MEDITERRANEAN MEANDERINGS
21ST JUNE 2010

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have jettisoned the duvet! How exciting is that. I cannot remember the last time in the UK that I went without at least the 10 tog, so this is fabulous. The thermometer in the cool of the flat has rarely been under 30° in the last week and you can’t walk out of the door without rivulets of sweat starting to pool in your lower back. I even tried the air conditioning when it was hot the other night but I woke up within half an hour so cold that I had to find a blanket, even though I had only put the temperature down to 24°. So I will think twice before doing that again!

As has been written so often, the countryside is one of the noisiest places to live. At the moment, although the frogs have stopped (honest!), the air is filled with an almost continual buzz as the huge range of insect life communicates with each other. Birdsong is constant and as I am writing this the Rooster who lives on the farm and who has no sense of time whatsoever is having a good old shout. Even the trees are noisy at the moment. They have all blossomed in the most beautiful, vibrant and loud colours. So as you walk along the road you see orange flowers next to red, next to purple and it looks stunning. The plants all stand up and shout to everyone to notice just how gorgeous they are – there are no shrinking violets in Cyprus. The farm under my balcony is on its second tomato harvest since I have been out here and so the fields too are covered in a blend of red and green.

Baby lizards and baby snakes are all over the wasteground. The snakes are fabulous. I still haven’t seen a full size one yet, well not alive anyway, but I take it this must be hatching season. When I was walking Scruffy at the beginning of the week we would see them moving like lightning out of our way. They are tiny, only 2-3 inches long at the most, but fully-formed, there is no mistaking them for slow worms. There is also a superabundance of red and black beetles (no not ladybirds – do give me some credit) which scurry back and forth in and out of the desiccated scrub. This land is truly alive.

Scruffy-mou went home on Thursday, so all is quiet down on the ranch – except that I don’t seem to have stopped. Last Sunday I was getting ready to go to the pub quiz as usual when my doorbell rang. My first thought was: ‘who has finally tracked me down?’ the second one was: ‘who do I owe money to?’ So in my dressing gown and with only one eye made up I answered the door. Rosemary, who owns one of the flats in my complex and who I hadn’t seen since November had just arrived and wanted to see if I was coming out for a drink, so she joined our merry band. I am always very nervous when the doorbell rings and I am not expecting someone. Like the majority of the population I am uncomfortable with people turning up unannounced and always appreciate a phone call first, even if it is only five minutes in advance. I need time to arrange my thoughts and put myself in the right frame of mind for visitors, otherwise I feel like I have been caught on the hop. It was lovely to see Rosemary and catch up with her however, once I had got over the initial panic. She was very kind to me and drove me to the bank one day and on Thursday we went into Protaras for the evening. I took her to see the Outrageous Misfits. It is strange but back in the UK I would turn my nose up at this sort of cabaret act. I wouldn’t be seen dead in the audience unless it was on at the theatre darling, or it was a proper gig of some sort. In Cyprus you don’t have that luxury sadly. There are no theatres and no concerts. Anyway the long and the short of the matter is that they are a fun act. I have a good time watching them. They have fine voices and are funny. I often recommend them as an act to go and see if people ask me and yet I know that were I in Blighty I would turn back into the cultural snob I have always been. Maybe this is yet another thing that Cyprus is teaching me to overcome. I already speak to people that I would never have gone near and do things that I would have turned my nose up at and it has to be said that I am happier and healthier than I have ever been – so what does that tell me? To be honest I am not sure. I still crave a good Noel Coward play and would love to have been at the Albert Hall for the Joe Bonamassa concert, but enough to give up everything I have here and go back – no, is the short answer to that.

On Saturday it was Pat’s birthday and so I went and joined him for a drink and on Sunday he adopted me as an honorary daughter as it was Father’s Day and he, his wife Sandra and their son Carl took me out to Sunday lunch with them, which was lovely. One of the last things I would ever have thought I would do once living abroad would be to have a Sunday Roast – especially in 40° heat, but I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. We were sitting in the shade and it may well have been the fact that I hadn’t had a roast dinner for about 8 months that made it so enjoyable; that and the company obviously.

The main feature of this weekend was Kari’s hen night and wedding. Kari is Bingo Sue’s daughter and although the poor unsuspecting girl had never met me she kindly invited me along. As I believe is de rigueur for Hen Nights we all had T-shirts made. Unfortunately they only went up to a large. If you have boobs over a DD-cup large doesn’t even begin to cover it – quite literally. So, I crow-barred myself in and from my angle it wasn’t too bad – as when I look directly down I can only see a vast shelf of bosom, but all those poor souls who had to look at me from the front must really have had a treat (altogether now, in the best Bill and Ted fashion ...) NOT! Still, I was sitting down for most of the night, which was just as well because I couldn’t breathe. Sue had got slogans printed up on the t-shirts – bride, bride’s mother, gatecrasher etc. Mine said ‘NAM MYOHO RENGE KEO’ (sic). This is the phrase I chant as a Buddhist, and I was incredibly impressed that she had remembered it, although the last symbol should be spelt KYO as KEO is a local Cypriot lager, so everybody just assumed I was something to do with the brewery all evening! Some of the ladies chickened out from wearing their t-shirts, so I was quite pleased that I was able to laugh at myself and still make the effort despite the fact that I spent the whole evening tugging at the hem to try and make it stretch.

The wedding took place on Monday and I was utterly amazed at the huge emotions it brought out in me. I have never thought that marriage was a good idea, even when I did it myself, but I did not realise how much my body would try anything to get away from having to attend a wedding. This should not be taken as reflecting on these particular nuptials, which were lovely and Kari and Sue both looked stunning. This is obviously my reaction to marriage as a concept. About 3 hours before I was due to be picked up (thanks again Pat and Sandra, who seem to have spoilt me rotten this weekend!) the pain in my right hip started to become excruciating. I haven’t had pain like it since I moved out here. I was crying in the shower because I could hardly bear to stand on it. Then the nausea began and I was sick. All the time I was repeating the mantra in my head: ‘Smith, get a grip, you are not the one getting married!’ Anybody who tries to tell me that mind, body and spirit are not an immutable triangle after that will have to be slapped I am afraid. I managed to pull myself together and went out with the determination to have fun. Yet, even when I was there I really struggled with myself the whole way throughout. At one point Steve asked if there were any requests and I had to sit on my hands not to request ‘Independent Woman’ by Destiny’s Child. As I say this is not an issue with this particular partnership, which I hope will be long and happy and it is not even an issue with my ex-husband, because he was a good man. It is my issue with being subsumed into coupledom and in so doing losing your own edges, and having to live a life of compromise, which even in this day and age men do to a far lesser extent than do women.

Another thing that has sort of taken me by surprise this week is the World Cup. I have always been a fairly keen football fan. Indeed back in the day I was a season ticket holder at the Goldstone Ground. (I have just gone on t’interweb out of interest to see what date the Goldstone was demolished, knowing that it was over a decade ago – it was in fact 1997 – and some pictures of the old ground came up which brought a smile to my face and a lightness to my heart – Bill Archer you have a lot to answer for! Brighton and Hove Albion are still not in a permanent home, although the Falmer Stadium is only a season away from being finished.) Anyhoo ... Obviously not having a television any more watching it at home was not an option and I couldn’t face going to watch it at the pub with lots of drunks getting over excited and starting fights and I suddenly realised that I don’t actually care a herby dumpling about the whole thing. If by some immense miracle England do get to the final of course I will support them, but I don’t actually care a fiddler’s fart whether they do or not. What sacrilege! I have shocked myself.

So I am going to stop waffling now and leave you with some vintage Dorothy Parker, who is a woman I adore. She personifies the acerbity of the 1920s and she is my idea of the ‘Independent Woman’ who coped with all the loneliness and heartbreak that comes with keeping your integrity. She never pretended that it was easy being a strong woman but she was always certain that she would be nothing less. She was a fierce anti-fascist and civil rights campaigner and famously said: ‘heterosexuality is not normal, it’s just common’. Although she was definitely very heterosexual herself! The quote that I feel is most relevant to my life, however, is this: ‘Four be the things I’d have been better without: love, curiosity, freckles and doubt.’ Spot on as always and never forget, as Destiny’s Child so succinctly put it: ‘I depend on me’!