Yesterday after buying enough leather belts to last the rest of my natural life I asked the shopkeeper to recommend a restaurant for lunch and following his directions I found myself the only foreigner in a Cypriot establishment, needless to say the food was tasty and plentiful and half the price of the tourist traps up the road.
Today I went to the British cemetery in Larnaca to tidy up my brother in law’s grave, whilst there I visited some of the other inhabitants who I had known during my time in Cyprus and I realised that the majority of them were younger than I am now when they died, now do I take this as a sign that I am on borrowed time and make the most of what I have left or - no, there is no or, I am going to carry on enjoying life.
Another of today’s contemplations was Cyprus. I have been coming here for over thirty years and the place has changed in some ways beyond recognition, really it is just the same place with better roads and some shinier buildings but compared to the Costas and the Algarve etc it is scruffy, it’s continuing saving grace are it’s people and the food.
Wednesday, 21 November 2018
Monday, 19 November 2018
Back to the sun.
After a nause with hotels.com over a B&B booking I made for Llandudno on Friday night before I flew out here to Cyprus everything else went smoothly, I am now sitting in the back garden of the apartment I rented in Alethriko in 24C of sunshine before I head up the road for this afternoons’ Hash at Ayia Nappa. The apartment occupies the whole of the ground floor of my hosts Nikos and Vassillia’s home, it is far too big for me, it has a comfy bed and all mod cons but I do have to shower and shave before my hosts family drain the solar heated hot water tank in the evening.
I met up with Paul and Teresa yesterday along with Pauline and Jim and John and Gill as well as some new friends Roger and Mia at Dora’s, a very old fashioned Cyprus bar in the back streets of Larnaca. I was advised that the food was not of the same standard as the beer and the company so I settled for a couple of Cyprus sandwiches last night when I got back to the apartment.
My plan this trip is to relax and recuperate so there will not be too many reports on this blog unless I do have something special I feel I need to communicate.
I met up with Paul and Teresa yesterday along with Pauline and Jim and John and Gill as well as some new friends Roger and Mia at Dora’s, a very old fashioned Cyprus bar in the back streets of Larnaca. I was advised that the food was not of the same standard as the beer and the company so I settled for a couple of Cyprus sandwiches last night when I got back to the apartment.
My plan this trip is to relax and recuperate so there will not be too many reports on this blog unless I do have something special I feel I need to communicate.
Sunday, 7 October 2018
Every cloud............
After my experience of yesterday evening I wasn’t up to preparing my evening meal so I ent to check out the bar, snack bar, restaurant and shop which all turned out to be one establishment and not very appealing so I headed back to my lonely shed only to be accosted by some Polish guys I had said hello to on the way out, they invited me over for a beer which was accompanied by slices of cold sausage and followed rapidly by some kind of clear hooch which tasted like a fruity vodka, they are over here working on a computer infrastructure project and living on site to keep expenses down, isn’t it amazing, half a dozen guys from what was a country behind the iron curtain and they all speak reasonable English and now French, they say that besides the English they got from school the rest came from Friends and other TV programmes. I left there feeling a bit woozy only to get nobbled by the Bulgarians a few vans down the road they said I had to join them for a drink because I had stopped off at the Polish camp but these guys were hospitality in itself I was given a glass of red wine and a bowl of something that resembled goulash, just what I needed to soak up the alcohol. They were over working on the same project as the Polish guys and included in their crew a Latvian guy, and two Italians and for the most part they spoke in Italian but again they all had enough English to ask questions and understand my answers. Needless to say I slept well last night.
It was hammering down this morning so I stayed where I was until it stopped before venturing out I had initially planned on visiting Versailles or the Louvre but the place was so busy that I abandoned the attempt and picked up some grub before returning back to the campsite. I did learn some things about driving over here, changing lanes is the norm and signals although the etiquette are not mandatory nor are the speeds in different lanes so undertaking is quite acceptable and flashing your lights if someone is going too slow is not illegal as it is in the UK, once you accept all this everything falls into place and there is consequently very little use of the horn.
When I got back I passed the main Polish caravan where one of the guys was having a cigarette on the deck and nursing his head, the main man on the Bulgarian van was cooking lunch for his buddies and invited me to join him but discretisation........ starting that early on the red wine was not a good idea with tomorrow’s drive to Calais in mind so I did the sensible thing and said thanks but no thanks.
It was hammering down this morning so I stayed where I was until it stopped before venturing out I had initially planned on visiting Versailles or the Louvre but the place was so busy that I abandoned the attempt and picked up some grub before returning back to the campsite. I did learn some things about driving over here, changing lanes is the norm and signals although the etiquette are not mandatory nor are the speeds in different lanes so undertaking is quite acceptable and flashing your lights if someone is going too slow is not illegal as it is in the UK, once you accept all this everything falls into place and there is consequently very little use of the horn.
When I got back I passed the main Polish caravan where one of the guys was having a cigarette on the deck and nursing his head, the main man on the Bulgarian van was cooking lunch for his buddies and invited me to join him but discretisation........ starting that early on the red wine was not a good idea with tomorrow’s drive to Calais in mind so I did the sensible thing and said thanks but no thanks.
North again.
Yesterday was wind down day, I did manage to visit the museum that was closed earlier in the week and it was excellent, well worth the entrance fee.
I spent the rest of the day filling the car up, buying food for tomorrow’s 360 mile trip to Paris and then chilling out, the temperature got up to nearly 30C but the forecast is for cooler weather especially as I head north but it did mean I could wear the shorts and T shirt probably for the last time this year. Wrong it was sunny again this morning, so shorts again.
That was a long drive away from the toll roads, I stopped for a picnic at the halfway point and arrived here at Eurocamp Paris just after 5pm. After all Billy’s recommendations I was really looking forward to the experience but it was not to be. The reception was closed and after phoning the number scrawled on a piece of scrap paper stuck to the window the smelly little oik turned up took my name and ticked it off in the book and then gave me a folded up piece of paper and asked if there was anything I wanted to know. Obviously staff training is not a high priority with Eurocamp. It turns out the the folded up paper contained the caravan keys but it was the wrong van so he sorted that out then I had to drag all the necessary information out of him and go and find my new home for the next two days. I would have been better going to Rhyl! When I saw the outside of the grubby caravan my heart sank, it did not look anything like the illustration in the brochure and when I opened the door I nearly fainted from the cloud of obnoxious perfume that hit me, obviously some kind of air spray to hide the musty smell of the place. I know I did not book the premier class of caravan but this is real economy class and having just come from a wonderful isolated gite at less than the price of this shed I was not impressed. However, after thoroughly airing the place one opening the wine things got a little better, let’s see what happens tomorrow.
I spent the rest of the day filling the car up, buying food for tomorrow’s 360 mile trip to Paris and then chilling out, the temperature got up to nearly 30C but the forecast is for cooler weather especially as I head north but it did mean I could wear the shorts and T shirt probably for the last time this year. Wrong it was sunny again this morning, so shorts again.
That was a long drive away from the toll roads, I stopped for a picnic at the halfway point and arrived here at Eurocamp Paris just after 5pm. After all Billy’s recommendations I was really looking forward to the experience but it was not to be. The reception was closed and after phoning the number scrawled on a piece of scrap paper stuck to the window the smelly little oik turned up took my name and ticked it off in the book and then gave me a folded up piece of paper and asked if there was anything I wanted to know. Obviously staff training is not a high priority with Eurocamp. It turns out the the folded up paper contained the caravan keys but it was the wrong van so he sorted that out then I had to drag all the necessary information out of him and go and find my new home for the next two days. I would have been better going to Rhyl! When I saw the outside of the grubby caravan my heart sank, it did not look anything like the illustration in the brochure and when I opened the door I nearly fainted from the cloud of obnoxious perfume that hit me, obviously some kind of air spray to hide the musty smell of the place. I know I did not book the premier class of caravan but this is real economy class and having just come from a wonderful isolated gite at less than the price of this shed I was not impressed. However, after thoroughly airing the place one opening the wine things got a little better, let’s see what happens tomorrow.
Wednesday, 3 October 2018
Explorations and ruminations.
Monday’s visit to Sarlat was a completely different experience with no market stalls and shoppers clogging the streets, if fact a lot of the shops do not open on a Monday so it is the ideal time to explore the medieval quarter which is mostly pedestrianised and of course parking is also much easier.
Lidl has made as much of a penetration in France as it has in the UK but Aldi is trailing behind and their stores are not as large but they do sell an amazing houmous, have you ever noticed how many different spellings there are of this word, nearly as many as the different recipes there are for it on line.
The French love their dogs and I am with them on that, also on all my trips here over the last twenty years I cannot remember seeing any doggydoo which is the opposite of my first visit to Paris in the late seventies when walking along the pavement was akin to taking part in a marathon hopscotch competition. The other thing I have noticed is there are not so many cats around, this is particularly noticeable to me as the village I live in is overrun with them which probably accounts for the declining songbird population in the area. I am not against cats per se and I know that they do a good job of keeping vermin down in certain situations but house cats should be treated like pet dogs, not allowed out unless on a lead, one of the reasons that I propose this no doubt shocking proposition is that over here with a lower cat population there are a lot more song birds and they are less frightened of people and animals than they are back home.
Anyway back to exploring, yesterday’s visit to Les Eyzies de Tayac started well at the very informative Pole International de la Prehistorie, a centre providing lots of friendly information but then everything stopped, the main reason for the trip, the Musee National de la Prehistorie was not open, this seems to be a national trait ie we are open on these times except when we don’t want to be, so tough on you visitors who have travelled all this way only to find we are closed!
On the other hand today’s trip to Bergerac and the surrounding area was a complete success. Bergerac is a small pleasant city with a medieval heart near the covered market and it is especially vibrant on market day with all the visitors unlike Sarlat which feels more like a film set. I would recommend the Rue Des Fontaines with its pavement cafes and restaurants for lunch. However I joined the queue at the local sandwich shop with all the students and it was well worth it, my ham sandwich was an embarrassingly long baguette full of ham, salad, cheese, egg and mayonnaise, I am glad I took my book with me, I was there a while. From there I went on to Eymet, a Bastide town and then Issigeac another medieval town both worth dropping in to find out their history and of course enjoy the ambience, otherwise known as local wine.
Well thank you for putting up with my mini rants and I hope that this paints a picture of the places and things that I have seen.
Lidl has made as much of a penetration in France as it has in the UK but Aldi is trailing behind and their stores are not as large but they do sell an amazing houmous, have you ever noticed how many different spellings there are of this word, nearly as many as the different recipes there are for it on line.
The French love their dogs and I am with them on that, also on all my trips here over the last twenty years I cannot remember seeing any doggydoo which is the opposite of my first visit to Paris in the late seventies when walking along the pavement was akin to taking part in a marathon hopscotch competition. The other thing I have noticed is there are not so many cats around, this is particularly noticeable to me as the village I live in is overrun with them which probably accounts for the declining songbird population in the area. I am not against cats per se and I know that they do a good job of keeping vermin down in certain situations but house cats should be treated like pet dogs, not allowed out unless on a lead, one of the reasons that I propose this no doubt shocking proposition is that over here with a lower cat population there are a lot more song birds and they are less frightened of people and animals than they are back home.
Anyway back to exploring, yesterday’s visit to Les Eyzies de Tayac started well at the very informative Pole International de la Prehistorie, a centre providing lots of friendly information but then everything stopped, the main reason for the trip, the Musee National de la Prehistorie was not open, this seems to be a national trait ie we are open on these times except when we don’t want to be, so tough on you visitors who have travelled all this way only to find we are closed!
On the other hand today’s trip to Bergerac and the surrounding area was a complete success. Bergerac is a small pleasant city with a medieval heart near the covered market and it is especially vibrant on market day with all the visitors unlike Sarlat which feels more like a film set. I would recommend the Rue Des Fontaines with its pavement cafes and restaurants for lunch. However I joined the queue at the local sandwich shop with all the students and it was well worth it, my ham sandwich was an embarrassingly long baguette full of ham, salad, cheese, egg and mayonnaise, I am glad I took my book with me, I was there a while. From there I went on to Eymet, a Bastide town and then Issigeac another medieval town both worth dropping in to find out their history and of course enjoy the ambience, otherwise known as local wine.
Well thank you for putting up with my mini rants and I hope that this paints a picture of the places and things that I have seen.
Sunday, 30 September 2018
Moving south.
Friday night’s visit to the Fiddler’s Rest was interesting with its clientele of English expats and local French. The food was very good if a little pricey however, I could not fault the fish and chips, it was quite amusing seeing Frenchmen drinking Guinness but the chiller had been turned down to cater to their tastes.
Saturday saw us leave Le Moulin Neuf and make a zigzag journey through the countryside to our new home for the next seven days near Savignac de Miremont. We stopped off at Sarlat to explore and visit the market which is huge, so much bigger than the reputed ‘largest in the Dordogne’ at Riberac. Again there was a high proportion of English vices and I mean English not British, in fact I have not met or heard an Irish, Scottish or Welsh person or accent over here. I am going to go back again when the market isn’t on to explore some more.
The accommodation seems to get better and better, I am now the only guest in a barn conversion, my cottage has a downstairs comprising a lounge kitchen with French windows leading onto my patio overlooking the swimming pool and extensive countryside views, upstairs there is a large bedroom with en-suite bathroom and the property is at the end of a country lane so the only things I heard last night were the local wildlife. I have just had dinner on the patio but it is getting cool so time to come in for dessert.
Today I went on a search for Vide-Greniers or what we call boot sales, I found two of the three I was looking for, they are very similar to the UK variety and not from what I could see as sites to pick up bargains as touted by BBC antiques programmes in fact their prices were more expensive the British boot sales and the dealers nowhere near as gullible as we would be lead to believe.
Saturday saw us leave Le Moulin Neuf and make a zigzag journey through the countryside to our new home for the next seven days near Savignac de Miremont. We stopped off at Sarlat to explore and visit the market which is huge, so much bigger than the reputed ‘largest in the Dordogne’ at Riberac. Again there was a high proportion of English vices and I mean English not British, in fact I have not met or heard an Irish, Scottish or Welsh person or accent over here. I am going to go back again when the market isn’t on to explore some more.
The accommodation seems to get better and better, I am now the only guest in a barn conversion, my cottage has a downstairs comprising a lounge kitchen with French windows leading onto my patio overlooking the swimming pool and extensive countryside views, upstairs there is a large bedroom with en-suite bathroom and the property is at the end of a country lane so the only things I heard last night were the local wildlife. I have just had dinner on the patio but it is getting cool so time to come in for dessert.
Today I went on a search for Vide-Greniers or what we call boot sales, I found two of the three I was looking for, they are very similar to the UK variety and not from what I could see as sites to pick up bargains as touted by BBC antiques programmes in fact their prices were more expensive the British boot sales and the dealers nowhere near as gullible as we would be lead to believe.
Friday, 28 September 2018
Grub and Hoorays.
When in France you have to try the local regional delicacies which in the Dordogne are foie gras and truffles, I have had truffles before and they are good, so yesterday after a cycle ride I carried on to the Le Temps Des Mets restaurant in the lovely village of Saint Jean de Cote, the setting is everyone’s ideal of a French village but I am afraid the foie gras and the following duck breast were a bit too nouvelle cuisine for me and a little over complicated flavour wise, as an antidote to this I am going to an Irish pub tonight for Guinness and pub grub.
We were out today exploring the town of Riberac which reputedly has the largest market in the area but which according to the guidebook despite being very popular with the British has little else to offer, I must agree with that statement, I seemed to be dogged on my stroll around the market by this Hooray Henry with a loud braying voice, everywhere I went he was there telling everyone that he had bought some incredibly smelly cheese and that he had now moved here with his American wife. The trip only got worse from there I had planned on lunching in the village of Aubeterre sur Drone but the experience was ruined by loud Home Counties accents, I guess these are the remainers thinking that they are abandoning the sinking ship, we are better off without them.
We were out today exploring the town of Riberac which reputedly has the largest market in the area but which according to the guidebook despite being very popular with the British has little else to offer, I must agree with that statement, I seemed to be dogged on my stroll around the market by this Hooray Henry with a loud braying voice, everywhere I went he was there telling everyone that he had bought some incredibly smelly cheese and that he had now moved here with his American wife. The trip only got worse from there I had planned on lunching in the village of Aubeterre sur Drone but the experience was ruined by loud Home Counties accents, I guess these are the remainers thinking that they are abandoning the sinking ship, we are better off without them.
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