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.

Thursday, March 29/2018

To the Blacksmith Restaurant in the evening with Bill and Jane and Harry and Ailsa. Their meze is excellent and the place is humming full. Fourteen dishes, including a deep fried halloumi with a subtlehoney coating, much nicer than that may sound. As always, far too much to eat, but that's never quite so guilt inducing with H and A, who always come equipped with plastic bags for the leftovers for their many rescue animals. Mild outside as we leave, and the candle shaped light arrangements over the streets seem to go well with Easter - except that they must be, as the red bows suggest, still lighting the town centre as they did at Christmas.

Wednesday, March 28/20018

Maggi over to show us her photos from recent Sri Lankan trip. And full of stories, from wonderful Sri Lankan guide to visit with Sama, who was her friend here in Cyprus when she was working as a maid. Incredibly sad story. Sama worked here for years, underpaid and poorly treated, sending all she made home to Sri Lanka to her mother and husband who were raising her now teenage daughter. Not an uncommon scenario for Filipina and Sri Lankan women here. When she finally got to quit her job and return, her husband was killed almost immediately in a road accident and her mother died shortly afterward following surgery. And Sama with virtually no pension and not much desire to live. So a very mixed trip for M. But many pix, enough actually that her laptop runs out of battery, so to be continued on Saturday.

Tuesday, March 27/2018

Missing child described in police bulletin as white, male, 4" tall. Fortunately found by the time I see Facebook requests to be on the lookout, as first involuntary response is that 4 inch high boy might be difficult to spot.

Monday, March 26/2018

Cyprus Mail notes that Cyprus, unlike most of the western world, is not expelling its Russian diplomats.  Not astonishing, considering that Cyprus has benefitted financially from a very close relationship with Russia. As indeed has the UK, which is playing a more contortionist game - expelling the diplomats, keeping the oligarchs, and trying to ignore the money laundering.

Sunday, March 25/2018

Today is a national holiday, but not one that transfers to the Monday when it falls on a Sunday.  So are the supermarkets open? Low on bread, though not urgent. I phone Sklavenites, the nearest to inquire - one of those silly situations where their answering the phone is itself the answer to the question, which must be asked anyway because hanging up on someone is rude. Yes, they're open. But we opt not to go anyway because of horrific levels of dust in the air, fine particulate matter blowing in from the Sahara. It's been a frequent problem this winter, and clearly - or rather unclearly - not one the government can do anything about. The matter is so fine that face masks don't prevent inhalation, not that we're tempted, and it can be a significant cause of cardiopulmonary damage. We can check pollution levels on a site that gives hourly readings for Larnaca - and plenty of other world cities if we want to see how much cleaner the air is in London or see how much we resemble Beijing. Actually quite a handy site as looking out the window is an indicator but not a very precise one.

Saturday, March 24/2018

Take the bus out to th British base at Dekhelia to meet up with Bill and Jane. The restaurant there is known for its fish and chips. Fish must surely be frozen, but beautifully flaky and light, crisp batter. Then back to B&J's to watch the last of The Crown. And wonder as before. Events obviously right - but what about the slant? Was Philip that petulant? The Queen Mother that manipulative? Clementine Churchill was indeed responsible for burning Graham Sutherland's portrait of her husband, which wasn't actually hers to burn. We're old enough collectively to remember some bits and Joe and Bill good enough on the history, e.g. Suez crisis, to watch with a critical eye. Makes for Google as you go viewing.