miltiades wrote:Niki , if you can put up with 9 months of summer , clear skies , relatively crime free living , plenty of good old common sense , and much less political correctness , then you will enjoy Cyprus. The people on the whole are easy going , friendly , and yes as some people say very hospitable.
The only thing that annoys me is their driving , mostly by the young ones who consider the car as an extension of their personality and speed along in the most contemptuous way. The annoying thing , and bear in mind Im a grumpy old sod , is their SMOKING , in fact I'm currently working on a new National Anthem to include all Cypriots , the main part of this anthem would be PRAISING THE the impressive amount of smoking , including of course Souvla ,
that takes place in Cyprus.
Just sometimes I wish for cloudy day and a little light drizzle, if only to stop my wife complaining about the heat in Cyprus as opposed to her complaining about the rain and cold when we are in the UK. Can she really be the only former Famagusta beach princess who's had sunstroke in the UK?
Things are looking up on the driving front! spent my regular one day a week in Nicosia today and only saw three accidents, nothing serious but zealously attended by the law.
I've got my own problems with crime in Cyprus but on the plus side where else could you leave your car parked in a capital city with the windows open without it disapearing or half the dash being ripped out along with the CD player.
Political Correctness is alive and well, a civil servant smiled and offered me 'Tea with Milk' instead of what normally passes for Cypriot/Turkish coffee at a meeting today while refraining from her standard ten fags an hour intake.
The village shop is slipping into EU blandness, eggs no longer being sold loose but rather in nice neat 'last into infinity' plastic egg boxes while the frozen chicken comes from.....France! and the Loukanika which may be from North London is wrapped in seemingly inoperable shrink wrap. The charcoals from Egypt and the shop has stopped selling Cypriot Carob chocolate bars in favour of Twix and Snickers which if you are an old fart like "miltiades" or me you will remember as Marathon bars.
Every window in the house is open, even if from where I sit in the garden writing this I can only see half of them and my wife who spent the early evening argueing with the Greek Alpha TV newscaster can now be heard laughing as the ladies of the village who close of the end of our lane to traffic every summers night recount stories to her from the past.
There's a light cooling wind blowing down from the mountains, the car passed its MoT. God's in his Heaven and all will be well when I finally summon up the courage to open those electricity and telephone bills!
Love the UK now, as a visitor. Could I live there? probably if I had to. Would I want to? I'll let you know in thirty to forty years time!