Sunday, December 10/2023

The brave neighbour across the road is high up in the olive? tree with a long stick shaking down the highest of the fruit. He of the mixed orchard - lemons and oranges and quite probably other varieties not visible from the road. The lot is pretty densely treed but there are paths and some open spaces and it’s also home to more than one goat which we hear regularly but have yet to see. Goats presumably related to the ramshackle constructions used for shelter or feeding.

J has noticed people walking along our short road and picking small pieces of fruit to eat as they go. So we do the same. Turns out they are figs. Probably a little underripe but very nice. Figs one of the most interesting of fruits. All accounts of why are lengthy because the fig is extremely complex. This explanation, from the Ecological Society of America, by no means the most thorough:

‘Inside the rounded fruit of a fig tree is a maze of flowers. That is, a fig is not actually a fruit is an inflorescence—a cluster of many flowers and seeds contained inside a bulbous stem. Because of this unusual arrangement, the seeds—technically the ovaries of the fig—require a specialized pollinator that is adapted to navigate within these confined quarters. Here begins the story of the relationship between figs and fig wasps.

The queen of the fig wasp is almost the perfect size for the job—except, despite her tiny body, she often times will lose her wings and antennae as she enters through a tight opening in the fig. “The only link the fig cavity has to the outside world is through a tiny bract-lined opening at the apex of the fig, called the ostiole, and it is by means of this passage that the pollinating fig wasp gains access to the florets,” as described in Figweb, a site by Iziko Museums of Cape Town.

‘Once inside, the queen travels within the chamber, depositing her eggs and simultaneously shedding the pollen she carried with her from another fig. This last task, while not the queen’s primary goal, is an important one: She is fertilizing the fig’s ovaries. After the queen has laid her eggs, she dies and is digested by the fig, providing nourishment. Once the queen’s eggs hatch, male and female wasps assume very different roles. They first mate with each other (yes, brothers and sisters), and then the females collect pollen—in some species, actively gathering it in a specialized pouch and in others, accumulating it inadvertently—while the wingless males begin carving a path to the fig’s exterior. This activity is not for their own escape but rather to create an opening for the females to exit. The females will pollinate another fig as queens. The males will spend their entire lifecycle within a single fruit.’

Saturday, December 9/2023

No wonder the eggs are beautiful

 Regular Saturday market about half a mile north of us. We intend to go and investigate. Markets are usually interesting and the charity that supports cancer patients has a booth and has been advertising Christmas specialties. But once again weather intervenes. Radar app had advertised clear skies - no precipitation any nearer than Benghazi - but dark clouds move in and with them strong winds and rain. Am reminded not for the first time of my daughter as a little girl saying indignantly “The weatherman lied - again”. And look for a better world radar map. (Not too difficult to find). 

Well, maybe next week. Not cold but no great desire to walk home in the rain again so market trip postponed until next Saturday.  And from our sitting room watch the clouds move across the Mediterranean from west to east and see a rainbow emerge with one end in the sea and listen to the wind. A good day for making spaghetti sauce and for our Victorian habit of reading aloud.

Friday, December 8/2023

 The plan is to take a dolmuş down to the phone place to pick up our new mobile and then take a second dolmuş back to the Blue Song for a beer at the Friday Foreign Residents gathering. But as with all best laid plans, as Robbie Burns said, not precisely what happens. Actually what he said was the plans “gang after agley” - translatable as often go awry. 

We get to the phone place all right. Phone no problem but provider contract involves truly astonishing amount of personal info including passports. Also ask for parents’ names! This last not an unprecedented request in Cyprus and we have experienced it when going for dental x-rays. Assume it’s down to the frequent duplication of names here. If there are a great many Hasan Çeliks or, in the South, Andreas Georgious, it can be helpful to separate them by parents’ names in the records. Process triggers faint memories of the only other place that wanted a prohibitive amount of information, which was Italy - where we decided that for a weekend there was no need to bother communicating. Although Canada surprised us when our first experience buying sims involved requests for personal info. At that point we had only bought them in the UK where it had been about as simple as buying a candy bar. Here in TRNC the lovely girl is also required to ask for not one but two phone numbers to be used “in case of emergency”. Could be friend or foreign number she says helpfully. We give her D’s and our own UK mobile numbers. But struggle to imagine what sort of emergency would lead to these numbers being used. Earthquake? Criminal activity? Unpaid bills? And what use would the numbers we provide be? 

The process not instant, but we leave with the new mobile and have nearly an hour before we’re due at Blue Song. So decide to investigate Sokmar, nearby supermarket larger than our local one. Good produce and a nice deli section and supplies bulk peanuts - as well as J’s favourite Turkish chocolate bars (well, ok, my favourites as well). 

  

However, discover when we’re ready to leave that the previously threatening skies are now delivering torrential rain. Have in fact brought rain jackets in the backpack but this calls for ponchos and rubber boots. And dolmuşes are hailed from the roadside not awaited at bus shelters - which are mostly non-existent anyway. Eventually catch one and ask if it will go to Blue Song. Yes. But realise after a couple of turns that this would be by a circuitous route that will pass much closer to home first. So bail out early, almost literally, and home to dry clothes, hot tea, and whisky.

Thursday, December 7/2023

  Getting somewhat better at the dolmuş system. The word itself means stuffed and refers to the tradition of the little shared taxi/minibuses being stuffed full of passengers. From the word dolma, meaning stuffed vegetables (compare with the Greek dolmades, stuffed vine leaves). Mostly midday they’re not all that stuffed. The trick is figuring out the routes, some of which seem more predictable than others.  When one stops you can say your destination and the driver will confirm. Helps to choose a fairly well known shop or restaurant which could be your actual destination or just very near it. We’ve also begun to suspect that the routes may vary slightly to accommodate the needs of passengers - if you mention a particular location the driver might take a minor detour to pass it. Just speculation but routes do seem to vary a bit, unpredictably (to us at least). 

Stop at one of the mobile providers. Looking to pick up an inexpensive second mobile. Currently using a Canadian phone with a UK sim. UK sim pretty cheap to use most places but all outside sims astonishingly expensive in Turkiye and TRNC - calls at £1 a minute, which is not unusual for foreign sims and presumably derived from some complicated revenge system. Possible to use WhatsApp for many but not all calls. Simplest would be to acquire a second phone, usable elsewhere with other sims anyway.

Phone shop pretty close to Three Bears Russian deli, provider of excellent chicken and pork cured sausages. Also various types of smoked fish, which we haven’t yet tried. And, if one were to go earlier than we ever seem to manage to, good rye bread. Recipes all Russian but ingredients and production local. J diverted en route to deli by discovery of a small DIY shop, crowded with innumerable desirable items, many of them with price tag in US dollars - much more unusual here than pounds or euros. Price at the till translated into Turkish lira. Provides some protection against the falling lira resulting in the shop selling goods for less than they paid to acquire them. Twenty some years ago in Marmaris, Turkiye we visited a supermarket that had digital price labels on the shelves. Were very impressed by what we took to be high tech stocking system. Then realised that the currency was so unstable that was the only way to keep up. It was literally possible to choose an item and find that the price had gone up by the time you reached the checkout. Some prices here quite good, though, and J acquires a can of WD 40 equivalent pretty inexpensively.

Wednesday, December 6/2023

 

On the way back from the store

Thunderstorm in the early hours of the morning. First hear the distant rumbling and then see the lightning. Best watched from the sitting room as it’s mostly sheet lightning with the occasional strike out over the Mediterranean, though it’s too dark to actually see the sea. But the action is to the north of us and the radar shows Cyprus, as usual, on the periphery of the stormy weather with Turkey and Syria experiencing much more. And, while it’s still dark, we hear the rooster - Chanticleer trying to raise the sun.

Electrician round first thing in the morning to fix a defective switch. Unrelated, J spends much of the day fixing both adapter plugs and his voltmeter. Plugs here all UK system. Also in the South. And driving on the left hand side of the road. Well, Cyprus gained independence from Britain in 1960, well into the motor age. Although it was 1967 when Sweden made an overnight change from left to right hand driving. Not that it could have been done other than overnight. And Canada has its own mixed history, with some provinces left hand drive and others right until into the 1920’s. Newfoundland more than half an hour later at 1947 - though of course it wasn’t part of Canada until 1949.

Tuesday, December 5/2023

 Sunny and warm in spite of Saharan dust particles in the air. One form of air pollution that there’s not much way to fight. All natural. The bedroom is on the south side and scoops up the morning sun, making it a lovely place for coffee and a morning read. Can see that this may be less enchanting in the summer - and we spent most of the summer of 2020 in North Cyprus during the lockdown - but it’s perfect now.

Still adapting to gas cooking, but we’ve persuaded the burner to do a slow simmer. Spaghetti tonight with a sauce made from local aubergines and peppers. Pepper paste as easy to find as tomato paste and comes in hot or sweet, which is basically mild - the kind we buy as you can always add heat.

Monday, December 4/2023

 Six AM start for the second day running. Could get used to this - Not. We’re in plenty of time for our Turkish Air flight to Istanbul. Score seats next to the window in the departure lounge with a view of our plane - a rather grumpy faced Boeing 787.

Excellent in-seat entertainment and the flight isn’t full so we have a bank of three seats to ourselves. Food usually good on Turkish Airways as well. And it is this time too - briefly. Or could repunctuate as too briefly. Cheese, sliced turkey, tomato, cucumber, olives as well as a roll, and a small almond cake. And quite drinkable coffee. J, observing the young couple across the aisle, realises it’s possible to ask for wine as well. Yes, of course - red or white? Just nicely started with food half eaten and coffee scarcely begun when the stewardesses charge down the aisle telling everyone to put their trays up. But we have coffee on the trays. They are adamant and not their usual helpful selves either. No suggestion on what to do with the contents of the trays. Just a sharp “You can’t have trays down when you’re landing”. So we’re landing? Repair to the simulated flight map, which is quite a good one. Well, ok. Say half an hour out of Istanbul. Maybe only twenty minutes. Roughly over Çorlu and slightly north of the Sea of Marmara. Definitely losing altitude. Deliberately? Nobody yelling “brace”, which must be a good thing. Involuntary landings on water somewhat preferable to those on land. But actually now that the meal has been sabotaged the panic seems to be over. Once again we take inspiration from the couple across the aisle who are happily drinking glasses of wine. We’ve retained possession of two small bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon and a couple of plastic glasses. The stewardesses have apparently lost interest. If we go down how better than with a nice glass of wine?

Post mortem. Not ours, happily. We decide that the problem was that the stewardesses, for whatever reason, didn’t get round to serving breakfast until much too late in the flight and were told that regardless people had to prepare for landing. They had probably been told off by a superior and took a bit of flak from unhappy passengers but once the seats and trays were in position the panic was over.

The connection time is fairly short, a bit over an hour and Istanbul is arguably the largest airport in the world, but the connection process is the best we’ve experienced. Immediately after disembarking we head for the exit for international connecting flights. A man takes a quick look at our boarding passes to be sure we are indeed headed for an international flight and that’s all that’s needed. No more security checks just a well signed route past an endless sparkly Disneyland of duty free shops and cafés. Must be a good kilometre, but then it’s the only exercise we’ve had today. 

And a peaceful, unhurried boarding and flight to Ercan, Nicosia’s airport, newly built since we last flew from here. Flight interrupted only by delivery of the best sandwich we’ve had on an airline, a warm homemade style bun filled with gooey cheese, red pepper, and olive paste. Wine is Merlot this time. Flight is an hour and forty minutes and we’re met by another of Ozy’s taxi drivers for the last leg. Fifty-six km but an hour and a quarter drive - mostly down to heavy traffic in the first half of the trip. Crazy day and a half (thirty-three and a half hours) but mission accomplished and we’re home. 

Sunday, December 3/2023

 Up at six to begin our politically required re-entry into North Cyprus. When we took the taxi on Monday we entered the North legally from everybody’s point of view. However as the Republic of Cyprus (RoC, South) considers that the whole of the island ought to be theirs, their position would be that we have never left the republic. And eventually they would have considered that we had been there for over 90 days without leaving, thereby violating our visas. So - today we take a taxi back to the South in order to leave from Larnaca, thus satisfying everyone’s criteria. Well, everyone except us. As we want to be in the North we are stuck taking a circuitous route- Larnaca to Athens to Istanbul to Lefkoşa (Nicosia).  Could in theory be done in one day but not easily.

Nice day for the trip. Temps in the low twenties both here and in Athens. Get to the airport ridiculously early due to an excess of caution. Perfect weather for drinking coffee and people watching outside, though. People dressed for all sorts of weather but of course they will be going to and coming from a wide variety of places. It’s shirt sleeve weather but we see everything from shorts to winter jackets. Lufthansa has cancelled two flights to Munich, (which seems odd until J later notes that Munich has received 40 cm of  snow.).

Booked at a studio near the airport where we stayed in February - when it snowed in Athens, although not forty centimetres worth. Lovely host, Joanna, who has left us not only sandwiches and homemade jam but a carafe of dry rosé wine as well. AND she has saved the specs J left behind ten months ago! 

Saturday, December 2/2023

 Yellow trumpetbush (Tecoma Stans - and goes by a number of other names) growing next to our deck. Locals say it can be messy and needs to be cut back. Probably right, but for the moment just enjoying it, though not at its most luxuriant. Nor are bougainvillea and the other flowering trees in December. Cyprus’s concession to winter. Fair enough, as citrus fruits flourish in winter.

Getting used to cooking with gas again. Virtually all professional cooks prefer it and can see the advantages. Full heat there instantly, and when it’s off it’s off immediately. Does seem a little less willing than electric to putter along just under a simmer.  Here it’s not only cheaper than electric but unaffected, obviously, by any power outages. And this hob is new and has a modern instant on feature. No finding empty lighters or dripping candle wax by the burners.

Buy eggs at our little supermarket. And note with interest that there is nothing sacred about eggs coming in multiples of six. As indeed why should there be? Have long suspected that the near universal use of base ten in mathematics is down to humans having ten fingers. Twelve is divisible by 2,3,4 and 6 but ten only by 2 and 5, so logic should have dictated, were it not for the convenience of counting on one’s fingers….Anyway, here eggs may be in cartons of six or twelve - or eight, ten, fifteen, twenty or thirty. Or, as we have bought them at markets, in bags of any number you choose. Though those can be hard to get home unbroken. Come home with a carton of ten.

Friday, December 1/2023

 

Hard to believe it’s December. The day starts with clouds shrouding the mountain tops. The highest peak, Mt Selvili, at 1024 metres, is behind us. Clouds dissipate though and the day is sunny, reaching a little over 20. 

We walk down in the afternoon to the Blue Song, a favourite restaurant from last spring. It’s on the seafront and you can eat either inside or out, though in good weather there isn’t always much difference in Cypriot restaurants as they tend to have sliding glass walls rather than windows .

On Friday afternoons the Foreign Residents Association meets here. All of foreign origin - English, German, Scandinavian, and more - but not all residents. Some have retired here but many live elsewhere but regularly spend part of the year here. It’s partly a relaxed social organisation but also an excellent source of information on everything from the Byzantine visa system to where to buy local SIM cards. Chat with a couple of people including Horst, a genial German chap who is apparently its chair. TWO draft beer 120 TL (€3.80, £3.25 $5.60 CAD). Hard to complain. 🍺🍺.

Thursday, November 30/2023

Spectacular view from our bedroom. Corner of the deck looking up to the peaks of the Pentadaktyl Mountains. Sun first hits the craggy rock around quarter past eight. If we lived on the southern slope we would have it much earlier, but then we wouldn’t have the view of the sea from the other side of the flat. Looking across the orchard, or past the next door neighbour’s arbour we see the dark blue of the Mediterranean, and, if it’s clear, the mountainous coast of Turkey. 

We take the dolmus in to Girne. Hadn’t realised it, but the little buses are not a municipal service but are independently owned and in some cases in competition. This explains a violent argument between our driver of yesterday and the driver of another dolmus that had just passed us. An overtaking bus can unfairly scoop up the passengers from the next stop. Didn’t come to blows though sounded as if it might. Bearing in mind that even quite friendly disputes in the Mediterranean can sound murderous to Anglo ears. Used to say that I had divorced a man without ever talking to him like that.

Today’s driver is loud and cheerful - especially loud. Spends most of the trip in speaking at astonishingly high volume, presumably to some unseen listener to whom he is connected through his earphones. Speech occasionally punctuated by hand gestures, both hands joining in. A (Russian?) woman we have picked up along the way tells him bluntly that he is too loud. He apologises and lowers the volume very slightly. A few minutes later she asks him to drive a little faster as she is already late. Then complains that he shouldn’t be talking at all while he is driving as it’s dangerous. Complaints pretty cheerfully ignored, leading to speculation that he has as much domestic practice in ignoring criticism as she has in giving it.

 

Wednesday, November 29/2023

 

J decides to harvest the oranges, or those that are reachable at least. They’re in the process of harvesting themselves, with quite a few splatted onto the ground underneath the tree where, J points out, they do add to the nutrient value. Can also see an orange tree  in the orchard across the road from our building where we can hear, but have not yet seen, at least one goat. Remember an orchard down the road last year where goats reclined happily amidst the fallen oranges.

Young man arrives in the late morning to connect the internet. He speaks no English but he and J appear to agree on what is happening, a phenomenon I first noted in Famagusta when the plumber, who spoke no English conveyed both history and essence of the problem to J, who speaks no Turkish. Concluded that they communicated in some version of universal handyman.

Tuesday, November 28/2023

 Broom but no dustpan. Could also use mop and pail. Repair to handy little supermarket. Has pretty well everything and, somewhat like Sioux Lookout, no need to waste hours in comparison shopping. Reminded of when I first moved to SL and my watch strap broke. Two of the right size in the Northern. Bought the one that was not pink and thought one could save a lot of time in this town. Here, interestingly, the default assumption seems to be that one would normally wish to buy mop handle and mopping bit separately, as it’s unlikely they would wear out/break at the same time. Very practical and comfortingly uncapitalist. No need to sell people what they don’t yet require.

Discover that we have an orange tree, actually growing in the nether reaches of our extensive wrap around deck. Better than that, there are currently oranges on it and they’re surprisingly sweet. Not an endless supply, but they’re everywhere at this time of year, including at our little supermarket.

Monday, November 27/2023

 Taxi booked for nine and arrives about quarter to, but we’re ready. An hour to the border and pretty quick across. A bit of a queue but not long. Driver doesn’t speak English - so no requirement for idle chat. Less than an hour to Lapta, where he does ask which way to turn but fortunately not until we’re in territory where we know the answer. Have memories of being in countries where drivers did not know how to read maps, though in all fairness J points out that it can be remarkably difficult to sort out a city map of quite familiar territory when all the names are in an unfamiliar language, particularly if it happens to be one that uses other than a Roman alphabet.

We’re not far from the house we rented last spring but there are a couple of advantages. For one thing we’re not as high up the north slope of the mountain so significantly more sunshine. Though this is a country we have lived in during the summer (in the 2020 lockdown) so do understand why mountain height and shade is an asset in very hot weather. We’re also closer to the small supermarket we used before. Prices pretty good and pretty fair range. And the dolmuses go past the supermarket. Dolmus being the term for the small shared vans or buses. In Tunisia they were shared taxis that just waited until enough would be passengers had showed up but here they follow fixed routes in and around a city - Girne (Kyrenia) in this case.

D drops over bearing lemons.Twenty of them! Will no have the happy decision of whether to make lemon curd or lemonade. Also drops us at the place where you sign up for the internet. When will it be connected? Shrug. Well, this is the laid back lifestyle isn’t it. Dolmus back as far as our supermarket where we get wine and yoghurt and a couple of bananas.

Sunday, November 26/2023

 

Good day for packing up. Or at least a good day for being inside and not out. Very high levels of particulate matter in the air, both fine and large. And, probably not unrelated as the Sahara is usually the guilty party in this part of the world, strong wind warnings and thunder storms expected. There are isolated rain showers and some token thunder and lightning but the wind lives up to the predictive warnings. Not cold, though. Temperatures stay above twenty.

Could probably have found a sports bar for the final Formula One race of the season as we have done in Cyprus before but with access that has been intermittent at best we’ve rather got out of the habit of watching. Would probably never have begun if things hadn’t been so different forty years ago. That was before F1 was desperate to sell itself to any country with an excess of money but no tradition of motor sports. In those days BBC carried the races as did CBC (usually about six hours after the fact so you had to be careful not to hear the results before watching). Probably more lucrative now, but with some loss of soul. So today Verstappen won the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and the season championship. Do know who Verstappen is. Remind me on Abu Dhabi.

Saturday, November 25/2023

 Have lamented the disappearance of the old boys - the coffee drinkers, the smokers, the backgammon players - from the Mediterranean city centres. But not completely disappeared. This photo taken between the animal charity shop and the second hand store. Not far from the square by the Eleanora that has become all upmarket coffee shops. Yes, do ask if it is ok to photograph. Bloke on the left grins and the backgammon players go on with their game.

Come home past what used to be the tennis courts and remember that they’ve been moved - actually a couple of years back but seems we don’t usually take this route.  There are new and reportedly impressive tennis courts elsewhere, but more interestingly this has allowed the excavation of the ancient city of Kition which lies underneath modern Larnaca to expand. Human habitation in the area goes back to Neolithic times (nearby Khirokitia is 6000 years old and a moving place to visit).  Larnaca/Kition not quite that old but it was a port city in Mycenaean and Phoenician days and there have  been recent finds of the remains of berths for docking triremes. This is all within a kilometre of various places we have stayed over the past twenty-four years and the site is accessible for a small fee but apparently there is very little to see - unlike Pafos, for example, where a day’s visit is really not long enough.

Friday, November 24/2023

 Coming to an end of our four weeks in the Republic of Cyprus before heading north to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, TRNC. So taking with us the goods stored in boxes here at the Sunflower. Boxes down to two this year but that by virtue of one of them being enormous. Will it sandwich into taxi going north. And if we find a smaller one will everything fit? Problem solved, surprisingly, by discovering a large empty suitcase. In the time honoured custom of Cypriots as well as many others it has been left next to a refuse bin about a block away from us, free either to be salvaged or to be collected by the bin men. Suspect a broken wheel or latch, but not a bit of it. Everything in working order and clean as a whistle. Someone bought a sports car and it didn’t fit in the boot? Happy discovery anyway. 

Also stop by Sklavenitis where we have previously spotted some coffee equipment. Coffee bean grinder and French press. Surprisingly - or maybe not as the whole world seems to be piling in - Sklavenitis is holding a Black Friday sale. Would be curious to know if any of the customers know the origins of Black Friday, but of course it’s the same here as anywhere else. Encourage a spate of buying and clear out some old stock before the Christmas spree. Do discover when we open the boxes at home that the plug on the grinder is a European one, whereas both North and South Cyprus use British plugs. Oh well. The price was good and we do travel with adapters. 

Travel, for us at least, rather like camping. Forage, salvage, adapt. And enjoy the stunning scenery.

Thursday, November 23/2023

 So few of the old buildings left in the centre of Larnaca - or many old world cities. This one still standing, but barely. And not sure if the graffiti is an asset or not. A little more cheerful than it might otherwise have been. Would be nice to think that it was the equivalent of a listed building and would be restored but actually looks far more likely to collapse. The building on its left is now a gaping hole. High rises everywhere. 

Stop at Sklavenitis for peanuts and coffee. Coffee happily labelled “grounded” coffee. Should really be grateful that there is ever any attempt to label in English as well as Greek. Canada careful to fulfil the requirements of labelling products in French and English, but rare to see any other language. Though no one would suspect based on a shopping trip in the South that in the Republic of Cyprus both Greek and Turkish are official languages. Have never seen anything with Turkish labels, although it’s entirely possible that one is legally entitled to use Turkish in court. Anyway, like grounded coffee. Morning cup does leave me feeling grounded.

Post script. J says that he had known that Turkish as well as Greek was an official language. It goes back to the original constitution at the time of independence (1960). One of the advantages of living with an historian.

Wednesday, November 22/2023

 From down the street comes the sound of cheerful accordion music. A strolling player, accompanied by wife and baby. I take a picture from third floor balcony, nearly a block away. He turns and waves, blows a kiss.

Over to Super Discount, still known to us as the Elephant store from one of its previous incarnations. Home with a chicken and some fruit and veggies. One of the nicer things about buying produce here - apart from the general lack of plastic packaging, with the notable exception of Lidl - is that you can buy the amount you actually want. Well, that is related to the non packaging as well as to the old European and Middle Eastern tradition of shopping several times a week, for freshness and no doubt originally down to lack of refrigeration. Anyway, it allows me to buy two tomatoes, three onions, six mushrooms, four clementines. 

Just after sunset

Tuesday, November 21/2023

 By bus to visit Maggi in Mazotos, a village about 20 kilometres south of Larnaca. Arrive late morning so there’s time for a g&t before lunch. Maxi, her rescue dog, has known us for years but with covid and irregular visits has probably only seen us once in the last four or five years. No doubt she remembers, though. And heads straight for Joe who always used to bring her treats.

We drive down to the restaurant on the beach. A Cypriot family one - and no problems re adequate ventilation! Torn between sheftalia sausages, which I love, and fish and chips, but in the end all four of us go for fish and chips, which Maggi and Brian say is their regular order. Good meal and lots of chatter and laughter. Small pieces of various fruits preserved in sweet syrup come with the coffee, a Cypriot specialty on both sides of the island. 

M and B also come here often in the early morning for a swim. Sea temperature today is 24, pretty close to the air temperature and the beach completely empty. Brian has to go to his flat in Oroklini, just north of Larnaca, so gives us a lift back.