Summer in Cyprus

Hi All,

I'm a poor blogger and there is a bit of a backlog (or should I say 'backblog'. Jeez, JM can be funny sometimes!) that I am slowly trying to get to. We are in mid-summer here - went to the party in the village and all - and it is rather hot. The last to days we had some respite. It was only 38 degress Celsius. So, we dress down a little and spend a lot of time in the water at various beaches and in our swimming pool. When we come back from the beach, we immediately swim again. Daniel has become a dolphin an Isabella is slowly becoming more confident. We are rapidly getting brownwer and hope to land some lucrative affirmative action posts when we return. Our apartment has airconditioning and although we don't like to use it, we have no choice. Poor Jeanne-Marie had a cold because of that in the middle of this heat. Fortunately one can buy antibiotics over the counter. I entered the pharmacy with te usual exchange. "Merhaba, how are you", said he pharmacist's wife. "Fine, just very hot." "Not to worry," she said, " it only lasts for two months." Hell! By that time we'll be kaiings.

Other news is that I teach summer school, Isabella starts school tomorrow, Jeanne-Marie needs work, Daniel is an inventor. He wants to invent an "electric" toilet seat that can register when you get up, so that the toilet can flush automatically. Bright boy! I hope his wiring right.

I took Daniel to a vintage car rally at Bellapais and you know you're getting old when all the vintage cars were around when you were Daniel's age. I didn't think the cars were old at all!

This week will be the first that Jeanne-Marie and I can spend together without the children. We're going to Lefkosia where we have to do a few admin things. We'll venture to the south to look for a chemistry set for Daniel. We hope, like most parents who buy chemistry sets, its the start of great things.

Next Wednesday evening we're going to the Alagadi Beach where the turtles are currently nesting. They have a conservation project going. They will show us a movie, give us a talk and then we'll go down to the beach. We hope to see some of the giants coming out to lay their eggs.

Next weekend its the orange festival in Guzelyurt (Umlaut on the 'u' - the name means Beautiful/Good place/country). The town is about 50km west of where we live. We are learning more and more Turkish words and things are starting to make more sense. There is, however enough English around to get along without Turkish, but one must be careful not to only relate to the British ex-pat community. Nice people, but that's not why we came to Cyprus. I must admit that its good having them here because I can follow the Tri-Nations on the big screen. Go B-team, Viva Jake etc. etc., ra, ra, ra...

Now that the exams are over we are catching up on movies again. Liked The Illusionist, thought Closer was exceptional, nay, masterful - Natalie Portman is a genius, check out any of her movies like, Beautiful Girls, Garden State and V for Vendetta -Bridge to Tribithia was an excellent, small movie (for those of you interested in literary controversy, read the entry in Wikipedia, Adaptation didn't work despite understanding what it tried to say - too contrived and I don't like Meryl Streep anymore - Pan's Labyrinth was hard to watch but great, I know now why everyone goes on about Paris, Texas, liked The Island with Ewan McGreggor and Scarlet Johansen, but its flawed, Agent Cory Banks was a great watch with the kids, still havn't seen the whole of Shrek the Third - will wait till I get a better pirated copy - getting into the Barbie movies - and please challenge me on that one, Little Miss Sunshine is superb, History Boys utterly dissapointing - contrived, poor screen adaptation, what were they thinking? - and Spongebob Squarepants will always be my hero!

I have initiated a huge action research project to attempt to address the massive litter problem on the island. Lets hope something comes of it. It is very exciting and apart form cleaning up the place, I might get a few publications out of it. Let me know if you're interested and I'll tell you more. I might tell you more anyway if I find the time to write and catch up with my other postings.

Well, for now, here are a few pictures of our mostly aquatic lifestyle.

In our swimming pool

The oldies at Bellapais (see an earlier post for Hyperlinks to Bellapais)




Some restaurants at Bellapais. One is the Tree of Idleness where Laurence Durrel wrote his book Bitter Lemons about his experience of Cyprus in 1957

When Issy saw this add in a paper she said:"Wow, we must take a picture of this!"

Our beach club - Camelot

The harbour wall in the background was apparently built by the Romans

Lastly, Alagadi beach, or, The Boertjie that went up the Koppie, but came down the Mountain (with his daugter on his shoulders). Parenthood! What joy...