonara with caramelised onions and mushrooms mixed in. 

Sunday, February 15/2015

A bit cool, but mostly because it's windy. The sun is out and so are the people. We stroll down to the beach. There are people in swimming, though not many. It's coming out into the wind that would be cold. February and March have the coldest sea temperatures of the year, but that still means an average of 17 degrees celsius. Because it's Sunday couples and families are out walking - dogs on leads and children with skateboards. It's a sand beach and toddlers escape from their mothers and head toward the shallow waters Three booths sell ice cream and snacks and there are cafés and restaurants the length of the walk. The merry-go-round is operating and the atmosphere is festive, although the pre-Lenten carnival parades aren't until next weekend. 

We normally go to sleep at night with BBC Radio 5 playing, courtesy of the nearby British base. It's sports oriented in the daytime but overnight there are news reports, interviews, panels, and call ins. The weekends are a little less structured and as we go to bed the host is saying that fortunately on a Saturday there is a little more time. This turns out to be time to listen to former soldiers with PTSD and suicidal inclinations calling in and talking at some length. A sad situation and perhaps a therapeutic service but makes for rather depressing bedtime listening.

Saturday, February 14/2015

Valentine's day, so lots of cherry tomatoes, sweet red peppers and radishes on the veggie plate. Actually Cyprus grows radishes that are closer to baseball than tennis ball size, but these are from Holland and look normal. Maggi over for a nibbles lunch for which she has brought three small Christmas puddings, hoping that I would make brandy sauce, as I do, after J finds the recipe where it's been stored in the Polish dictionary since last year. So J's pea soup, mini spanakopetas, and nibbles. Today would have been Maggi and Magne's 30th wedding anniversary.

Friday, February 13/2015

Make bergamot and lemon curd, using the same microwave recipe as for lemon alone. Same intense yellow colour as the lemon curd (colour that comes, actually, from the butter and, especially, the egg yolks - taken from hens that have seen the sun - rather from the lemons) but slightly different flavour. J really likes it and I do - but not as much as straight lemon. Find the slightly perfumy nature of the bergamot zest a mild distraction.

Thursday, February 12/2015

One of the country's nurses' unions stages a 12 hour strike and are told that it's a poor time to ask for increased salary and benefits when 70,000 of their fellow citizens (population under 900,000, many of whom, obviously, are not in the labour force) are unemployed. At the same time students are protesting. Not much sympathy from those writing to the editor, but their complaint that it costs over €100 (£74, $141 CAD) to write the university entrance exams and that this is a hardship for poor families, seems to have some validity.

Wednesday, February 11/2015

Spend ridiculous amount of time trying to order, online, glasses to replace the ones J left in Rome. We'd actually thought of ordering from Zenni before - ever since The dental tech in Regina said how pleased she'd been and I finally got my mouth freed to ask questions. Internet reviews have been (mostly) favourable and prices excellent. Have all the info - prescription, pupillary distance, etc. the site works fairly well. You get to upload a photo of your face and try the various glasses on it, having previously filtered out unwanted colours, styles and materials. Takes a while - and then find that the program won't move to the payment screen. Use the live "help" function and someone called Jade tells me that some browsers work better than Safari. Acquire a Chrome browser via a new app. Begin again. Takes a couple of tries, but eventually reach the final payment page and get a message from Paypal that they can't send the money "right now" - or later either, it seems. Aaaaaagh.

Evening meal at Gregory's, a little establishment along the Dhekelia Road. Ailsa and Harry often eat there, in part because it's a stone's throw from their house. Jane and Bill have picked us up, which is nice. It is on a pretty good bus route but it's raining - again. Gregory's is pretty basic in appearance but friendly and the food is good - even runs to chicken kiev, which J orders. Place isn't busy on a wet Wednesday evening in February but Bill says that it's crowded in the summer as people come over from the beach across the road. Probably busier on weekends as well. Afterwards we go round the corner for coffee at the house Ailsa and Harry share with 5? dogs, innumerable (but named) cats, and various birds. And Ailsa kindly runs us home.

Tuesday, February 10/2015

Discover a review in The Guardian of Patrick Cockburn's newly published (this month) The Rise of Islamic State. Cockburn is our favourite Middle East commentator, excellent analyst of the situation in Syria and Iraq. Available on Kobo, so no sooner seen than acquired. Lovely being able to read a book covering contemporary events as it's published. So our out loud reading alternates between Iraq and wartime London.

Violent rainstorm in the evening - following more moderate raining in the daytime. High winds and rain driven horizontally against the windows.

Monday, February 9/2015

Begin reading No Cake, No Jam by Marian Hughes. A memoir written by a woman who began life pre-war in a London orphanage and then was reclaimed by a mentally ill mother and raised - or rather allowed to run wild and survive by stealing food - in wartime London. Quite astonishing that she survived sane and literate.

Sunday, February 8/2015

Looking forward to a week of rain and wind. Seems to be following us east across the Mediterranean. But much cosier here. Taste the bergamot oranges Kiki brought us yesterday from her garden tree - bergamot being the citrussy twist to Earl Grey tea. The net describes them as sweeter than lemons but more bitter than grapefruit. Seems like a fair enough description. The juice needs to be mixed with water to be drinkable but doesn't need added sugar. Marmalade?

Saturday, February 7/2015

Still slightly jetlagged. Not true jetlag, of course, as we've only crossed one time zone. And to whom could this matter less than the retired who can sleep if and when they please. But the 3 AM start gave a physical feeling similar to jetlag. Lots of internet catch up, although to be honest it doesn't look like we've missed a great deal of news, either domestically or internationally. 

Friday, February 6/2015

 Three o'clock is an indecent time to get up. Taxi to the airport. Then the unhappy discovery that J has left his glasses behind. Full flight back - looked like it wasn't going to be but then we were joined by a number of people who had apparently got on the wrong bus and consequently the wrong plane, discovered no doubt when the competition began for seats. So a half hour late but mostly made up en route and happy to land in warm sunshine. Feels like home. Shuttle from Paphos is waiting. Fields unusually green - down to January rains?