PART 1 Top

Hello Cyprus!

Sunday 6th May - 9am.

After a great deal of ‘not being very happy’ ‘im indoors has finally accepted that I am going for a short holiday to Cyprus with my crazy friend Rose, and we leave today, - at 11am to be precise.

10-15am, I phone Rose, to check she’s ready to leave at 11.

My daughter was going to be driving us (in my car) to Gatwick, as Rose’s ever helpful other half had ensured that he was working and unable to take us.

However, ‘im indoors wanted to come along for the ride – fair enough I guess, but we then develop a ‘problem’.

My daughter is going to bring her man along too, and they have planned to go shopping on their way back. Fine by me. ‘Im indoors has other ideas.

‘I’m not having that arsehole driving my car’ says he, can’t she (daughter) take us on her own?

Oh boy, this is going to be fun!

‘Why, it matters not who comes along’ I reply.

‘He is not coming in my car, and that’s final’

Fine………

Sylvie (daughter) phones.

‘We’ll be round in a few minutes’

‘Hang on babe, we’re having a rethink here, I’ll phone you back’

Time is ticking along and we have a transport ‘problem’ – we didn’t have one an hour ago, but we have one now.

‘Im indoors can drive, but chooses not to, as he says it’s too painful for him with his back problems, Rose and I don’t want to take the car as we realise that we’ll be too knackered to drive home after we land….

‘Well, if you won’t let Sylvie bring Darren and the little one along, you’ll have to come and drive the car back’ says I, ‘coz I’m fucked if I’m going to let you spoil this for me’

Silence.

‘OK, I suppose I’ll have to then’

‘Right, get yourself sorted and I’ll phone Sylvie’

‘I phone Sylvie and briefly explain that he’s behaving like a spoilt brat – again!’(just for a change!)

Eventually, we get sorted, my case and hand luggage has been in the car for over an hour waiting… and we drive off round to collect Rose.

At Rose’s house we walk in through the back door to find her frantically vacuuming the floor! She looked at me, then at ‘im, and raised an eyebrow – ‘bloody hell Sylvie, when did you grow the beard?’!!

I leave him explaining to Rose that he’s ‘decided’ to take us instead of Sylvie..whilst I take her luggage and stow it in the car.

We’ve a two plus hour drive to Gatwick, thank God I’m driving down there and not him!

We finally hit the road at 11-20am, the road is reasonably clear and we make good time, arriving 35 minutes before due check in time.

‘I’ll come in and sit with you till you go’ he says.

‘Well, you can’t leave the car here, it’s purely a drop off point and there’s a £125.00 fine if you leave it’ Rose pointed out to him.

‘No, it’ll be alright’ adamant as ever, he believes that he can do as he pleases and stuff the rules.

So, we then go through several minutes of ‘discussion’ about car parking.

‘Look, go and park properly and then come back’ I suggested.

Daft suggestion.

There then followed 25 thousand reasons why he couldn’t do so. Finally he gave up, and stomped off. ‘Oh I’ll just go now then, might as well, etc.etc.’

‘OK’ I replied, ‘but take it easy going back.’

‘I’ll need some money for petrol’

‘I put plenty of fuel in this morning’

‘No, I’ll need some money’

Shit!

I hand over a tenner and say goodbye.

Rose is standing near the airport entrance, grinning. (bitch!)

We watch as he gets in the car and makes a right cock up of reversing to get out of the bay where I’d parked.

Rose took my arm as I watched, wincing as he crunched the gears.

‘Come on girlie, let him get on with it, you don’t want to know what’s happening’

She was right. We had a holiday to be getting off to; Cyprus was waiting for us!!

We meandered off towards the departure lounge and craned our necks to read the screens for information about our check in times and departure points.

We decide to check in and dump the luggage first and then go for a coffee.

‘How you haven’t killed him yet, I really don’t know’ said Rose as we chatted over our exorbitantly priced coffees.

‘Give it time!’

‘Time? Fuck me, I’d have done it years ago if he was mine!’

The chat went on in this vein for a while, then the nasal voice floated around the lounge, ‘All passengers for flight no. XYZ123 to Cyprus, please make your way to the departure lounge’

‘That’s us!’

I decided to phone ‘im indoors to see if he’d got home in one piece, but no answer..oh well, I’ll try again when we arrive at the other end.

We swallowed the remains of our coffee and made our way to the departure lounge and through to the passport control.

‘It’s alright fella, I know its here somewhere’ says Rose, frantically rummaging through the bottomless pit of a handbag that hung from her shoulder.

The security guy smiled wanly at her.

‘What the fuck did I do with my passport?’ she whispered, trying not to look worried.

‘It’s in there somewhere – I think’ I replied, not very helpfully.

‘Hang on, sort the others out, I’ll get back back to you’ Rose beamed at the security guy.

We moved out of the queue, and began searching through her bag…nothing.

‘Oh fuck!’

‘Calm down, it’s gotta be in there, lets take the stuff out properly and we’ll find it’

Without too much trouble, we soon had the floor around the security guys feet littered with magazines, paper, tissues, pens, pencils, earrings, make-up, sun cream, loose change, cans of drink, a couple of dog chews, some receipts, shopping lists, loose sweets, a bag of humbugs, sugar sachets, sauce sachets, pepper and salt sachets, combs, hairbrushes, keys, more keys and a few more keys, plastic cutlery, two bottles of water, an apple, a small fluffy teddy bear, tickets, needles, cottons, scissors, nail varnish, biscuits and other similar essential handbag stuff, but no passport……..

‘Have you looked in the zippy bit at the front?’ I suggested.

‘Smart arse!’ replied Rose as she triumphantly retrieved her passport from the zippered front section.

Gathering the contents of her bag together, we made our way through passport control, and finally, along with around 200 other passengers were herded off towards, and into a sardine can, thinly disguised as a Boeing 747.

4.55pm. Take off!

‘Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, this is your pilot speaking, blah, blah, blah, the flight will take approximately 4 hours and 35 minutes, the weather in Larnaca is good, around 26 degrees….

We didn’t need to know any more!

Settling down as well as we could, with barely 18 inches of space in front of us, we discussed our ‘plans’ for the week, and decided we would do little more than vegetate, swim, sunbathe and read….(Cyprus had other plans!)

Shortly after take off, the stewards and stewardesses came around with the obligatory in flight ‘meal’ Quorn disguised as chicken in tomato sauce, soggy vegetables, a miniscule piece of chocolate ‘gateaux’ two dry biscuits and a piece of bendy cheese that was so well sealed in it’s wrapper, it would have taken Daley Thompson all his strength to release it. (We gave up on the cheese) - and a cup of coffee; intended, in all probability, to wash away the taste of the food.

9.40pm. We eventually squeeze ourselves out of the seats and make our way down the steps of the aircraft, and into the airport bus which carries us off to Larnaca airport arrivals section. I phoned Sylvie, and she said she’d drive by the house to see if the car was there, and let me know next day. If it wasn’t, she’d arrange to feed the animals for me.

It is now 11.40 Cyprus time, and we have to go and find the coach that will take us to our hotel. Herds of stampeding human animals everywhere, it’s like a bloody cattle ranch, however, we eventually find the correct coach and throw ourselves into the first available seats where we wait, and wait, and wait, ….until finally a twittery young woman climbs aboard and tells us that we have a forty five minute journey ahead of us…What fun!

It’s now around 12.30am, maybe later but we’re too tired to bother about anything.

Leaving Larnaca airport, I suddenly remember reading about the salt lakes and the flamingos that hibernate in Cyprus…There is a salt lake just outside the airport, on the left as you drive towards Ayia Napa. Spotting the lake, shining silvery in the moonlight, I couldn’t see any flamingos, but made a mental note to put a visit here on the holiday agenda.

The twittery young woman rabbited on and on throughout the journey to the hotel, finally telling us that there would be a ‘welcome’ laid on for us along with information concerning places to see, things to do etc, and we were expected to attend at 10am that morning – after breakfast!!  Some hopes!!

1.25am the coach arrives at our designated hotel, we drag ourselves off of the coach and make our way to the reception desk, cases and bags being dragged across the floor behind us.

‘Room 427’ smiled the receptionist handing us the key.

Opening the curtains in our room, we stagger through the patio doors and onto the balcony…looking out over a bay of azure waters we decided that we were impressed- before abandoning our luggage and falling into our beds, totally knackered!

PART 2 Top

Monday 7th May – 7.45am.

Not renowned for my early rising abilities, I astounded myself as I groped around the bedside cabinet for my watch.

The brain is definitely not in gear though as I attempt to work out the time..my watch says 7.45, but is it 7.45, or 5.45, or maybe even 9.45 ?? Did I alter it to local time when we arrived ?

I decided that the conundrum was just too much to handle at that hour and gravitated towards the bathroom in an attempt to wake myself up.

A bleary-eyed hag with a well-worn face stared back at me from the huge and brutally honest mirror over the wash basin, I turned the light off so that I wouldn’t have to look at her - it was too much to take so early in the day!

Leaving the bathroom, I crept across the room trying not to disturb Rose, who was flat out, mouth wide-open catching flies!

I found my ciggies and stumbled towards the balcony, stubbing my toes on the abandoned suitcases on the way. Quietly gritting my teeth, I pulled the curtains open a few inches and slid the doors open.

‘Hey, what’s happened – who’s nicked the sunshine?’

I stared in disbelief at the grey sky as I watched the waves pounding furiously against the rocks that edged the bay in front of me.

It wasn’t cold, but the wind was strong, not a gentle breeze, but a hefty gale force type wind that caused the palms to bend almost to the ground as it whipped along the sands.

‘Oh shit!’

‘Maybe it’ll die down later, perhaps this is the ‘norm’ around these parts??’

Not entirely convinced, I decided to go back to bed for a while, and have another look later!

I threw myself back into my bed, and disappeared under the covers and back to dreamland for a further hour or so, until I stirred as Rose stumbled out of her bed and made her way to the bathroom.

‘Hiya babe’

‘Urrrrrrrrgh, wassa time?’

‘Dunno’

‘Urrr, ok’

The ‘conversation’ continued in this vein as we attempted to find the right gear for our respective grey cells to click into.

After ten minutes or so the fuzzies were gradually clearing, Rose showered and then wandered off to the balcony as I made for the shower.

‘Fuck, have you seen out here?’

Rose’s dulcet tones rang across the room as I entered the shower.

‘Yeah’ I called back, turning the water on, beginning to wake as it streamed through my hair and over my body.

Feeling livelier, I emerged from the shower, pausing briefly to check the old hag in the mirror, who didn’t look quite so bad as she did earlier, before wandering into the room in search of clothes.

OK, so where are the keys to my suitcase? I’m now sitting in the middle of our room, a damp towel loosely draped around me as I puzzle over the whereabouts of the aforesaid keys..Hmmm, can’t go down to breakfast dressed like this, after all, the towel’s seen better days and God knows where my panties are!!

Ah! Yes, I know, they’re in my handbag! So where the fuck is my handbag???? Could be in my flight bag…I upend my flight bag on the floor and sure enough, there is my handbag!

Oh boy, I’m working well this morning!!

Throw contents of handbag onto floor and see what I’ve got…screwdriver, nail file, loose change, bits of paper, purse, half a pack of mints, eyeliner pencil, mascara, nail varnish, half a bag of cat treats, camera lens, lens cleaner, specs, paracetamol, chocolate éclair sweets, nail scissors, a couple of clothes pegs, a handful of old receipts, cigarettes, three 35mm films, tippex, key ring, reel of white cotton, pack of needles, half a dozen safety pins and some sweet pea seeds – no keys to the suitcase…shit! ok, no panic, I’ll just go through the flight bag contents again, which are basically similar to the handbag’s only more of everything, plus extras.

Eureka!!

Finally, I find the keys, safely stashed in the inside pocket of the flight bag – bloody daft place to put them, but no matter – I can now find some clothes and we can have breakfast. Rose is sitting on the end of her bed, just watching…’and you tell me I’m scatty’ she remarked as I began flinging clothes out of my case, searching for underwear!

Eventually, I begin to resemble a reasonably acceptable human being and after yanking a comb through my now well knotted, half dry hair we make our way downstairs to the dining room.

Buffet style breakfast, excellent!

I grab the coffees, Rose gets the orange juices and after finding an unoccupied table, we go off on a fodder hunt!

Croissants and apricot jam, cereal, yoghurt, melon and apricots for me, Rose goes for the full ‘English’ version followed by melon.

Another two caffeine ‘hits’ and I’m about there, almost alive, likewise Rose.

We decide to go and sort out the bombsite that we slept in, and from there on, find out a bit about the country, places of interest to visit etc. If we can’t veg out on the beach, we sure as hell aint gonna sit around the hotel!

We need to find out the time too, as I still haven’t fathomed whether or not I altered my watch, and Rose hasn’t a clue either.

10.25 am. Ah ha!! It appears that I did alter my watch then, good, at least we’ve got that sussed out!

Upstairs again, we begin clearing the bombsite, stashing our clothes away in the wardrobes and drawers until at last we see the floor once more!

Looking out from the balcony and across the bay, we see one solitary jogger and little else other than those huge waves crashing against the rocks, and the wind throwing the palms almost to the ground…We reinforce our decision not to lie on the beach today and make our way downstairs again to check the notice boards, and/or find someone to speak to with regard to places to visit.

‘Jeep Safari trips, to mount Olympus, the Troodos mountains the Akamas gorge etc, etc..’

‘That looks good’ mused Rose. I agreed and we picked up a leaflet.

‘Bit pricey though, lets go for a wander around and see what else is on offer around the town’

Back upstairs again; we fish out a sweater each before making our way out of the hotel and off into the town.

‘Daktari Jeep Safaris’ proclaimed the notice board outside the tiny office-cum-shop. Checking the boards, we note the same and more trips on offer at half the prices listed in the hotel!

Diving in, we book a trip out for the following day (Tuesday) another for Thursday and a further one for Saturday……

Look out Cyprus – here we come!!!

PART 3 Top

Anyhow, next bit  -

Love Cat x x

After parting with our cash, Rose and I decide to wander off and ‘explore’..have a look around the local shops etc, generally get a ‘feel’ of the place.

‘Shit!’ I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t phoned Sylvie.

Guess all is ok though as she hadn’t phoned me either….hmmmmmmm, best phone her tho’ just in case…

‘Hi Sylve’

‘Hi Mum, so what’s it like?’

‘Brilliant (I think!) – so far, but really windy!’

‘What? We’re having a heatwave here!’

‘You are joking?’

‘No, honestly, it’s really hot!’

‘So you’re getting a tan?’

‘Yeah, been out already’

‘Already? It’s gone half ten’

‘No, it’s only just after half eight here’

The penny drops! I can be so dim at times!

‘Anyhow Sylve, did you check whether he was home?’

‘Yes, we drove by and the car was there, so we drove back again really slowly to check for dents and things, but it looks ok!’

‘Thanks babe’

‘I’ll go round again later, and see if he needs any shopping doing’

‘Don’t worry too much sweetheart, I left plenty, but he might need some more cat food in a day or so’

‘OK, well you get on and enjoy yourselves, have a good time’

‘Thanks Sylve, speak again soon, bye’

I turned the phone off and looked at Rose.

‘They’re having a heat-wave back in England’

‘I don’t want to know!’

‘Sylvie just said, apparently it’s really hot there!’

Rose began laughing..’would you fucking believe it! We come all this way and bring the rain with us!’

I then relayed Sylvie’s message about the car, and we had a chuckle, visualising Sylvie driving by really slowly and scanning my car for dents!

 

After a couple of hours pleasant wandering in and out of various shops, supermarkets and bars, we decide to make our way back to the hotel for a ‘siesta’ as after the long day travelling yesterday and the relatively early morning, we worked out that we’d only had around five or six hours sleep during the last 24, and for a couple of eight hours or I’m knackered types, we were well beyond our limits!

Moseying back to the hotel, we wandered into the lounge for coffee before going upstairs for some much needed sleep, or at least rest, prior to making our grand entrance in the dining room later!

Rose settled down with Terry Pratchett, whilst I went for the easy, non-brain- straining magazine options and a couple of crossword puzzles.

 

6.15pm, I roused amongst the debris of my discarded magazines, crossword puzzle books and pens and looked over to where Rose lay, sound asleep with her specs shoved up onto her head and Terry Pratchett in bed beside her!

God, was it that late already?

We must have been tired. I disentangled myself from the sheet which had wound itself around my legs and feet, and made my way to the balcony..just to check…!!

The wind had died down, and everything looked calmer, even the sun was attempting to cast a ray or two across the bay.

I lit a cigarette, (yes, I know I’m supposed to be giving up…) and sat on the white plastic seat, gazing out into the far distance, and enjoying the peace and tranquillity of my surroundings.

Finishing my cigarette, I meandered back into the room and gave Rose a nudge.

‘C’mon babe, it’s getting on for 6.30, I’m just off for a shower’

‘Yaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwnnnnnnnn’

‘ok girlie’ (dunno why she always calls me ‘girlie’..)

I shower, then go searching the wardrobe for suitable dining attire as Rose makes her way to the bathroom.

‘Long floaty dress? Short floaty dress? The black, or the navy? Maybe the pale yellow? Or what about the blackcurrant colour one?’

Decisions, decisions…

I eventually settle on the long, semi fitted with slits up the side, blackcurrant coloured one, an old favourite!

Rose emerges from the shower as I struggle to make my face look presentable!

I need more than make-up, I need a miracle, but never mind, miracles are in pretty short supply, so have to make do with what I’ve got!

Eventually, we make our way to the lifts and ultimately the dining room.

‘Good evening Laydeeees, welcome to our hotel’ smiled the tall, dark-eyed guy in the burgundy coloured waistcoat, black trousers and white shirt.

‘Good evening’ we replied, then ‘thank you’ as he handed us each a deep pink, long stemmed carnation from the massive bunch that he held in the crook of his left arm.

Taking our flowers we were then led to our table by a smaller guy with a cute bum.

‘Stop dribbling’

‘Who me?’

‘Yes you!’

I laughed at Rose’s perception of my thoughts.

She wasn’t far off though………!!

Dinner was buffet –style, and quite an extensive selection too!

We started with the salad, then ploughed our way through something Greek(ish) but really tasty along with baked potatoes (Cyprus potatoes have to be tasted to be believed!) before attacking the sweet course.

For two chocaholics, this was heaven!!

We decided to be ‘sensible’ and only have a small piece of chocolate gateaux – type sweet, but I couldn’t resist the little ‘thingies’ filled with nuts and coated in honey, and Rose found strawberry mousse, Oh dear – there was fresh fruit by the ton, some incredibly fattening-looking, enticing - type apricot and cream filled tartlets, as well as ice cream, yogurt, two other gateaux…decisions, decisions…and then there was the cheese and biscuits…Just what does a girl do in a situation like this? Eventually, after great deliberations, and assessments on stomach capacities, we returned to our table…but…in their eagerness to be ultra efficient, someone had cleared our table!!

And they’d taken our flowers to boot!

We began laughing, seeing the comic side of things, (as usual!) and wandered off, sweet course in hand, to find a waiter, and get ourselves re-seated.

The waiter apologised profusely, and found us another table, unfortunately beside a ‘professional complainer’ who went on, and on, and on, and on about anything and everything, until Rose finally looked over to her and said,

‘Tell me, why do you bother coming on holiday if you expect a three star foreign hotel to match the standards of the fucking Savoy?’

The woman looked at Rose, totally gobsmacked!

‘You’ve got no grounds to complain here, the food’s incredibly good, and from what we’ve seen so far, so is the hotel, and the staff’

‘Well actually’ began the woman, ‘We went off to get our sweet, and when we returned, someone else was at our table’

‘Nuff said!

Rose nearly fell off her chair, and I could hardly keep a straight face! After a couple of minutes, we succumbed, and just sat there, cracking up at the daft cow’s misfortune!! 

We finally finished our sweet, had a coffee in the lounge and then decided to go for a stroll around before bed.

Although we’d had a siesta, we didn’t want to be too late, as we had an early start in the morning – leaving at 7.30am (5.30am UK time!)     Yuk!

However, we both knew that it was gonna be worth it!

PART 4 Top

Tuesday 8th May 5.50am (that’s 3.50am UK time!)

 

Duddla da, duddla da, duddla da, duddla da…

The strange sounding alarm from my mobile threw my dead brain into reality.

‘Oh fuck, how do I turn the bloody thing off?’

I normally only use it for talking to people, and now the bloody thing is screaming at me – (oh shit!)

I’m frantically pressing all the buttons in my zombie-like state, and ‘Hey!’ it stops!

Switching it off, to ensure that it doesn’t shout at me again, (I can’t take noise in the mornings!) I shoved it underneath my underwear in the drawer of the cabinet beside my bed and staggered off towards the bathroom where I threw my head underneath the shower before returning to the bedroom and nudging Rose.

‘C’mon, we’re off out today’ I reminded her.

‘Urrrrr, wossa time?’

‘6 ish’

‘OK girlie’ she muttered, turning over to grab a further couple of minutes before having to face the world.

I sat on the end of my bed, debating with myself about what to wear.

‘How am I supposed to know – is the weather going to be warm? cool ? indifferent ?’

I decide to leave the decision for a few minutes and wander off to the balcony in an attempt to gauge the weather situation, before I make up my mind.

Suddenly realising that I am naked, (virtually) I wander back and throw a tee-shirt over my still damp skin and resume my seat on the balcony.

Rose is stumbling around in a brain dead stupor, having finally roused herself and is making her way to the bathroom, whilst I light a cigarette and ponder the weather situation.

Eventually we are more-or-less awake and making an effort to decide what to wear – not that we’re particularly fussy, just indecisive!

Rose finally settles for her shorts and a tee shirt, I decide to follow suit, then change my mind, it might get chilly in the mountains! (I can’t handle cold!) and begin to pull on my jeans, so far, so good…but now what?

‘Shirt? Tee-shirt? Sweatshirt?’ more decisions…

Eventually, I decide to go for the vest-style top with a shirt over that. OK. Finally, we’re both dressed and ready, and it’s only 7am.

I begin throwing ‘essential’ stuff in my flight bag, camera, zoom lens, 2x converter, films, bottle of water, hairbrush…’do I need to take a hairbrush? – probably not, but you never know…’ purse, fags and phone. ( I know I don’t need my phone, but I don’t want it getting nicked)

Rose is sitting on the end of her bed, sorting out her camera and ‘bits’

‘Throw them in here, if you like, save taking two bags’

‘It’s nearly quarter past’

‘Yeah, I know, we’ve got enough time though…..haven’t we?’

‘Well girlie, we leave at 7.30, and we’ve not had breakfast yet!’

‘Oh shit! I thought it was 8 o’clock we left’

‘No, ticket says 7.30’

‘Sorry babe, you should’ve hassled me’

‘No worries, have we got everything?’

Grabbing our clobber, we literally fly out of the room and along the corridor to the lifts.

Downstairs, we whiz into the dining room; I grab two coffees and two croissants whilst Rose rushes off to get toast, marmalade and fruit.

We grab an unoccupied table, and ‘unload’ before rushing off again to fetch orange juices and cereal.

Being sensible (for a change!) Rose has picked up oranges and apricots, which we decide to take with us – then throw our cereal, toast/croissants down our necks along with the coffee and follow up with juice before grabbing a slice of watermelon each as we make our way out to the lobby, getting there just as the fella arrived to collect us!

Outside the hotel, he guides us to the navy blue, 10-seater jeep and we climb in the back alongside two (married) couples.

We settle down as the jeep makes it’s way out of the hotel grounds and along the road.

The driver introduces himself.

‘Galimera everyone, - galimera is Cypriot for ‘hello, how are you,’- a general greeting;

Today we will be going to the Troodos mountains, the highest point on the island, and visiting several places of interest along the way, now, as there will be a great deal of ‘off-road’ driving, we will be taking a coffee stop every so often, and changing seats with one another so that everyone gets a chance to sit in the front, and likewise, the back!

First of all though, we will be driving along the main highways, for around an hour or so, then we will stop for a quick coffee break and meet up with the other drivers, so until then, we’ll chat amongst ourselves and get to know one another.

My name is Guy, (see pic at end of thread 3) and I am your driver for today;

I am half and half, No that is not my sexual preferences (!) but my parentage..

My father is English, and my mother Greek Cypriot, and I’ve lived here for the past 18 years, now, starting at the front, please introduce yourselves..’

Everyone introduces themselves in turn, finally it’s round to us!

‘My name is Rose, I work as a co-ordinator for the Victim Support charity, I come from Suffolk and I’m open to offers!’

Top that then!

‘My name is Anne,’ - ‘Also known as Shirley Valentine’ chimed in Rose, much to the amusement of our fellow travellers.

Ice broken, the banter continues as we drive along the uncongested (!) motorways towards our first ‘pit-stop’.



We arrive at our first ‘pit-stop’ where three other jeeps are already parked.

Along with our fellow travellers, we make our way into the café for coffees etc. and once we are all ‘settled’, a tall Cypriot guy calls for our attention.

‘OK people, today we have some fun! We are going to take you to see many places of interest, we will visit Bano Lefkara, so you can see where the ladies make the beautiful lace, we will visit Mount Olympus, the highest point on the island, and the Caledonian Falls. This is where the beautiful goddess Aphrodite bathed, and anyone who bathes under the waterfall will be blessed with the eternal youth and beauty! We will stop for meze at lunchtime, and also, we will visit the winery, where our Cypriot wine comes from, and we will all get peeesed!

Any questions? OK, lets go!!

PART 5 Top

Rose by now, was almost wetting herself laughing, and struggling at the same time to hold her camera still enough to take a photo!

Guy, who is doing the videography, is egging everyone on, and soon there is a great clapping, cheering and laughing echoing amongst the rocks!

Suddenly, just as I’m about to exit the pool, the sounds of whistles fill the air, I look over to the bank, and there is this young Dutch guy rapidly removing all his clothes! He comes running into the pool and dances under the falls as well!

What a pair of nutters!!

Finally, we climb out of the water, and Effie wraps the towel around me.

I remove my wet undies and dry off, before dressing again – it’s really funny wearing jeans without any knickers!

Back to earth again, and we head up the mountainside for the jeep, this time it’s my turn to sit in the front.

Once in the jeep, we begin making our way to our next stop, everyone is chatting and laughing about the ‘events’ at the waterfall!

‘She’s such a trollop!’ says Rose, which causes Guy to crack up laughing.

‘Thanks for being such a good sport’ Guy grins at me, ‘it looked quite cold’

‘No, it wasn’t too bad’ says I, ‘though the weight of the water was rather unexpected’

‘It looked cold to me’

‘No’ I repeated, ‘It wasn’t too bad’

Guy grinned, then moved closer, to whisper something to me.

‘I had the camera, and the zoom told me that it was quite cold!’

I started laughing.

‘I hope you don’t mind, I was only doing what any other fella would do, and that water was definitely cold
(OK Jenny* I dared!!)

The banter continued as we made our way on to our next stop, for meze – (lunch, which consists of several courses)

Once we arrived, Effie called everyone together –

‘OK people – where are we?’ he asked

‘Cyprus!!’

‘So, now we will do as the Cypriots do – first we divide the ladies up into three groups – the first group does the cooking, the second group sets the tables and the third group serves the food – The men will all come with me and sit down with a drink while we wait!!’

Once inside the taverna, and seated at the tables, the wine was served, followed by food, food and more food!! – Breads, salads, mushrooms in pasta, cous-cous, chicken, pork, potatoes, green vegetables, tomatoes, various yoghurt dips – so much variety I cannot remember, all washed down with wine and followed by fresh oranges.

An hour or so later, refuelled and refreshed, we made our way back into the jeeps again to visit the winery.

‘When we get to the winery, you will see how we make our famous ‘Comanderie’ sherry, and also our ‘firewater’ – this is also known as ‘jiggy jiggy juice’ – don’t forget, Cyprus is the island of Love, and we love our ‘jiggy jiggy’!

Effies’ introduction said it all really!

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At the winery we were all given a sample glass of the local wine, more like a very sweet sherry – but not as bad as it first appeared, and then Effie picked up a bottle of ‘Firewater’ and began extolling the virtues of this ‘jiggy-jiggy’ juice –

‘With this, you can forget viagra – you don’t need nothing else – so, who is going to try some?’

A few brave guys put their hands up and Effie poured approximately 2 inches of the clear liquid into each glass.

‘OK- you don’t sip this stuff, it goes down in one – now!’

The fellas threw it down their throats, shuddering afterwards.

‘Now something I forgot to tell you’ says Effie, ‘You buy this wine, you can also use it for paint stripper, for cleaning the windows, for nail varnish remover….’

That guy’s humour was brilliant!!

All too soon the day had to end, and we arrived back at our hotel at around 6pm.

As we walked across the lobby we noted the ‘professional complainers’ had got together with a few other like-minded individuals…we concluded that they were holding a convention.

Back in our room, we collapse on our beds and recount the days events, then unload our cameras, films etc. - and I have to get my underwear dried off !!

‘Crazy bitch!’ laughed Rose as I strung my undies out on a makeshift washing line on the balcony.

‘Yeah, I know’

‘I hope I got a picture – it was right at the end of my film’

‘Oh, yeah, I hope you got it too’

‘Course, if you’d have waited, or at least told me what you were planning, I could have made sure I had film in ready’

‘I didn’t plan it – it was just idiot spontaneity!’

‘Tell me about it!’

We laughed as we recalled again the days’ events, and then decided that we ought to get ourselves showered and changed for dinner.

By 9pm we had finished dinner and were back upstairs thinking about getting our heads down for the night – it had been a long day!

We decided to go ‘walkabout’ the following day, and then settled down with our books before eventually nodding off to sleep.

 

Wednesday, 9th May.10am 

Breakfast finished, and cameras reloaded, Rose and I make our way out of the hotel and wander off towards the town.

We’ve decided to take a walk around the outskirts of the area we’re staying in, and sample a little of the ‘real’ Cyprus, although, first of all we want to visit the monastery in the centre of the town, which dates from approximately 1500, during the period of Venetian control in Cyprus, and which expresses the Venetian style of architecture.

Following a quieter day of walking around, taking photographs and (almost) getting lost, we finally arrive back at the hotel.

It is now 5.30 pm – Have we really been walking all day?

Well, apart from the essential chocolate stops along the way – yes!! –but we’ve seen some real nice places!…and taken photographs of all manner of things, from interesting rocks and trees to the harbour and the pink pelicans on Nissi beach..all in all a good day.

 

Thursday May 10th  7am.

Not quite a repetition of Tuesdays’ fiasco, and we manage to have a reasonable breakfast before our scheduled 7.30am pick up time.

Gathering our clobber together, we wander through to the lobby to await our Jeep for today’s trip to Paphos, Lara Bay and the Akamas gorge, amongst other places, which is to be another ‘off-road’ day.

Outside the hotel, Guy the jeep driver laughed as he greeted us. ‘I wondered if it would be you two again!’

There’s no answer to that!!

The End

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