Anyway, back to the dinner invitation. As is the way out here, half an hour before we were summoned to arrive the power went off! So torches out and pre-dinner drinks on their patio were shared with Peter, Mary's brother-in-law Ray (wife couldn't come as not well) and Ray's friend Jim. Patrick and Mary had done Sterling work coping with the power cut and set up a beautiful dinner table indoors and presented us with a most delicious and bountiful Prawn Cocktail starter. We then had a superb Roast Lamb dinner with everything you could wish to accompany it. There was plenty of wine and brandy flowing and very convivial company. Infact it flowed so well that at the end of the evening, when Ray got up to leave .... he just slid under the table! He'd seemed fine up until then, however, the men managed to pour him into Jim's car to Mary's cries of "Mind my pots!" (large urns she has located each side of her front door). We had enjoyed a great evening, enjoyed meeting some new people in Ray and Jim and been well fed in the process. Of course the lights came on as we were leaving!
More rain the following day and Jeff took Steph's relatives back to Larnaca airport for their return journey to UK.
Monday, 16 October
So their visitors gone, Sandy and Steph wanted to take us to meet some friends of theirs, Graham and Steph. They have a house closer into town and while they had been living in Cyprus this summer had been feeding a couple of neighbourhood cats. They were about to go back to UK and were concerned about a kitten that had suddenly appeared around their house. It appeared to have been house trained at some point and had possibly been dumped by someone who no longer wanted it. When we were introduced to "Get Out" (their name for the kitten), we liked her very much. She is definitely a hands-on, people liking cat. So it was down to the pet shop for a cat basket, bit of food etc and back to collect Get Out and bring her home to The Sentry Box. She soon made herself at home and Jeff and I decided to call her "Kedi" rather than Get Out. Kedi is the Turkish word for Cat!
The rest of the week was spent tidying and preparing rooms for Sharon and Ian, Sam and Wills arrival next week. I went to my regular Thursday group at the church where everyone was busy preparing for the Christmas Bazaar in a few weeks time.
I also had my first request to put my SSAFA Caseworker's hat on. "Please visit an ex-service man who is in Girne hospital suffering heart problems, with financial difficulties, on the eve of Bayram (end of Ramadan) which is rather like our Christmas Eve".
I was given quite an elaborate "tale of woe" from his hospital bed. There were many loose ends and enough holes in the story to make a sieve but I was talking to a man in his hospital bed, who had collapsed in the street with heart problems. His wife was having to sleep in an empty bed in the ward because they had been evicted from their hotel. Talk about a baptism by fire! Without going into any more details I was able to help them with a few pounds for food and eventually pay for a modest hospital bill but I still have the feeling that SSAFA (me) has possibly been taken for a ride by this couple. Whatever, it still occupied a fair proportion of my time that weekend.
While I was in Girne on one of my hospital visits I contacted Jim and Michelle who live over in that part of town. Jeff and I went and had coffe at their house and caught up with their news. They were in the middle of having their roof slates replaced because the job hadn't been done properly originally! I was also able to bring a copy of the latest LIONESS (WRAC Magazine) to Michelle along with a letter I had received from a lady in Lordswood, Chatham. This lady had got my address through an article I'd had printed in the mag and she had known Jim and Michelle while she was serving in the WRAC and had lost touch with them.
The Wiltshire Lloyd's Visit
On Monday 23 October, we went to Larnaca to collect Sharon, Ian, Sam and Wills who were to stay with us for 9 days. I had been so worried about the weather during the preceeding week as it had been so wet and cold but the sun had come back and they were to have a wonderful half-term break with us.
There were lots of opportunities for playing in the pool,
on the beach
and generally getting to know our part of the island.
We visited the Sunset Beach Club for lunch and while the boys enjoyed swimming in the pools, we adults rather preferred the sea, which was much warmer! The following day we explored the culinary delights of the Besparnak Restaurant at the top of the mountain pass - the salads that came with the barbarqued meats were sooooo... good.
During this period we had to take our little Kedi to visit the vet to be spayed. The boys were very good and left her alone to recuperate but it meant the bouncy little thing we had laughed at over the previous few days was now very subdued.
On Wednesday, Jeff took them all to Bellapais for a look around the village while I stayed home and caught up with my SSAAFA paperwork. In the evening we took the boys out and had a traditional meal at the Acmenya restaurant in the nearby village of Alsancak.
On Thursday we decided to go to Gazi Magusa (Famagusta) and explore that part of the coast. En route we fell foul of the parade for Turkish Republic Day. Part of the main road from Lefkosa (Nicosia) to Gazi Magusa is taken over to hold the military and political parades. This therefore entailed a very circuitious detour around the outskirts of Lefkosa before we could pick up our route again.
We explored the old city walls of Famagusta and then wandered through the old town towards the cathedral.
They saw the no-mans land of empty hotels that overlook part of the lovely Famagusta beach before we eventually drove to a favourite restaurant near Salamis called Nese.
We had a lovely lunch and finished off the afternoon lazing on the beach and swimming. When we returned to Karsiyaka it was to discover they'd had really heavy rain and thunder during the afternoon.
Our usual routine on a Saturday is to visit Guzelyurt (Morphou) market. So once we were organised we set off and had a great time visiting the dozens of stalls and buying the week's supply of veg for around £5.
After shopping we drove further around the coast to a nice restaurant we'd previously found, located on the beach and under the shadow of an ancient archeological site known as Vouni.
The restaurant is located at the bottom of lovely Morphou bay.
Lunch was simple but good and afterwards Jeff drove us up a winding narrow road to the top of this extremely large hill where the remains of an ancient palace have been excavated along with a temple to Athene. However, much of the excavations merge with the exposed rock and it is rather hard to distinguish very much. Neverthless we enjoyed the many amazing views visible from the top. What a terrific site!
During our journey back the clouds had begun to gather and the sky over Karsiyaka was building up for a serious storm. Not long into the evening and we had the inevitable power cut. Not a problem this time because we had encouraged the boys to have a nap once we got back in order that we could take them out for supper later on.
We went to Shirley Valentines a restaurant which is not too far away from home because not only would we have good food we knew the boys would be comfortable too. Jan and Nasser have been running this restaurant for the past 5 years and typical of her Liverpuddlian nature we were assured of a warm welcome. There was quite an electric storm raging throughout dinner and as the restaurant is beside the sea it made a dramatic backdrop.
We were not long in the restaurant before William spotted an elephant on the wall carrying an "eyeball", which is how the boys referred to the Lucky Charm symbols that are prevelant here.
The idea is that they ward off evil things from entering the home or whatever premises they adorn.
Anyway Jan soon had the elephant and The Eye down from the wall and they passed into William's possesion. A very happy boy went home that night and we all had to remember to put the clocks back an hour just as in UK.
On Sunday we all enjoyed a lazy day.
Just before lunch we moved our swimmers from the pool at home onto the beach at Camelot. We had the beach to ourselves and the sea was quite warm, although the previous nights storm had churned up some debris. After our swim we stayed and had lunch at the restaurant that overlooks the beach. By 2.30pm the clouds had gathered again and it was time to go home. That evening we had yet more storms.
Monday morning was bright and clear.
As the boys would be travelling home on Halloween, we had decorated our living room the night before with paper pumkins, bats and skeletons, so when they got up they had quite a surprise. We got them to dress up and trick and treat our neighbours too.
Later they braved our pool yet again.
The storms had brought a drop in temperature and Daffy Duck, the thermometer in the pool, was only registering 18 degrees centigrade - a bit too cool for Gran and Grandad to take a dip.
Before the boys actually turned blue we took them to visit Girne Castle. It was the first time that Jeff and I had gone inside and we found it most interesting.
The boys thought it great fun exploring around dark corners and into dungeons. There is an excellent Shipwreck Museum that houses the remains of the oldest ship in the world.
It has been established that it sank off the coast of Kyrenia some 2,300 years ago and at that time it had been in service for around 80 years, trading up and down the coast of Anatolia. It had a cargo of stone grain grinders, hundreds of amphorae of wine and large quantities of almonds, which its 5-man crew probably had to exist on along with whatever fish they caught.
Outside we climbed to the top of one of the towers where the views across the two harbours were terrific.
By the time we had left the castle the sky was becoming overcast once more, so we opted to go to Cherinis for lunch, this traditional restaurant overlooks the old harbour, so we could sit, have lunch indoors and still enjoy that lovely view.
As this was the last day of holiday for Sam and Wills we persuaded them to have a nap in the afternoon so that we could take them out for a rather special final meal, with Mum and Dad of course. We went to The Ambience restaurant which also overlooks the sea. The food, as usual, was superb and we had a really lovely evening together.
During Tuesday morning we all pottered about at home, Ian and Sharon packing their things for the flight home later that afternoon. Ian had decided at the beginning of the holiday that he wasn't going to shave, but it only lasted a couple of days before he took himself to a local barber nearby. Here he had the full works: shave with a cut throat razor, ears singeing, face massage and the cologne at the end. He enjoyed it so much that the ritual was repeated every couple of days. Not the singeing though as there was nothing to burn. So just before lunch on Tuesday he went off for his last shave.
While he was doing this, Jeff and I took Sharon and the boys down to Sirin Yali's to watch the sea which was really crashing in. (No-one got their head stuck in the railings this time!
After a quick lunch it was time to load the car and head towards Larnaca airport for their flight home.
It was an uneventful journey until we reached the Salt Flats just outside the airport and there we were lucky enough to see that the Flamingoes had now returned as there was water back in the flats. We made a sad journey home as we reflected on how much we had enjoyed having Ian, Sharon, Sam and Wills with us for a while and wondering when we would be seeing them again.
That evening we went again to Shirley Valentine's. It was to be Jan and Nasser's final night as they were giving up the lease and giving themselves a break from 6-nights a week catering. We had a really good evening - Jan played the good hostess to the very end.
There was a lovely atmosphere and the place was filled to bursting. Infact we had to wait for some guests to leave before she could find a table for us. There was a most terrific storm that night too, the lightning and thunder became very dramatic and the wind got up so much that the plants outside were practically horizontal! As there was such a crush of people extra tables had been squeezed in, which meant it was very easy to get into conversation. We made contact with some really nice people we had not met before.
Jan and Nasser held an auction the following day of all the moveable equipment from the restaurant and pool area, but in the cold light of day everything looked so tired and worn. The only thing I was particularly keen on was a very large ancient pot but I discovered it had a reserve on it of £120 so we left it there!
We didn't stay very long as we had to take Kedi to the vet for an injection. When we got her there the vet decided that her operation wound wasn't healing quickly enough and gave her a staple - which she didn't like.
The following day we returned to Larnaca to collect our friends Renee and Bill who were coming out to their villa for a few more weeks before Christmas. The return journey on this occasion was awful, the storm clouds had gathered once more and the rain poured down making it a really horrible drive back. We managed to make it back in time to go to the Quiz night with the girls but our break from it hadn't improved our brain power - the only thing we won was the prize for the silliest name with a Halloween connection! "Three ghosties and one goolie"!
1 comment:
A lovely diary of all the things we managed to do on our holiday and some fantastic pics. Has Kedi's staple hastened the heeling process?
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