Mediterranean Meanderings

19^{TH MAY} 2010

After struggling to find anything to write last week I now find myself having to cut out some of the things I wanted to say this week. They will have to wait for another time.

The thermometer in the cool of the flat has been averaging 28° this week, but I haven’t managed a night without the duvet yet! Still, I am sure it is only a matter of time. Unfortunately my body only has two temperatures – freezing and burning alive and it jumps between the two very quickly. So I can spend all day shivering with hot pillows up my jumper and then make the slightest exertion and suddenly I am on fire. Walking, for this reason, is now becoming difficult as the heat beating down is quite harsh after you have been plodding for twenty minutes or so and you know you have another twenty to go.

I am also writing this as a mass of blisters. For the first time since I got out here I forgot to put my factor 20 on and my skin, as a result, is a mess; yet another thing to add to the list of ‘Great Things about Having Red Hair!’ Anyone who chooses to dye their hair this colour should also be made to face the full experience of being a Ginger (hard gs please)! The trouble was I was only going to sit on my balcony for a few minutes while I read a chapter, but the book was so fabulous that I ended up reading it from beginning to end and completely forgot where I was, until, putting the book down with tears streaming down my face, I suddenly thought: ‘ooh that hurts’! What I will go through in the name of literature! So, if you pick up ‘The Other Hand’ by Chris Cleave be warned you could end up damaged. If anyone ever goes on at me again about what an easy life illegal immigrants to the UK have, as they so frequently do, I will hand them this book.

It is a busy time here on the Island. The tourists are now a force to be reckoned with and the land is in a constant state of harvest. There are so many stimuli for my eyes and mind to feast upon.

A real treat my eyes received this week came from my friend Jenny – well not actually from her, although she is lovely, more from her artwork. She has had her paintings hung in a bar in Pernera called ‘The Point’. This is a lovely, light, airy bar and her paintings are shown to great advantage on the plain white walls. It is so difficult to know how best to describe them as there is not a convenient genre in which to slot them, so I think I will just talk about my favourite painting so that you can get an overall idea. I am aware that words cannot do justice to the feeling you receive when you look at a beautiful piece of work, but I will try. As you approach the painting you are arrested by a single stark and achingly lonely bare branch. This stands out against a vibrant background of reds and oranges, which made me feel the universal truth that we are all alone in this world, but that this does not mean that we are separate. The passion and excitement that lie behind the branch are waiting there for all of us and we know that it is only a matter of time before the branch blossoms again, as we all do after a period of stripping our souls bare and mourning. I do not pretend to think that this is what Jenny had in mind when she painted it – only she will know that – but it is what the painting makes me feel and that is the point of good artwork – that each piece will convey a meaning to the person who loves it enough to buy it. There is another painting that I felt was redolent of Munch. The shapes and colours draw you in, as if into a vortex, swirling and flowing around you. I wish I had space to discuss all of them, but the best way to appreciate them would be to pootle down to Pernera yourselves and have a look. I think they are hauntingly beautiful, but we all have our own tastes and it would be best to make up your own mind. Those of you not in Cyprus will just have to imagine them!

Last Friday saw the 7^th annual Pancyprian Strawberry Festival in Derhynia. Sue and I trolled up there and had a brilliant evening – although this may be just because we spend a lot of the time laughing when we are together, which is always lifting anyway. The festival was free to everyone and you had a choice of free strawberries or free jam. We both chose the strawberries and they were juicy and delicious. There were thousands of people in attendance all ready to do the Cypriot thing of enjoying good food and drink with their families whilst being entertained. Sue and I settled down with a couple of cold beers and let the experience wash over us. The programme began with a Cypriot poet. Sadly I couldn’t understand a word he said but he declaimed beautifully! We were then treated to some lovely (and very loud) fireworks before the live music began. All the singing was in Greek – as it should be – and apparently the singers were famous and had been flown in from Athens. One of them did a version of ‘Unchain Your Heart’ and although he wasn’t as gravelly as Joe Cocker, he was still fabulous. The chatter was constant throughout the concert. People don’t sit and just silently listen as they do in the UK, but it is actually great. It feels more vibrant and alive somehow and I love the fact that the Cypriots think it is more important to have a conversation with their children than it is to listen to someone warbling on in the distance.

We wandered back and forth in the midst of all this, partaking of the strawberry delectables on offer: strawberries dipped in chocolate (my personal favourite); strawberry tart; strawberry cheesecake; strawberry crepes; strawberry waffles – although we only partook of a couple of the above – honest! It has to be said, however, that if you have a strawberry phobia then it would have been an evening of hell, especially the giant plastic strawberries – although I would hope that if you were a fragariphobic you would be sensible enough to keep well clear of the whole thing.

We finally left at about 11.30 and the music was still going on, so I am not sure what time it finished. It is always good to get a taste of local culture, otherwise what is the point of living here, and it was a good evening.

Saturday saw me involved in an epic adventure. There was a meeting being held in Limassol and so Chris hired a car and we pootled off to pick up Sue in Aradippou. The pair of us had only been to her house once before but we remembered that it had lions on the gateposts. I ask you, how many of those can there be in a small village? We pulled up next to the lions and I strode off to ring the bell. Needless to say it was completely the wrong house and I had a strange conversation through a shut door with a Cypriot lady finally establishing that she was not, and never had been, Sue. We found her at last and reached the outskirts of Limassol without any further excitement. All we had to do now was to find the place where the meeting was being held. Sue and I had never been there before but Chris was quietly confident that he would recognise it when he saw it. The third time we passed the Jumbo Toy shop Chris started singing the Indiana Jones theme tune and we wove in and out of the back streets of Limassol, Sue on the phone in the back seat calling out directions, Chris singing and me giggling. We turned round in a deserted car park only to be confronted by a man glaring at us as we had disturbed him having a quiet pee. When we eventually pulled up outside the apartment block we were on the verge of hysterics.

The meeting was really lovely, although I did keep getting the giggles mid-chant as the Indiana Jones theme tune popped in to my head. It’s a terrible thing when you have the giggles as the slightest thing can set you off, especially things that wouldn’t normally appear that amusing and, as I averted my head to the floor to stop the well of hysteria rising in my throat, I noticed that one of my fellow chanters was wearing socks that proudly stated that it was Monday despite the fact it was Saturday and I was very nearly lost. I had to resort to the old cough and swig of water ruse to cover the incident.

Farce was definitely the theme of the day as when we left the meeting we discovered that someone had driven into the back of the hire car and driven off again. The back fender was now rubbing on the tyre and making a hideous noise. What you need to remember at this point is that there is no public transport in Cyprus. We could not just arrange for the car to be picked up and go off and find a train, because there are no trains in Cyprus and there are certainly no buses at that time on a Saturday evening, especially to traverse the length of the island. Chris rang the hire company who said they would send a pick-up truck, but that this would only have space for two of us. The best he could suggest was that we wait for the truck to arrive and then persuade the driver that he could somehow fit us in. We were not quite sure how this was to be achieved so we did what any self-respecting Buddhist would do – we refused to panic and chanted until the mechanic arrived. Shuko, at whose apartment the meeting had been held, was fabulous. She let us back in, chanted along with us and even packed us up some bananas and pastries for what looked like being a long ride home.

The mechanic arrived not looking best pleased at the thought of having to drive right across the island with three mad English people who seemed to find the whole situation highly amusing. However, he was brilliant. He ripped off the ruined plastic mudguard and announced that this should stop the rubbing. We all shook hands looking mightily relieved, watched the pickup truck fade into the distance and Shuko waved us off as we drove away. 500m later, just around the corner, we pulled up again, the sound of metal rubbing on the tyre now seeming worse than before. We were just standing there looking at the car, trying to work out how to get the mechanic back, when as if by magic he drove past, noticed us and pulled over. He didn’t really believe us about the noise so he got in the driver’s seat and zoomed off at a speed known only to Scotty and Cypriots.

As Sue and I stood there hoping that the car would come back at some point, a voice behind us made us jump out of our skins. Shuko had appeared out of nowhere. Apparently she had been watching the main road out of her kitchen window to make sure we passed safely and had seen the pick-up truck pull up again. Assuming that it had stopped to help us she had cut across a field to see what chaos we were now causing.

The situation was finally resolved with a large hammer, with which the fabulous mechanic bashed the car until it was drivable.

Obviously, as we finally pulled away, we were singing the Indiana Jones Theme Tune – although Sue kept going off into the Great Escape, which is probably far more accurate! We all made it home in one piece and I had had a brilliant day. I love magical mystery tours and adventure and I had had plenty of both on Saturday.

So, after that ‘awfully big adventure’ I am going to leave the rest of my observations until next week. And remember, as G.K. Chesterton so appositely says: ‘An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.’