I have just returned from a very pleasant day out. I went with friends to a tiny church down an unmade road on the way to Adonis Baths and then to a very firm favourite, Vatouthka for lunch.
One of the party is a professional photographer and writer and she has a commission to photograph Cypriot churches and their interiors. I watched the care that she took just to capture one image whilst I just snapped away at anything that took my fancy.



Then after lunch I spotted the biggest dangly things I have ever seen growing in the gardens at the restaurant.



A super day and I'm going again tomorrow! Can't be bad!

Have just been chatting to Ed on Messenger and confessed to not being Blogger motivated at the moment. He thought that I should link to more pages and seek like minded folk. Well I do know I have a small select group of Bloggers I link to and I am happy about that but I did moan that there aren't many people out there my age. I thought you might be interested in Ed's solution to my problem:
"What you need to do is explore more links on the pages that you are linked to and then if you like what you see, link to them."
"Yes, but...I'm twenty plus years older than most Bloggers!"
"Not a problem. You need to write about topics that are more appealing to your own specific age group."
"Oh, I see but like what for example."
"Well begin with Stannah Stairlifts, move on to hearing aids and then top it off with an expose on denture fixatives."
ARGH!

I tootled off down to the Kamares Club Health and Beauty Salon this morning for one and a half hours of sheer pampering. I had an excellent Hydradermie 'Plus' with serenity massage. I was SO relaxed afterwards that I walked out like a penguin on an ice-flow. If you haven't indulged girls I urge you to do so; absolute BLISS!

I remember Mr Degg, my French teacher, slamming a ruler against my desk and screaming at me to speak in sentences! Unfortunately I don't find the acquisition of a foreign language easy. In fact considering that I live in two such countries, speaking in tongues would be easier.
However, I do make some attempt particularly in Cyprus, but they are only isolated words and often because of the rapidity they are spoken, I tend to get them wrong. So I speak a kind of Cypranglais. I am however, very proficient at singing all of the Cypriot advertisement jingles, not that it gets me very far. Basically, when speaking, I mumble an approximation of what it sounds like to me. Listen very carefully to me and it sounds something like this:
"Left hairy toe, in taxi, Paris gallore!"
...and it means? Well what do you think?

These last weeks have seen me ploughing through book after book in a vain attempt to make up for the literary desert I live in for a good proportion of the year.
Yesterday I read these words:
...lifted up their voice and raised a tiny cry, which started as a shout from mouth wide open, but no shout came. (David West)
I find that these words have had a profound effect upon me and with a fascination I return to the words again and again. I am similarly compelled by the painting The Scream by......(I haven't a clue!) It must be alarming to want to shout out and find that you can only utter a "tiny cry".
Now sometimes I wish that I was blessed with the power to inflict a "tiny cry" on some people. I'm sure you've all been there, you know what I mean, the person whose idea of conversation is a remorseless flow of gossip, opinion and innuendo. They hijack the conversation and you just don't stand a chance of penetrating their self-absorption and that yack, yack, yack...!

Whilst Ed was here I really didn't have time to Blog and since he has returned to the UK I have found it hard to get back into the swing of things.
We have had a fabulous time so far and done such a lot but unfortunately Phil goes back on Thursday and I follow two weeks later.
Tonight we are going to a new restaurant called Tweedies which is situated in Chlorakos, the food is supposed to be exceptional. I may write about it tomorrow.
Postcard from Cyprus:



A view of Chrysorrogiatissa Monastery.

We have just returned from another fabulous day with our Zelemenos 'chums'. The convoy of happy trippers collected beneath a spruce tree to consult maps, check on rendezvous points and see if there was plenty of room in the boots of vehicles. Yes, today we have embarked on a tour of several vineyards and whiled away blissful hours tasting and buying wine at various wineries. (Hence the boot capacity.)
Lunch also involved wine tasting at the Kolios Winery and I must stress in the interests of research, several bottles came under scrutiny. We voted the best summer wine as being a delicious little rose called Cornetto. As you can imagine there was much hilarity as we all kept asking for "Just One Cornetto".
I was delighted with a quick visit to Chrysorrogiatissa Monastery (try and say that when you have already tasted several glasses of wine) set high in the beautiful pine forests in the vicinity of Kremasti . We strolled through arched cloisters in the cool air, fragrant with the smell of jasmine and pine.
A lovely day.

If you visit Ed's site you may be surprised to see that we visited the hospital the other day. I woke up on that morning with the return of the eye infection; I had foolishly worn my contact lenses the night before, I should have known better.
However, there is a very new hospital opened in Paphos and their claim to fame is that they are supposedly all English speaking. So arms waving the grey plastic BUPA card we expected the parting of the curtains, instant solicitous attention from a host of medical staff as we made our way through the Outpatients department! Well it didn't quite happen like that. I ended up queuing in the corridor, on the obligatory plastic chairs, with many coughing and haggard people. BUPA had told us that you are entitled to 3,000 pounds worth of Outpatient treatment so I was hoping to get my moneys worth.
Eventually I was called into a room with a very tired looking doctor. Temperature and blood pressure taken, eye given a cursory glance and I was told to "exposure sun". When I looked at him blankly instead of explaining himself he shouted "EXPOSURE SUN! EXPOSURE SUN!" and pointed heavenward. Now did this mean that my condition had been caused by the sun or I had to stay out of it? Thinking that he had finally got through to me he then looked at me very intently and shouted "HOW IS OTHER EAR?"
P.S. The cost 20 quid and I didn't even get a patch for my ear, whoops eye!