MEDITERRANEAN MEANDERINGS
29TH JUNE 2010

Once again my friends I have to admit I lied about the frogs! Every time I think they have stopped they start again. I should have known really. As I look down into the pond below the balcony I can see myriad bubbles on the surface as the tadpoles are turning into froglets (I am not sure that this is the correct biological term, but I like it.) So it is unlikely that the croaking will have stopped yet. I do wonder where they were hiding for the first few months I was here, because they definitely didn’t start until January. Do frogs hibernate? I am afraid the life cycle of a frog is not one of my specialist subjects. I will try and do better next time.

This week I went for a day out with the Ladies from the Coffee Morning to Kyrenia (or Girne). Buddhist Sue came with me as we were going to meet up with some friends when we got there. Again it was an absolute bargain - €10 to cross the island. At the border there is always an utter cheek. They insist that you pay for a guide to get on your coach with you. This costs in the region of €70. This guide does not say anything. They merely sit in the coach until you are away from the border, at which time you have to pull over and let them out. I have yet to find someone who can explain to me the point of this, apart from it being a moneymaking con.

We had a lovely day in Kyrenia, although the bus ride home was torturous. I do not know what it is about women of a certain age, but when they are together in a crowd they are worse than teenage boys. Some of them had had far too much to drink with their lunch and this makes them shrill and loud. Still at least they had a good time and it was only just over 2 hours that we had to cope with them singing ‘Old MacDonald had a Farm’!

In Kyrenia we met up with Jenny and Tony who are great company. They drove us a small way up the coast to a restaurant called Peanuts, which sits in a little cove. The tables are on a deck which goes right up to the edge of the rocks so you can look down into the sea as you eat. Tony was lucky to get away with his life as he filled my bag with the free peanuts that were on the table whilst I was in the toilet. I was still picking nuts out days later and I told him that he should be thankful they were not his!

Tony was asking me if it was true that people did not come over to the north because they believed it was violent. I did not think this was the case (well not among the ex-pats, it is a whole other issue for the Greek Cypriots), so I thought I would ask around when I got back. The majority of people I spoke to here have all been over to the north for day trips, especially as we only live 20 minutes from the Agios Nikolaos border. Those who had not been and who did not want to go said that for them it was a matter of principle, as they felt that Turkey was illegally occupying the land and that they did not want to support it. As a woman of principle I think it is important that you stick by your principles whatever they may be, so fair enough. I did seriously think about that before I went over for the first time and then I decided it would be hypocritical. If I really had a problem about visiting countries that were occupying lands where I thought they had no right to be then I should never have gone to America and I would certainly never be able to go back to the UK. Especially as between us we sold Turkey the arms that enabled the 1974 invasion. Kissinger even provided the strategy. However, as I said I totally support anyone who stands by that in which they believe. No one I spoke to thought that they were more likely to be attacked/mugged or otherwise come to harm that side of the border than this. Another reason people don’t go very often is because of the car insurance that you have to pay at the border. If there is only one or two of you going it can end up as quite an expensive day out.

Still, politics aside, it is a beautiful place and we have been invited back to spend the weekend, which I am really looking forward to.

Whilst chatting to various people over the last few weeks I have found out an awful lot of things about myself. Apparently I am known as the ‘lady with the rucksack’ as I am the only idiot stomping around without a car. I do tend to turn up where people least expect to see me. Not only that but I have been backpacking around Australia before deciding to move to Cyprus. Brilliant! I have never been to Australia and I certainly would not have the stamina for backpacking, but that is something I don’t need to bother doing now as in some parallel universe I have been doing this for the last few years. There is obviously the inevitable gossip that any woman alone has to cope with and I am having affairs with various men and women, because a woman without a man must either a) be desperate or b) be a lesbian. Fine by me, I can be both or neither, gossip away my pretty ones. It doesn’t bother me in the least. One lady was telling me how brave a friend of hers was because she moved here alone without knowing anyone first. I said that this was also the case with me and she said yes, but you have travelled the world and are so confident! This is an illusion that I am quite pleased about. Various people have said to me that they wish they had my confidence and ability to chat with anyone. The reason I am pleased with this is because it is proof that my ‘fake it 'til you make it’ campaign has been successful. None of these people have any idea how little confidence I have and how much effort it takes for me to leave the flat, let alone converse with people on a daily basis. I find the whole experience terrifying and indeed I find this world a very hard place to live in, but I tried the option of giving in to my fears and I didn’t leave the house for months back in the UK. The panic attacks increased and I had no life. So, I made the decision that I would not allow my fear to cripple me. There is nothing in the world that can hurt me or that I am scared of, but my inner self petrifies me. It can scupper anything. There is an age old adage that it is only the things you fear that come and get you, so I decided that I was not going to let that happen, no matter how much I quake inside. Consequently I am a bizarre mixture of bravado and terror. I have strolled through Hell’s Kitchen with no fear of anyone or anything, but I look in the mirror and think: ‘you idiot, everyone knows you are a fraud, you might as well stay in bed and not face the world today.’ The fact of the matter is that for over a year now I start every day before I open my eyes by saying to myself: ‘today I choose to be happy, today I choose to be healthy’. Sometimes I am more successful than others, but every day I am prepared to fight my fears and not give into them. Now here is a question that I ponder on a lot – is it madder to know your neuroses and face them, or are you more insane if you pretend that you have none and conform to fit in with society? Whichever of those is true, I think it is probably a fact that I am mad as a box of frogs.

Last Wednesday there were really strong winds here in Cyprus. I went in to Agia Napa to meet Sue, as she was staying with me because we would have to leave early for Kyrenia the next morning. The bus ride in was fabulous and the harbour at Agia Napa was also a wonderful sight. I thought I was in heaven. I was in nearly tropical sunshine, but the waves were like small Atlantic breakers. The sea is always at its most beautiful when it is full of life and the waves were crashing more than I had even seen them in the winter here. The spume was blowing in land and it was beautifully refreshing on hot skin. I know this isn’t a phrase I use often but – I do love the sea. I don’t think I will ever be able to live away from it. I feel drawn to it at all times. Sometimes I think I have saltwater in my veins as opposed to blood. I thought I could cope living on the River Dart, but the fact was rivers, beautiful as they are, do not answer the yearning in my heart that is only ever stilled when I am near the sea. When I can look up and see miles of water ahead of me and no land. When I feel the movement of the water rocking me in a boat and feel safer than I ever do on dry land. These are the times when I feel at home. It does not matter what country I am in, or who is with me, but the sea is my life. Every day I say thank you that I am so near to the sea.

I venture into Agia Napa very little these days. It is now full of that breed which Britain seems to export so well – the drunken bore. I will probably avoid the place until September now, when it has started to quieten down again.

I am revelling in the warmth and the sunshine at the moment. It has not got that hot yet and indeed I must remember to take a cardigan out with me, because I forget that coaches, people’s cars and other people’s houses all have air conditioning on and I start to get chilly. I love feeling the heat on my bones and the constant sunshine means that I am constantly smiling. If there is one inner dread that I am continuously having to suppress it is that one day this will end and I will have to return to the greyness of the UK. This is my worst nightmare. I cannot cope with the greyness of the skies, the greyness of the buildings, the greyness of life, even the greyness of the politics. I don’t ever want to return to the days when I would open my eyes yet again to a day that was, as the French so wonderfully put it, mauvais, and then promptly close my eyes again as my body tells me it is not worth getting up as there is no sunshine. I know that many people will have no clue what I am talking about. They live in and enjoy the UK and I think that is wonderful, but for me I have only ever existed that far north and I am only just now beginning to live. I think that it is important that everyone is where they get most benefit and many people like the cooler temperatures and the drizzle, but this is a death sentence to me. So I am racking my brains for a way that I will always be able to stay in the sunshine, whether that is Cyprus or elsewhere. If anyone has any bright ideas please let me know! I do think the UK has so many amazing qualities and I definitely think it is the freest land on earth, but as George Bernard Shaw so aptly said: ‘I showed my appreciation of my native land in the usual way by getting out of it as soon as I possibly could.’