MEDITERRANEAN MEANDERINGS

2ND OCTOBER 2010

Well I hope you all enjoyed Cyprus Independence Day yesterday. It passed in a complete wave of indifference here in Kapparis. Whether there was wild partying elsewhere on the island I do not know. Considering that it was the 50th anniversary of their throwing off the British yoke I am surprised that there was not something going on. Still, what would I know? 

I am afraid I am running late with the blog this week as I have been struggling a little . The exhaustion that has been threatening since just before I left the UK has finally got its vicious little claws around me. I am managing to get out and do some lovely things but that is my lot for the day. It is so hard to explain to anyone how this affects your life as people really do not understand it unless they have had it. They think that you are just a little bit tired and as soon as you have had a rest you are ok. So I am going to try to explain it so that if there are other people in your life with ME or CFS you can appreciate a bit more what it is about and not just dismiss them out of hand. I think, to begin with, the thing that confuses most people is that when I do get out I give 110% of myself. This is something that my ex-husband used to find particularly difficult to understand, understandably enough. He used to ask me why I could go out and be the life and soul of the party, laugh and joke and be my usual loud self only to collapse like a wet rag when I was in the house, which he then had to cope with. It is one of the reasons I am now glad I live alone as I can be completely useless without having to worry that I am making someone else’s life a misery. If I listened to the doctors I would only ever give about 30% and then be able to live my life at a constant level, but in my opinion it would be a constant level of COMPLETE BOREDOM! My personality is not fitted to living life indifferently, when I do something I participate wholeheartedly or not at all. This is my choice and so I cannot have a woe is me moment (and I don’t want one anyway!) because this is my decision. What people find most difficult to understand though is what I call ‘collateral damage’. When I have been out living my life this is what my payment has to be for all the enjoyment. Since I moved to Cyprus this payment has been pretty minor. I have rested in between things and managed to get a load of energy from the sun; but this week the collateral damage is beginning to give me a hint of how it was in the UK, although I must stress at this point that it is as yet (and hopefully will not get to the point of) nowhere near the total collapses I have experienced there. For example on Thursday I went to the coffee morning. Sandra picked me up, so I did not have to walk far. I sat on my backside for a couple of hours, joining in as and when I felt the urge and I would bet money that not one person at the coffee morning would have any inkling that I was anything but healthy. Then Buddhist Sue came and collected me as she was going to do her shopping at the Xenis supermarket and she had kindly said she would take me. This is my favourite (if you can apply such a term to a supermarket, maybe least hideous would be the better soubriquet) as it is small and quite Cypriot but unsurprisingly not on a bus route and an awkward place to walk home from with shopping. We were there less than an hour but by the time I got home I knew that my body was about to stop. As soon as I put the shopping away I had to retreat to the sofa with a book and I was asleep within minutes. I woke up a couple of hours later, and pootled to bed. I was not sleepy but I could not hold my body upright one second longer. What I find very difficult though are the mornings when I am in the throes of what the Victorians would have called an episode. I awaken early enough, but it can literally be a couple of hours before I even have the strength to open my eyes. So I have to lie still hearing the world carrying on around me being unable to move any part of myself let alone my eyelids. Once the eyes are open, it then takes me time to lie there getting up the strength to sit upright. It doesn’t matter how desperate you are to go to the toilet there is nothing that can make your body move at any greater speed. All of this is carried on with a constant commentary in my head of ‘come on Smith, get a grip’; ‘move your bleeding ‘arris Smith’ and ‘right I’ve had enough of this now, get the fuck up!’ So consequently I have not been up in time to write anything before hauling myself out to whatever is arranged for that day and on return again collapsing into bed. I want to be clear that none of this is a complaint, just trying to describe my life in a factual way. I have long ago accepted that this is how it is and I still manage to live a pretty amazing life. However, today I felt I wanted to actually explain the nature of the beast. I have to say I am amazingly grateful to Lynn, who by dint of being in the flow of the universe made me some lovely pasta and rice salads this week and so I haven’t had to worry about trying to find food. Perfect timing. As I say how can I complain when I am this fortunate. 

Still there is one thing I am going to complain about. I put my glasses on yesterday when I got back from my stint at the charity shop and they broke in two! I had been wearing them all afternoon and there was no sign of any breakage. They are the first glasses I have had that have actually suited me and I love them. They are tortoiseshell Karen Millen, although that makes them sound much more expensive than they were. They are shaped beautifully and they are no more! I tried fixing them with sellotape a la Harry Potter but couldn’t get them to hold together. So it looks like I am sans glasses for the foreseeable (or in my case not very seeable) future. There is no such thing as an NHS optician in Cyprus, or indeed anywhere else in the world except the UK. Another thing we forget just how fortunate we are to have. Don’t let them take your NHS away people. Fight to your last breath to keep it, or your last breath might just be sooner than you think and somewhere far more uncomfortable than one of the hospitals people seem to enjoy moaning about. So if I am walking down the street and ignore you, please don’t take it personally. I just won’t have a clue who you are until you are within a gnat’s crotchet of me (as the great Humphrey Lyttleton would say). Still if I win the snowball in the Corner Pin on Sunday it is new glasses all round! 

I did manage to get in a couple of lovely things at the end of last week before the exhaustion became too acute. On Wednesday I went to Sirena Bay with Sue and her sister Babs who was staying with her for a while. Believe it or not it is the first time I have been to the beach this year. I was ridiculously overdressed compared to everyone else there, but I don’t do beachwear and believe me that is something you should all be very grateful for. I did have a paddle and the Med was beautifully warm. However, what made the afternoon so special was that as we were lying there jabbering away a Kingfisher came and sat on a branch to the right of us. (Luckily my sunglasses are prescription as they are only tiny!) For the next twenty minutes or so he proceeded to give us a wonderful display as he dived in and out of the sea catching fish -the beautiful shimmering turquoise of his back glinting in the sun, with the pink of his breast catching the light when he regained his branch. This was particularly special to me as I have been longing to see a Kingfisher for ages. I have traversed the River Dart on the boat from Dartmouth to Totnes on many occasions and they describe part of the river as the Kingfisher Run as they are so abundant there (allegedly!). But never have I seen one, so I felt terribly privileged to have been able to watch this one in action.

We had a trip to some wineries in the Troodos last Thursday with the coffee morning. The Troodos is always beautiful. It is normally quite a bit cooler up in the mountains and so I went dressed accordingly. No, not in thermals, but I did wear long trousers and a proper t-shirt, whereas down here on the coast you can’t wear anything other than strappy tops really. I was glad of it on the coach as the air conditioning is always so chilly, indeed I wore my pashmina on the way home, which was a source of great amusement! It was pleasantly warm in the Troodos though, although I should imagine that it gets very cold there in the winter. What amused me the most about the day, however, was that whenever I have been on a trip with the coffee morning ladies they have all got rather loud on the way back after partaking of a little too much wine with their luncheons. This time we actually went wine-tasting and they were as quiet as mice. What’s that all about then? 

It was the Agia Napa festival last weekend. This was on for three days, but we just used it as an excuse to go into Napa to see Chris on Saturday evening, as he always seems to have to come in this direction. We did wander through the stalls but it was so packed that it was difficult to see anything. The monastery square was incredibly crowded as a young Greek heartthrob was singing that evening who apparently is incredibly famous. Needless to say he did nothing for me. The beauty of youth has never appealed; middle-aged craggy men have always been much more my type! The wonderful thing about these festivals is that they are all free. They are put on by the local municipalities. I am afraid we didn’t last long in the throng and went and found a pub at the side of the square. Chris did convince me to try chips with gravy on the way home. I made all the protests about it being northern that a good southern girl should, but and I will say this very quietly, they were actually very tasty. Much, much nicer than mushy peas! 

So, finally before I go for a lovely sit down here are some words from Thomas Carlyle that I wholeheartedly agree with: ‘I’ve got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom.’ If there is no blog next week you know what’s happened!