MEDITERRANEAN MEANDERINGS

23RD DECEMBER 2010

I know it has been a while since I have written a blog and thank you to those of you who have contacted me to see whether I had dropped dead! Now that I have written covering a whole year in Cyprus I will not be blogging so regularly. The seasons and the beauty of the country as it changes throughout the year will be the same and I have no wish to repeat myself, so the Meanderings will now be a more sporadic offering. 

It has been a very mixed period here in Cyprus climatically. Anyone who thinks there is no climate change is obviously in a great deal of self denial. November here on the edge of the Middle East was the warmest in 110 years. Some days it was still reaching the late 20s, which of course I was extremely happy about. However, this does give you an immense shock when the sun goes in as within minutes you are incredibly cold. Therefore you knew if you were out in the late afternoon that you had to be prepared for both temperatures. This beautiful temperate November did mean that we had none of the rain that the country normally relies on at this time of year, which is concerning. December did bring a fantastic storm, which was one of the best I have ever seen, but the rain was so torrential that it did not have the chance to soak into the earth, so was not much use for replenishing the aquifers. 

As I said the storm was utterly amazing. If you have a fear of thunderstorms this is not a good place to live. It had been raging on and off all evening and was incredibly close overhead so when I went to bed I arranged the pillows in the most advantageous spot and curled up under my duvet to watch it. The power went off in Kapparis and so there was no other source of light than the lightning which was constant. We were inside the sheet lightning, which was enveloping the village and at the same time we could see the fork lightning flashing around us. As you can imagine the cracks coming from the thunder were deafening as they were directly overhead. At one point I could resist it no longer and had to go and stand on my balcony. It was one of the eeriest experiences I have ever had. A black sack had been blown onto the roof of my building and was caught on the railings above my balcony. When the lightning flashed I saw this ragged dark shape swooping and flying above my head only for the world to go black a split second later. Obviously with the next flash (also within a split second) the black mass was in another position and was truly spooky, even though I knew exactly what it was. It is easy to see how legends and stories come about. My imagination transformed that black tattered shape into a hundred different ‘monsters’ all of which were waiting to pounce. Eventually I decided I was soggy enough and was in danger of being bodily lifted off the balcony (yes the wind was that strong!) so I went back to bed to watch it. 

The next day there were a number of storm stories. A friend who had been performing at the Akrotiri Air Force Base (which is the other side of the country) had to drive home in the midst of the storm, trying to avoid all the flooded roads and the rocks that were washing down the sides of the incredibly dry hills. My favourite story came from Chris and I wish he was here to tell it in his own words. On the Friday evening he was watching TV on his laptop, happily minding his own business, when a bolt of lightning came through his ceiling and stopped about five inches above the laptop. This was followed by a crack that made it sound as though the building had just split in two. For a few minutes he just sat there open-mouthed, then he got his act together and googled being struck by lightning inside your own house and indeed it is not that rare. I am afraid I was a complete bitch when he told me and laughed for ages. I was trying hard not to and I was relieved he was not hurt, but it is an image that will stay in my mind for a long time. As he said in conversation a few days later: ‘a few more inches and it would have got my bollocks!’ I am sure that all men reading this can share the relief that he obviously felt. Indeed he had a rough 24 hours involving rescuing a dog from an upside down kennel; a satellite dish hanging by a thread from the roof of his workplace; being asked by a neighbour to do a Rod Hull and go and check the roof in the middle of a storm (which he sensibly didn’t do) and to top it all the pickup truck he borrowed turned out to be full of ammo. I will leave the rest to your imagination and if you ever meet him I am sure he will fill you in on the details. 

A few weeks ago I had one of the most amusing evenings out I have ever had. I am loathe to write about it because I am not sure how I will convey it on paper. In fact if a television crew had been there, recorded it live and put it out as a sitcom everyone would say that the characters were not believable. It is one of the amazing things about Cyprus that if you have the front you can get away with anything. The local Argos Dog Sanctuary was holding a barn dance in aid of the sanctuary (obviously!) and although that is not normally my type of thing at all I am so glad I went. I came out with my cheeks aching from laughing all night. Gill, who I volunteer with at Helping Hands, wanted to go as she loves dancing of any kind, so I said I would go with her but that I would ask Sue if she wanted to come too as they both love dancing whereas I am more likely to sit at the side and just take it all in. So we trolled off to Vrysoulles to George’s (which in an aside is owned by a Cypriot who looks like a short Murray Head). The venue was lovely, and the food was good, with George aka Murray being a very genial host - it was the dance callers who were to provide the hilarity. ‘If you can count to 8 you can barn dance’ the lady lisped into her microphone. Sadly what she neglected to mention was that she could not do this herself. She was perched behind her Bontempi with her husband playing the accordion at her side. He had already given us a shock as when we sat down with our drinks we were moaning about the version of ‘Green, Green Grass of Home’ that was playing (although Tom Jones rarely features on my musical radar I do acknowledge that he has a great voice) when we turned round and realised it was him singing along with his accordion. As our eyes met I think we already knew what was in store. Bless them they were very sweet, but she kept forgetting where she was and Gill (who picks up dance steps as quick as breathing) was telling her what came next. Not only that but some of the people who were dancing gave me hope. I tend to avoid anything that involves co-ordination as being a dyspraxic fool I tend to cause chaos, yet I came out of there realising that I am not as uncoordinated as I thought I was. People were falling over each other and could not work out where to go next. I would say that they weren’t listening, but I am not sure that would have made a great deal of difference. From my seat at the side of the dance floor I could hear Sue’s ringing tones calling out ‘silly old trout’ every time the caller made another error. There were some Cypriot girls who had gamely come out to try this barn-dancing malarkey and I thought that I had never seen anyone so clumsy, which just proves what a fool I am, because later on when George got the bouzouki out they did some flawless Greek dancing, so I think the fault must have been in the explanation. All in all you had to be there to appreciate the hilarity of it, but we continued laughing all the way home in the car and, being a big advocate of the fact that laughter is the best thing in the world and is only second to sunlight for healing everything, it was worth every single penny. Not only that but it raised a lot of money for the sanctuary which after all was the point of the exercise. As I said earlier if you have the front you can get away with anything in Cyprus. The amount of cabaret acts I have seen in the bars here that I have thought just had an amazing cheek is unbelieveable, although there are also a lot of acts I have seen that I have enjoyed thoroughly. It has taught me a valuable lesson, I realise now that I can have a good evening without it being a cultural tour de force. If I go out with the attitude that I am going to have a good time I always do. When I go out and think that what I am going to see or do is beneath me, then I come back miserable. It is not hard to make a decision between the two when you realise the difference it makes to your quality of life. I try not to sneer anymore – although it is still very much a work in progress. 

So, beautiful people, I am off to pack now as I am going to the Dark Side for Christmas. We are off to stay at the Old Ship in Kyrenia for a few days. I am a bit trepidatious (not sure whether this is actually a word, but it says what I mean so I am going to use it, so there!) as it has been a long time since I have gone near Christmas, but I am just looking at it as being an extended party of good friends, with lovely food thrown in, and Christmas being an irrelevant backdrop. There seems to be half of Paralimni going. In fact everybody I speak to keeps saying ‘see you Friday’, so it will probably be just like spending Christmas here but with a different view. Also, it has to be said, a hell of a lot cheaper. For €110 we have got three nights half board in a beautiful hotel, you couldn’t even pay for Christmas dinner in the UK for that. Anyway, I am looking forward to it immensely. 

I hope that all of you have had a season of fun and frolics and that it continues over the Christmas Period. I realise that it has been so long since I was on here that I forgot to wish everyone a Happy Diwali, Hanukah and Solstice – but my thoughts were with you all for all of them. I have tried to find a Christmas quote that wasn’t trite, sentimental, or vomit-making and failed miserably so instead I am going to share a Viz Top Tip with you: ‘Chris Rea. If you’re driving home for Christmas again this year, you’d better get a fucking move on.’!