Friday, January 31/2025

Doğan arrives shortly before nine with a technical bloke in tow. Had expected him but our understanding was that he was bringing a touch up paint man. Never quite sure whether misunderstandings with D are second language confusion or just D with too many irons in the fire. Actually, his English pretty fluent. 

Anyway, touch up paint not urgent but current mission is. Alexander has been gone for over two months, following whatever his winter pursuits are, during which time leaves have collected on his patio and apparently clogged the drain. J had said he wondered where the rain water went, as unlike us he has no obvious exit point. Turns out the answer is that it leaked into Alexander’s flat. Remedial and preventative action obviously required.

Walking home from Blue Song and see that sun is just about to disappear behind the mountain. By the time I take out the iPad it has gone, leaving a white glow. Time is 16:04. Beverley says that it will move farther west as spring comes, eventually setting over the sea. But sooner than that it will move past the highest peak of the mountain, giving us light for longer.

Thursday, January 30/2025

Larnaca used to be home to lovely scented flowering shrubs which J occasionally not all that daringly picked from where they grew in front of the police station. We’d spotted a rather scruffy example on the road to the Saturday market and saved an unhopeful looking spray.

So yesterday we stopped at a nursery near the Alsançak supermarkets, equipped with photographs and Latin name, to inquire whether they carried same. Apologised for not knowing the Turkish name. Apparently it’s senna - as is the English and the short version of the Latin. The girl was kind but explained they’re endemic, and suggested looking on the mountain. Well, endemic explains the lack of police concern at J’s harvesting from their hedge. If they weren’t about to stir themselves to pursue speeders passing the station then a few sprigs of a bush that grows wild would hardly merit their attention.

However, J has been nurturing a few seeds from a pod that accompanied the spray we acquired near the market and today shows me the one which has produced a tiny green shoot. So, maybe….

Make pudding out of a packet for the first time in decades. Bought it Christmas Eve in case the custard I planned didn’t survive my attempts to create it without refinements like scales or measuring cups. Not impossible  to find oneself with a saucepan of hot milk and scrambled egg fragments. But custard was fine and had forgotten the packet until noting today most of a litre of milk needing to be used. The package, helpfully, has directions in Turkish, English, German, French and Arabic. Still guessing which glass is equivalent to a cup, but less critical without eggs. 

 

Courtesy Jonathan Gan

Shopping day. Dolmuş fares have just gone up but actually pretty reasonable. Eighty-five lira from Lapta to Girne (£1.91, $3.43 CAD). That’s about fifteen km. But lesser amounts for shorter distances. Fifty lira (£1.12, $2 CAD) down to our usual shopping area - several larger supermarkets, the Russian specialty shop and the excellent DIY cum hardware store. 

We discovered the DIY place last year and love it. Not only for the huge variety of useful items but because the staff are great - knowledgeable, quick on the uptake, helpful but not pushy. Should be writing advertisements for them. 

Russian shop unfortunately doesn’t have either the salt herring that J thought we were going for or the German sausage I thought we were going for. Not that the lack of communication mattered as it turns out.

And from the how the hell did he do that department:

Courtesy Cyprus-FAQ

One more to add to the lost control of the car list. Described as having fallen off the bridge but may have lost something in translation. Suspect it simply missed the bridge altogether. Seems to have been travelling from left to right across the photograph, so to speak. Veered into the right lane. As people here drive on the left, that was a significant veer. Alive, but not uninjured. (Predictive text was determined I should write uninsured instead of uninjured, but that is actually unlikely). It happened at ten o’clock last night so suppose he might conceivably have fallen asleep. 

Tuesday, January 28/2025

 Enjoying the local flora. Always something in bloom even when flowering shrubs go into their quiet season. Noticing more yellow roses out at the house around the corner. And some trees are interesting even in winter attire. The chinaberry tree has striking looking fruit - clusters of marble sized berries that stay on the tree all winter, gradually fading. It’s actually a member of the mahogany family.

Still winter but drink our coffee on the patio. Officially hitting eighteen degrees but much much hotter in direct sun. And then an immediate chill when the sun disappears, of course. Figures just released on last year’s TRNC temperatures. Near fifty year record on June 16 with a temperature of 46.8. And at the other extreme a record low was established on February 29 in Nicosia at -0.2. Literally freezing. We were in North Cyprus then, though not in Nicosia. Don’t actually remember its being unusually cold, so maybe it wasn’t here - or not for long.

Monday, January 27/2025

 Not quite finished acquiring provisions as we walk home from the grocery store. Pick three lemons from an overhanging branch and snip a twig off a large rosemary bush growing by the roadside.

And J has resumed his old practice of making orange honey. He takes the peel of a freshly peeled orange and squirts the natural oil - not juice, oil - into the honey. Beautiful.

Sunday, January 26/2025

 Light rain much of the day, which would be unsurprising were it not for very clear radar maps showing rain nowhere near the island and the squiggly blobs of rain that do exist near Cyprus clearly not headed our way. Difficult to argue with the drops hitting the puddles on the patio, though.

Should have bought bread yesterday, but instead make a loaf of Irish soda bread. Make it a couple of times a week at home but there is a difference. Not the lack of buttermilk here as it’s easy enough to sour milk for the purpose and works quite satisfactorily. Often do that at home. Nor the fact that I use whole wheat flour. Have for years used it for everything. It’s really the fact that the flour here is a much finer texture, almost talcum powder fine, and it handles differently. Bread tastes fine but somewhat more inclined to crumble when slicing - though that could be down to the fact that we can never bring ourselves to wait for it to cool before cutting it. The only time I’ve bought flour of similar texture in Canada was when I purchased flour imported from India, the only 10 kilo bag of whole wheat flour the store had. And yes, what on earth is Canada doing importing wheat from India? 

Meanwhile south of the border - the Cypriot border that is - reports of a ceremony yesterday to commemorate the fifty-first anniversary of the death of George Grivas. Grivas fought with EOKA, a guerilla group seeking enosis - political union with Greece. The group was declared illegal and engaged in a violent coup d’état when the government rejected enosis. There were strong objections raised by non government political parties to official sponsorship of a commemoration ceremony and clearly the government knew it would be controversial as over two hundred police were in attendance with water cannons on standby. Bizarre from any outsider’s viewpoint - official veneration of a man whose lifetime violent fight was to become part of another country. And goes some way toward explaining why most Greek Cypriots are unable to see Cyprus as anything other than Greek. Well, this is the Middle East.

Saturday, January 25/2025

 Lovely morning for the Saturday market. No sign of the honey lady though. Hoping she’s just one of the sellers who take January off because business is slacker. Her honey is a little more expensive than that at the supermarkets but thicker and nicer. Do get broccoli from the produce man as well as a couple of books - an Ian Rankin and Aprons and Silver Spoons, memoirs of a 1930’s London kitchen maid, from the animal rescue charity stall where we have a chat with Beverley who is working here as usual.

Surprised to spot a photo of a Canada is Not for Sale hat in the Cyprus Mail. Cyprus not usually particularly interested in fellow Commonwealth countries other than the UK. Not particularly anti American either. Happy to court US assistance in upgrading air and naval bases “for humanitarian purposes” while experiencing relatively minimal. complaints about the sovereign British base in Akrotiri being used by American as well as British planes assisting Israel in its attacks on Gaza.

Friday, January 24/2025

Well, happy thought for those of us living in the northern hemisphere. Not only are the days getting longer - though not quite as long if you’re living on the north slope of a mountain - but the past ten weeks, the dark fifth of the year - are indeed past.

Would normally have been our day to meet up with friends at Blue Song for a drink and a chat but it’s been cloudy with ill timed showers so we give it a miss. Clouds not a problem but prefer not to get a wetting when halfway there. 

But lots to read. Still reading aloud Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power, but alternating it with Claud Cockburn’s autobiography, A Discord of Trumpets which covers the same period in Germany - plus a good deal more in England, Hungary and elsewhere - from a very different perspective. Had become interested while reading journalist Patrick Cockburn’s biography of his father and did a search - not particularly optimistically since the book was published in 1956 - and pleased to find that it was available on Kobo. Even more pleased to discover that Cockburn senior is a delightfully good writer and the pages are peopled with a trove of eccentric characters and exotic places.

But lots to read. 

Thursday, January 23/2025

Courtesy Cyprus Mail

Seems that the threat of electricity cuts resulting from lack of Turkish oil for generators is over, unsurprisingly. Have not pursued the intricacies of supposed criminal connections but the ship. Yeni Yuzyil (pictured), which has been lying off the coast near Girne, will be permitted to unload its oil. As “it was found that its links to an alleged organised crime ring were more tenuous than first believed”. Not that shipping oil to Israel appears to have bothered official Turkish consciences any.

 Meanwhile it seems that not all smuggling between North and South is one way. There have been a number of cases of bringing meat illegally from the South as well as instances of bringing expensive manufactured goods across. However, a man was arrested in Larnaca and charged with possessing 83 boxes of 200 cigarettes each, acquired in the North and destined to accompany him to Britain. The cigarettes were illegal in the first place as they had not been marked as taxed. And there would have been difficulties at the other end as it is only legal to take 200 cigarettes in to the UK (or 50 cigars for those who prefer), leaving an embarrassing excess of 16,400 smokes for the bloke to explain at customs on landing. However, the Larnaca police relieved him of his burden, allowed him to make what they termed an out of court settlement of €7000, and destroyed the cigarettes - or said they did.

Wednesday, January 22/2025

 Rain as promised - could say threatened but this is an island at risk of desertification. And really rain not a problem. Always have food, drink, books to read. And apart from the provisions it’s not cold and we wouldn’t melt if we put on our rain jackets and walked down to the store. We never assume in London that it’s impossible to go out in the rain.

Lack of electricity could become a problem, though not a fatal one. Apparently we are down to twenty days supply of oil to operate the generators that supply our electricity. Several caveats. The problem doesn’t actually originate with TRNC but is a complicated - and not particularly interesting - spinoff of a Turkish corruption scandal. Ships from Türkiye being the means of transporting the required oil. Also the Republic of Cyprus has allowed that it would be able if necessary to supply some electricity if needed. And there are occasions of cooperation, despite accompanying patronising rhetoric. Mutual assistance in fighting forest fires comes to mind. Our stove top is gas, though the oven (obviously less necessary) and fridge aren’t. Lights are but have battery alternative. And could always dine by candlelight. Romance not dead amongst the old folks. Worst problem would be the fact that the water pump is electrically operated, as at home. So, of course, is WiFi - as in news and communication (which we managed pretty well without when first retired). In other words permanent cessation of electricity would be problematic but rationing - say down to twelve hours a day - wouldn’t be. Not actually expecting either.

Tuesday, January 21/2025

 Starbucks in the news recently for anti-union stance, and more recently than that for demanding that customers buy something if they want to sit. Then most recently a statement that this new requirement has been announced for US Starbucks premises and will not affect the UK. Which is comforting.

Not everyone likes Starbucks coffee but we’re fine with it - you do know you’re awake for the day. Complaints about £5 for a cup of coffee but prices have risen everywhere, including for ground coffee (or grounded as some of the Cypriot stores in the South were pleased to call it) at the grocery store. And actually a basic filter coffee at a UK Starbucks is half that - £2.55 to be precise. The £5 charges are for the fancy sugar fixes pretending to be honest coffee.

But fond memories of the London Starbucks on Queensway. For several years when we stayed at the Baron Hotel round the corner we referred to its cave like basement as our office, and while we did dutifully buy a filter coffee we also stayed longer than the price of same could reasonably have entitled us to, though not if it reached the point where there were no seats available for new arrivals. The staff were a pretty tolerant lot with regard to clientele. Apart from the likes of us there were people clearly filling in the time between hotel checkout and train time. And quite a lot of people who were misfits of one kind or another. Reading the newspapers, talking to themselves, making minor adjustments to dress or repacking the bags in which their lives resided. And eating, almost always food acquired in less expensive places - marked down sandwiches from Tesco or even slices of toast (from a hostel breakfast?) Usually, though not quite always, they acknowledged the obligation to buy a cup of coffee or tea as table rent. And the young baristas seemed to regard them as part of the less fortunate who should be tolerated and even welcomed.

w

Monday, January 20/2025

It would be a toss up whether it would be easier to learn Greek or Turkish, not that our decision on where to spend our time was in any way language dependent. The chief disadvantage to Greek is the Greek alphabet. Do not badly with capitals or even lower case - slowly - but script is another matter. Though some people’s handwriting in English is pretty discouraging too. Turkish, happily, uses the Roman alphabet - probably the biggest favour Ataturk did his people. But there the simplicity ends. It’s not an Indo-European language and therefore only loan words - of which, fortunately, there are a fair number - look familiar. The Foreign Services Institute, used by diplomats, ranks both languages four out of five on a scale of difficulty, estimating forty-four weeks to achieve fluency. Similar to Russian or Vietnamese but easier than Chinese or Arabic.Have no expectation of becoming fluent but a few words and phrases always helpful. 

Both Cypriot Turkish and Cypriot Greek are variants on the mainland versions, if not actual dialects. Beverley, whose Turkish was acquired while she was teaching in Istanbul, says locals here told her she “talked posh”. Apparently Cypriot Turkish is a blend of Ottoman Turkish and a dialect from the Taurus mountains in southern Turkey, with added bits of Greek, English, Italian, French, and Arabic. But mutually intelligible with standard Turkish. Think Glaswegian and Texan - or maybe better not.

Cypriot Greek in some ways more interesting. The short explanation is that modern Greek has evolved considerably from Ancient Greek - in many ways changing more in the process than Cypriot Greek has, with Cypriot Greek retaining more elements of the ancient language while incorporating English, Turkish, Latin, Italian and Arabic words. Bringing to mind the English language in the UK and America. Usage that Brits complain is American” is frequently just older - sometimes much older - British use.

Sunday, January 19/2025

We’re sitting in the warm sun enjoying a drink, and in J’s case a cigar. Happy view of the Mediterranean down the slope beyond the orchard. And thinking that the remaining electrocuted bat on the electrical wires does nothing to improve the aesthetics of the scene. When it occurs to me that what we have here is a real life - or more accurately death - Memento Mori. As in the Medieval and Renaissance paintings enjoining one to remember death - think on your mortality. Somewhat out of fashion in recent centuries.

 

St Jerome in his Study (Dürer, 1521)

Much commentary online over the increase of the monthly  minimum wage to 37818 lira net ($1540 CAD, £874). Mostly, apart from the unions obviously, astonishment verging occasionally on rage at how high it is. Difficult to assess without a lot more information. For one thing it seems that the minimum wage here is not significantly different from the average wage, which in many countries is not an amount that anyone is seriously expected to live on - take for example US at $7.25 an hour (and yes, I know in some states it’s higher). Also the TRNC economy is subsidised - to what degree is unclear - by Türkiye. In return for which there is no real industry or manufacturing here and most goods are imported from Türkiye. So, interesting if not highly transparent.

Saturday, January 18/2025

Courtesy Cyprus FAQ

Seems that there are endless serious car accidents here and mostly ones that appear to be inexplicable. Typically the news report says that the driver of the car lost control and hit - variously - a signpost, a tree, or another car. It’s true, as one resident said in response to the comment “but that road is straight as an arrow”, that we rarely have all the information and a driver might conceivably have had a heart attack, for instance. So I stop reflecting self-righteously that I’ve only once lost control of a car and that was on black ice. Though it does seem likely that here speed, drink and inattention are more probable than black ice.

Then note that yesterday following nearly a thousand accidents the Manitoba Transportation and Infrastructure was asking motorists to avoid travelling on all roadways in southern Manitoba as conditions  worsened and visibility neared zero. And road conditions in Northern Ontario lately similarly hazardous, though as in Northern Cyprus exacerbated by driver failures. Grateful to be enjoying Mediterranean sunshine.

Salad tonight with lovely lettuce from Beverley and John’s abundant garden - still growing twelve hours earlier. I make flatbread and J experiments pretty successfully with making frozen yoghurt with our regular sheep’s milk yoghurt - no, it isn’t strained because sheep’s milk yoghurt is as thick and creamy as strained (Greek) yoghurt without - and honey. A keeper.

Friday, January 17/2025

 

Warm, but windy. And whitecaps. Drink with Beverley and John and Criegen outside the Blue Song in the sun.

The Americans have agreed to drop the embargo on selling arms to the Republic of Cyprus (South), which claims it needs them for self defence. The implication is that Turks and Turkish Cypriots may attack - which is ludicrous. In fact if the Republic of Cyprus stopped assisting in attacks on Gaza and Yemen no one at all would have any motive to attack them. 

One presumes that the US decision was not in response to the tireless importuning of the Greek Cypriots, though the Cyprus Mail reports « Trump Urged to Make Cyprus Problem Top Priority ». Hope springs eternal. 

Trump is unlikely to know - or care - but the American ambassador was shot and killed in Nicosia fifty-one years ago. It hasn’t quite been forgotten by the American government as there is an annual commemoration, in which they are mindful to blame no one and refer to the ambassador’s life as lost, as if the cause were his own negligence rather than EOKA sharpshooters (EOKA  being right wing Greek Cypriot terrorists - as defined by the Cyprus government, not my left wing self). Two were arrested but the charge of murder was downgraded to possession of illegal firearms because the files had somehow been lost.

Like many others in these genocidal times, the Americans know about as much as they want to know.

Thursday, January 16/2025

 There are two supermarkets called Bestmar and one (unrelated) called Besmar. The last has quite good produce always displayed out in front of the store. Would be happy to buy all our fruit and veg there but not really close enough for regular shopping. The two BesTmars have the same prices and specials, so they assure me, but the one we have never been to is farther from us but handier to reach by dolmuş - so we check it out today.

Realise we have been past it on the dolmuş a number of times but had never supposed it was a supermarket. Tacky drinking establishment maybe. Both J and the dolmuş driver assure me this is it, and indeed there is a minute BestMar sign over the door - totally dwarfed by huge advertisements for Jim Beam bourbon, including cutout bottles much bigger than the doorway. 

Inside there is an unprepossessing grocery section in the back. And a large glass case of mostly untranslatable cigars, requiring , no doubt, more scrutiny in future. But pride of place goes to the large and well stocked liquor sector. Other than the specials the prices are no better - and sometimes worse - than our local store (though distinctly better than Canadian) but the range is fairly impressive. And they do have what we have been unable to find anywhere else. J.J Whitley blood orange gin. As well as, J discovers, Polish bison vodka. Bring on the summer weather!

Wednesday, January 15/2025

 At about twenty past ten a siren begins. Not fire engine or ambulance style but penetrating and continuous. Seems to be for a long time - maybe actually two minutes. 

This also happened the day before yesterday but then we knew it was commemorating Rauf Denktaş, first president of the TRNC, who died at the time of the siren on January 13, 2012. Turns out the siren today is in honour of Dr Fazıl Küçük, first Vice President of the Republic of Cyprus in the few years between independence and division. He died on January 15, 1984.

Another warm and sunny start today with coffee on the patio. And like yesterday the warmth remains but it clouds over about noon and the mountain temporarily disappears in mist.

The Cyprus Mail provides the bizarre story of the day. A Greek Cypriot cab driver has appeared in court in the North for having crossed from the South with two Nepalese women in the trunk of his taxi. The women - who were also arrested - were apparently planning to fly out of Ercan airport and had paid the driver €200 to be taken across the border. Leaving everything unanswered. Why did they wish to leave from the North? Why could they not cross the border openly? Why, if they wished to leave the island, were they unable to leave from an airport in the South? Questions that will probably never be answered.

Tuesday, January 14/2025

 Fascinated by the endless variations of sea and sky. Cloudy but calm today and the sea only a shade darker greyish blue than the sky. But often not blue at all. Or sapphire. Or layered. 

Endless read aloud books. The advantage of being able to read ebooks. That and being able to read at night without reading lamps. Though “real” books still best for reading outside in the sun. So just finished reading a biography written by Patrick Cockburn, for years now our favourite Middle East journalist. He’s balanced, insightful and brave - has spent years in the countries he writes about, mostly Iraq and Syria. The biography is an account of the life and journalistic career of his father, Claud. Claud Cockburn was an independent journalist with integrity and courage in spades. Unashamedly of the far left but not a party man - MI5 wasted quite a lot of time as well as taxpayers’ money looking for nonexistent conspiracies - he was drawn to the frontlines of ideological conflict, living in Germany in the early thirties and joining with the anti-Franco Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. A fascinating book.

And, somewhat accidentally from the same period - that is Germany in the thirties - have just bought and begun historian Timothy Ryback’s latest book Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power. It’s an intensive account of the six months leading up to Hitler’s becoming chancellor. As one extremely enthusiastic reviewer put it: “…even though one knows the horrible outcome, right up to the very last pages of the final chapter, it seems impossible that the evil little man will ever become Chancellor”.

Monday, January 13/2025

 

Morning coffee and breakfast on the patio. And remember the thought for the day about a year ago. This is from January 11, last year, and we want to keep reminding ourselves:

Carpe diem - seize the day. 

We’re sitting in the sun on the patio, soaking up the warmth and enjoying the view of the Mediterranean below us. After we’ve finished our tasks we should sit here and have a glass of wine in the January sunshine and watch the cirrus clouds float past.

We don’t have much to do. A trip to the grocery store for yoghurt and oranges, maybe tomatoes and bread as well. But the sun won’t be here by then. It will disappear behind the mountain at three o’clock. It won’t be dark, or even dusk, and it will still be warm, but the caressing rays will be gone. We’ll be able to to see the sea, but it won’t sparkle. 

So seize the moment. There’s an open bottle of Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon. We have olives and cheese and J’s made humus and a sardine mixture. The sun is on our backs. The sea is a deep sapphire.  The perfect time is now.

I’m no Latin scholar and J’s Latin lessons were a very long time ago. I’ve always accepted the translation of carpe diem as seize the day, but look it up. It’s from Horace’s odes, and apparently a more accurate translation would be “pluck” - as in picking fruit at the moment of ripeness:

WhetherJove has many winters yet to give, or this our last;

This, that makes the Tyrrhene billows spend their strength against the   shore.
Strain your wine and prove your wisdom; life is short; should hope be more?
In the moment of our talking, envious time has ebb'd away.

Seize the present.

Pluck the day.

Sunday, January 12/2025

 

Well hypocrisy hardly covers it as the bottom line is so clearly mercenary. So Türkiye President Erdoğan, always happy to take two incompatible positions if there’s something in it for him, made loud noises about cutting diplomatic and economic ties with Israel last October but crossed his fingers behind his back. So Türkiye continues to ship Azerbaijan oil down to Haifa. The ships cite a false destination and repeatedly turn off AIS tracking. But they pass between Cyprus and Syria in a channel that is only about 125 km wide in places. Pretty well equivalent to the Mediterranean long distance swim record. 

And were we to look northeast off the coast of our other country, Canada, there is politics responding to equally naked mercenary motives, as Vice President elect Vance unabashedly admits that the Trump government desire to take over Greenland is for its natural resources. Why bother with a cover story?