At the beginning of March the "ladies" associated with St Andrew's Church

took part in the Womens World Day of Prayer. The "ladies" from the church in Famagusta joined us along with some of our menfolk and we experienced a very special service that had been devised by women in Paraguay. The theme was uniting "Under God's Tent". A bring and share afternoon tea was included making it a memorable occasion.

On March 3rd the "Layabouts" decided to try a relatively new Chinese restaurant that had opened in Kyrenia called Chopsticks.


A total of sixteen of us took over the upstairs gallery eating area of this not very big place. The food was very good. Definitely worth another visit.

The following day there was a horrible crash on the road coming down to Kyrenia from Five Finger mountain. A lorry carrying rebar lost its brakes and scrunched a stretched Mercedes taxi and its seven passengers into a truck full of sand. All seven from the taxi were killed, this included the five-year old son of the taxi driver. The driver of the truck whose brakes failed ran away from the scene but was apprehended later. Now questions are being asked about heavy goods vehicle safety checks and the fact there is no weighbridge here to check loads.

11th March - Joan's birthday.
Unusually there had been a warning in the paper that we would have a power cut between 6am and 2pm. It actually lasted until 4pm but at least it didn't spoil a really lovely afternoon at Frank and Joan's house to help Joan celebrate her Birthday.
We were all well fed and watered of course. Fourteen of us had gathered for a lunch in the sun.







It was another very enjoyable day, one of many that helps us to have such a great life over here.

The following week turned out to be quite wet, we had some much needed rain. On Thursday I went to the inaugural meeting of the Gardening Forum over in Ozankoy. A great idea whereby we can swop questions, information and experiences and enjoy talks and garden visits. On this occasion a lady from the south of the island, Patricia Jordan, who has enjoyed some success as an authoress, came and gave an illustrated talk on gardening here that was most interesting. However on the way home there was such a hailstorm which turned everything white in no time at all. The hailstones were very large and bounced off the roads quite spectacularly.

On the following evening Jeff and I returned to Karaman, the little village half way up the mountain, where we enjoyed a great evening of live jazz in a small restaurant there. There was a terrific atmosphere and the trio was extremely talented. An excellent evening that I cannot wait for them to repeat.

There was an awful incident in a local bar, The Turks Head, Alsancak. A young lady who had been sitting at the bar, suffered really serious injuries when part of the finale to an Elvis impersonator's act went spectacularly wrong. Alcohol was poured onto the bar and lit, however, this time it ignited the girl's hair and then her face and clothes were covered in burning alcohol. She lost one layer of skin from her face and two from her arm. She has a long period of recovery ahead requiring some expensive treatment, whilst the bar is denying any responsibilty and has no insurance to cover to cover such eventualities.

Monday 19th March saw us packing for our trip to Egypt.