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I’m not normally a fan of shops playing Christmas music in November, Santa may indeed be making his list and double checking it, but I don’t have to until the end of the month at least.

But having said that, there is one stubborn hotel still open and banging out the irritatingly summery muzak(sorry, pet peeve) to various people lounging in the sun in their swimming cozzies.  We should have moved out of “En mas varethiges akoma;” territory by now and are perilously close to “Reh, spidi then echis?  Thromo!” which is a significantly more robust invitation to hit the road.

Admittedly its unheard of for November to be this warm but I’m seriously tempted to bend my own rules and turn up in a Santa suit and start dropping weighty hints with a view to having my peaceful boardwalk back.
FFS dudes – its nearly Christmas…even if it is still warm enough to sunbathe…put some clothes on and go wrap some presents.

I can turn off the irritating samba music when you leave.

Not on my account it isn’t.

The summer is still hanging around, but its already been handed its hat and everyone is smiling and nodding goodbye and looking at the door.  As we say in Greek – En mas varethiges akoma; translated as ‘Aren’t you tired of us yet?’ (The semi-colon is a Hellenic question mark).
The Moonwalk has come and gone – we even had an eclipse of the moon to watch, and although its still swimming weather – the nights and mornings are cool enough to be enjoyable and some of the tourist venues are either closing or at least thinking about it.
For my part, I am on my final holiday before I retire!  FINALLY!  So I’ll have plenty of time for walking the boardwalk and talking to the cats and I’m looking forward to it big time.
The good news on that score was that the threats against the moggies of Fig Tree Bay and the coastal path in general were received so badly that the mayor cancelled the proposed meeting to “discuss” his measures – presumably for fear of being lynched by irritated ailurophiles.
So – life changes, seasons change, plans change, but we and the cats remain and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Not a perfect picture, but in my defense it was quite a long way away and usually I do cats and seascapes.

It looks like the cool season is over, despite a little rain overnight.  I went to take a stroll this morning, the beaches and the boardwalk are getting busy, the water sport concessions are all up and running (noisy beggars), the beach umbrellas are mostly occupied, and parking is becoming a hassle. The sound of wind and waves has to compete with muzak from the hotels and noisy people gossiping in a variety of languages.
Just as an extra blessing, the new mayor of Paralimni is planning on removing all the cats from the seafront and banning feeding them.  Clearly bananas.
Time to lock it down until next year unless the weather throws us a surprise or two, I’ll keep you up to date on any news.
Enjoy your summer, people.  And if your plans include Cyprus, welcome first and foremost.  And if you find yourself on the boardwalk, remember to remark really loudly, “Hey!  Where are the cats? I thought there would be cats!  It’s the only reason I came!”  
I’d be very much obliged to you if you could.  Use any language that pleases you best.

The religion of Cyprus is Christan Orthodoxy, so we don’t pay any attention to the pope, our churches are colourful works of art, priests wear long robes and funny hats (no small feat in the summer weather), and this year – this weekend is Easter.
This means we get to eat the traditional flaounes, plus a whole lot of lamb cooked over charcoal, go to church at midnight if so inclined, and greet each other by saying Christos Anesti, or “Christ is risen”.

Additionally, because it’s a sunny weekend, Nicosia seemingly in its entirety migrates to the beach.

Ahman. (Oh dear).

It’s understandable though, and perhaps forgivable, because the weather is still cool enough to be enjoyable although the sun is warm and the sea is – as always – beautiful.

So we went for a stroll this morning and although the umbrellas on the beach were pretty much all occupied, things weren’t too crazy, the cats were cautious but still said “Hi” and for some reason the boardwalk was liberally sprinkled with German tourists who referred to everything as “Zeus”.

I was puzzled at first as I couldn’t figure out what the King of the gods in the Greek pantheon had to do with all this, and we are the island of Aphrodite (Venus if you want to get all Roman about it) anyway.  Having said that, shouldn’t the Germans be a little more allied to Odin?

But then I remembered that in German, zeuss means “sweet”… so clearly I’m overdoing the theology here.

Happy Easter anyway.

To be honest, yes.

This is the perfect part of the year when its sufficiently clement for swimming most of the time, the sun is warm rather than hot, and if we get lucky then there is still going to be a bit of rain left before summer inevitably rolls on in.

One of the plusses for this year’s preparations for the tourist season is that the local council took the trouble to clean out the 3^rd century tomb that they discovered back in 2010 when first constructing the walkway – untouched and complete from the time the last sarcophagus was placed. 

This means the four occupants rested undisturbed through something like 1,700 years before the workers beginning the coastal path in Fig Tree Bay uncovered the nine steps down into the rock.  And for most of this time, the only sounds would have been the sea, an occasional storm, and an uninterrupted view of the coast and the passing ships.

I wonder what these peace-loving citizens would have thought of modern Ayia Napa…kind of difficult for them to move away to somewhere further down the coast this late in the day…

Another Sherlock Holmes reference for you, specifically from The Adventure of the Norwood Builder.
“But he had not that supreme gift of the artist, the knowledge of when to stop.”

Yeah…about that….

When I published the first version of The Grand Theory, obviously I thought it was about right.  Then I saw it in my Kindle and thought “Oh dear…”.
So I looked at it again and republished.  And again.  And one more. And then I lost track.
Then I got a copy of the paperback and thought “Hmmm”, and yet another bunch of tweaks.

I’m sure it’s a lack of experience on my part but there is a price involved to the reader.  If you downloaded version A of the book, version A is all you can see – it doesn’t update automatically to the newest version.  So whilst you read TGT (a), I’m reading TGT (c) and this really will not do. Its a book, not a series.

I think I’m through compulsively updating now, and for the next project I’ll be older and wiser so I’ll ask the friendly people at Kindle nicely if they can ‘push’ the update to everyone with a copy of the Grand Theory so its just one version for everyone. (It can be done but you have to ask nicely).

And then I’ll leave it well alone.

So Christmas came and went – hope you had fun – and the new year is here.  Its 2025 and I’m going to have to get used to it although I’ll probably be writing ’24’ for a while yet. 

The weather seemed to share my doubts as the skies opened plus we had some pretty solid rain – it’s been brass monkey’s cold, a phrase I had great deal of fun explaining to local friends and colleagues.

Usually February is the evilly cold month but just now January is giving us its best efforts.  Having said that, when the rain holds off, the mornings are bright and clear and as long as you dress warmly you can get out and take the air without any difficulty. The kids are out on the rocks fishing, the occasional lonely heron is running around on the grass followed by the occasional over-ambitious cat, and the surfers in Fig Tree Bay have no trouble getting pulling on their wetsuits and catching a few waves.  Not very big waves perhaps but waves none the less.

The cold makes the cats hungrier, which is probably why even a relatively large pointy-beaked heron looks like breakfast, so they are following anyone who rustles a plastic bag of ‘cat biscuits’ (dry food) so if you are in the mood for a little bracing exercise, now is a good time to make a lot of friends too.

A scary long time ago, one of the great pleasures of life was to catch a bus down to Southsea and feed the ducks on Canoe Lake with half a loaf of stale bread.  Half the fun was the ride down on the top deck  but the ducks were pretty cool too. The swans were best enjoyed from a distance.

These days I hear that feeding ducks bread is vigorously discouraged, doubtless for some or other perfectly valid reason, and 45 years downstream I would wonder if Canoe Lake is still there anyway. (It is! I’m not.)

These days in Protaras, you can drop half a dozen handfuls of kitty kibble into a zip-lock bag, zoom off to Fig Tree Bay where there is loads of free parking these days, and stroll along the virtually empty boardwalk looking for cats with the munchies that you can feed.

It should be noted that hard working and committed volunteers are out there taking care of the proper feeding and care of these colony cats so lets not overdo it or leave a mess.  But having said that, a fistful of kibble and an ear rub is usually more than welcome although some of the less friendly mogs, the ‘runners’ if you prefer, would rather you just left a little snack somewhere convenient and kept your distance.

Either way, it’s a pleasant way to spend a morning, and when the cats are through with their munchies – I go to Starbucks to follow their excellent example.

So the winter weather stepped up its game yesterday, and the season for walks and fresh sea air arrived with one hell of a fanfare.  An honest to God tornado blasted through Limassol and Pafos this weekend, leaving significant damage to Pafos hospital and generalised flooding in its wake.

Now by damage I mean flooded floors and collapsed ceilings, and the flooding was knee-deep at best, but the fact remains – summery it was not.

Down here, things were far more civilised.  I was woken by torrential rain on my window at about 02:00.  I thought ‘yay!’ and went back to sleep happy.

The following day, the boardwalk was all but deserted bar for the cats from last year, the three kittens have grown almost beyond recognition but they recognised us and we all said ‘Hi’.

Soon it’s going to be time for strolling out with a bag of moggie treats on a free morning and meeting up with the little guys while watching the teal-coloured sea foam against the little jetties the visitors used for getting into the water in the summer.

Hope to see you guys as summer visitors next year – but me and the cats, it’s our turn for now.

I look forward to the first rain of the year, but elsewhere in Cyprus people are less enthusiastic.  Flooding in Limassol and Nicosia is far from rare – last year in November(ish) the motorway out of Nicosia was a river of ice-strewn water from torrential rain driving grapeshot hail headlong on the wind. 

In Protaras we even had a four-wheel drive Shogun towing a guy on a wakeboard down the road past Sfinx and McDonalds.  The guys in the kayaks that had got there first were far from happy.

Such meteorological excesses I can manage without.  This year we have just seen some flooding in Nicosia and Limassol but the roads were still passable for ordinary traffic for those who kept their nerve and took things slow. Cool – enough.

In the past I have had to battle through fast-flowing water that leaves you guessing as to where the kerb is under the muddy torrent and whether or not your engine is going to die on you even if the idiot throwing up a bow-wave from the opposite direction doesn’t take you out first but as you may guess, I’m not a fan.

All I need is the scent of fresh, damp earth, the changes in the colours of the greenery and the smell of wet asphalt.

Noah and his four-wheel-drive ark need not apply.