On The Island

Rosie is getting so hot this weather that I decided to take her to the beach. We were up so early that there was only the two of us and a couple of fishermen down there. It was so peaceful, we watched the sun come up, or rather I did while Rosie swam. The sea was so calm and clear too, in the end we stayed down there for two hours.

In the evening I had phone calls with Mal first and then  Rhys and all the gang. I can’t say Mal had a brilliant Father’s Day but he liked his cards and presents. We are soon to be going to Lou and Rhys’s wedding. River, the eldest, is going to be the Best Man and Mal is helping him a little bit with his speech. I know he will be perfect on the day,bless him. Everyone is getting very excited now.

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Rosie and I were up and out at 5.00am. We went into the ravine and the stream has now disappeared, just a tiny waterfall trickling but the rest has dried up.

I then went to Ileli to get my shopping and bumped into Bev and Gary, I think we all have the same idea, get everything done before the real heat hits. I bought Cyprus Today and according to them North Cyprus is under a “Basra hot front” coming from Arabia. This article was accompanied by a photo of a restaurant worker frying an egg on the road which took 5 minutes to cook! I think that just about sums up the “news” in today’s issue. Lots of talk but no decisions about either the ‘mortgage’ problem bringing devastation to home owners nor a solution to CTA’s debt problems.

I couldn’t find any cherries in Ileli, so popped into Starling. I also bought a pack of toilet rolls, marked on the shelf at 11.90tl. They went through the till at 17.50. I explained that the price on the shelf was 11.90, did she care, of course not, so I told her to knock them off my bill. I paid for the couple of items I had bought only to get 50 kurus short in my change. Again I queried it. Cyprus shrug and ” no change” and she looked away. I gave her 2 x 25 kurus coins and told her to give me 1tl. She did so but very begrudgingly. I will NOT be using Starling again, even if I have to go without my cherries. Using them is too much like hard work especially on a day with Basra temperatures.  How come Ileli don’t short change and always have change in their tills? AND the staff are very helpful and seem to appreciate your custom, which is more than can be said about Starling, I hasten to add …..in my experience.

Rosie and I were up and out at 5.30am and it was surprising how many other people were up. I guess they are all making the most of the slightly cooler weather in the morning.  The sunrise again was soooo beautiful!

Bev and Gary came round and then I went in the pool.

In the evening I watched the England game against Algeria. I think the least said about that the better. Who were the outstanding players?…….not ONE of them. 0-0.

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Hot, hot, hot again! It reached 35 degrees under the terrace in the shade and it was a lot hotter out of the shade! I cleaned the pool in the morning and then spent a lot of the afternoon in the pool, best place to be.  I took the brush in with me and cleaned the tiles while I was in there!

I heard from Mal and he had the heater on in the morning!

We are  soon to be going to Lou and Rhys’s wedding and so I decided to ring my old hairdresser in Ramsgate to see if he will do my hair the day before the wedding. He asked me if I had seen him on the news but of course I hadn’t out here. It seems he put posters up of his wife and Thanet council have told him to take them down as they thought she was showing too much cleavage! I would have thought they had better things to do. Still, as Marcello said, the publicity has done him a lot of good!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/kent/10255798.stm

I think the hottest day yet this year. It was 34.5 under the terrace in the shade.

We have a problem with our little almond tree and so I went to Perova Garden Centre with photos and a couple of leaves. They really are helpful in there and told me that I should scrape the gummy stuff off the tree  and then paint on a mixture of lime and water. They didn’t sell the lime but told me to go to a yapi market. I then went on to the yapi market and he said yes they have some in a 25kg bag!!  I told him I only wanted a small amount and so he told me to wait a second. He returned with lime in a carrier bag and told me he didn’t want any money for it ‘free’. Nice man. It is the yapi market that we use all the time but even so.  I had better not mention their name or everyone will be queuing up for their free lime!

In the evening the Wednesday gang, me included went to Fast Food in Alsancak. The meals were excellent as always. I don’t think I have ever had a bad meal there.  Chicken shish is 15tl and is accompanied by chips, rice and salad. Included in the price are also some dips, home made bread and a bowl of yoghurt each, oh and of course a plate of pickles ‘mother made’.  It is one place that is consistently good and as far as I am aware they don’t hike their prices for the tourist season either!

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Lunchtime the ‘X’ committee met up for lunch. Two members were unable to make it but the rest of us went to ‘Back in Time’. Yes, they are still doing their ‘2 for 1’ offer for lunchtime.  The restaurant has lovely sea views and a gentle breeze on such a hot day. Great until a very inconsiderate expat decided to park right in front of us. Yes, parking spaces up and down the road but obviously they weren’t used to walking more than two feet. We had to laugh at Mike’s comments when they left ‘Thanks for leaving your windows open so that we could see the view. ‘ The food was excellent and very good value for money and later Mike joined us at the table to tell us a few jokes.  One of the pictures shows Trish and Mike (white legs and all, which Trish was teasing him about!) taking a well deserved break.

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I spent quite a lot of time tidying up in the garden. The Pampas grass is getting quite huge now and I was wondering what we should do with it in the winter. I know you are supposed to burn them down, so  imagine my shock when I saw this little chameloens face poke out of it! He was obviously a baby as he was only about a third of the size of the one I saw last year. Maybe there is a family of them living in the Pampas, so burning won’t be an option. Sadly he didn’t like me taking photos of him and so disappeared back into the grass!

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