On Thursday, 29th June Jeff and Ahmed completed clearing the garden area of weeds and they have certainly done a great job between them. After having had a coffee with us and given Jeff instructions on how to tackle any weeds in the meantime, Ahmed left us saying he would be away for a month because he has his own olive grove of 400 trees to tend. Before leaving he told us that he did not have to work because he had a pension from UK and a pension from the government here, but it was good for ones marriage to be out of the house for a while (and so say all of us)!
We went over to the "dark side" (southern Cyprus) in the afternoon and encountered no difficulty in doing so. We visited a couple of large supermarkets which helped in stocking us up with some of the basics we are used to having. Ahmed had asked whether we could find any Worcester Sauce for him at some point and we were able to bring him some from there.
On Friday evening we met up with a few friends at a bar called The Cabin in Lapta. Barbara and Michael were there, neighbours of Frank and Joan, plus another couple, Roger and Jill who had been on the boat trip with us.
All the local tradesmen were lamenting the lack of tourists: the cause seems to be a mix of no direct flights into the north putting people off, no cheap flights to the north and Greek propaganda hitting European newspapers. I hope, for the locals sake, that more people discover how lovely this part of the island is, but from a selfish point of view - well, it is nice for us that it is quiet!
We spent Saturday morning cleaning the patio area around the pool. It is such a large area that I have been doing it in sections, first thing in the morning while it is in the shade and I finally completed it on Saturday. Then Jeff suggested we had a drive to Guzelyurt (Morphou) were they hold a weekly market. It is approximately 18kms from our house but the road goes through part of the main citrus orchards, although much reduced compared to when we first came to the island. The problem has been two-fold: the lack of water (they used to be irrigated from sources in Troodos that are not available any more) and they have nowhere to export the fruit to since N Cyprus is not recognised by any country of significance other than Turkey who have plenty of their own. We eventually found the market and there was fruit and veg in great abundance at very little cost. We stocked up with what we could, had a cold beer and drove back for lunch.
Temperatures seem to be a fairly constant 30ºC and we have a thermometer in our pool attached to a little yellow duck (Daffy) which reads almost a permanent 28º. You can imagine that during the afternoons we do a lot of swimming and sitting in the shade to keep cool. Last Saturday, when it came to evening I felt so exhausted I couldn't bring myself to cook, so suggested we went out to one of the taverna type restaurants nearby. We decided to visit Ali at the Silver Grill - there were only two other people there - our friends Joan and Barbara! They were gossiping over a G and T while the menfolk were elsewhere watching the football. We decided to join up and it wasn't long before the men arrived, full of doom and gloom because of England's loss on penalties! Anyway it didn't spoil our evening and we had a jolly good time.
After church on Sunday, we decided to take a ride west out of Girne. We have a favourite spot just beyond Bacheli, where there was a little basic bar/restaurant perched on the edge of the cliffs, called the Eagle's Nest. We have often sat there watching the sea birds swoop and dive and return to their nests in the cliffs and the amazing view was such that you could look all down the coast towards Karsiyaka. The journey out took us past the new golf course, that has still to be completed, but confident speculators have filled the surrounding countryside with masses of housing. It will be interesting to see how much of it sells in the present climate.
The Eagle's Nest is well beyond all this development and we were pleased to see that it looked just the same. We settled down to a refreshing drink and then Jeff went to look at their menu (a blackboard)! He was horrified to discover how much they had put up their prices. They were charging "Girne harbour front" prices without the ambience or the comfort they offer. Being a good Yorkshire man, we did not stay for lunch!
We turned back towards Girne and decided to head for the mountains instead. We had often used a very simple restaurant at the top of the Five Finger mountain pass called the Besparnak. It was still there with the same charming people, but they had expanded their premises but not prices, thank goodness. We had a lovely fresh kebab lunch, with copious salads, enjoying the fresh breeze as well as the good food.
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