I am marooned here alone for a few days. John left yesterday for his mother’s funeral, so I have a few days to contend with and only shank’s pony with which to explore. I shall march through the fields and admire the early irises and venture to the beach for a walk by the sea.

The weather has definitely warmed, and it is better to be out than in. Also thank the good Lord, the Renoir puzzle is complete at last….it was a nightmare.

Last week we drove up the ‘pan handle’ of the NE of the island, past yellow sands where turtles come and visited the monastery of Saint Andrew.

It was ancient, built in the 15^th Century, and it was said that St Andrew guided a sea captain, blind in one eye to the shore. They were in search of fresh water. St Andrew gave the captain a drink, and immediately he got his sight back. Nowadays pilgrims from all over the place visit and pray for health cures. They leave small replicas of eyes, ears, hands or hearts etc. I prayed for John’s headaches, as most of his days are blighted and his eyes on that particular day were all scrunched up. I wanted to leave a head, but didn’t get round to buying a doll and lopping off its head for the purpose.

I was incredibly moved in the church. For some reason it made me cry, and that is not normal for me, as for years now I have found it difficult to shed a tear. I seriously believe my tear ducts have dried up. I do cry when I hear the Queen though.

I met a middle aged couple who had driven 350 km to come to the monastery to see Saint Andrew. They were carrying the largest candle sticks I had ever seen. They were all wrapped in brown paper. They lit their candles, then, making their way around the icons, kissed each portrait as they went. I remember people did the same in the Lavra Monastery in Kiev. They kissed the coffins containing the mummified remains of the monks. I so envy their faith. Anyway John woke up the next day, headache free.

The following day we decided to visit the 1001 shop. It is an amazing emporium of plastic. It sells literally everything and we had a ball. What a hoot. At the checkout we were like contestants from The Generation Game. We had bought a spirit level, a rasp, two Chinese pin cushions, a garlic press, some butcher hooks, bike lights, a bottle of whisky, oranges, and I can’t remember the rest. The whole thing came to about £30!

We explored the ancient ruin of Salamis which is just down the road from our apartment. John was quite tetchy paying for the ticket, thinking he was going to see a couple of columns and was suggesting we just peer over the wall. Oh my! What a surprise. We found a city dating from 11thC BC…it was so rich and beautiful, with theatres and baths and fish markets (with basins still intact for cleaning the fish…personally I thought they looked a bit like urinals) and a temple to Zeus.

There was a Roman road, and mosaic and steam rooms with under floor heating.

I have been still living in my dream world of being beheaded, so you can imagine I was quite shocked coming into a courtyard full of headless women. (sounds like a song from the Eagles…or was that ‘faithless women’?)

I decided to add colour to the ancient stones, and jumped up on a plinth and did my thing, and John was clicking away like David Baillie. I was so mortified, for around the bathhouse came a bus load of tourists. They were OU students or something like that, for their lecturer started spouting and I had to meekly get off my plinth and skulk away. They probably thought I was just too frivolous.

I have grave concerns about my figure. So much for slimming and eating raw carrots and getting slim for Sheila’s wedding in April. I have discovered the joys of Dolma, eaten in a restaurant just within the walls of the old city of Famagusta, and if I could, I would have licked my plate. Oh the joys of lunch in the sun. I ate stuffed Jerusalem artichoke, stuffed onions and stuffed courgettes. If I hadn’t been driving I would have had a brandy sour, but instead John enjoyed a beer and promptly fell asleep as God intended!

We also ate out at a fish restaurant that actually sits out on stilts above the Mediterranean. We went on a night when the moon was full, and the waves were washing just below our table. The fish was fresh, covered in lemon juice, salt and pepper, the salad was mainly tomatoes and when we said, no, we wouldn’t have coffee or desert, the waiter brought us two lemon puddings anyway…Oh my goodness, they were so good.

I decided to give my orange jumper that I knitted for £5 last year an airing. I posed beside some oranges at a Friday Market in Iskele, and totally blended in.

It was there that I met my down fall. Baklavas. I saw the pastry, I saw the honey and nuts and I knew my gall bladder would erupt, but I ate it anyway. The first time was OK, but the second brought the burn. I should have known better. When will I learn?  Still the offending organ is supposed to be removed later this year anyway.

Today it is hot and sunny, and I might go down to the pool and read my Nancy Mitford. Love her irreverence and wit, and she gives such a peephole into a species and life long gone by.

‘…the inside of the motor was like a dry little box, and we splashed down the long wet shiny roads, with the rain beating against the windows, there was  a delicious cosiness about being in this little box…….

‘I love being so dry in here,’ as Lady Montdore put it, ‘and seeing all those poor people so wet.’

That was from ‘Love in a Cold Climate.’

The local English newspaper, which I buy when I manage to find one, is very good for politics, about Turkey mainly, about politicians with unpronounceable  names, and I generally skim the gist, but I was quite arrested by these headlines, ‘Family wants limbs back as patient is laid to rest.’

Sevket Cavdar was Turkey’s first quadruple-limb transplant patient, but sadly his body rejected the new appendages. The donor, who had also donated his face for another transplant had died in a traffic accident. 54 doctors had worked on the two operations, and were pleased that the face patient was stable and is expected to be woken this week. The family of the poor donor requested their son’s arms and legs back, I think quite rightly. They should go to rest with the rest of him.

All this going on, all these feverish forays in operating theatres, and I am busy praying to a saint in an ancient church to help John’s head. I’m not even a catholic, not that that matters. I would buy a big candle and light it if I believed it would help in a cure. Didn’t the woman just want to touch Jesus’s robe? Her faith was enough.

I contemplated all this in a lovely restaurant where we stopped for coffee. It was called Sea Breeze. Unfortunate name. Makes me think of bathroom cleaner.

But now, it’s the pool and Nancy Mitford!