MEDITERRANEAN MEANDERINGS
16TH MARCH 2010

I write to you on the crest of triumph today. My friends in the pool league won a tremendous victory over the second team in the league last night, despite having resided on the bottom for most of the tournament. They had taunted us with a 15-0 defeat, but were laughing on the other sides of their faces later on. Especially because half of the team were women and Jen, in particular, won all three of her matches, so they are doubly gutted at being beaten by girls! Rock on Emmeline Pankhurst! I am making it sound far more competitive than it really is – but you know me I do like to win. It is always a good laugh and no one really takes it that seriously. It is actually just a good excuse for people to get together in the winter months. It is the last one next week as the summer season will then be underway. So anyway – well done The Barleymow!

I have managed to travel around quite a bit in the last week and on Thursday I joined the ladies from the Coffee Morning to go on a trip to Pafos. They do this very democratically. They organise the coach and then just split the cost between everyone, so it worked out as €10 to cross the island for the day, which is brilliant. I sat with my friend Sue on the coach and we had a good old natter as we watched the scenery whizz by. We went along the coast road, via Limassol, and so got to see Aphrodite’s Rock on the way past. I was amazed by how chalky the land is on that side of the island. The motorway cuts through chalky hillsides and if it hadn’t been for the lack of sheep it would have felt like being back in the South Downs. It is so green here at the moment that it is similar to the south of England in the summer. I was talking to a taxi driver the other day, as he drove me home with a new airer after mine decided to rust through, and he was telling me that this is his favourite time of year in Cyprus and I can see why. The weather is extremely temperate – mid 60s to mid 70s most days. After the winter rains everywhere is green and beautiful and there are yellow flowering trees all along the roads, with brightly coloured flowers all over the place. The island is still relatively quiet too, the tourist season doesn’t really start until Easter and so it is quiet enough to enjoy the surrounding beauty without distraction.

We arrived in Pafos and were dropped off in the town centre. I wasn’t on top form energetically and so I left the ladies to wander around the shops without me. I am not a big fan of shopping and I would rather expend my strength on things that I enjoy. I strolled down to the harbour, which took about 40 minutes. Unfortunately we are in the midst of a huge sand cloud again, and have been for about 8 days now, so visibility wasn’t great, but I enjoyed pootling down the hill stopping just once to pop in the only book shop I passed – I may have to go into rehab over this as it is nothing short of an addiction; I cannot resist looking at books even if the majority of them are in a language that I can’t fathom.

I arrived at the harbour and strolled along the arm past all the men who try and convince you that you want to partake of refreshments in their establishments – “‘ello love, come and ‘ave your coffee with us, we will look after you.” I went and climbed up on the bank next to the Venetian Fort and got my notebook out. I could see the sea crashing on the beach (it was fairly windy that day) to one side of me and the harbour with all its hustle and bustle to the other. I passed a pleasant hour or so scribbling away in my notebook enjoying the scenery and appreciating the fact that I am living in Cyprus, which I still find hard to believe, even after last week’s ‘out of body experience’! I had lunch and then sat and read my book on the harbour wall, having a thoroughly relaxing and pleasant time. The other ladies made their way down to me as we were being picked up by the harbour and as it was one of our number’s birthday we partook of some wine and cake in the lee of the fort. As a consequence of this the coach ride home was rather more lively. It never ceases to amaze me how noisy a group of women of a certain age can be when they have had a drink and Tom Jones is playing on the coach stereo. Although, it has to be said that thankfully everyone tired of Tom Jones after a while and we requested our lovely Cypriot driver to put some Greek music on instead.

I have had a few clients over the last week and yesterday it was the turn of the winner of the raffle prize. We were having a lovely chat and she told me that she was given the prize as the person who actually won it does not believe in reiki. This always makes me laugh – it is a therapy, not a religion! What on earth is there to believe in? I don’t really ‘believe’ that the earth moves round the sun. I have never seen any evidence of this with my own eyes and I have never felt the earth moving (well not in that sense anyway!) but this does not stop it from being a fact. I think we spend far too much of our time trying to work out what we believe and what we don’t when it is completely irrelevant. The earth is not going to stop moving around the sun just because I don’t believe in it and a therapy is still going to be relaxing and beneficial whether or not you believe in it. It is time we opened our hearts and minds to the possibility that there is much more to the universe than only that which we can see and touch. The world has had to learn to reassess its ideas so many times in the past – the whole ‘the world is flat’ idea for a start – isn’t it time we stopped being so arrogant as to presume we understand everything and just accept that there is stuff that we have not yet worked out. Quantum physics and mysticism are now working in tandem and backing up so many premises that empirical scientists have pooh-poohed because they haven’t been able to see it with their own eyes. Quantum physics is starting to prove that there really is far more out there than we can ever begin to imagine with our puny minds. So go out my friends and expand your horizons whether it is through books or experience, but please do not stagnate just because you do not ‘believe’ in something.

Sunday saw us in Nicosia for a meeting as we are every other week and as always it was beautiful. I always struggle to get up as we have to leave fairly early (well early in my book!) and each time I think about just lying there in bed and not bothering, but every single time I am glad I go. It never fails to uplift me, no matter how ill or tired I am feeling (not that anyone would ever know – those of you who know me from old know that I can put on the best mask ever created by man rather than show my weaknesses). I always learn something from other people’s experiences and it helps you to look at things in your own life and understand them. Funnily enough after last week’s blog about my need for freedom this was a theme that came up a lot in our discussion, further proof that I am in the flow of life.

There were also all the other usual things this week such as walking with Scruffy, which is always a great pleasure – although very soon it will be too hot to do a two hour walk, so I am having to make the most of it now. I did my stint at Helping Hands and we are turning books over at a great pace now. They are even putting in some new shelves, so I can live my Librarian Dream once a week and know that I am helping in some small way. I had an enjoyable evening at the pub quiz at the Corner Pin on Sunday with all the lovely people that I see in there – and we won, which as already discussed, I do love to do! All in all my life is taking on a regularity and a fullness here now, which as I mentioned in a previous blog seems paradoxically to mean that there is less to write about. Suffice to say that this is my home now, for however long that may be, and I love it here. I feel that I was meant to come here to this contentious border to contribute in whatever way I can to the peace of the area and to help ‘sow the seeds of love’ as Tears for Fears once put it! My own personal contribution may be very small, but if every single one of us makes the same commitment and the same effort then that contribution becomes vast and peace will have no option but to win through. This may take decades but everything has to begin somewhere and if we each choose to do our part then we have a beginning. A quote that I have used in my Tao Te Ching blog and one that I think is vitally important, especially as today is Kosen Rufu day – I will let you go and Google that one for yourselves! – is by a great teacher of the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin, Daisaku Ikeda and he says: ‘we are all human beings, whatever our positions. If we open our hearts and speak with sincerity, we can communicate and touch others on the deepest level. World peace starts with trust between one individual and another.’ So please open your hearts with trust from today and we can begin to make a difference.